Destroyed (8 page)

“To a Destroyer’s house. You still can suck power from people, right? It’s not too bad for you?”

“I don’t know your definition of ‘too bad.’ Did you forget the blisters on my hands? That’s pretty bad.”

He squeezed the steering wheel so hard his knuckles went white. “I need you to put a Destroyer in his place.”

I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him.

“No. Kai, I won’t let you use me like that. I won’t be just some tool.” I wanted to get rid of evil Destroyers as much as he did, but my pride got in the way. Plus, getting rid of their power was excruciatingly painful.

He let out an exasperated sigh but kept his eyes on the twisty road. My stomach began to roll.

“Naomi, if I had any other option, I would use it. He can’t be allowed to do the things he’s doing. The more I see of what your mother allowed to go on, the more I realize what a huge task I’ve taken on. This is just wrong.”

I didn’t care what he found. I didn’t come back to Arkansas to be his weapon.

“How do you normally deal with those who get out of control?”

“I haven’t had to, but my dad used to kill them. I don’t want to resort to that. Murder stains your soul. If I start doing that, I’ll never be able to go back to the Guardians.”

I closed my eyes. This was exactly what I came to do, right? Make sure that he got back. I had to do what he asked of me; otherwise this was all for nothing.

But there had to be another solution.

“What if you just have someone else do it?”

“What, kill them?”

I couldn’t believe I’d just asked him to do that. Who was I becoming? A Destroyer. The thought made my stomach knot. I gripped my ribs and leaned forward a little, keeping my eyes on the road.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“It would leave the same stain even if I didn’t physically do it myself. You can drain their power without physically harming them and the police can take care of the rest.”

I clenched and unclenched my fists. “I hate that all I am to you is someone who can do your dirty work.”

He stopped the car and pulled over next to a field. He put the car in park and turned to face me. I glanced at my dad in the back. He’d been completely quiet during our fight. I wish I knew what he was thinking. Not that his opinion mattered to me. Not really.

“I can’t fight you on this anymore. I absolutely need you to help me, but I also want you to be my girlfriend. I love you, that’s not going to change, but I’m sick of trying to prove it to you. You are either in or you are out. ”

I didn’t want to look into his eyes and see the earnestness there. It was more than I could handle. I was here to be his girlfriend. That was my purpose, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to come back. That’s what Puck wanted, and what I wanted. And I was doing a crappy job of it.

He placed his finger on my chin and forced me to look at him. “I’ll tell you what, do you want to run? Go live on an island in the Caribbean and sit on the beach every day? Live happily ever after? Say the word and I’ll change direction and head for the airport. Just you and me. Forever.”

I forced a smile and inwardly cringed. Forever away from Puck. No way.

I looked back at my dad. He hadn’t said a word, but I wondered what he was thinking. He smiled a sad smile. “If that’s what you want, you could do worse.”

I shook my head. I never thought my dad would be encouraging me to run away with a boy. But Kai didn’t really want me to choose that option. He wanted me to take care of his problem.

“I’ll go with you to see this person, but I’ll be the one to decide if it’s worth it or not.”

Relief flooded his face. “Fair enough.”

He kissed me on the cheek and pulled back on the road. Twenty minutes later, we turned down long dirt driveway. This could’ve been any farm in the county; they all looked the same. To my surprise, Kai drove past the house and pulled up in front of the barn instead.

He took a deep breath. “Naomi, I have to give into the Destroyer energy. I’m one of the few Guardians that still has complete awareness of my actions when I turn Destroyer so I won’t do anything to you, but you’ll probably see me do things to others that might bother you. This is going to be different than the Destroyer meeting. There I was shielding quite a bit. I won’t do that today.”

I nodded. It couldn’t have been any worse than when Puck tried to play Destroyer.

He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, I could see and feel the change immediately. There was a hunger in his eyes when he looked at me that wasn’t entirely proper. His energy was dark, electric, and a bit seductive.

He touched my cheek. “You look way too innocent to be my girlfriend. Come on.”

I rolled my eyes. This was not the time or the place for him to be thinking those things.

I followed him around the back of the barn. The wind blew from the direction of the barn, and I smelled death and decay. It wasn’t an unusual smell in the country. Any slaughterhouse or deer processing plant smelled the same way.

We found Jason there with a couple of other Destroyers. I could feel them immediately. The smell of feces and the feel of maggots on my skin. The Destroyers narrowed their eyes as we approached. Jason scowled at me, but he didn’t say anything.

“Why’d you bring the girl?” The man to Jason’s left wore a police uniform. I recognized him from the council meeting. He and Jason both held onto another man, who struggled against them. His hands were behind his back.

“She’s my secret weapon.”

“What the hell can she do?” asked the cop.

“Just wait and I’ll show you. She’s still not convinced we should do away with him.” This was interesting. Puck was intent on keeping my power a secret, and now Kai was flaunting it before these Destroyers. I wasn’t convinced this would be worth it.

The restrained man laughed. “Come here, pretty girl, I can show you all kinds of things you can do with me instead of killing.”

I backed away. The man continued to taunt me. “What’s the matter, little girl, you scared of me? Some weapon.”

Kai raised his hand and punched the man in the face. I jerked, unprepared for the violence in spite of Kai’s warning.

The man’s nose burst with blood and he fell limp.

“Naomi!”

My dad stumbled out of the barn. I ran to his side, and he put his hand on my shoulder. He looked pale; his breathing was heavy.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch. Kai doesn’t even have to ask.”

Kai put his hand on my Dad’s shoulder. “You may not have to. Naomi can take care of it.” He seemed awfully sure I’d do this. “Come on, Naomi, let me show you why we are here.”

My dad grabbed my hand. “Don’t go in there.”

“I have to see. I can handle it.” I gently freed my hand and followed after Kai as he entered the barn through a side door. The smell of decay grew stronger.

We walked along a dark pathway that eventually opened up into a large room. The walls were lined with cages, big and small. In every cage was an animal. I approached the first cage and found a rabbit. Or what was left of it, anyway. All of its legs were missing. I thought it was dead, but then it blinked at me. The skin where its legs should’ve been was red and raw, but not bloody. I covered my mouth and moved to the next cage, unable to force myself to look away from the horror.

This cage was larger and inside was a cat, I think. Its fur had all been burned off, leaving angry blisters covering its body. It, too, opened its eyes when I walked past, blinking at me. When I moved closer to the cage, it opened its mouth and meowed.

I gasped and took a couple of steps back, nauseous. I turned to Kai. “Heal it. Heal them all.”

“My healing powers only work on humans.”

I turned back to the cages. They were all filled with mutilated animals. All alive, but disfigured. Some had missing limbs, some had missing eyes or ears, or red scars puckering their bodies where they’d been cut. It was all I could do not to vomit.

“This is what this man has been doing? Why? What does it have to do with his power?”

“He feeds off of the pain he inflicts. It increases his power.”

“This is sick.”

I strode quickly to the door. Once out in the open air, I could see the wretched man and my dad standing in front of him yelling unintelligible words.

I took my time weighing my options. I could feel my mother stirring beneath my skin. She’d been dormant since I got rid of Dwayne. Her power reared and yearned for the high that came from drawing out another’s power. She wanted it and so, by default, I wanted it. I couldn’t let this man continue to torture animals. I had to rid him of his gift.

I tapped my dad on his shoulder. He jerked and looked at me. I could see relief in his eyes.

“Let me take care of him,” I said.

He nodded and backed away.

“Let go of him.”

Jason complied right away, but the cop did not.

“He’ll run.”

Jason spoke before I could. “No, he won’t. Trust me, you don’t want to hang onto him when Naomi does her thing.”

The cop complied and I gripped the foul man’s hands. He sneered. “Like that, do you? I’ve got a few other things you can hang onto.”

I ignored him and listened to my mother’s voice in my veins.
Pull.
I drew on his power and immediately the sneer fell from his face. “What the hell are you doing, bitch?”

I continued to pull his dark and foul energy into my hands. After a minute he went limp and fell to the ground, but I did not break my grip. I was almost done, only a few more seconds.

The connection severed and I fell backwards into the grass. I sat with my head between my knees, too worn out to even stand up. Kai put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head. The Destroyer’s creepy power snaked through my body and I could hear thousands of screaming animals in my head.

“Kai,” I whispered. He knelt down in front of me. “I need you to kiss me. I need you to push these horrible feelings away.”

He leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Don’t tempt me. What you want is a Guardian’s kiss and I can’t give you that or my secret will be out. Can you wait a few minutes?”

I nodded, even though I wanted to scream. I could still smell death and the animal cries in my head would not go away.

Kai stood.

The cop was mortified. “What did she do to him?”

“He’s no longer a Destroyer.”

“How the hell did she do that? Is she a Guardian?”

“No, she’s actually a Shade. She can drain anyone of their power.”

“Shit, Kai, if she can do that then why are you still having problems controlling the Destroyers?”

“I can only use her in emergencies. You can’t tell anyone. If any rumors fly, you’ll both be out of the running to replace me. Do I make myself clear?”

I didn’t hear their response. But Kai continued.

“You have enough evidence to arrest him, right? If you can lock him up, Jason and I can take care of the animals.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll meet Saturday?”

“At seven. If you want to talk about Naomi, come early. I don’t want the rest of the council knowing.”

I didn’t look up, but after a few minutes, I heard an engine start. The screams were still loud in my head.

Once the car was out of sight, Kai knelt in front of me again. His hands found my face and he forced me to look at him. His lips met mine and immediately my mind calmed.

I was so grateful, that I kissed him back hard, knocking him over in the grass. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me with him. He brushed my hair out of my eyes and looked at me, concerned.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. “But I gotta release his power as soon as possible.”

“We have to take care of the animals first.”

Of course, the animals. How could I be so thoughtless?

“What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to have to put them out of their misery. They are all in serious pain and torment. He did more than just torture them physically. When I first came here, he didn’t know I’d abhor it so much. He was so proud of what he could do. He wanted a place among my leadership. I was mortified.”

My dad stood over us. “We’re not killing all of them.”

Kai stood up and helped me up. “It’s the humane thing to do.”

“I’m a vet. I’ll take care of them, I just need supplies from my clinic. Some of the animals will have to be put down, but I’ll save as many as I can.”

Jason stood outside the barn. “This is gruesome.”

“Naomi, can you and Kai go to my clinic and bring some supplies? It shouldn't take long. I want to stay here and see how I can help in the meantime. Also, you’ll need to hook the trailer up to the truck so we can haul back as many animals as we can.”

Kai shook his head.

“I need to stay here. Jason can go with Naomi. He’s better at driving a truck anyway.”

Oh, no way. But this was not the time to be a baby about Jason, so I didn’t say anything. Dad dug around the car and found a napkin and a pen. He wrote out a list and handed it to me. Even after he went crazy, he sometimes still asked me to help in the clinic so I was pretty familiar with the supplies.

I climbed into the passenger seat of Jason’s truck.

“That was some scary shit back there, huh?” He drove out the driveway.

I didn’t even look at him. “Let’s not talk.”

“Come on, Naomi. Do you want me to tell Puck what you did back there?”

“Drop the act.” I turned and faced him. “Seriously, what is your game? I can’t figure this out.”

He smirked. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“How come you aren’t on Kai’s council? He told me you were his best friend, but he obviously doesn’t trust you.”

He scowled and shut up. Thank goodness. I stared out the window. I couldn’t get the image of the mutilated cat out of my head. In spite of all my father did to me, at least I’d never suffered like that. These Destroyers were sick.

Dad’s clinic was on our property, but in a separate building. Jason hooked up the trailer and I gathered all the things my dad needed. It made me sad to take so many vials of pentobarbital, which my dad used to euthanize animals. I knew there were many that couldn’t be saved, but still.