Cliff’s Descent by Dianne Duvall
Chapter Sixteen
A year passed. One wondrous year illuminated by nights with Emma that Cliff could hardly believe. Though some might mock him for saying it, to him Emma was the light that kept a sea of darkness at bay. Without her, he would have long since drowned in it.
The voices seemed to grow louder and louder every day. Emma still silenced them. But as soon as he left her, the damn murmurs began anew, swiftly escalating in volume.
The aggression and violent impulses grew stronger, too, threatening to consume him. To rob him of who he was. But Cliff continued to fight it.
Most days he won.
Some days he didn’t.
He began to have psychotic breaks. Mild ones compared to those Vince had experienced.
He usually didn’t even know he’d had one—that he’d flown into a rage—until he awoke, afflicted with the telltale lethargy and mental bleariness that resulted from being sedated with the only drug capable of knocking out a vampire or immortal.
Fear and dread always consumed him in such instances. His stomach would roil, his skin would break out in a cold sweat, and his hands would tremble as he wondered what he’d done. Whom he’d hurt. Or worse, if he’d killed anyone.
He had not yet slain anyone while in the grips of a psychotic break. But he’d broken bones.
Shame filled him. He didn’t even remember doing it. But he had injured Stuart once when his friend had struggled to restrain him long enough for Linda to tranq him. And the reprieves that followed the breaks—the quiet after the storm—seemed to shorten with each one he experienced.
Even now, while Cliff sat on the sofa in his apartment, the voices clamored at him to maim, dismember, and kill. It sickened him.
“This is not who I am,” he whispered, as if saying it aloud would ensure some part of him would never forget it and would help him defeat the looming madness. “This is not who I am.”
He should be sleeping. He had only left Emma’s arms a few hours ago. Members of the day shift had just arrived. But the damn voices wouldn’t let him rest.
Rising, he crossed to the kitchen, opened one of the cabinets, and drew out a box of graham crackers. The top showed a bit of wear from being opened and closed so often but shouldn’t draw undue attention from the network employees who stocked his cupboards. Flipping it up, he dumped out two thick sleeves of long brown crackers and retrieved the cell phone he’d hidden beneath them.
As soon as he turned it on, Emma smiled up at him from the lock screen.
Cliff clutched the device like a lifeline as he returned to the sofa and sank down on the cushions. Bastien had never asked him to return the phone he’d given him to use while he roamed alone. The one the network had provided was constantly monitored. But Cliff didn’t think Bastien had told them about this one. So he figured as long as he kept the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned off and the cell set to Airplane Mode, Reordon shouldn’t be able to detect it or access anything on it unless he somehow learned of the device and got his hands on it.
Fortunately, there were no cameras in the vampires’ apartments to clue him in. Bastien had insisted on it and had gotten Seth’s okay.
Unlocking the screen, Cliff opened the photos app and scrolled through the pictures.
Most were of Emma. Smiling. Laughing. Teasing. Goofing around. But there were selfies of the two of them as well. And videos. Nothing exciting. Nothing pornographic. Just snippets of everyday, ordinary life that seemed utterly extraordinary to him. The two of them cooking together in her small kitchen. Cliff helping her assemble wooden shelves for her growing home library. Him mowing the lawn for her while she nurtured the pretty flowers in her hanging baskets under the porch’s light. Emma sitting on the floor between Cliff’s knees while he sat on the sofa and carefully combed the tangles from her beautiful hair, oiled her scalp, and tried to fashion yet another intricate braid she’d found online.
They had discovered during the past year together that tasks that occupied his hands and required him to focus on learning how to do something new helped calm him. So there were quite a few photos of him braiding her hair in increasingly complex patterns, as well as of the two of them putting together five-thousand-piece puzzles while they chatted and listened to music.
He continued to scroll through the pictures until he came upon the one he sought.
Emma had taken it. She had caught him laughing, and he looked young and carefree.
THIS IS WHO YOU ARE, she’d written across the bottom.
He studied it a long moment. That is who I am.
He swiped to the next photo.
She’d taken this one as well with one of those extender things that let you take better selfies.
Emma was perched on his lap. Cliff had wrapped his arms around her and ducked his head to press his cheek to hers. Both were grinning over a joke she’d just cracked.
AND THIS IS WHO WE ARE, she’d written.
He swallowed hard, wanting desperately to believe that would always be true. But he was having a hard time today. The voices were almost deafening. And restless energy constantly plagued him.
He wished he could call Emma or Facetime her or something. But he couldn’t risk the network picking it up and learning of their relationship. Reordon and Seth were both incredibly protective of gifted ones. There was just no way they would be okay with Emma seeing a psychotic vampire whose tenuous grip on sanity weakened every day.
Rising, he returned the phone to the box of graham crackers and tucked it back in the cabinet. He needed to find something to get the voices to shut the hell up. If he slept, he wouldn’t hurt anyone. If he slept long enough, then when he woke he would only have to make it through a couple of hours before he went hunting with Bastien and loosed this aggression.
He fetched his earbuds and plugged them into the cell phone the network had given him. A quick scroll through his playlist and Disturbed began to roar in his ears, blocking out the twenty-four-hour-a-day bustle at network headquarters. Blocking out the voices. But it did little to rid him of the restless energy that soon drove him to pace like a caged tiger.
He needed a good long run on the treadmill.
Or maybe he should ask Linda to sedate him. She and Melanie sometimes gave him and Stuart diluted doses of the drug to take the edge off when they could feel the pressure building. He hated the way it made him feel—like his limbs were twice as heavy and his mind full of fog. But he did often sleep better afterward.
Swearing, he shut off the music, tossed the cell and earbuds on the sofa, and left his apartment. Melanie and Bastien had headed home shortly after he and Bastien returned from hunting. But Linda was still around.
He gave the guards at the end of the hallway a nod of greeting, then headed into the lab only to find it empty. He checked her office next.
Empty.
Maybe she was in the restroom.
Opting to pound the treadmill until she returned, he headed back out into the hallway.
The elevator dinged, drawing his attention.
His lips tightened when Dr. Whetsman emerged and headed toward the lab.
Kill him! Kill that motherfucker!the voices bellowed. Gut him! Feed him his own fucking entrails!
Cliff clenched his teeth. His hands curled into fists.
No way could he be around that bastard today. The treadmill and Linda would have to wait.
Cliff strode toward his apartment, intent on ignoring the asshole.
Whetsman’s nervous gaze fastened on him as they approached each other. A bead of sweat trailed down one temple.
Even that infuriated Cliff.
Then a scent wafted to him. Linda’s.
Damn it. Now he’d have to talk to him. “Have you seen Linda?”
Whetsman’s eyes widened slightly. His pupils shrank as he swiftly looked away and quickened his pace. “No.”
Cliff’s steps slowed. “Bullshit. I can smell her on you.”
Another bead of sweat rolled down to join the first. “I passed her when I came in just now. She was on her way out, probably heading home. That must be what you’re smelling.”
Highly doubtful. Just walking past someone didn’t imbue you with her scent. You had to come into physical contact with her for that to happen.
Cliff stopped.
Whetsman scurried past him, eyes averted.
When he did, the slight breeze he created carried another scent to Cliff’s ultrasensitive nose.
Blood.
Linda’sblood.
Over the years, Cliff had infused himself with blood donated by almost every employee that worked for the network. And even if he hadn’t, Doc Linda had gotten enough paper cuts for him to recognize the scent as hers.
Alarm struck. Spinning around, he grabbed Whetsman by the arm. “Where is she? What have you done?” he demanded, his voice low and guttural. Too low to carry to the guards down the hallway whose attention, he sensed, sharpened on him.
Whetsman gaped up at him with terror-filled eyes. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know where she is. Probably out fucking that German immortal who thinks he’s smarter than me.”
Liar!the voices cried, slavering for action. Kill him!
“Bullshit,” Cliff snarled. Crowding the man up against the wall, he scanned the white lab coat.
There. On the cuff of the arm Cliff held. Crimson speckles.
“Cliff?” Todd called from the end of the hallway. “Everything okay down there?”
Cliff ignored him and yanked Whetsman’s arm up to sniff the droplets of blood.
Whetsman’s heart pounded in his chest as he trembled in Cliff’s grasp and watched him touch his tongue to the spots. “What the fuck are you doing? That’s disgusting!”
“Cliff?” Todd called again.
Fury rolled through him, exciting the voices and amplifying their calls for violence.
That’s Linda’s blood! He killed her! He tortured her! He cut her up! Cut him up! Butcher him!
“What did you do?” Cliff growled, tightening his grip on Whetsman’s arm.
Bone snapped and crunched beneath the pressure.
Whetsman screamed.
Cliff shook him like a dog with a toy. “What did you do?” he bellowed. Spinning, he yanked the scientist across the hallway and slammed him into the wall.
More! Fuck him up! Fuck him up!the voices demanded, filling his mind with gruesome ways he should punish the bastard for killing Linda. For killing his friend.
“Help me!” Whetsman screeched. “Kill him! Kill him!”
Like Whetsman had killed Linda?
Fuck that.
An alarm began to blare. Boots pounded up the hallway.
Cliff threw the man across the hallway again, taking pleasure in the crack that sounded as Whetsman’s head struck the wall.
A dart skimmed past Cliff’s nose. He ducked a second one, then a third.
The snicks of suppressed gunfire filled the air.
Bullets struck his torso. Agony tore through him, merely heightening his fury.
Roaring, he bent over Whetsman where he’d crumbled to the floor, picked him up, and hurled him at the guards who ran toward them, weapons raised.
The gunfire stopped. Swears erupted as bodies tumbled to the floor.
Cliff started toward them, seeing nothing now but the man he wanted to rip to shreds.
More bullets peppered him.
Cliff stumbled backward, howling in pain and fury as Whetsman picked himself up and limped toward the elevator.
That fucker was getting away!
Cliff shot forward at preternatural speeds, bowling through bodies, seeing no faces, only impediments keeping him from reaching Whetsman before—
The asshole ducked into the elevator and the doors slid closed.
“No!” Cliff slammed into them full force. The heavy metal dented with a thunderous rumble but didn’t halt the elevator’s ascent.
Something jabbed him in the back. Ignoring it, Cliff dove for the door to the stairwell, plowing through more obstacles he barely acknowledged were guards. Men cried out as he batted them aside and leaped up to the first visible landing. Dizziness rose. Lethargy threatened, dragging at his legs like a strong river current as he raced upward, one floor after another, passing shadows that emitted screams so loud they matched the voices that kept yowling in his head, lending him strength and driving him onward.
Cliff stumbled out of the stairwell onto the ground floor.
Halfway across the lobby, Whetsman tripped and fell to the floor. A dozen guards followed and hovered over him while he clutched his arm and shouted, “He’s crazed! He’s fucking crazed!” When the scientist spotted Cliff through the dark legs surrounding him, he shrieked, rolled onto his belly, and started scrambling away.
The guards spun around.
Too late.
Cliff covered the distance between them in one leap. Grasping the back of Whetsman’s coat, he lifted him above his head and slammed him down again.
The scientist screamed.
That’s it! Hurt him!the voices clamored. Make him bleed! Make him scream! Make him beg for mercy!
More snicks sounded while the alarm continued to blare.
Bullets struck Cliff in the back and burst from his chest. Breathing became a struggle. Blood poured from his lips. But all Cliff saw was Linda’s blood on Whetsman’s coat.
Fuck him up! Make him bleed the way he madeher bleed!
Lifting the scientist, he threw him across the lobby. The sound of bones snapping brought Cliff joy as the fucker hit the wall. Leaping across, Cliff caught him before he hit the floor and hurled him at the granite desk.
More crunches and snaps. Blood spewed from the man’s mouth and trailed down his face as he collapsed in a heap.
Sharp pain erupted in Cliff’s neck.
His head swam. The voices in his head slowed, slurred, and stuttered to a halt.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” someone—was that Todd?—shouted.
Staggering, Cliff reached up and found something protruding from his flesh at the nape of his neck. He yanked it out. His balance wavered as he stared down at a tranquilizer dart.
His arm fell to his side. The dart clattered to the floor. He lurched backward a step.
A few feet away, Whetsman moaned.
Cliff sank to his knees.
Finish him off, a drunken voice mumbled in his head.
The warm blood saturating Cliff’s clothing cooled beneath a ceiling fan that rotated lazily above him.
He shivered.
All strength deserting him, he collapsed onto his side.
Pain careened through his head when it rebounded off the hard floor.
Blood rattled in his lungs as he struggled to breathe.
The entrance of the building… the door that led outside to sunshine and blessed oblivion… was the last thing Cliff saw before darkness enveloped him.
Emma’s knee bobbed up and down as she stared at her computer screen without seeing it.
Something had happened. Something big. Something bad. She just didn’t know what.
An hour ago the network’s alarm had begun to wonk, wonk, wonk, startling the crap out of her. A male had spoken over the intercom, issuing a shelter in place order. Then a loud rumble had echoed up the elevator shaft.
Screams erupted from the stairwell. Seconds later a few bodies ran past her closed door.
Emma thought she caught the snicks of suppressed gunfire and broke out in a cold sweat.
Were mercenaries attacking again?
Fearing the worst, she ducked under her desk and exchanged her pumps for the running shoes she always kept on hand now. Then she waited, heart pounding in her chest, hands shaking.
The alarm ceased blaring.
Mr. Reordon’s voice came over the intercom. “Attention, all personnel. Thank you for your patience and cooperation. A security breach took place that required our immediate attention. It has now been resolved. The threat has been neutralized. And all is well. You no longer need to shelter in place. Be advised, however, that as a purely precautionary measure, the building will temporarily remain on lockdown. I will notify you as soon as the lockdown is lifted.”
What the hell had happened? He’d said nothing in the hour since, so she assumed they were still on lockdown.
Emma tried and failed to concentrate on the task at hand.
When knuckles suddenly rapped on her door, she jumped about a foot. “Come in.”
Cynthia poked her head in, her face somber. After glancing over her shoulder, she ducked inside, closed the door, and crossed to seat herself in the chair on the other side of the desk.
The grim look on her friend’s face made everything within Emma go still. Her knee stopped bobbing. For a moment she even forgot to breathe. “What is it?” she asked, unable to bear the silence.
“Todd just texted me.”
“What happened? Did mercenaries attack? Is Todd okay?”
“It wasn’t mercenaries. And he’s okay. He wasn’t injured. But, honey…” She bit her lip and shook her head.
“What?” Emma prodded, so tense she wanted to scream.
“Todd said Cliff had a psychotic break.”
Alarm set Emma’s heart to pounding. She gripped the edge of her desk, holding on so tight it was a wonder her blunt fingernails didn’t score the wood. “Is he…?”
“He isn’t dead,” Cynthia told her. “But it was a bad one. He attacked one of the doctors.”
Oh no. “Was it Dr. Lipton?”
“No.” Her brow furrowed. “I think his name started with a W.”
Whetsman. Anger rose. That bastard was always antagonizing Cliff.
“Apparently Cliff really tore into him. I mean, he beat the shit out of him. And the guards had to shoot Cliff multiple times to get him to let the doctor go. Todd said he might have brain damage.”
Tears blurred Emma’s vision, then trailed down her cheeks when she blinked. “Cliff?”
“No. Whetsman.” Cynthia shook her head, her features full of regret as sympathetic tears welled in her eyes. “Todd said Cliff was crazed, Emma. That he also injured some guards.” Every word cut like a knife. “A lot of them. They had to sedate him to… to bring him under control again and keep him from killing the doctor. A few of them were so angry that…”
“What?” Emma said, her voice thick. “Tell me all of it.”
“They wanted to shove him out into the sun.”
Her chest hitched with a sob.
“But they didn’t!” Cynthia blurted hastily. “They didn’t, Emma. Todd wouldn’t let them. Neither would Mr. Reordon.”
“Where is he?”
“Cliff?”
Nodding, Emma opened a drawer and fumbled for a tissue to dab her eyes.
Again Cynthia bit her lip. “They chained him up in a holding room and are waiting for Seth to arrive.”
To heal him or to execute him?
That question coupled with the image of Cliff chained down, unconscious and bleeding in some cold cell, tore great gasping sobs from Emma’s chest. Folding over, she buried her face in her hands.
“Oh honey.” Cynthia hurried around the desk, wrapped her arms around Emma, and hugged her close. “I’m so sorry. I know how much you care for him.”
But she didn’t. Cynthia thought Emma loved Cliff from afar, like a shy teenager with a crush on the high school quarterback. She didn’t know the two of them had been meeting in secret. That they spent hours together every night. That Emma had kissed him. Made love with him. Learned every aspect of his personality and constantly craved his company. Cynthia didn’t know that Emma had laughed with him. Teased him. Enjoyed long, relaxing bubble baths with him. Lost herself in passionate encounters in the shower. Held him while they talked for hours and kept the voices at bay.
She couldn’t lose him. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready.
She would never be ready.
But she could do nothing to stop Seth from taking him from her. Or Reordon. Or Bastien who—despite his love for Cliff or perhaps because of it—would take Cliff’s life in a heartbeat if he thought it would end his friend’s suffering.
Emma couldn’t even tell Cliff goodbye because she wasn’t allowed on sublevel 5.
More sobs rocked her as Cynthia tightened her hold and stroked her hair.
