Decisions (Inner Desires Series) - Chapter 3

Olivia opened her eyes to stare straight into her brother Jacob’s eyes. She could feel the pricks of tears in her eyes and she couldn’t hold the hurt and pain she felt right now. She was betrayed, betrayed by someone she trusted so much. Why did Dane stab her? It didn’t make any sense to her. What would attacking her do for him? Olivia was so hurt and confused, maybe it was all just a dream. She tried to get up, only to shriek in pain, the stab wound that was between her should blades was real, which meant what Dane did to her was real.

Once the pain subsided a little, Olivia looked around her surroundings and realized she was in a room that was painted all white. There were windows, with blinds down and there was a sink. There was also chairs and there was a washroom in the corner. She looked at the people in the room and realized her brothers, Alex, and Raska were all there. Olivia looked at her arms and saw an IV and that’s when it hit her, she was in a hospital.

“Jacob?” she said, her voice quivering.

“Liv! Thank god you’re alright,” he said, his eyes gleaming in relief.

“How did I get here?” she asked.

“The hospital said there was a call from your phone, but no response. They checked the GPS on the phone which is how they found you,” Jacob explained, “Liv, what happened? I thought you were meeting with Dane.”

“I did” she said, starting to tear up, “Jacob…Dane…Dane…” she couldn’t finish.

“Dane what?” Demon asked, concern and anger in his voice.

“Dane stabbed me,” she finished, tears streaming down her face.

“What?!” everyone said in shock.

“He was saying a lot of nonsense and then stabbed me.”

“Why would he betray us?” Jacob said, his own voice cracking.

“I don’t know, but that can’t be good. Clearly, he’s trying to separate himself,” Olivia cried.

“Hello everyone,” a male voice said.

“Good evening Dr. Fang,” Alex said, smiling.

“How is my patient?” he asked, raking his hand through his short golden blonde hair.

“I’m fine, I need to leave!” Olivia snapped.

“No, you’re not. Olivia, that dagger just missed paralyzing you. Whoever stabbed you knew to avoid all major damage hits,” Fang said, looking at his patient chart, then looking down at Olivia with his forest green eyes. His eyes filled with concern, “It doesn’t make sense, but it will take a few days for you to recover.”

“It does. Olivia said that our brother stabbed her, which might explain why he knew vital areas,” Jacob said, trying to control his emotions.

“Are you kidding me? What on Earth? You guys had fights, but I never expected him to do something like this,” Fang said in frustration.

“Neither did we,” Demon sighed.

Olivia reached over to the table that was next the bed and grabbed her phone, she then dialed a number and hoped that the one on the other end would pick up, but instead of ringing, it went to an automated voice. Olivia hung up and redialed, only this time, she put it on speaker.

“The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service…The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service…The number,” and then she hung up the phone. She pressed her head into her hands and her emotions got away from her. This told her the worst, her brother was gone. He was no longer in their lives, or at least, that’s how Dane wanted it. Broken hearted, Olivia threw her phone against the hospital wall, turned her body and buried herself into her pillow. She loved Dane so much, and for him to do something like this, especially to her, was the ultimate betrayal.

She could feel Jacob and Demon rubbing her shoulder, trying to comfort her, but it was useless. She was dealt a huge blow and she didn’t know how to face it. This was reality now; Dane was gone and she couldn’t do anything to get him back. She lost someone who was really close to her. Betrayal felt worse than burying a loved one, it felt worse than a best friend telling you to never speak to you again. Olivia was so overwhelmed with pain, that she didn’t want to be around anyone, she wanted to be completely alone.

“Now what?” Jacob sighed.

“I don’t know, but you guys might want to figure out what your brother’s up to,” Fang said, “I’ll be back to check on her in a while. In the meantime, you all should head home. Olivia needs to stay here for a day or two longer, and from the looks of it, she may need some emotional counselling. She’s in a lot of pain.”

“Clearly. She cared so much for Dane,” Jacob said, grabbing his jacket off the chair, “We’ll be back later Liv,” he said, leaning down, kissing her forehead.

* * * *

Grief was overwhelming Dane; he had just spent most of the morning balling his eyes out because of what he had done to his sister. He hated hurting her most of all, but he knew hurting her would turn all of them against him. His job of ditching his siblings was done. He needed to calm his emotions before he met with Blaze tonight, otherwise Blaze may see him as weak and unable to do anything. Dane wasn’t weak, he just never did anything like this before. He knew that his sister would survive, but with a physical scar left by him; a scar that would show just how desperate Dane was to have all of them accepted by the humans.

Since he knew his siblings would be at the hospital, he had spent most of the early morning, packing his back pack of the essentials he needed out of his bedroom. He packed the ritual ingredients last so that he had easy access to grabbing them. He was going to do the ritual tonight, no matter how many people Blaze was able to gather, it needed to be done now or it would never get done. Summoning a demon needed to be done on a full moon and tonight was just that. The full moon was a major key in summoning and therefore he only had one shot at summoning a demon that would help aid him in destroying the council. He would be screwed if he had to wait another whole month for a full moon for more reasons than one. The supernatural authorities were probably notified by now of his attack on his sister, which meant Dane needed to stay in hiding for the moment.

Dane looked back into his bedroom he had had for so long; So many fond memories. He then closed the door and headed down the hall way to the stairs. After descending the stairs, his curiosity bit him and he turned on the T.V to see if anything had been broadcasted about his sister on the local news. Not to his surprise, there was; the news was about a traitorous brother and that he was highly dangerous and most likely armed. They showed his picture and gave his name, although, they brought up the last name of Dixie and Darren, which was ‘Bowen’ and not ‘Asayda’. They then hinted at particular details that only a supernatural would pick on, mostly to inform the other communities of his being dangerous and that he was a wolf shifter. The way they alerted supernaturals that the news was about it being a supernatural issue, is they would identify the name of the weapon used or the name of the doctor dealing with the patient; something to that extent.

He turned the news off then, frustrated, as he really hated them using key words so humans didn’t pick up on what they were. What he did to his sister was no different from what a human would have done to a defenseless woman in the woods; only Dane would never **** a woman like many of the humans would have. What was worse, supernatural could help humans with catching all these criminals if they just knew they existed. Shifters especially, were good at tracking down people. When Dane was young, he wanted to be a police officer, until he learned two things; humans didn’t know they existed, and according to supernatural laws, supernaturals were not allowed to go in certain careers, and officers were one. It was for fear of supernaturals accidentally revealing who they were to the humans. Anything to do with helping society or saving it, was a job supernaturals were not allowed to have; that meant paramedics, nurses, doctors (although Fang was an exception as supernatural needed at least one supernatural doctor in every province, state, continent, etc), officers, firemen, and the list goes on.

This would have never been an issue if the rules surrounding supernaturals were not so strict. Dane wouldn’t be in the position he is today if he would have been able to pursue the long-time employment he always wanted, which was to help humans and work with them, side by side. Without knowing the rules of supernaturals at the time, he sent in an application to the police academy and the dean of the academy, though human, knew of the supernaturals existence and sent the application to the supernatural government, which in turn, sent a large descriptive letter back to Dane, explaining why his application could not be accepted. At that point it had enraged Dane and if that didn’t make things any better, he was warned in that letter, not to try and resend an application for any jobs that were potentially life saving jobs, because he would be rejected again.

So here he was today, hatching a plan to destroy the government, and begin a new government with better rules that were not restricting to supernaturals, because as far as Dane was concerned, they were all the same and they could live in peace. Hiding from humans was just stupid and ridiculous and on top of that, these laws made humans have the power over what supernaturals did. Dane was going to show the world that supernaturals were not dangerous and that supernaturals could live side by side with humans in peace. His plan involved destroying the government, but the demon he was summoning, was going to help show the humans that supernaturals were helpers, protectors of the humans. There was no turning back for Dane, it was this, or he would always and forever have to be in this invisible life away from humans.

The rules aside from supernaturals not being allowed to be in a life saving jobs, were just as ridiculous. Supernaturals were not allowed to fall in love with or marry humans for fear of being revealed. Exposing yourself to a human, you were punished and the human’s memory would be erased. Funny thing about that rule, Dixie, Darren and their son Nicolas all knew about them, but they didn’t tell anyone they knew and the only one that did know, was Fang. The reason why Fang didn’t report it, was for two reasons; one was that, at the time, Fang didn’t know who they belonged to and the other was that Fang could see that Dixie and Darren were the type of humans who cared and that they would keep the secrect hidden from other humans. For twenty years they never breathed a word.

Supernaturals lived a lot longer than humans did, so supernaturals were not allowed to stay friends with humans for too long because humans would notice that they barely aged or not at all. Shifters, depending on the animal counterpart, could live up to three hundred years. Vampires lived about three hundred years. Witches and sorcerers and such lived two hundred or so. Werewolves were extinct, but when they did live, they lived as long as a shifter wolf and that ranged between two hundred years and two hundred fifty years; because of that, humans and supernaturals couldn’t stay friends, or they could, just the supernatural had to move and never physically show themselves to their human friends.

Then there are the powers and abilities that each supernatural has. Shifters all have telepathy so they can speak to each other. Shifters also switched into their counter animal parts. Vampires had a hard time hiding their fangs, shifters like Ruby, had to stay in hiding otherwise explain why their skin was always green. Dane was a particularly odd shifter, he not only had the usual standards of what shifters had, he also had carried magic abilities. He was capable of conjuring up clothes when he switched from wolf to human, which made Dane think that one of his parents was a sorcerer of some kind. Dane noticed similar effects in Olivia, but he doubted Olivia even noticed it.

Having two species in a supernatural, according to the law was a big no in the supernatural world, because it could make you stronger than the council and allow you to overtake them, but did the government question the fact that he and his siblings were two supernaturals? That was a curious question that Dane would really like to know, but for now, he needed to head to the warehouse and start his plans.

* * * *

Olivia was sitting in the hospital bed, watching the evening news; the day went by quite fast. All she could think about, was what happened last night between her and her brother. What did she do to deserve what he did to her? That question, among thousands of other questions, kept fumbling around in her head. The newscast about what happened to her last night came on again, and like Dane, she picked up the supernatural cues. She turned the TV off and tried to focus on something else, but her mind kept coming back to Dane.

“Need some company?” a female voice asked.

“That would be appreciated Alex,” Olivia said, her eyes tearing again.

“Jacob figured you could use a female friend,” she said, sitting next to Olivia on the bed.

“In other words, he knew I didn’t want them around,” Olivia said, wiping her tears.

“Pretty much.”

“I don’t mean to be. I just feel so betrayed and maybe part of me is afraid Jacob and Demon will do the same” Olivia sighed, tears streaming down her soft cheeks.

“Liv, sweetheart. Jacob is so protective of you that there is no way that he would ever betray you. He would go to the pits of hell to save you” Alex said softly, pulling Olivia into a warming hug.

“I thought that about Dane, and look what happened” she cried.

“I know. There’s some information I found out that I was going to tell you about, but decided to let you be alone for awhile” Alex said, lifting Olivia’s head so her eyes met Alex “I found out from a pack scout, that Dane went to Brooklyn’s home.”

“Brooklyn? Who’s she?” Olivia asked, wiping her cheeks.

“Brook is a witch. She is extremely advanced in her field and quite smart. I went to speak with her after the scout told me about Dane’s visit. She told me that Dane was planning some sort of summoning, which is going to take place tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“It can only be done on a full moon. Brook said it had something to do with the government and the rules. She believes this is going to end badly. That’s not all though, she could feel Dane’s energy and she said that Dane is not just a shifter, he’s also a magic user, possibly a sorcerer, but she wasn’t sure.”

“Seriously? This is about the rules again. Wait, I think I know where his anger towards the laws began,” Olivia said, crossing her legs and wrapping her arms around herself, “He got a letter a while back; because we are unfamiliar with most of the laws and customs on the supernatural side we didn’t think anything of it, but when he got that letter, his whole demeanour changed.”

“What was the letter?”

“He had sent a request of entry to the police academy. The police academy dean, gave it to the government of supernatural law and they, in turn, wrote a very descriptive letter stating that his request was denied, why it was denied and warned to never again apply for any life saving job.”

“That would be harsh, especially to you four, not knowing the rules. I had no idea Dane wanted to be an officer.”

“We did. He loved saving people and protecting them. In elementary, he stopped a bully from picking on a kid in school. Never revealed and abilities or anything, just scared the bully. The kid was grateful and Dane became popular. He then became close friends with that kid. He’s in Ontario right now at a university out there,” Olivia said, smiling about a fond memory.

“Clearly Dane’s done his research, which means he probably already knows that he has to end his friendship with that human,” Alex sighed.

“I still don’t understand why he would turn on his sister,” someone said, interrupting their conversation.

“Evening Fang,” Alex said.

“Evening,” he responded, checking Olivia’s vitals “Liv, move forward so I can check your healing process.”

Olivia did as she was told, it hurt a lot, but she bit her tongue to prevent herself from screaming. At that moment, a thought hit Olivia like a freight train. She thought of what Violet had just told her and the information she already knew about Dane; adding into it the fact that ha had a shaky voice before he stabbed her.

“Oh my god,” Olivia said.

“You okay?” Fang asked, wondering if he hurt her.

” I figured something out,” Olivia said, leaning back to look at both Fang and Alex “Before Dane stabbed me, he said ‘sorry’ to me, his voice was cracking which makes me believe he never wanted to hurt me, just separate himself from us. What Alex told me tonight, it makes sense. Whatever Dane is doing, is clearly against the supernatural laws, which means he didn’t want us involved, let alone knowing about it. If we did know about whatever he is doing, we would be charged too, right?” she said, looking at Fang.

“Yes, because it was not reported.”

“Because we don’t know, we are safe. He’s doing something that most likely will end with a death sentence, correct?” she asked, looking at Alex.

“Yes.”

“What is Dane doing?” Fang asked, concern in his voice.

“I spoke with Brook. He’s summoning a demon, tonight,” Alex said.

“That won’t cause mayhem,” Fang said, sarcastically.

“Very funny. We don’t know where Dane is and his phone has been disconnected, so we can’t track him,” Olivia said, frustrated.

“Which means we can’t stop him either,” Fang growled.

“And I thought I had issues,” a voice laughed.

“What’s your business?” Fang said, irritated.

“What’s with you Liv?” Fang asked, “Tess won’t bite.”

“Don’t call me that Fang. My name is Tessmere, not Tess; and to answer your question, I’m here on business.”

“Ah. May I ask why my patient is freaking out?” Fang asked, helping Olivia get back into bed.

“We had a run in the other day. I may have aimed my gun at her, which by the way is in the car,” Tessmere explained, noticing Fang’s glare.

“No wonder she’s frightened,” Fang said.

“That’s how we met Raska,” Olivia said, narrowing her gaze at Tessmere.

“Well, I overheard your conversation about Dane,” he started, “Okay look, as much as I want my revenge on Sarjen and everyone knows I want revenge, what is happening now is much more important than going after your father right now. I can deal with him later and besides, if he brings the rest of the council here, I might get that chance without using bait to lure him. In the meantime, I am a member of the council and I should really be helping you all with trying to stop Dane, don’t you think?”

“Tess…” Alex started.

“You’re not in trouble, Alex. Brook told me before I met Dane about her visions. I warned Dane myself about what he was about to do, but clearly he wasn’t going to listen.”

“Did you know he was a magic user?” Alex asked.

“Magic user?” Fang inquired.

“Yes” Tessmere answered, “All the members do. More Megael’s fault for being seduced. He has two children with one woman and a third with the other.”

“Megael?” Olivia said, confused.

“Megael is your grandfather and Marissa, his daughter. Marissa and her brother Chance are half siblings to Raska and Raska has a second half brother through a different mother. Your grandmother is the Roman goddess, Venus. So, the supernatural government cannot do anything about Venus’s children, grandchildren or any descendent of Venus,” Tessmere explained.

“That means that all Marissa’s kids have magic?” Fang asked.

“Probably. Dane definitely and he knows how to use them. Olivia for sure, she is quite like her mother. Not sure about the other two, not much contact with them” Tessmere said.

“Where’s Lukas?” Alex asked, obviously annoyed.

“I made him run an errand, I’m hoping he can track Dane down and stop this before it’s too late.”

“I seriously doubt we’re going to find him before he follows through,” Olivia said, sadness in her voice “He seems to be much smarter than my brothers and I realized.”

“We have to try,” Tessmere finished.

* * * *

Dane was amazed at the amount of supernaturals that Blaze was able to find. All of them wanting what he wanted. All of them would witness what he was about to do. Blaze found an abandoned warehouse that they were able to use. The outside looked like no one had gone in and out of it for centuries. It had weeds and vines growing up the walls of it. There were chips in the paint and graffiti on all over the walls. The windows were boarded up and there was a ‘Do Not Enter’ sign on the main door. The inside of the building had broken glass scattered on the floor, probably from one of the windows being smashed a long time ago. There were pieces of wood on the floor that fell from the rafters above. One of the lights was flickering, most likely about to die. The floor had various stains, some looked like blood stains while others just looked like splattered paint. Among all the looks of the warehouse, Blaze managed to set up a stage. On that stage, Blaze had placed a table and a cauldron that Dane needed to mix the ingredients into.

Dane walked up to the stage and as he ascended the stairs to the platform, the room went quiet.

“Good evening everyone,” Blaze said loudly, “Thank you all for coming and supporting our cause. We all feel the same about the supernatural government and if you do not, leave now. Now, Dane is about to perform a ritual which will summon a demon that will be in his control.”

“We are unsure of the particular demon this will summon, but rest assure, I will have full control of it,” Dane said, then more quietly “Did you get what I requested?”

“Of course, now start the ritual.”

Dane pulled his backpack off his back and pulled out the ingredients he had acquired earlier. He placed the bag on the table by the cauldron and as he placed each item into the cauldron, he called it out “Eye of a falcon, wings of a bat, claws of a dragon, blood of a wolf” then he pulled the dagger he had stabbed Olivia with, and cut a few strands of his hair “Hair of the controller.”

Dane nodded that he needed what he requested, which was supposed to be a government member, one of the shifters, dragged a gagged, tied shifter out from the darkness. Dane’s eyes widened and he was furious, he looked over at Blaze, and with venom in his voice “This is NOT what I asked for!”

“We couldn’t find a government member and according to code, we can use a direct family member that shares the same blood. Technically we could have used your blood, but then there’s conflict because you are supposed to control this demon. So, we figured that this would be second best,” Blaze said, walking up to the shifter gagged shifter and grabbing him. He forced the shifter down on his knees in front of Dane.

Dane looked down at the shifter, frustrated as he was trying to avoid this especially when he had already harmed one tonight; but then he saw how the shifter was staring at him, with anger and hate. The exact response Dane wanted, but now he had to take the shifter’s blood. He reached down with the dagger in hand; using it, he sliced a gash in the shifter’s shoulder, making him wince, he then lifted the dagger and while flicking the blood into the cauldron announced “The blood of government council connection, Demon Asayda.”

The cauldron started to smoke, the smoke switched from red, to blue, to black and progressed from slow changing to quick changing. There was some cracking sounds and some hissing sounds coming from the cauldron, causing everyone in the room to take a step back. Dane looked to Demon, who was still glaring at him with hatred, he then shifted his gaze back to the cauldron, which was no longer changing color or making sounds.

After a moment, two slim hands, black, with long sharp claws, slowly ascended the cauldron. A few more moments passed and a black body raised from the cauldron and dropped to the floor. Small at first, but started to grow bigger and bigger. The demon grew until it stopped at a nine-foot height, causing everyone except Dane to step back. The demon had an all black body with black wings. He had red, sharp spikes going from the head, all the way down to the tip of the demon’s tail. The demon opened its mouth to reveal over fifty sharp teeth. The demon’s eyes were the color of blood.

The giant beast stared at Dane, it opened its mouth wider and a sharp-piercing screech came bellowing from the demon.

“What have you done?” Blaze said, clearly frightened.

“I summoned a demon,” Dane said, confused at Blaze’s question.

“Not just a demon, you summoned a Death Demon,” Blaze answered.

“Demon, what is your name?” Dane said, ignoring Blaze.

“Alcatraz,” the demon responded.

“Alcatraz. I am Dane Asayda, I am your master now.”

“That is correct Dane Asayda, however, heed warning that if I should break from your control, I shall destroy you,” Alcatraz laughed.

“Warning duly noted.”