Kayla moved to the right down a long hall after leaving Savon. She skipped going to the common hall at the moment. She wasn't in the mood for company yet. There were numerous doors down here and she went into one half way down with a number six on it.
She pulled the string above her head and the light came on. The room was small, it had a concrete floor with two cot like beds. There was a part in the wall between both beds that had a dresser like stand with four drawers and an area above it that you could hang things from.
She moved to the mirror in the room looking at her neck. There was a red mark there but it was fading as she watched. So she'd give it a few minutes, didn't feel like explaining that to others. She pulled open the low laying drawers and pulled out pants and a new shirt. The pants were her size and the shirt was just a bit bigger than she normally wore. Tighter fitting clothes were best, less of something that others could grab onto.
She sat on the edge of the bed and reached over to the small stand at the end of the bed before sitting back up straight. She was off in space at the moment as she started to brush her hair. She thought about Remis. The image of his teeth and the look of him would be burned into her memory until the day that she died.
She wondered if being drained would feel like what Savon had done. Some how she doubted it very much. She wouldn't mind it if it was like that. Wouldn't be such a bad way to go. Actually it would be rather stimulating given the right circumstances.
Kayla let out a bit of a laugh at herself, she couldn't believe that she thought that. Though now that she did, she had to say that it was true. Her willingness to try it was different however. He was good looking, had a nice body, but she didn't think that doing such things just for the pleasure of it ended well for anyone.
Getting up from the bed she checked her neck and gave a sigh, no mark. She did feel tired, but wasn't sure that she wanted to sleep just yet. Kayla opened the door and moved out into the hall and back the way that she'd come. As she went to turn to the right she met Anna moving toward the common room as well. She looked rather put out.
"Something wrong? Need some help with something?" She asked her. Figuring being friendly was best.
"Not unless you can control another's mind." She said in a dark tone.
"Sorry." She responded. Though Kayla could go into a room and see what happened before. See the conversations that last took place. Problem was the only rooms that she would find helpful were rooms that would be costly to get into. She didn't want anything to do with hearing the things that demons did in their off time. Nor was she going to share with this woman.
"Yes well, I guess we can't always get what we want now can we?" She said looking at her. Anna was a beautiful woman, shorter than Kayla was. Skinner too, Kayla had muscle to her, toned muscle. Anna didn't but she could move fast.
She had dark hair that fell to her shoulders but was up in a pony at the moment, her eyes were a lighter brown. Kayla had seen the way that the men looked at her, heard the way that the others talked about her. Apparently she wasn't exactly celibate, and it was something that Kayla had seen plenty of times.
Don't get her wrong, she didn't think that it was trashy to sleep with another person with out a serious commitment being had. At least not all the time. Though she preferred more meaning with another and didn't do that herself. However it was a hard thing during this time. How'd you expect to be with one person wholly when the chance of dying was so great?
Anna wasn't the only woman that seemed to sleep with others to look for the love they wanted but not get hurt by it. At least that was what Kayla thought, and it was kinder than just thinking the woman a whore.
"No I guess that we can't." She said unsure why the woman had such an attitude. "Doesn't mean we can't try for it." She said. Anna stopped in the entryway to the common room, others sitting there talking, and looked at Kayla.
"How do you get someone's favor when they just wish you'd jump off a cliff?"
"Why do you want someone that is like that?" Kind of stupid to pine after someone that didn't want you. Especially if they told you. They would never feel the same about you even if in the relationship. No reason for them to be faithful to you, or care about your feelings.
"Because I can't help myself, and he's damn good in bed." She said with a sigh and a far off look. Kayla looked around the room quickly trying to decide the person that she was most fixated on. She was wondering who this great lover was that caught her attention. And which one was telling her off, because clearly they weren't just attracted to looks.
Anna rubbed Kayla the wrong way, but that didn't mean she wasn't civil with her. Not like they were enemies or anything. She also refrained from telling her that sex didn't make a relationship, but who was she to tell anyone what a relationship was? She'd been with two men, both were dead, and neither had been a very long relationship. Kind of hard when you went out and killed the things trying to kill you.
"Ignore him, or just treat him like you don't care. Maybe you are just pressing him to hard." She said. Anna thought for a moment.
"Maybe." She said thoughtfully. "It might help to back off a bit, he gets rather defensive."
"Who are we talking about?" Kayla asked and Anna just waved her off.
"None of your concern." She said and moved off to go over by Pat who was talking with Todd at the moment. Pat wasn't a bad looking man, lean and muscled. Not that anyone here was in bad shape, but Kayla just gave a sigh. She moved over to sit down where Drake was with Helen and a man by the name of Greg.
"Hi." Kayla said sitting down and they gave her a head nod. She used her talent to listen to the conversation that had passed here a moment before so she knew what they had been talking about.
"Where are they?" Kayla asked.
"Where are who?" Greg asked, Helen had come from their little commune that had been attacked. Drake just raised an eyebrow.
"That could be considered rude just listening in on others conversations." Kayla gave a shrug.
"If I thought that you cared I wouldn't have said I knew what you talked about." She said with a smile. Drake gave a slight smile, he liked this woman Kayla. She had a strong personality, and would do what she saw fit.
"Well, they are a group about five hours to our west. They think that their hideout might have been compromised and the other ones that they can go to are destroyed." Drake said. "We got word by air today." Meaning that the birds that they used for communicating with some of the other groups had made it back to them.
"The date is two days ago." Helen said. "All that it asks for is help, that we allow them to come where we are."
"Could be a trap." Kayla said and Greg gave a nod.
"Exactly my thoughts." Drake said. "So we'll send out a team tomorrow to investigate."
"I'll go." Kayla said.
"I figured you would." Drake said with a sigh. "Why are you so eager to go out on these missions? No one jumps so quick to go as you do." Helen looked at her and she just gave a shrug. She'd come to Helen's group at the age of ten, she'd lived out on her own before then with other rag tag groups.
"Well since we've decided, I'm going to get some shut eye." Greg said and got up leaving them, Helen sighed and got up as well looking at them.
"Kayla, Drake." they both gave her a head nod. They walked away leaving the two of them alone.
"So why?" He asked again and Kayla looked at him.
"I just do." She said.
"That's a poor reason." Kayla looked at him, he gave the air of someone that you could trust. His eyes said that he held many secrets and some he might not wish to have.
"It's not like I have anyone or thing to really live for. Just a mission and a promise to take care of those that hurt us. I don't want to die, but I'm will doing what I think is right." She said.
"Who was it that died to make you take that promise. You are perhaps twenty seven, still young."
"Not in this world." She said with a smile, "and I'm twenty five." Drake just smiled back at her.
"My parents." She said finally after a silent minute. "I was seven, we were one of the families that lived among the demons doing what they asked of us."
"I see." He said, she gave a nod.
"They came in to our house. I was in the laundry room, for no reason other than they could, they attacked my parents. I watched from the slits in the laundry room door. They killed my dad first, just tore him apart. Then they started in on my mom, doing horrible things to her, raped her and beat her before killing her just like my dad."
"I'm sorry." He said and she shrugged feeling the old pain but it was more dull than it had been before. It had faded, it had marked her and she could never forget. Time had managed to help her push it away. She'd grieved for a long time before deciding to do something about it.
"Wasn't like I hadn't seen something like it before. They don't tell kids that the world is a wonderful place anymore." She said with a smile, "I got out the window in the laundry room and ran into the woods not far away, three years later I fell in with Helen's group."
"No the world isn't full of wonderful things and wonderful people." He said with a smile, his hair was grey now and he was older, but she knew that he could still kick ass if needed. "But I do remember when parents tucked their kids in and said that monsters only existed in stories."
"How old were you when the world went to shit?" She asked.
"Thirteen." He responded. "I was riding my bike down the street, and stopped. I'll never forget the fog, the way that it rolled down the street and covered everything like a thick blanket. How the sun was blotted out and then the screams."
"Had to be horrible." She said, she always knew what the world was now, this was what the world was. But to have freedom and then have it stripped just seemed worse, and horribly cruel.
"It was, my dad was one to become possessed, he'd killed my mom by the time I got home. I killed him, couldn't move for hours after that." He said and there was a hollow look to his eyes. "Decided right then and there that I would find out just what went wrong and try to fix it."
"Did you ever?"
"Well we all know that Astor came to power in the world, that he opened up things he shouldn't have and demons and evil creatures flooded the world. That someone caused him to come from the other side but we don't know how, and it seemed very costly and hasn't been done again. Millions died for it to happen."
"Makes you wonder if there is another side, a better one."
"If there is, the balance is off and Astor keeps it that way." Kayla gave a nod.
"So where does Savon fit in this all?" She asked because she wanted to know. She found that her mind kept coming back to him. She was starting to think that what she did wasn't so smart a thing to do. She wasn't going to beat around the bush, she wanted to know the story.
"Savon..." He said and seemed to be lost in a memory somewhere. "We found him in a room with a blood soaked floor, holding two blades and dead men all around him. He was perhaps eleven at the time."
"You found him?"
"We went to stop Astor from bringing up the rest of the acolytes. No one knows how it works, what the ritual is, but we knew it was bad. No one knows the real difference between Acolytes and demons. My guess is power, and the level of evil. If Savon's knows any of it, he doesn't say."
"Savon says he is half acolyte."
"I trust Savon with my life, he was born here, not hell. He understands compassion, though it would appear that he lacks the use of it at times."
"I agree with what he did, Cameron was dead already and he would have killed Neil with out hesitation."
"I'm glad to know this." Drake said with a sigh. Kayla cleared her throat because she had a couple questions to ask him. She looked around to be sure that none of those in the room were listening and far enough away that they wouldn't be over heard.
"Does Savon need to drink blood regularly?" She asked. Drake looked at her like she'd grown two heads and a bit of mistrust came to his eyes. "Before, I went to offer him help with his wounds. He asked, said that he'd attack someone if he didn't get it. I figured that since he saved my life I might as well." She was touching the side of her neck with a frown.
"I see. He is what he is, and requires certain things."
"He said you knew. Asked me to say nothing, and I won't. I pay my dues. I just wanted to be sure there weren't side effects or something. I didn't really have the mind set to ask before hand."
"Not that I know of, but he always goes out to do it. It was very kind of you to do that, especially when you don't know him, don't owe him anything."
"Like I said he saved my life, so I figured that I owed him much more than a bit of blood."
"You are a rare find you know that? A person that has values and keeps to them, is willing to put their pride aside and help someone out even if it costs themselves. I wish there were more like you."
"You are one." Kayla said with a smile. "I'm going to get some sleep before tomorrow." Kayla added getting up. Drake gave her a nod and she moved off, but he continued to watch her. A sad but resigned look to his face. It was a miracle that those like them existed, and they were always the ones that suffered most.