Read Online Consequences by Elyse Draper - Free Book Online Page B

would have been obvious in a moment. To tell
the truth, I think V’s only reason for keeping James around was to
feed on the emotions that oozed, so freely, out of every one of his
pores.
    When V spoke, he left the impression that the
words were being sucked in, like a whispered whistle that was
inhaled instead of blown out. Dry and aged, his voice alone made me
feel like I was standing in the middle of an empty, lifeless
desert. I imagined the heat evaporating every fluid in my body, and
taking away all of my prized memories in the vapors. My brain
seemed to reshape into a comatose position, rocking back and forth
in my skull, completely withdrawn, while I tried to ignore V's
impact.
    I felt more than heard his command to call
James’s mob father, “It’s time we met the man that helped create
our dear friend here.” V's whisper had as much force as a
tornado.
    Still looking in the mirror, and only seeing
my own reflection, I answered the command with a slight nod in what
I thought was V’s general direction. Walking over to my cell phone
and picking it up, I waited patiently for James to tell me the
number for his father’s direct line. I imagined the drain placed on
James, as if a movie was playing in the back of my head, where I
could pretend I wasn’t watching what was happening. His weak,
pained voice, forced the numbers out between clenched teeth.
Releasing James momentarily, to focus on me, V drained everything
from my emotional banks … everything but anger.
    When all your mind feels is anger, your
vision becomes red around the edges, and the rush of blood makes
your ears pound. Rage is irrational, deadly, and intoxicating … the
strength is primal, and when it's under the slightest bit of
control, you feel … immortal. I punched in the numbers, and when
the old man answered, I growled out my request for an audience with
him.
    “Christopher, I presume. I’ve been waiting
for this call. Of course, you will come to me. I am not stupid
enough to expose myself to you, on your terms.” While under V’s
influence, my senses become stronger tenfold: I listened, pulling
information through the satellite connection between our two
phones. Or, more accurately, I honed in on the man's location, and
became inhumanly perceptive to the traces of hidden thoughts inside
the man's voice.
    “Alright, you name the place.” I answered,
still growling, tentatively holding on to my fury. The more I
allowed him to talk the more thoughts passed through his head.
Thoughts that included recruiting me, and ones that argued I should
be killed right away, “The boy is too powerful to be brought into
the inner circle … kill him now, before he can do any more damage
to the company.” His thoughts only fueled my temper.
    Trying to hide the fear from his voice, he
crushed a quaver with forced coolness. “I think you should come
here to my office … top floor, just up the strip from James’s
apartment. I believe you already know the place, since you’ve been
seen watching me here.” A laugh escaped from me that sounded more
like bark, holding no mirth. Inside the snide tone behind ‘watching
me’, the old man’s slick persona fell away to genuine fear. His
mind was screaming orders as we spoke: a sniper was to take me
down, long before I entered the elevator of his lobby.
    “I’ll be there in two hours.” I could feel a
taunting smirk, cut viciously across my face.
    “Midnight?”
    “Yes; what’s the matter? Has hanging around
with ‘gifted’ people made you afraid of the witching hour?” From
the tone of my own voice, I could imagine the sneer without looking
in the mirror.
    “No; midnight is fine.”
    “Good.” Some part of my psyche knew the voice
that left my mouth wasn’t my own … but I no longer cared.
    Lune, who learned to ignore what was
happening with a certain amount of false aloofness, growled from
his usual spot on the bed. When I turned my burning gaze on him, he
put his head down on his paws