Coming Clean

“I’m tired of being shit-canned in this crap-hole.” Elliot slammed his book shut and tossed it on the table. He glared accusingly at Justin, waiting for a response.

            “Byron said we’re not to go out. We still don’t know who attacked us.” Justin was sprawled on a metal bench, tossing a tension ball up into the air and catching it again.

            “Don’t you think they would have found us by now?”

            “Maybe. Maybe not. Byron knows how to keep us safe.”

            Elliot wrinkled his nose at the idea of spending more time cooped up in the factory. “Anyway, I’m thirsty.”

            Justin sat up, looking at him wide-eyed. “Really?”

            “No, but I want to get out of here.”

            “When was the last time you ate?”

            “This evening. There was some rice in a cupboard—which reminds me, we need more food. Maybe Byron would let us go—“

            Justin interrupted him, “I mean the other kind of eating.”

            “Oh.”

            Silence.

            “A couple of weeks ago. Why? What about you?”

            “Two days ago!” Justin exclaimed. “I have to eat every couple of days. It needs it.”

            No question what ‘it’ was. “So that’s weird, right? I’m weird? This is something we need to be concerned about, right? Maybe we should go see someone and ask them.”

            “Let’s go talk to Byron.”

            Justin rose and Elliot followed him out of the room, grumbling under his breath, “Yeah, I meant someone a little further a-field.”

            Down the hall, Byron was helping to clear part of a fallen metal catwalk. Justin stopped out of earshot and grabbed Elliot. He pressed his forehead against the boy’s, holding his neck on either side with his hands. “We need to tell Byron about Cassandra.”

            “What?” Elliot’s eyes widened. “Are you crazy? He’ll make me leave!”

            “No he won’t. I’d go with you if he tried.”

            “You don’t mean that.”

            Justin’s eyes dropped for the briefest of moments. “Maybe I do. I don’t know.” And then his eyes were back up, locked with Elliot’s, imploring. “Please? He needs to know.”

            Before Elliot could argue though, Byron spotted the pair and called out. “You two coming to help?”

            Justin kept his eyes locked on Elliot’s until he nodded, ever-so-slightly. Just once. The two stepped apart and looked to Byron. “Actually,” Justin began, “Elliot has something he needs to tell you.”

            “…And then the three of us left.” They sat in Byron’s private room as Elliot finished telling his story. Byron has been attentive throughout, but silent as marble as he steepled his fingers together and peered at the boy over his fingertips, but said not a word. Elliot shifted uncomfortably under his gaze and Justin cleared his throat nervously.

            Finally, Byron spoke. “When I first told her about you…” he started, and Elliot and Justin exchanged glances, not sure where he was going with this topic. “She was very interested. She searched through a number of her tomes, and then her Duatal. Then she told me to find you and keep an eye on you. It would seem she had a particular interest in you.” He tapped his fingers against his lip again, eyes closed in thought before speaking once more. “In the fight… did she cut you at all? Did you bleed anywhere?”

            Elliot thought about it hard before shaking his head. “No. She cracked my ribs, bruised me pretty badly, but she didn’t cut me ever.”

            “You’re sure?”

            “Yes, I—“ He stopped.

            Byron looked at him, eyebrows raised in interest.

            Elliot’s hand traveled down to his wrist and rubbed it gently. “When she was holding my hand… reading me… she scratched my wrist and broke through the skin. I—I think I bled a little then.”

            Byron leaned forward in his seat. “Did you clean it up?”

            Elliot’s confusion was clear on his face.

            “Did you clean it up?” Byron almost shouted, rising to his feet.

            “NO! Of course not. I didn’t have time before she tried to kill me.” Elliot shot at him.

            Justin closes his eyes and murmured something from where he was perched, leaning against Byron’s new desk.

            But Byron wasn’t so calm. His face took on a darker shade and he was near-shouting. “You left your blood at the scene! How could you leave your blood? You always clean up every trace—“

            “Byron,” Justin cut in, “He couldn’t have known. No one told him.”

            “Told me what?”

            “YOU NEVER LEAVE YOUR BLOOD BEHIND.” This time, Byron didn’t hold back. “What if a human found it? Touched it? What if—“ He went suddenly silent, and color drained from his face.

            “What?” Elliot and Justin asked simultaneously.

            Byron sat heavily into his chair. He seemed to stare off into the distance for several moments before his eyes wandered back to Elliot, and then away again. “She called you a Mimic?”

            Elliot nodded, glad that Byron had stopped shouting at him, but no less worried by his new expression.

            The man started to laugh. First haltingly, but with growing speed and strength, until Justin made him stop with a question. “What? What is it?”

            His patriarch looked up at him, a false smile woven across his features. “We’re fucked. We’re so utterly fucked. I’d been so good…” His words trailed off.

            “Byron what the hell are you talking about?” Justin grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

            “It was the government. Nuit wants us dead.”

            Justin shook his head and ran from the room, leaving Elliot with Byron. He returned with his sister in tow and pushed her towards Byron.

            Alyssa looked at the three of them, and then kneeled by Byron’s side, taking his hand in hers. “Byron, tell me what’s going on?”

            He looked down at her, and his face hardened. His eyes became less vacant and he cleared his throat. “Elliot’s a Mimic. It’s why he eats still, why he doesn’t need to feed. His Beruf worked with the virus so it mimics his blood, his normal body, his normal functions. So he can walk in the sun, he doesn’t need blood, he can still digest things. But he left his blood at Cassandra’s when he killed her. Of course, since she’s the Oracle for Nuit’s territory, she had it investigated—but Cassandra had probably told the Council before anyway, as soon as she suspected. They found his blood. They know who he is—what he is. She would have told them we were keeping an eye on him. And they sent the men—they sent humans because they’re worried about what he can mimic.” He paused and took a deep breath. “The Council issued a death warrant for him, and for us by proxy. We’re so utterly fucked, it’s… it’s… absurd.”

            All eyes were fixed on Elliot now and he tried to make himself as small as possible in his seat. The silence was oppressive. It felt like a weight crushing him, so he broke it. He stood. “I’ll leave then. They’ll leave you alone once I’m gone.” He made for the door, and heard Byron move from his own seat. But he didn’t move in his direction. He moved to the desk and heard Byron open a drawer. That was it for Elliot; that was his consent for him to leave. They would have stopped him otherwise. Justin hadn’t even moved to follow. Then he heard a click, and Justin shouted.

            Sound exploded in the room twice, echoing off the metal in the factory, as two gunshots rang out. He felt the pain arch through the nerves in his back as the bullets drove through his flesh, though his left lung, and then out again from his chest. His arm reached out for the doorframe as the shock reached his brain and he staggered, and then Justin was holding him up, propped against his body as he sat. Justin was screaming at Byron, and he could hear the rest of the family clattering up the metal steps to find out what had happened. He felt the wounds burning as if they were on fire, and watched as Byron bore down on him, the gun held loosely at his side. Alyssa reached for it, and the large man let her take it absently from his hands. Justin tried to keep Byron away with his free hand, but he merely batted the appendage away and ripped open Elliot’s shirt.

            The bullet holes were already mending. The blood drew itself back inside of Elliot’s body and the skin wove together seamlessly. Byron sank back on his heels as the rest of the family arrived, questioning faces gleaming in a circle around them.

            “What’s going on?” Shelly asked them.

            Byron shook his head. “Nothing. Elliot took my power when I healed him before. They were right to be worried about you.” He stood again and ambled back to his chair, taking a seat behind his desk. “Everyone, go to your rooms. We’ll have a meeting in an hour.”

            Elliot gasped for breath, rising to his feet with Justin and Alyssa’s help, as they led him to Justin’s room. The other family members scattered more slowly, but eventually everyone was in their own rooms, whispered words running through their minds as they parted company.

            Elliot sat on the end of Justin’s bed as the twins fussed about him. He waved them off when his ears stopped ringing. “I’m fine.”

            “I can’t believe he shot you!” Alyssa exclaimed.

            “I’m fine.” Elliot said again, as Justin kept pressing his hand over Elliot’s chest and trying to hug him at the same time. Finally, he had to push the older boy off. “Justin, I said I’m fine. Get me a shirt if you need to do something.”

            “Right. A shirt. Because this one’s got blood on it.” He ran to a set of shelves and pulled out a clean shirt, bringing it back to Elliot all in a matter of seconds. “I guess we know we know how you did what you did in the tunnel though, huh?”

            “Yeah.”

            Alyssa sat on the floor, leaning back against the closed door and watched her brother tend to Elliot. They both looked up at her though when she spoke. “He’s right. We are so utterly fucked.”

            Their small family was gathered in the factory room where Danielle and Elliot had sparred earlier in the week, the seats had been ripped out of the stolen cars to provide makeshift chairs and Elliot and Justin sat together in what had been a backseat, now propped against a car door for support. They all waited as the end of the hour drew near and Byron’s footfalls rang out heavily on the metal staircase. He chose the hood of a car as his perch and crossed his arms over his chest.

            “It seems there is a decision to make,” he started. “One that will affect our whole family. Now, I’ve spent the last hour trying to decide what to do, but since it affects this whole family, I felt the whole family should be involved in the decision.”

            No one said anything.

            Byron continued. “It seems the latest member of our family is wanted by the government. We can either choose to continue to aid and abate him, we can turn him in, or we can turn him out on the streets and have nothing more to do with him.”

            Shelly asked the question they all wanted to hear about. “And why is it they’re after him?”

            Byron glanced at Elliot briefly, and then answered. “Mostly, because he’s a Mimic.”

            Elliot tried to gage their reactions. A few widened their eyes, some look confused, but one boy, sat atop a stack of tires, sat up-right and looked at him with some interest. The others whispered to each other, and Justin’s hand snaked down to clasp Elliot’s between them. He squeezed it reassuringly.

            Byron cleared his throat and the room quieted again. “The men that broke into our house two weeks ago were sent by the government. They were shooting fairly indiscriminately, so I think it’s safe to assume that they didn’t care about collateral damage, or any of us getting caught in the crossfire.”

            Tess leaned forwards in her seat. “How do we know that even if we turn him in, they’ll leave us alone? Byron, you said Cassandra’s place was burned and gutted—even her servants vanished. We know they take measures to cover up our existence with humans… what if they’re willing to do the same to us?”

            “No offense kid,” Danielle nodded in Elliot’s direction. “I like you, but if we harbor him, wont they just keep coming after us? They probably won’t send humans next time.”

            Byron nodded. “That’s certainly a consideration. There’s no guarantee that we’ll be left alone whatever course of action we take.”

            The boy on the tires hadn’t stopped staring at Elliot, and he’d begun to rub his hands on his thighs. Justin too had noticed his fixation and called him out on it. “What’s on your mind Arkell?”

            The boy jumped slightly and the tires wobbled. All eyes turned towards him.

            “Ah… well… as you know, I surf the net a lot… and uh…” He tore his eyes away from Elliot to look to Byron. “Well, there’s been a lot of quiet chatter over the vampire channels about a mimic this last week. I didn’t know what it meant—that they were talking about him—but…”

            “Spit it out Arkell,” Byron’s tone wasn’t pleasant.

            “It seems to me that he just became the most dangerous asset on the market—and the most valuable. Sorry for speaking in economic terms,” this to Elliot, “but there’s only one of him and there’s a lot of people who want to get their hands on him, not just the government.”

            “We’re not selling him!” Justin spat. His hand gripped Elliot’s tighter.

            Arkell waved his hands. “I’m not saying we should. But we’re a small family, and it seems like any group that had a mimic would command a great deal of power and respect.”

            “What are you saying?” Byron’s brow was furrowed in thought.

            It was Alyssa who caught on quickest. “You think we should go public?”

            Arkell nodded vigorously. “It seems like the safest plan—we stop hiding and go out in public. Other clans will see us, will see him. Once they do, the government won’t be able to do anything to us without all these other factions moving to protect him.”

            Elliot muttered under his breath so only Justin could hear him. “I’m in favor of that plan. At least we’d get to leave this rusted dump.”

            The others were talking amongst themselves, and Byron seemed to be mulling the idea over in his head. Eventually they quieted, nodding to each other and Byron. “So is this what we want to do?” They all nodded, except for Justin and Elliot. Byron stared at the pair until Justin gave a short, sharp nod. Elliot though returned Byron’s gaze coolly, not indicating one way or another. Finally the man uncrossed his arms and stood up. “Very well. Tomorrow night, we go out. Together, as a family. We go to the largest, most public Bloodbar, and we make sure we get noticed.” He ended the meeting by climbing back up the stairs and heading back to his room. The others started to drift off to their own rooms also.

            Finally Elliot and Justin were the only two left. The older boy caught something in Elliot’s expression and jumped up, tugging at his hand. “Come on, I wanna show you something.” He guided him through the factory, slipping past the cleared away catwalk, and down the corridor that had been opened up. Elliot remembered taking the same route to escape the day he’d awakened in his cell. But they didn’t take the door he’d used that time to escape. Instead, Justin led him through another heavy door, and up a winding staircase. Three stories later, they stood on a landing, the door to the third level behind them, and a rusting metal ladder hanging before them.

            Justin went first, forcing open the trap door at the top despite its rusted hinges. When Elliot followed him, he emerged into a small circular room, rounded by glass windows, though most of the panes had fallen out. Ahead, the view wasn’t much, just more factories and brown-zones stretching out, but when he turned to find Justin, his breath caught.

            The other view cascaded out over the city, lights glimmering like jewels in the night. Justin pulled him close and stood behind him, his arms wrapped around his midriff and his chin resting on Elliot’s shoulder as they gazed out.

            “What are you thinking?” He asked softly.

            Elliot sighed. His arms moved to find Justin’s and wrapped over them. “If they’re wrong about this… if your government doesn’t care, I could be dead tomorrow night.”

            Justin breathed in deeply and grazed his lips against his neck. “Then there’s something I want to tell you tonight.”

            Elliot waited patiently as the seconds ticked past; the only sound their breathing and the distant noise of traffic.

            “I know I’ve only known you for a few weeks now,” Justin’s voice trembled, and his arms squeezed Elliot tighter to his own body. “But I think I’m falling for you.”

            “Justin… I…”

            He shushed him silent. “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to tell you.”

            “OK.”

            They stayed that way for several hours, nestled together, arms holding one another, looking out over the city. Only when the sky started to lighten did they move, heading back down to Justin’s bedroom where they curled up together and sleep overtook them. And for the first time, in a very long time, Justin dreamed of something other than the brothers.