Page 121 of In Between Darkness
“Ryder trusted you… How could you?” I spit at him, bracing myself against the back of the chair, trying to get as far away from him as possible.
“Some things are bigger than you, dear.” His voice is stern and unwavering. “Ryder will understand one day.”
He licks his teeth slowly and closes his hands tightly into fists. I imagine breaking out of these chains and battering him relentlessly to the point where his face is so swollen and bruised he cannot see, and he is too weak to even move.
“He will never forgive you,” I curl my words to emphasise my anger. “He will hate you for this.”
“SHUT UP!” he snaps, and I know I have clearly hit a nerve.
I fight the chains again, but my body is feeling tender, and the pink flesh is showing on my wrists. “See, you really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His voice simmers and he begins walking closer to me again. “He will thank me for this!” His words are laced with bitterness and fill me with a sense of dread and confusion. The pool in my stomach is swirling violently.
“If you believe that, then you really are deluded,” I spit at him, and I can tell I’ve hit a nerve again. “Killing your own people. YOU’RE A MONSTER.”
“I AM NOT A MONSTER!” His face contorts in rage as his lips pull back to reveal clenched teeth, the veins on his forehead and neck gasp for air as they pop and bulge. “Do you even know why we are taking the Moons?” he spits, his body rigid with tension.
“To do some sick experiments on,” I retaliate and fight the chains again.
“Close.” He smirks for a second before returning to a pile of tensed muscles and clenched fists. “Over two hundred years ago, there was a race that existed. Not Sun or Moon. They were much more powerful than that.” He continues while pacing the room, and I fidget uncomfortably in my seat. “Do you know what they were called?”
Now I’m the one who’s tense, every muscle strained as if ready to explode. I shake my head.
“A product of Sun and Moon.” His stare grows more intense as he studies my face closely, his presence making my skin crawl. His hot breath triggers the swirling in my stomach again, and I stifle back a gag. “Hmmm… Not jogging your memory.”
His fingers caress the side of my cheek, and all I can think about is getting away from him. I take my chance and snap my head quickly, biting into the flesh of his finger. He yanks it away, his eyes ablaze with fury, and winces.
“YOU BITCH!” he erupts, and saliva sprays outwards from his mouth. He consoles his hand with his other hand, and I fight the urge to smile. A sheen of perspiration glistens over his body as he breathes erratically, as if he is trying to control himself. Red liquid drips from the tip of his finger onto the floor. “You’re a feisty one. I can see why my son likes you.” He chuckles a menacing chuckle, an odd show of emotion that makes me uneasy.
“Fuck you.” My words escape through pursed lips and gritted teeth.
“The Star race were defiant little fuckers that ended up needing to be put down,” he continues, wrapping his hand in black tape he pulls from his cargo trousers. “But we thought, what if we could make them? What if we didn’t need the Gods? What if we could make a Star race that obeyed us? Then the Xoro army would be unstoppable.”
He chuckles again, this time reading my expressions like a novel. I try to conceal my emotions, to conceal the mixture of shock and intrigue I am feeling right now, but his raised eyebrows tell me I have failed. “HA… I knew I’d pique your interest.”
“You think you can make a race. You really are deluded.” I smirk condescendingly and roll my eyes. “You can’t play Gods.”
“I thought that at first, when the Moons kept dying from our serum.” He shakes his head patronisingly and searches around in his pocket. “But with trial and error and a little bit of sky serpent venom. Voila.” He pulls out a syringe filled with a yellow liquid from his pocket and examines it in front of him.
“I bet you were angry when you found out we freed your little sky serpent,” I taunt, letting out a small chuckle.
“Not really… He was with us twenty years, so we have more than enough venom to power our army.”
His lips curl into a bitter smile, and I want to punch him so bad.
“You bastard. Sky serpent venom is poisonous to anyone infected; you’re killing people,” I exclaim in disbelief. He’s lying.
“Volatile… not poisonous, there’s a difference,” he states and flicks the glass of the syringe.
My face is a picture of confusion.
“You see, the serum requires an element to stabilise the mixture, an element immune to the venom.”
I can see from his face that he is getting excited; his teeth shine in the white light of the room as he smiles widely. “And my son… my incredible son has brought it straight to me.”
He turns and pulls something off the top of a metal table in the left corner of the room. “You see, we were clueless before, and then we found this.” He turns around to show me the Soldark in his grip, and my stomach flips. “Turns out this little book holds the answer to almost everything.”
My face grows pale, and pain radiates from every inch of my bruised body.
