The First Lock - 19. Chapter 19

- XIX -

Jett took his revenge the minute she fell asleep, because suddenly, she was back in her old world again, three months after Jett and she got together.

****

It was Friday night, and Katrena was sitting in the same tavern where Jett spotted her and Julian three months ago. He was supposed to meet her here in half an hour, so she was just slowly drinking her coffee, her mind wondering about random things. It felt strange to her how she would feel absolutely nothing when she thought of Julian now. Before she met Jett, every time she thought of Salamander, it would send tingly waves running all the way down to her toes. Now, however, she felt nothing but slight amusement (“Wonder whom he is killing right now...”) and a shadow of pity for his newest toy.

The bartender set a glass of sparkling wine in front of her, and she looked at him with confusion.

“I didn’t order this,” she said, and he nodded.

“I know,” he replied. “It’s from someone who wished to remain anonymous.”

She frowned, but then realized that it was probably from Jett who decided to play another one of his games. The man was the king when it came to playing games, and she didn’t mean cards. “All right,” she thought, and a small smile tickled her mouth. “I’ll bite...” She nodded at the bartender and he went away, leaving her alone with the wine. The sparkly beverage was good, and she drank the entire glass. Five minutes after she was done, however, she felt very funny. She frowned when all of a sudden, everything around her started to spin slowly. That was bizarre; Jett never used any drugs in those games of his before. Come to think about it, he never used any drugs, period.

“Crap,” she thought when suddenly, all the lights seemed dimmed, and her head felt as if it was wrapped into some thick material. “Son of a bitch... Someone drugged me... Who the hell would...” Then a sudden revelation hit her hard enough to shake some of that chemically induced slumber off her. “Julian!” she thought hazily. God, was it him? Did he become desperate and challenged enough to use some drug to finally have his way with her? She wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if he did. When Julian Salamander wanted something (or someone), he would get it, no matter how hard it would be.

She tried getting up and grabbed onto the chair when she almost fell.

“Wow, love,” someone’s voice laughed above her ear, and someone’s arm wrapped firmly around her waist. “Light-weight, are you...? Come on, let’s get you home already... Yeah, it’s okay, we are together!” She assumed that now the man was talking to the bartender. She tried to say something; she tried to reach for one of the elements, but then everything around her swayed, and she slid into the complete darkness.

...When she came about, she had no idea where she was. She was lying on her back in some room, her arms strained above her head. She tried lowering them, and gritted her teeth when she realized that both of her wrists were tied to the head of the bed. Fine, she thought furiously. You want to play, Julian? We’ll play! She reached for the nearest magic stream, and to her disbelieving horror, she found nothing. That was impossible. She frantically called upon the Air. Nothing.

“What the hell is going on?” she thought, fear and puzzlement growing into some demented snowball in her chest, after she got no response from Earth, Water, or Fire.

“Awake, are you?” the same voice said with purring satisfaction, and she slightly turned her head.

“Where is he?” she spat after she saw some guy who seemed to be beyond content.

“Where is who?” he asked with lazy politeness.

“Julian,” she hissed through her clenched teeth. “It’s his game, isn’t it? Where is he?”

“Julian?” the guy repeated with genuine surprise. “As in Salamander? Huh...” Now he looked intrigued. “I had no idea that you are on the first-name-basis with him... Interesting...” He glanced at her and smiled. “Julian has nothing to do with this,” he said with short laughter. “I don’t know why you would think it was his doing, but it was not, trust me.”

“Who the hell are you?” she said in a low voice, and frantically tried to get response out of something – elements, magic, anything! – but there was nothing.

The guy cocked his head to the right, watching her with interest.

“Don’t try too hard,” he said finally, and she didn’t look at him this time. “You’ll just strain yourself,” he continued. “You can’t do anything right now because I Locked you,” he finished, and this time, she did look at him. He nodded. “Only partially,” he laughed again. “Because if I Locked you completely, it would be no fun... You only have two Locks; there is a slight chance that you might be able to do something, like tickle me with a spark...” he laughed again, and all she wanted to do was to kill this son of a bitch right then and there. “Also it’s quite entertaining to watch you try,” he nodded and walked closer to the bed.

“Who are you?” she said in a dangerous voice.

“Oh, my,” he widened his eyes in mock surprise. “I never introduced myself, how rude of me! I apologize,” he took a small bow. “My name is Jonas...” he paused. “Jonas DeLuca,” he finished after a few seconds, and she blinked. “I am the firstborn son of Terrence DeLuca; does the name ring a bell? Yes, I am sure it does,” he nodded without a smile this time. He sat down on the edge of the bed next to her and leaned closer. “You killed my father, bitch,” he said in a suddenly cold voice. “And judging by the way he looked when I found him, you took your sweet time... Well, guess what... I am going to take my sweet time with you now.”

He got up in one smooth move and walked to the desk that was sitting in the corner of the room. When he came back, there was a dully-shining blade in his hand.

“Yes,” he nodded when he noticed her look. “It’s going to be fun...” he frowned slightly. “Hmm... You know Salamander and you call him by his first name... Does it mean that you get off on pain as well...? That would be such a pity... Well,” he flashed a brilliant smile at her. “Let’s find out!”

Suddenly, he was right next to her, and the next thing she knew, he was tearing her shirt apart, and then she felt the coldness of the knife sinking into her left side, sliding down the ribs. She jerked and screamed out – she couldn’t help it.

“Lovely,” he smiled. “Apparently, in your little duo, Salamander is the only one who enjoys his own pain... I bet you two make a wonderful couple,” he nodded and ran the blade upwards this time, ignoring her growls and shuddering. “You hurt him and he begs for more... Charming, really...! Be careful and don’t move too much,” the blade caressed her collarbone, and she bit her lip when pain made her slightly dizzy. “I don’t want you to accidentally impale yourself; that would be such a turn off. See...” The knife slid to the hollow of her throat, pressing just hard enough to cause a shitload of pain and make her blood run down her chest, but not hard enough to kill her. “...I planned a wonderful evening for just the two of us...”

He got up once again and walked away for several seconds. When he came back, he held a lit cigarette in his fingers. He took a deep drag.

“See,” he said almost intimately. “I tried to get my sister to respond... But the cowardly wench wouldn’t even listen to me, so I decided to let her screw herself and take care of this on my own...”

He smiled, his eyes two frozen, light-blue lakes.

“I am not quite sure how long I am going to make this last,” he admitted, cigarette resting between his fingers. “I might get bored eventually...” Suddenly, he laughed, and it sounded almost carefree. “Oh, hell...” he said finally. “Who am I kidding? I am not going to get bored! I am truly hoping that you are quite resilient, which I think is the case... If I am careful, we are going to have plenty of fun...”

He leaned towards her once more, and she expected another cold touch of the blade on her skin. Instead, he pressed the burning tip of his cigarette onto the inside of her wrist, and her entire body tried to jerk up into the air. He laughed softly.

“Oh, man...” he muttered. “And this is just the beginning...”

The sudden carving on her palm made her hand to instinctively curl into a fist, and when her fingers wrapped tightly around the sharp blade, she screamed out once again and squeezed her eyes shut, tears escaping through her eyelashes against her will.

“Okay,” he said seriously after several minutes. “That was a warm-up. Let’s get to Act one, shall we?”

Suddenly, he stopped talking and Katrena’s body tensed, expecting another wave of pain. There was nothing, and she slightly turned her head to look at him. He stood frozen by the bed, his expression very thoughtful. “Oh, God, what is it now?” she thought, trying her hardest to reach out to something. The pain made it that much harder to concentrate.

Jonas blinked very rapidly, and his hand wrapped its fingers tighter around the knife handle. Katrena made a hell of a desperate effort to reach for the damn Fire. “Just ignore the pain!” she screamed silently at herself in her head. “It’s not the first time you are hurt! Just fucking ignore it!” That seemed to help a little, and to her enormous surprise and relief, she felt familiar tingling in her fingertips. “Okay,” she thought feverishly. “Don’t you relax now! Keep on pushing...! Keep calling! Fry this son of a bitch alive!”

Her fingertips itched and tingled; it almost felt like her hand was about to have a hell of an orgasm, and then suddenly, her fingers burst into flames. Flames that didn’t hurt her a single bit. It always worked like this – if she was the one who called upon the Fire, she could set herself ablaze if she felt like it, and she wouldn’t feel a thing. She burned the ropes and made her body to lift itself off the bed, even though it hurt to merely breathe right now.

“No,” Jonas muttered, his eyes wide and confused, his fingers still clutching around that knife handle. “No...”

Katrena was about to say something along the lines of, ‘Fuck, yes, you son of a bitch!’ when she realized that he wasn’t talking about the fact that she was able to free herself. He looked like he was trying to resist an invisible foe. She narrowed her eyes, having no idea what was going on; he might be just putting on a show for all she knew. His entire body started to tremble, and his forehead beaded with perspiration when his knife-holding hand twitched violently, and then it started slowly moving towards his own throat. That was when Katrena finally smiled, recognizing one hell of a projection.

It seemed like right now, Jett wasn’t even trying to be subtle. It seemed like he was using pure brute force, and he wanted Jonas to know that he was being manipulated. She let herself to relax ever so slightly, knowing that there was no way in hell Jonas could resist Jett’s furious attack (Katrena herself almost succumbed to it once, for crying out loud!), and therefore, she decided to enjoy the show.

Jonas’ face twisted with helpless fury and fear, while his traitorous hand kept pushing that blade towards his throat. He screamed out when his fingers grasped the knife handle tighter instead of relaxing and letting the knife to drop.

“You are going to die, Jonas,” she purred in Julian’s manner.”You are going to kill yourself, and you are going to do it slowly and very painfully... There is no force in the entire bloody world that could prevent this from happening,” she smiled again. “God is my witness, I am not going to do anything to put you out of your misery... Hell...” she laughed softly. “I will probably enjoy watching this more than I enjoyed that wine you sent me, which was actually quite nice, thank you!” She almost laughed when Jonas’ hand moved closer to his own throat, so close that he gasped, watching the blade, which was mercilessly getting closer and closer to his neck.

“Jonas,” she said. “Do you want to know what I felt when I watched you father die...?”

His eyes got darker than she thought was possible.

“Pure satisfaction,” she whispered, watching his expression. “You should’ve listened to your wench of a sister,” she shrugged, and his hand shot towards his throat, slitting it in an almost graceful motion.

“Well, damn...” she muttered when he collapsed onto the floor, his mouth gurgling because of all the blood that poured through it. “I was hoping this would last longer...”

The door flew wide open, and she looked up, knowing whom she was about to see.

“Holy hell, Kat,” Jett said, his face pale, eyes beyond worried. “I got there ten minutes after you left, and I had to squeeze all the info out of that dipshit bartender, who kept thinking that you left with someone you knew, which was not the case...! Holy hell, are you okay?” His eyes became perfectly round when he saw all that blood.

“Yes...” she muttered, her mind hazy once again. “No...” she breathed when she got a chance to define ‘Okay.’ “That son of a bitch Locked me!”

Jett’s eyes were beyond confused at this point.

“Partially,” she added quicker. “He only put two Locks on; not all three...” she squinted her eyes. “Which was a good thing, I guess...” she added in a doubtful voice. “If he used all three, there would be no chance in hell for me to actually get a response from Fire... Or anything else for that matter,” she finished.

“Wait,” he frowned and wrapped his arm around her waist to help her walk. “He put two Locks on you...?”

“Yeah,” she said, slightly swaying on her feet.

“And you were able to get through to Fire...?”

“Yeah,” she said again.

“Kat... With two Locks, the only thing you’d be able to get would be a hell of a headache from trying too hard,” he muttered. “You sure you weren’t under that drug still?”

She pulled away from him and turned towards the front door of a small house they just left. Her fingertips still tingled from the flame that engulfed them less than ten minutes ago, so this time, it wasn’t as difficult to reach for another blazing wave. A stream of fiery brightness shot towards the house, enveloping it in its lethal embrace.

“I am sure,” she said and grabbed onto his shoulder when her head spun again.

He lifted her up and walked towards his car.

“You sure he wasn’t lying?” he asked. “Maybe it’s only one Lock...?”

“Maybe,” she whispered, her head pounding with heavy pulse, throat dry. “Jett, I need water...”

“I have some in the car,” he said and walked faster.

...She drank that water until she couldn’t breathe right. Finally, she dropped the empty bottle on the floor and let her head fall onto the back of the seat.

“I need to break the damn things,” she muttered, her eyes half-closed.

“Sleep it off first,” Jett glanced at her and wrapped fingers of his wheel-free hand around hers. “You need a clear head for that.”

She agreed with him reluctantly, even though she hated the idea of being restricted by those bloody Locks. Jett was right, however. She needed a clear head to be able to break them.