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Sunday Afternoon
The Sixth Floor
The sixth floor was quiet tonight. Then again, it was always quiet up here. The floor was reserved for those who needed the solitude from society and those Vane couldn’t toss out on the streets.
The security was lax, I rarely saw anyone outside of the one nurse on duty.
The usual sense of guilt settled in my stomach as I walked down the hall. I should come here more but I couldn’t bring myself to.
Some son I was.
The old nurse, Lana, sat behind the station. She glanced up as I approached, giving me that same pitying smile she always did.
“Here to see your mom?” The same asinine question she asked each time I came up here. I just nodded sharply and stalked past.
It had been a long time since I’d been up here. With Harlow’s arrival, things had been stirring.
My half-breed status didn’t exactly give the demons a reason to clue me in on their plans.
As far as I knew, there weren’t any others around like me, which only made me stand out more. I was a reject among demons and an outcast to the humans.
Then again, a person who fed on desolation deserved nothing less.
“Drake?” my mother called out before I’d even opened the door. She always had a way of knowing when I was close. Or maybe I was just the only one who ever walked these halls outside of the nurses.
“Hello, Ma,” I said as I pushed open her cracked door. She was in her chair by the window, knees tucked in close as she stared out at the grounds below.
At just forty-eight, she looked frail. If she weighed even a hundred pounds, I’d be shocked. Even for an omega she was small.
Her cheeks were sunken, long brunette hair limp and mousy, and her once pretty green eyes were dull.
Dark Haven had taken her life from her, and with it, her beauty.
“Your father came by,” she said quietly. Keeping my composure wasn’t easy but somehow I nodded, taking a seat next to her.
“What did he want?” My voice was sharper than I meant it to be, but she simply smiled sadly at my question. Her age was showing more now, faded from years of life lived in a box.
Despite the fact I hated it, I knew she belonged here. Anywhere else would pump her full of medication for her ramblings on demons. She’d be diagnosed with schizophrenia despite her simply struggling with crippling obsessive compulsive disorder.
Even as we spoke she was tapping out a rhythm on her leg, eyes darting around anxiously.
“Oh, nothing. He offered to take me away again,” she explained. “I’m too old for him now.”
“Demons are timeless, Ma,” I said gently. The demon who claimed her had taken a liking to her, offering her things that I doubted she could make it through, like eternal life in Helheim. I’d never been there, but I knew of it, and a living human wouldn’t survive there. Hell, I wasn’t even sure that I could as a half-breed.
“And I’m not,” she said in an oddly harsh voice. Generally, she spoke at barely over a whisper, as if talking at a normal volume was too tiring.
If I had a way to save her from this version of hell, to give her demon blood and allow him to take her there, I would do it. But I had no real standing with Hel, or any god for that matter.
I was lower than the lowest form of being in their eyes. I’d spoken to the queen of Helheim twice in my life. Once when she told me I shouldn’t leave Dark Haven when I had planned to run away, and once when I stopped feeding.
It was unsettling to know she was watching me, monitoring what I did, but oddly reassuring at the same time. She’d saved my life that day.
Feeding like the demons was something I couldn’t fucking stand. These people suffered enough without being subjected to living their worst nightmares every fucking night.
They were like a succubus, but instead of lust, it was any strong emotion. And the patients here had plenty of those to go around.
“He asked about you.”
