⊳⊱ ♕ ⊰⊲

"Do you remember what it was like outside?"

Elijah stopped glaring at the camera in the top right corner of the white room and turned his head to look at Haru. "What?"

"Outside," he repeated, picking at his food. "Do you remember it?"

With a quiet sigh, Elijah looked down at his plate. A few miserable potatoes, a slice of ham, and three small carrots. He hated food, but if he only finished the cup of blood he'd been given, the guards would hurt him. So he tossed one of the carrots into his mouth and replied, "No."

"Really?" the black-haired kid questioned. "Come on."

He shrugged. "I don't know. Grass, trees, sky. What else is there?" he grumbled, trying to dismiss the conversation. He remembered more than that—of course he did—but thinking about it filled him with a drowning sense of despair. He didn't want to talk about it.

Haru slowly eased his fork into one of Elijah's potatoes and took it from his plate. "Do you think we'll ever see it again? The outside." He gave the demon his slice of ham, the only thing that Elijah could stomach.

"No," he answered and started cutting both slices while Haru took the rest of his potatoes. "They're going to keep us down here for the rest of our lives."

The Samayōnese kid adorned a hopeless stare and stared down at his plate.

Elijah knew that it was the truth, but seeing Haru upset hurt him more than knowing that this place would be where they died. "But you never know," he added. "Maybe someone will find us someday."

Haru glanced at him as a small but despair-ridden smile flickered across his face. "Yeah. Someday."

Elijah opened his eyes and watched the road pass by outside. Dismay had him in a tight grasp, pulling him deeper with every disappearing moment. He hated that he was free and that Haru was probably locked up in another lightless facility. He hated that he couldn't keep his promise that they'd see the outside again together. And he hated that it was taking him so long to find him.

What if he never found him? What if he was taking too long? What if Haru had been turned into one of those...things? A chimaera. A hybrid. Or...what if he was dead? A failed experiment? The loser in a battle to the death?

What if he was too late?

"Oh, hey," came Zoe's voice.

He didn't bother glancing at her.

"You okay?" she asked. "You've been sleeping most of the afternoon. We're almost at Pristead."

Elijah glanced up at the sky. It was getting dark again. Had he really been asleep twelve hours? He wasn't entirely surprised, though; he hadn't gotten a decent amount of sleep in weeks, and it had evidently finally caught up with him.

"We're gonna stop at a motel," Jake said. "I've been driving for like...forever, and my legs are killing me."

"And I wanna see what's on this laptop," Zoe added.

He wasn't going to argue; he wanted to know what was on Shaw's laptop, too. He also wanted to see what was inside the bag he took from the mechanics. So, he sat up straight, dragged his fingers through his tousled white hair to tidy it a little, and then unzipped the duffel bag.

"Oh, yeah," Zoe said, looking over her shoulder at him. "I was meaning to ask what that was."

When he looked inside, relief struck Elijah. There were stacks of coronam notes, enough to last the rest of his search—which he hoped wouldn't be long, but if it did drag on, at least he had to funds to buy more weapons, transportation, and accommodation. There were silver bullets, some laced with wolfsbane and others with surripio—a sedative that weakened Caeleste so much that they could barely stay conscious—and a collection of crossbow bolts. A small, folded crossbow sat under a machete, and beside it...was a can of soda.

Elijah rolled his eyes and took the soda.

"What's that?" Zoe asked nosily.

Ignoring her, Elijah opened the can and took several gulps.

"Yo, where you get that?" Jake asked, staring in the rear-view mirror.

"Jake, it's just up here," Zoe said, pointing out the window.

"Oh, right."

Elijah downed the rest of the soda as Jake turned right and pulled into a dusty parking lot. There weren't any other cars, and it didn't seem like anyone else was staying at the motel, either; the only heartbeats that he could hear were coming from the reception office.

Jake parked a few feet from the building and switched the engine off. "Man, if we get murdered out here, I swear, I'll haunt you in your next life, Zoe."

She frowned nervously as she put the laptop in her bag and picked up her dog. "Don't say things like that."

"We're not going to get murdered," Elijah grumbled as he zipped up the duffle bag and grabbed both that and his own bag. He climbed out of the jeep, and as he stretched his legs, he groaned quietly in relief.

Jake got out, too. "It says no pets," he said, pointing to a sign.

Zoe pouted and took Shaw's laptop back out of her bag. She then carefully put her dog inside and whispered, "Be quiet for a few minutes, Antonio," and then she zipped it shut.

They headed for the reception.

But as Elijah followed, a chill traced its way down his spine, sending a shudder through his very core. The air around him grew thick with an unseen presence, a spectral whisper of something beyond comprehension.

"Eli..." the voice echoed, distorted and unnaturally warped, sending a ripple of unease through the desolate expanse.

He halted abruptly, his senses heightened as he scanned the barren wasteland around him; there was no discernible source for the voice, yet it lingered hauntingly in the stillness of the empty landscape, a phantom beckoning from the shadows.

It was then that a familiar feeling of loneliness struck Elijah. Only Haru called him Eli, and at first, he was convinced that maybe it was he who called him, but reality slapped him hard. He knew that Haru was far away; there was no way that it was him.

So who was it?

He frowned both skeptically and cautiously, scanning the sandy expanse, but the only movement his sights locked with was that of tumbleweeds and sand picked up by the humid breeze.

"Elijah?" came Zoe's voice.

The demon turned his head and looked at her. She held up a set of keys and waved them around, and as she went with Jake, who was heading to one of the rooms, Elijah followed.

"Eli..." the voice called again.

He stopped once more and searched for the source, but still, he found nothing and no one.

"Do you think we can order take-out or something?" Jake asked as he pushed the door to their room open. "I'm starving."

"All you think about is food," Zoe complained.

"No, I don't!"

Elijah snarled under his breath and headed into the room. He closed the door behind him, tossed both bags onto one of the two double beds, and then slumped down onto it.

"I guess I can take the couch again," Jake said.

"Why did the Nosferatu turn up?" Elijah abruptly asked Zoe. He wanted answers, and he wasn't going to rest until he got them.

Zoe, who was letting Antonio out of her bag, frowned hesitantly. "I don't know. My dads must have called them."

Elijah turned to face her with a cynical glare. "Why can your dads just call the Caeleste government like they're old friends?"

She shrugged and mumbled, "Well, Lucian—the guy I called—is my cousin, the one who works for the Venaticus, and—"

He could tell that she was trying to lie—her heart was racing. "The truth," he interjected. "Or I'll stop playing nice. You're hiding shit, and I want to know. There are plenty of other ways to get information that don't require my constant asking."

Zoe went pale and swallowed dryly. "W-well...my dads...don't work for the Venaticus, they...kinda control it."

Elijah waited.

"They...they're like...part of the Nosferatu Council."

"Council?" he questioned.

"It's like...a group of people who lead the government, make decisions and all that," she explained. "And they each control a faction, like the Venaticus or Strigoi."

Elijah wasn't surprised. Zoe said that her dads worked for the government—more or less—and hearing that they were that high up wasn't a shock.

"And...the Nosferatu weren't burning evidence at the lab you escaped from," she said.

He frowned, his attention entirely grasped.

"They were fighting the Diabolus."

The demon's frown thickened. He'd heard that name thrown around the lab several times. "Who?"

"They're the cult that the Nosferatu have fought wars against. They're still around, and they're working with Lyca Corp.; they turned up to try and help Lyca Corp. contain the breakouts, and the Nosferatu was trying to hold them off," Zoe told him. "But they don't know who attacked the lab or how everyone got out."

Elijah didn't know that either. All he remembered was waking up to the alarm and the place up in flames. He wasn't done prying on what he wanted to know from her, though. "Why can't you talk about the Ancients?"

She went even paler. "Because...well, I don't know everything," she answered, and it wasn't a lie.

"Then tell me what you do know about the sangdevoro one."

"Why?"

"Because I asked," he grumbled. He didn't want to tell her that he was hunting for answers that might help him understand who and what he was.

Zoe looked down at her dog, who was staring up at her, wagging its scrawny tail. "I know that...he's over a thousand years old, and that his bloodline is very limited. He did create other demon species, though...and vampires."

Elijah grunted at the mention of vampires; he couldn't count the number of times he'd been mistaken for one. But maybe that was why. If he was related to this Ancient, then it would make sense for him to look like him or one of his creations, right?

"Wait," Jake then said. "You think you're like...related to an Ancient?"

The demon glanced at him. "Why do you say that like I'm not thinking clearly?"

He scoffed a little. "Well, it's just...well, if you were related to an Ancient by blood, why would you be here? Like...Ancients are Gods. No offence, but...you'd also be a hell of a lot more powerful. Lyca Corp. wouldn't have been able to hold you for as long as they did."

Maybe he was right. If he was related to an Ancient, his life wouldn't have been the miserable, despairing hell that it was, would it?

"You said that you're only part sangdevoro demon, right?" Zoe asked.

He nodded.

"Well...maybe your other half is asmodi or something. Like I told you earlier, some asmodi can learn True Speech because that species of demon was created by two Ancients, one being the sangdevoro one," the girl suggested.

Elijah didn't know what he was; he only knew about being sangdevoro because he heard the doctors talking, but they never said what else he was, and he wasn't sure if he'd ever find out.

"Wait," Jake said as if he'd realized something. "If...Lyca Corp. is making chimaeras and hybrids, it's gotta be for the Diabolus, right?"

Zoe looked over at him. "I mean...maybe. My dads have suspected for years that Lyca Corp. works and makes weapons for the Diabolus but there's never been any solid evidence." Her eyes widened as she looked down at Shaw's laptop. "If I can prove it...they'll have to take me seriously!"

"You really think there'd be evidence for something like that on a doctor's laptop?" Jake questioned.

"Maybe," she said as she opened the laptop and typed the password in.

Elijah got up and went over to her.

Jake joined them.

The demon watched as Zoe looked through the files, which were full of research and experiment notes on each subject kept at the facility. She opened files that showed genetic blueprints for the creatures in those cylinders—the chimaeras. The doctors cut lycans and demons apart and sewed them to each other, creating monsters, the minds of which they could control with chips planted in their heads. Each chimaera was born of a failed attempt to make a demon-lycan hybrid, and they were all stored away in those chambers like unwanted trash. Only some were shipped off to redacted locations, and there was nothing to tell them where they'd gone or why.

There was no mention of the Diabolus, though.

"There's gotta be something," Zoe insisted desperately.

"Told you," Jake said with a sigh.

She shook her head and kept looking through each file.

Every time a new photo popped up, displaying the mangled corpse of some poor kid they'd cut up or the twisted, mutated body of a chimaera, Elijah felt sicker and sicker. His heart started beating harder, and dread and dismay gripped him tight. The screams that echoed through the vents, the cries for death that reverberated throughout the facility—they blared inside Elijah's head, dragging him further down into dismay.

"I mean, this could still help your dads," Jake said with an assuring tone. "They'd have to see that you're being helpful."

Zoe shook her head again. "No, I need something bigger, something that'll give them a huge upper hand."

"This can do that, though," the pardus insisted. "All of this shit looks like it'll help them prepare for whatever these chimaera things are, find their weaknesses and whatever before they even face them. Hell, maybe their doctors could even work out how to undo the shit that these people did to those poor kids."

She pondered for a moment, taking her hands off the laptop keys. "That could be incredible," she said, sounding almost relieved. "We finally know what Lyca Corp.'s illegal experiments have been for."

"So, you're gonna tell them? Give them the laptop?" Jake asked.

"Can you see if my file is on here?" Elijah interjected.

Zoe took her eyes off Jake and looked at him. "Uh...yeah," she said with a nod and then opened a search bar. "Elijah...."

"I don't know my surname," he grumbled.

"Oh...I'm sorry," she said sadly. She then typed his name in, but nothing came up.

"Try 0333," he said.

She typed in his subject number, and it brought up several results.

...using 0333's DNA, but the chimaera died 67 hours later....

...and after injecting 0333's blood into the subject, the results were....

...but we're running out of 0333's DNA; I suggest sending for....

...more of 0333's blood, I believe I could reach our goal and find....

...created from 0333's blood continue to exceed expectations, but....

Elijah frowned uncomfortably.

"Should...I click on any of them?" Zoe asked him.

He nodded and watched her click on each result, and what he saw made him feel like he was going to throw up.

"Oh...my God," Zoe drawled as she read through each paragraph. "They're...using your blood for all of this."

"What the fuck, man?" Jake exclaimed. "They've got tonnes of it."

"Or had," Zoe corrected, jumping to the third result. "He was running out and gonna send for more, but this entry was made a while ago...around the time you escaped," she said, glancing at Elijah.

He didn't answer her. The demon stared at the pages, reading the reports about the fucked up shit they were using his blood for. His DNA had been used to craft and create so many chimaeras, most of which didn't live very long at all, and those that did eventually mutated into something that didn't even look like it was alive.

Elijah felt...disgusted, violated. These people had cut him, scarred him, and locked him away like an animal, and now he was only just learning that they also had his blood and had been using it to create monsters—to turn other helpless, innocent kids into creatures.

"Are you okay?" Zoe asked worriedly.

He took his eyes off the screen and glared at the wall beside him. "Is there anything about Haru?" he mumbled. "0547."

Zoe typed it in. "Sorry," she said quietly. "There's nothing."

The demon sighed deeply and tried to focus. "Try sangdevoro."

She didn't ask why and typed it in. "Uh...there's only one result, and it's just a list of subjects with sangdevoro blood. You're not on the list, though—I think...it's just for kids who were in that facility."

He grunted in response. Maybe Ronan would know what else he was. He left Zoe's side and went over to his bed. With an irritated huff, he slumped down and glared up at the ceiling.

"So...are you gonna give your dads the laptop?" Jake asked again.

"Of course...unless it's a bad idea for some reason."

"Well, it clearly doesn't have anything on that we can use, right?"

Zoe pondered with a, "Hmm..." for a few moments, looking through the laptop. "It doesn't look like it. It's just stuff from that facility."

"We'd have to like...get into the main system or something," Jake said. "Maybe we can find out more about you through there."

Elijah glanced at him, realizing that the pardus was talking to him. "And to get into the main system, we'd have to...what?"

"Well, get on a computer at a lab...one that's connected to the entire facility rather than just some doctor's personal laptop."

The demon rolled his eyes. "The facility we just breached has probably been taken over by the Nosferatu by now, and I have no idea where any others are."

"No, but Ronan might, right?" Zoe suggested. "If he doesn't know where Haru was sent, then he's gotta know where the other labs are—or at least one."

"Maybe," the demon mumbled.

Zoe climbed onto her bed, and as her rat-dog curled up beside her, she rested the laptop on her legs. "I can spend the next few hours looking through here; maybe I'll find something else. I'll send it to my dads tomorrow morning."

Jake lazily slumped onto the couch. "Can we at least order food before you start investigating?"

"You do it," she mumbled as she started typing.

Elijah closed his eyes and tried to relax, but being faced with disappointment after disappointment was taking its toll. He still didn't know who or what he was, and he didn't know where Haru was, either. He felt like he had leads, especially since Zoe seemed to know a lot, but her answers didn't help—not in the way he wanted, anyway. He wished he'd taken Luell up on his offer to speak to his Alpha about the Ancients, but it was too late now.

He wouldn't give up, though. He wouldn't turn his back on Haru, and he wouldn't stop trying to find out his own truth, either. He just had to keep searching.

⊳⊱ ♕ ⊰⊲