Raven (12 page)

But there, she saw again the man with dark hair move through the crowd, coming closer to her with each step. She whipped around now, ready to confront whoever it was, but the minute she did, the man disappeared. He had vanished into thin air leaving her feeling like she was being slightly ridiculous.

She sighed and gave up and decided to hurry on home before she started imagining anything else. Thankfully this time through the foyer she didn’t have any more run in’s with scary lady and she quickly pressed the elevator for the top floor. Once inside she barraged the door by putting a wooden chair under the handle and went to make a pot of coffee. The apartment was soon filled with the wonderful aroma of the Italian coffee she had just purchased and she relished her first cup of the day. Going through her bag of goodies she selected an almond croissant and bit heartily into its buttery flaky pastry goodness. As she savoured the taste, the last thing she expected to hear was a knock at the door.

It wasn’t that it was an unusual thing to occur in other people’s day to day lives – but not hers. She was the only person who lived on the top floor and she didn’t have visitors - ever. Eilam was the only person who had ever been to her apartment and his entry had always been through the balcony. Who then was disturbing her perfectly ordained space of peace and quiet?

She carefully put her precious pastry back on its plate and got up to go and answer the door. She had a brief thought that it might be crazy lady from downstairs, which in itself was almost enough to make her not open up. But the thing with Aiyana was that she couldn’t help the curious side of her nature. It was kind of like when an adult tells you explicitly not to do a certain thing and then, bam! Next thing you know you are doing exactly as you have being asked not to do! Hindsight however is a beautiful thing, and it would only be later that she would regret opening up to the darkness on the other side. Her hand on the dead bolt, she clicked it back into place and stepped to the side to allow the door to open up into her apartment.

The landing was poorly lit and it wasn’t possible at first to see if there was anyone even there, but the thought that something was amiss was quickly replaced by a foggy haze that made her legs buckle. A cold mist had been sprayed in her face, she knew that much, and the minute she had started to inhale her next breath it had induced her to a slumber that she hadn’t been expecting. She crashed against the door, reaching for the handle to hold on to in a last desperate bid to right herself and remain on her feet. Her efforts went unrewarded though and as her eyes rolled back into her head, she fell towards the floor. She felt strong hands reach out to grab her, their muffled talk just adding to her confusion. Even though she couldn’t think straight as all this went down, she knew one thing for certain – she was in trouble, big trouble.   

****

Aiyana had gained enough of her senses back to realise she was cold, but her thoughts hadn’t yet returned to proper rationalisation. Memories and images swirled around in her head, seeming like she was floating along on some wonderful dream that was out of a fantasy world. The vision of pink fluffy clouds that looked like fairy floss intermingled with people’s faces she knew. They would look at her and smile and then disappear again. Some of the faces would twist and distort and eyes would bulge in their heads – the overall effect gave her pause to think she was in a world somewhat like Alice in Wonderland.
How nice those clouds look
she thought,
perhaps I’ll eat some
.

In her hazy dreams she could see her arm extend out towards the brightness of the fluffy pink clouds and pinched at it with her fingers, but when it was put to her lips, all she tasted was a foul metallic taste. This soon snapped her out of her reverie because she knew instantly she had to wake up.

Something wasn’t right.

She wasn’t alright for that matter and she was waking up enough to be concerned about what that actually might be. She willed her heavy eyelids to open and then focused on a bright light above her. The more she strained to open them, the more she found she could focus on the room.

Whilst still spinning from the after-effects of being drugged, she realised abruptly that she was in a room that looked clinical and sterile – almost like a hospital. More like a bloody Veterinary surgery she thought as she took in the stainless steel table she was strapped to. There was nothing else in the room bar the door which led elsewhere and there were no noises to indicate what kind of environment she was in. She was alone with no chance of escaping what so ever. She no longer had her day clothes on that she had worn that morning – that was if it was indeed still the same day.

She couldn’t be sure.

She had no concept of how long she had lay like this. Her joints were stiff and sore, but she could do nothing to change her position at all because her ankles and wrists were very tightly secured with stainless steel cuffs to the table she was already on. There also appeared to be several sticky caps stuck to her forehead which seemed to have all manner of wires running off them. She had enough of a mind to feel concerned over just who had undressed her, but considering her predicament, she felt that was the least of her worries.

She rubbed her tongue around her mouth, trying to get some saliva working to rid her of the god awful metallic taste she could still taste lingering around her gums. As her lucidity improved, she let her eyes scan every single crevice of the room to see if there was any possible exit other than the door.

There wasn’t.

The door had no handle, no lock – there wasn’t even an exhaust system in place on the ceiling, just a really bright unyielding light that lit the place up like nothing else. She tried to angle her neck backwards to get a better look behind her, and noticed with alarm there was a full length wall of double sided mirrors. Whoever held her here could see her, yet she had no way of seeing them.

With a growing sense of dread she realised that by now they would be aware that she was fully awake. Even though she knew it was futile, she jangled her arms and legs, trying to see if there was any space that would allow some kind of movement. At that precise point in time she heard a series of footsteps heading down the corridor which stopped directly outside of the room she was in. She waited with abated breath to see just who would come through that door.

The beeping of buttons could be heard – clearly a password of sorts was being entered to allow them access to the room and moments later the door slid back into the recess of the wall. Aiyana craned her neck to get a better look at who was entering and was more than a little alarmed that two beefy security details accompanied a woman in a laboratory coat. She had smooth long blonde hair, neatly parted and pulled back into a pony tail and a pair of black rectangular glasses that would have been fashionable back at the start of the twenty first century. She was very attractive and wore little make up to enhance her already stunning features, just a light smear of red lipstick to make a statement of sorts.

Aiyana thought she would have appeared more at home on a runway than in a lab coat, but hey - each to their own. Even though she had the good sense to be afraid of the men that accompanied her, Aiyana was in fact more concerned about the woman at this point in time. She looked confident and in charge; and at this point, a bigger threat than the other two. They weren’t without pause though. Each man was dressed in head to toe black attire, with belts equipped with walkie talkies, hand cuffs and spare rounds for the guns that were holstered under each of their Pectorals. Both had buzz cuts as though they had just been released from the army and each one wore a scowl that said they weren’t to be messed with.

Once they were all fully inside the room, the door closed swiftly behind them leaving no chance of her escape even if she were out of the restraints that bound her. The men hung back and took up sentry at either side of the door, whilst the woman came right up next to Aiyana’s head so that she could look at her without straining her neck. The woman seemed to take in Aiyana and observe her mood for a moment before she finally spoke.

“My name is Doctor Charice Feldon, I’m a laboratory specialist here at the black ops branch of the APP. Sorry about the restraints, but at this point we feel it is in our best interest to keep you in them until we can determine your position,” she said crisply.

“My position on what?” she asked.

Charice imperceptibly peered over her glasses at this question as though she couldn’t quite believe it was being asked in the first place.

Coming to a decision about something, she nodded and said “How you co-operate here will greatly influence on how you will be treated by the APP. Even though the scientists carry out the work in the laboratories, it is ultimately run by them and funded by the state government. Now whilst you were recovering we have had the chance to run tests and examine you to determine that you are not one of the new race, which brings me back to the fundamental question that needs answering – what is your connection to the new race?” 

“Recovering? Is that what you call it when you drug and kidnap me?” she scoffed.

“You won’t get too many chances, Aiyana. If I were you I would start talking,” said Charice.

Aiyana thought for a moment. She obviously wanted to get out of here as soon as she possibly could, but she wondered exactly just how much she should reveal to these people, after all, they had no way of knowing what her connection to the race was.

“Many years ago my grandmother felt that all the despicable and evil things that were going on along the coast were getting out of control. The crimes were more violent, the murders more frequent. There was no end in sight to the burglaries and crime spree that seemed to be sweeping our city. So she took matters into her own hands and inadvertently created the race of people you are referring to,” she said, hoping that this offered up enough information to get her out of here pronto.

“That’s a very nice story, but it’s one we’ve heard before. Now let’s try again, shall we?” said Charice sweetly.

“Well, as I’m sure you already know,” she started rudely, “my grandmother was a witch. She cast a spell, it didn’t work out, and now we have an even bigger problem on our hands than before. Kind of like when the cane toad was introduced in the 1930’s. It’s just replacing one pest with another,” she said with a smirk.

“I see, so what is your role – how do you fit into all of this?”

“Who says I fit in anywhere?” she grumbled.

“Aiyana,” Charice said in a sing song sort of way – kind of like when you want somebody’s undivided attention.

“Yes?”

“You’re stalling. You’ve been under surveillance for months now and we have already placed you with persons of interest on more than one occasion. The APP has a highly trained elite team that track their species very effectively.  That said, there is a lot we don’t divulge to the public out of human interest and we’d like to keep it that way. Our intention is to try and rid ourselves of the monstrosity that was created and the only way to do that is with co-operation,” she looked at her files she carried with her now as if to run over some notes before continuing.

“The APP has aerial photographic evidence of you in talks with a known member of this species. What is your connection to him?”

Aiyana had a sinking feeling she was never going to get out of here again. If they even suspected for a minute that she was involved with one of them then she was sure as day that they’d lock her up and throw away the key forever. At least that was what she thought would be the outcome unless she could make herself useful to them.

“The person you are talking about approached me because I am a direct bloodline descendant of my mother and grandmother. He heard that I could break the spell of his race because of my lineage,” she offered.

“Great, now we seem to be getting somewhere, keep going,” she said dryly.

“He’s not part of the original flock; he’s like me and is a descendant pure in ways and thought. Only the two of us are able to break the curse that has given these individuals more power than what they originally had,” Aiyana said, hoping that she wasn’t giving too much away.

“You speak of this person with fondness, do you have a personal relationship with him?” she queried.

“No,” she said almost too hastily.

“You’re lying, Aiyana. Those little suction caps that are stuck to your head are lighting up like Christmas baubles. I’ll remind you again, it is in your best interest to be truthful,” she said.

“I don’t know what else you want me to say,” she yelled in frustration.

“Let’s go back a minute,” Charice said calmly. “Explain this to me. He comes to you and wants to break the curse, because you say he’s not like the others, and you have the ability to do so, and yet you don’t. Now correct me if I’m wrong but I think everybody who is human in this godforsaken city would give their eye teeth to be rid of the new race, and yet you do nothing even though the power is within you to do so. Why is that?” she asked, the cogs of her mind already ticking over and contemplating what her answer would be.

Aiyana sighed. “I’d have to kill him - only I can do it,” she answered wearily.

Talk about talking in circles. She was fed up, tired and thirsty. She would have loved a glass of water but wasn’t willing to give Doctor Charice the satisfaction of asking for anything so instead settled for feeling sorry for herself.