Behind These Refuge Walls

Lock the door. I'll let myself in with my key. Be good.

- Charlie

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"I'm not going to lie about something that might make me look insane."

"Of course she could be a liar. She might be trying to set us up."

"Gillian, please."

"She ain't lying," said an uncharacteristically sober Liam.

One rushed drive and lots of cursing after I had phoned Michael, Vallin's office at the school was filled with serious faces. A long silence ensued and I doubted there was one person who wasn't wondering what had happened.

From a black leather chair, Cain eyed me blankly - I deemed his look to be blank, because I couldn't truly tell what his eyes were saying. A pair of black eyes pierced my bones, yet he was almost looking through me. His body didn't move an inch, his jaw line caught the sunrays like a statue's. You could see every bit of an unpleased man in his aura.

I found myself staring.

Nikoli broke the silence with a chuckle and gave a knowing smile.

"Ironic how we've been struggling for months to get these people out of their hideouts and all it takes is one noisy, blissfully ignorant and lucky kid to set things in motion in less than a day."

"True," Vallin agreed, "but now we must catch up with this...speeding train of events."

"Or jump in on it."

The air stilled. Everyone's heads turned in the direction of the strong male voice. There had been few (if any) occasions on which I'd heard Cain speak and I hadn't gotten the opportunity to fully take it in. However, when he did speak, his voice felt like a pack of ice sliding down my back. It felt cold, emotionless, yet oddly revigorating. I twisted uncomfortably in my seat. He caught the movement and eyed me briefly. I froze.

"A valid point is made," Ivan's strong Russian accent interrupted and everyone seemed to agree. It was to my understanding that, desired or not, Cain was the person you could not disagree with, unless you were Vallin (and even then the younger man seemed to have greater authority).

"So what are you going to do?" was the inevitable question.

"We use you as bait," Gillian told me simply, eyes alight with a pleased smirk.

"Aren't you thrilled..." I hissed.

"Oh, darling, you have no idea." She sat back in the couch as I furiously turned to Vallin.

"You're not using me as bait, right?"

He shook his head vehemently. "No, no, no. Of course not." I relaxed slightly. "Not as bait, anyway."

My whiskers went up. Sensing my sudden, potentially suffocating panic, Vallin stood up. He walked up to me and took my hand in his.

"Charlotte, I would never do anything that could endanger a child or someone I care for, but you must understand that your recent run-in with these people and your knowledge of the Underground, which we all initially underestimated, have made you a valuable ally in this investigation."

I stared at him. He sighed. The thought that Vallin truly cared for my well-being seemed to unclench my stomach. That he was the only one in the room who did so made the fear return.

"I have a brother. I'm here to make something out of myself. My parents would kill me--"

"You don't get a choice." Cain stood up abruptly - you could feel him move, yet, despite his size, he paced lightly, like a feline. A very frightening, broad-shouldered feline. His eyes burned holes in me. I felt panic bubbling up. I couldn't breathe. No choice? "You were seen. You are a witness. Witnesses should not live."

Hence my developing panic attack.

I'm not dumb. I'm young, sometimes blinded by egos and burning desires for adventure that come with age, but I like to believe that I have matured faster than most of the ones my age, that my experiences have given me an exact glimpse of the real world. The Underground changed people's lives in ways that an ignorant Charlotte had not imagined. If full grown men could turn into paranoid old people, imagine what it could do to a teenager with no real direction in life.

"They'll chew you up," Gerry had warned me.

They might as well have chewed me up, because the things that I had ended up witnessing over the years were nowhere near the idyllic rings they showed me in movies. It was foolish - the whole soul of the Underground were final, desperate attempts to hold on to something, to a purpose. People died, right there in front of you, for money that no one could say for a certain that they would get after the match. One strong blow to the back of their heads and they ended up being paralyzed. One sharp hit and they collapsed to the ground, eyes staring emptily at the crowd - maybe even at you -, as they passed away amidst bestial roars of victory and pleasure. There was no one who entered the Underground and didn't witness this. No one.

I'd seen such people lose all the battles they could ever carry.

I regretted bringing Nathan to Orlando now. I truly did. I regretted returning to Underground fights. My hands went cold and I was possibly sweating. Most of all, I regretted knowing about the existence of these creatures, for whom I had no reason to fight. Humans don't help demons!

A cold hand pulled me out of my reverie. I saw Gillian watch me restlessly, coldly, like stalking her prey - even Liam seemed tense. Did they smell fear? Michael, after having stood quietly behind me, pressed a reassuring hand to my shoulder.

"Cain, I think it should be Charlotte's decision whether to get involved with us or not."

Cain could've killed him right there. I don't know how it hit me, or how I protectively stood up in front of Michael out of instinct, but I did. The gesture seemed to leave everyone surprised.

"As I have asked before, I want my brother to be constantly monitored." I dared, in a moment of pumping strength to look at Cain (and froze as if stabbed with ice). "You're a real monument, you know that?"

It was Liam and Nikoli who laughed and Vallin who smiled, but Stone did not react. He gave Michael a short glance with a message only known by them, then he returned to the position he seemed to have memorized: arms crossed over his chest, face betraying nothing than the hint of an inhumane creature with hatred installed in his soul. He worried me, frightened me and would undoubtedly become the one person I would strive to avoid, unless ordered to stay with.

However, fate is cruel. And what you fear, you can't escape. Two days later, I was staring almost dumbly at an all too familiar Camaro outside my block of flats.

"Bet you didn't expect to see us here! Then again, pretty ladies always consciously attract us starving dogs." Liam seemed to catch more enthusiasm for life as soon as he got out of the black car. I figured that anyone's cheeriness vanished around Stone.

Next to me, a surprised Janice and sceptical Nathan shot me different looks.

"Friends of yours?" Nate enquired. I placed an arm over his shoulders, aware of Stone's painful scrutiny of us. He leaned against his car and stared in our direction in a way that I, yet again, couldn't understand. Janice stared at him, in turn, and seemed to understand something.

Liam jumped in front of me and bent over to kiss my hand. The tall teenager by my side coughed.

"I'm Nathan, Charlie's brother."

"Hello, Liam," Janice greeted. "This is an unexpected visit."

"Oh, I'm just here to chat a little with my favourite girl in the whole wide world."

I made a mental note to explain all of this to Nathan later on, not missing Liam's underlying message. Janice and I exchanged glances.

"Nate, mind if you help me take these bags upstairs? Let's leave your sister to discuss business."

I knew for a fact that taking him away like this wasn't something Nathan liked - quite the opposite, really -, but there was nothing I could do, as I wanted him as far away from Stone as possible. When I had awkwardly asked Janice to join us on our shopping spree today, I hadn't even guessed that I would end up being thankful for having her around for the day.

"You're not the Prince Charming I woke up hoping to see in front of my apartment," I (shockingly) found myself joking.

That was all Liam needed. It was somehow amusing, like a small child getting the green to do go roll around in the mud as they please, only in Liam's case, he was getting the green to make sexual innuendos. In many ways, when he was in a good mood (which was most of the time, apparently), Liam was like a puppy who likes to jump around you and challenge you to play with him.

Surely it was easier to imagine Liam as a playful puppy and not a huge man with frightening tendencies of ripping things and humping.

He casually draped an arm over my shoulders and although I instantly tensed up and felt that eternal urge to attack (which I had yet to understand after all this time), I allowed him to talk to me.

Stone was still staring, still interested, still not moving a muscle. The back of my neck itched.

"Well, darling, I admit I'm not the brightest of the lot, but wait 'till you see how bright I shine in your bedroom! Let me bling your--"

"Why are you here, Liam?" I peeled his arm off me. He sighed and, though with the same playful smirk, decided to inform me of his reasons. "We need to get the show started, Char. There's not much time left and quite frankly, I don't wanna be stuck with a cranky Stone for the rest of my life. He wants to see that warehouse you were talking about yesterday."

"What, right now?"

"We can't wait, doll."

I looked behind me, Nathan and Janice just coming back from the apartment.

"So that's the infamous brother?" Liam inquired. I nodded, staring at Nate as he laughed with Janice at God knows what joke.

"I'll be with you in a few, just let me talk to Nate."

It took a fierce look to make Liam growl to himself and march back to the car, where he proceeded to wait for me. Stone still didn't move. He watched with avid interest as I asked Janice to take Nathan with her for the afternoon. He stared as I hugged Nate and ruffled his hair. His gaze followed my every step as I neared him and then, when I stood face to face with him, we locked eyes.

I don't know what happened - or how. I just stared, frozen in place at a set of almost black eyes that had nothing human in them. They were the deepest eyes I'd seen and I couldn't see anything else of Stone as I just stared in his eyes. He stared back; his eyes seemed to yell at me, screaming at me things that I wasn't ready to hear. The itch in the back of my neck turned to a burning fire and it kept moving down my spine up to the point where I couldn't breathe. It started consuming me--

"Charlie, watch out!"

--when he broke eye contact and I screamed as my elbows began burning, stumbling forward against the car.

"Are you kids out of your fucking minds?! Get out of the fucking road, you stupid bitch!" a man yelled from a car that passed us.

"Sod off, loser!" Liam returned.

I couldn't hear what else they were saying as I stood up. Stone was staring at me. The burns on my elbows were his hands - a set of rough, big palms that held my arms in a tight grip. They burned - a frightening hotness that started to cool down as the grip loosened and I looked away from him.

I waited for him to step away from me. For a second, I thought I'd be stuck there with him, ending up wishing that I had let that car run me over instead.

"Charlie, are you alright?" Nathan's alarmed voice resounded.

I quickly turned towards him and waved a careless wave. When I turned around again, Stone had gotten behind the wheel. Liam's face was dead serious as he nodded towards the car.