The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural (52 page)

“
I was told to bring you
both. But since your sister isn’t here let’s try and make a mess
worthy of her rescue.” He said feeling an eager grin creep to his
lips. “Run Hailey Grace. You’ve got three seconds.”

As Lee whirled on the spot and rushed for the
first thing she saw; stairs. She knew everything would be in vein.
From that point on every breath she took, every ounce of hope she
conjured, and every attempt she would make to fight back would be
worthless. She couldn’t out run him; she knew that the instant her
foot hit the metal step of the stairs.

“
Two,” called August. As he
watched her sprint up the stairs, a small part of him enjoyed
looking at the sense of hopelessness in her eyes and the confusion
behind her face. She didn’t know what she was doing and it was
entertaining to be him. Having the gun made him feel like the
puppet master and Lee was the pitiful doll attached to the strings,
doomed to do only what he wanted.

“
Three!” August shouted
firing the first bullet and intentionally missing her. The gun had
let out such an earsplitting bang that a startled scream was ripped
from Lee’s throat. August watched as she tripped over the step and
landed hard on her ribs as her elbow collided with the metal to
cushion her fall. Debris from the bullet hitting the cement ceiling
came raining down on her back as she scrambled up the last three
steps before ducking behind the second floor banister. For the
first time she was out of sight from her enemy.

As Lee rested her back against the wall of
the banister, she knew that in the blink of an eye, August could be
up the steps with the gun pointed to her brain. She willed her
heart to stop racing and forced herself to take shallow breaths as
if she could hide from a man that could hear the blood rushing
through her veins from where he stood. As Lee listened to August’s
slowly approaching footsteps below, she let her fingers rub against
the center of her rib cage. A tender line stretched across her
torso just below her breasts and she knew a perfect purple line
would be there to greet her in the morning. If she lived.

“
You know you can’t run from
me.” August called and Lee cringed at the sound of his foot on the
first step of the staircase. “You know you can’t hide. So my
question to you, little Stelter, is what do you plan on
doing?”

Lee kept her lips tight. He was right. It was
hopeless to even consider trying but she couldn’t just sit there
and wait for the bullet’s sting. Lotus’s bedroom was facing the
stairs and from where Lee rested, she knew she could reach it in a
few short strides if she stayed low to the ground. Ignoring the
bruises forming on her torso, Lee crouched down in a crawling
position. But before she made a rush for her sister’s room, Lee
dared herself to peer down the stairs.

There, August stood calmly leaning against
the railing with his gun not even pointed at her.

That was all Lee could make out before she
ducked back beside the wall. “What do you want from me?” Lee called
hearing the rattle in her own voice. Knowing her sister’s room was
the wrong way to go, Lee waited until she heard August speak up
before quietly crawling towards her own bedroom at the end of the
hall.

“
I’m following orders.”
Replied August then he paused as Lee was in mid crawl. “Are try
trying to run from me?” he asked and Lee could hear the excided
tone beneath his voice as his footsteps climbed the last of the
steps.

Panicked at his sudden advance Lee climbed to
her feet and made to sprint for her room. But before she could even
scramble to her feet, August had snatched onto her ankle.
Reflexively Lee rolled to her back kicked with all her might with
her free leg. The blood was boiling in her veins and she could hear
a screeching in her ears as her emotions changed from fear to rage.
It was one thing to taunt her and make her fear for her life, but
it was another thing to touch her; to hold her down in that way.
For a split second her focus shifted from her feet to his face and
when she saw August’s smug smile at his work, Lee lost it.

She had felt this feeling before and she knew
what was coming. An electrical charge was building in her core
waiting for her to release it. Instead of fighting him, Lee set her
free foot down and shut her eyes to focus the charge. At her resist
to struggle, all August could do was tilt his head curiously before
an explosion of hot thunder shot up his arm with so much force he
went sailing to the wall. Midflight, his sight was washed out from
the sheer brilliant white light produced by Lee's electrical
charge. Every inch of his skin burned and tingled, even his eyes
and his teeth. He hadn't fought in a while and the sensation was
the most painful way he had felt in a long time as if a million
white hot needles were jabbing at his skin. When his head finally
collided against the cement, it felt like hitting a pillow when
compared to the sensation still burring at his flesh. An anguished
scream ripped through his throat at the retaliation that the pain
wasn’t going away and Lee had already climbed to her feet and was
sprinting to her room.

For a moment August forgot he was supposed to
keep her alive. Through blinded rage, he shot four bullets at the
door just as she shut it. The only thing keeping him from unloading
his gun on the door was knowing that he didn’t have and unlimited
supply of ammunition and at this point, Lee was ahead of the game.
Instead he dropped the gun partly to keep him from unloading and
the other part was because holding the weapon with his flesh still
raging was making the pain worse.

“
What did you do to me?”
August bellowed as he forced his mind to ignore the pain and climb
to his feet. With the jolts of electricity still coursing through
every ounce of his being, August had to force his body to regain
control. Finally with the help of the wall he was able to make it
to a standing position. By that point Lee’s surprise attack had
died down some. Just enough for August to clench his fingers around
the gun handle and realize the back of his head was
bleeding.

As he commanded his feet to carry him to the
door Lee had just ducked into, the sores of his body were beginning
to register the pain of colliding against the wall. August didn’t
worry too much. In only a few minutes his body would have healed
itself and here would be a hole in Lee’s. The question in August’s
mind was would she heal like him or was she playing a game of
charades with him? Who was Hailey Stelter really?

“
Congrats, lass.” August
called making his way slowly. “I didn’t see that one coming at all.
Who knew the Stelters were a supernatural family?”

He was only a couple yards away from the
bullet holes in the wooden door. Even as he glanced through them,
he couldn’t make out where in the room she had gone. “But see,” he
began again approaching cautiously and ready to dodge another
surprise attack. “it doesn’t make sense. If you were super, why did
Mason have to save you when we sent our spinney assassin after you
in the first place? And there’s nothing you’ve done in the past few
days that would cause a natural to turn super.”

August waited for a reply. When none came he
listened intently for a heartbeat. And there was one. Tucked away
in the farthest corer of the room. “You must have been a
half-natural all along.” August pieced together. “Who would have
guessed that something so rare could have been living in such plain
view?”

Without another moment of hesitation, August
kicked open the door with so much force the wood shattered on
impact. Pieces of wood the size of a computer screen sailed across
the room and Lee’s queen sized bed offered little protection. She
had been storing a ball of energy to shoot at August after he
entered the room. But the shrapnel from the door had caught her so
off guard, she let the stored energy flow from her body. Snakes of
lightning lashed out from her extended arms and zapped every
splinter from the air before sending them crashing around her as
singed bark.

Bang! Before she could take a look at her
work, August had fired into her room and once more Lee screamed.
But not from the sound of the gunshot. Hot blood oozed from her
shoulder where the bullet had just skimmed her caller bone and the
pain was sweltering. Instantly she lost all feeling in her right
arm and wave of mental pain wiped over her for fear she would never
be able to use it again. She glanced down at her jacket just in
time to see a crimson river flowing down her chest from the bullet
that had ripped a clean hole beside her neck. She had been too
mesmerized by the sight she hadn’t noticed August walking in even
as she slumped down to the floor in agony.

Lee kept her eyes glued to the carpet covered
in singed door fragments even as August walked into her line of
sight, she didn't raise her eyes from his worn sneakers. “Do it,”
she groaned biting her quivering lip to keep the pain and terror at
bay.

“
I’d love to.” August
replied eyeing her drenched jacket. “Especially after that little
stunt you pulled back in the hallway. But I’m not calling the shots
today.”

Lee balled up as much fabric as she could
from the cuff of her left sleeve before pressing it against the
wound in her shoulder. The instant she applied pressure, pain
jolted up her neck and for a moment she saw stars. Involuntary
whimpers escaped her lips as she pressed harder against the wound
and she hated the fact that the man that damaged her was just
standing there.

“
So then what are you
supposed to be doing?” asked Lee gritting her teeth to cover up the
pain.

August leaned down so that the smell of blood
burned his nose yet his eyes were only inches from Lee’s. “Look at
me.” He commanded.

Reflexively, Lee obeyed. She was looking at
August whom she had met for the first time on a plane by accident.
At that time, he seemed quiet and shy as if he enjoyed listening to
other people’s problems. Now looking back, after knowing what he
was capable of and all the darkness attached to it, he wasn't shy
at all. Quiet maybe; in the sense that he had to hide his murderous
capabilities until the moment was right. And today let that moment
show.

Lee continued to hold eyes with him. The last
thing she remembered seeing was August tucking the gun back in his
pocket. The instant August willed her to sleep, Lee obliged by
plummeting into the deepest realm of unconsciousness. Pain fled
from her body until there was numbness. Her sight collapsed into
darkness and the hand covering the wound flopped down to her lap as
if gravity had kicked it. Once her head slumped to her chest, she
began snoring with her chest rising and falling in deep rhythmic
gulps of air. August smiled.

"Get up." he commanded and Lee lifted from
the ground like a hypnotized rag doll. "Dip your finger in your
blood and write the address of Dylan Dade's studio on the
wall."

Before August had even finished giving out
his command, Lee's sleeping body was doing as he asked. Her finger
dapped onto the thickest pool of blood just above her chest then
she turned around and began writing on the wall.

August watched pleasantly as his little pet
did exactly what he asked. Personally, he didn't know the location
of the filming studios off the top of his head. But with his
experience of ordering sleepwalkers, he had discovered that a
sleeping mind remembered things an alert mind didn't.

Once Lee had scribbled out the address,
August commanded her to throw on a darker jacket so the blood
stains could be hidden. Then he walked out onto the banister
overlooking the living room. The gun in his jacket still had half a
carton of ammunition and he decided to unload it in the living
room. He broke vases, shattered the coffee table and even left
dents in the cement wall. Once Lotus returned, she would see the
mess, find the address and without question, rescue her sister.

When August had had his fun, he turned around
to see the sleeping Lee slumping from the bedroom in a black
jacket. It covered up the blood well enough that the only way to
tell she was bleeding was to look at the crimson dots on the
waistband of her jeans. August knew he would have to tend to her
wound eventually if he wanted her alive. But that would just have
to wait until he got back to the car. After all, Lee wasn't the
only sleepwalker he had made that hour.

~Ithaca had always enjoyed dressing up and
putting on a show and in the cluttered costume closet behind the
Dylan Dade Show; that was exactly what she did. A smile from ear to
ear stretched across her villainous face as she gazed at her
performance ready attire. With the help of some solid black
stilettos, a firm line of muscle raced up her calves just
noticeable beneath lacy black tights that disappeared underneath
her inky black leotard. The leotard would have looked like a
one-piece bathing suit if she hadn’t found a red belt to wrap
around her waist and a matching jacket that didn’t cover much
beneath the shoulders. With her long hair held back in a ponytail,
Ithaca looked simple enough. That was until she picked up a lions
whip and held it loosely at her side. In the full length mirror,
Ithaca looked like the perfect performer. She was a ringleader and
in just a few moments, she would step on stage to give her audience
a show they would never forget.

Two seconds into admiring her own reflection,
a knock came at the door. Before she could command the intruder to
leave, August had leaned in with words on his tongue. But the
moment he caught sight of Ithaca, his eyes went wide and suddenly
there was nothing to say.

“
Darling August,” Ithaca
giggled as she turned around to face him, “Do I not look
ravishingly wicked?”