Chapter Seventeen | Deepest, Darkest Secret

All Warren had to do was give Apollo the nod, and Karou found herself arrested again. This time, Nate handcuffed her for good measure. Karou didn't fight her fate and put on a brave face. She allowed the guards to hook their arms under hers and all but carry her. The two men followed Warren as they escorted her back towards the Compound's main building. She had supposed a cell wouldn't be too awful until Nate gingerly asked, "Isn't there someplace else we can put her, Sir? What about the Fae nest? Lowell would allow it." Although he respected Warren's authority, the Lycan was often disappointed that his Vampiric boss lived up to the rumours about how heartless he was.

"If there were, I would've already allowed her to live there." Warren took the lead and walked with purpose. No matter how he was feeling inside, it never showed on his face. Feeling that he ought to make his point irrevocably clear so Karou didn't attempt another getaway, Warren asked Nate a question in return, "How many others live with you in the 'alternative quarters'?"

"Er, the De'en Charm number around twenty, Sir, plus me."

"So Lowell already has plenty of people under his supervision, no?" He shot Nate a look. "Apollo, how many other single men do you bunk with?"

"Eight, Sir."

Karou understood what Warren was getting at—the Compound was overcrowded. But at least they live with people and not icebergs, she thought bitterly.

When they came to the Compound's main building, they took a left turn rather than walking through the hefty doors at the entrance and entered a code-locked door. It led down a dark concrete corridor before descending a wide set of steps that opened into a vast underground chamber Karou immediately recognised as a prison. A column of cells ran down the centre, two back-to-back, and more lining the four walls. Some were inhabited. From inside, it was clear the prisoners had no idea what was happening outside; the screen frontages were one-way glass. 

Warren stopped in front of an empty cell in the corner. The transparent screen slid open when he entered a code into a wall-mounted console. From there, the Overseer took a step back, and Nate and Apollo took over, adhering to facility protocol. The Onexus uncuffed Karou. The Lycan removed her jacket and insisted on her shoes as well. When he pulled a tri-fold privacy screen around her and handed her a pile of clothes, he said, "Take off your underwear too, and please, don't make us check."

Karou knew it was a rite of passage for an inmate to relinquish their identity by way of their clothes and personal effects, and for now, she'd managed to remain relatively calm, feeling that this was as reasonable as Warren was willing to be. The screen saved her dignity some, but it was still humiliating getting undressed with three men present. Slowly, she stripped and dumped her clothes over the screen. The two guards loitered awkwardly. Still standing to attention, Apollo stuck out his chin, tapped his fingers off his firearm, and stared off into the corner of the room. On the other hand, Nate had taken a more casual stance, and his firearm hung from his shoulder by its strap while his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his pants; he stared at the ceiling. He thought this had already gone too far, but he knew Warren was too stubborn and proud to allow Karou to get one up on him. She was going to be punished into submission because there was no way other than Warren's way. Admittedly, Karou had started to wonder similarly to Nate; perhaps this fiasco was just a total screw-up on her part. This was the cruellest Warren had outwardly acted towards her since she'd arrived. Even though she had pushed him to this, she continued her protest as childish as it seemed. Negative attention was better than no attention. Still, Karou was at Warren's mercy, and maybe his resolve was stronger than she'd been counting on. Perhaps she'd misjudged the Vampire. Maybe he had nerves of steel. After all, he always seemed to handle everything thrown at him with such ferocious calm; she imagined that not even an apocalypse could throw him off-kilter. He would straighten his tie, comb his hair back into place and carry on.

Down to her underwear, Karou hesitated. Have I given him too much power? I pegged this whole thing on him having a softer side. What if he doesn't have any kinda conscience? What if he actually locks me up in here and never lets me out? 

When Karou placed her delicates over the edge of the screen, Nate's eyes widened and shot Warren a look, asking if this was necessary. They both knew she wasn't a threat and didn't deserve this treatment, but she insisted on being difficult. Warren huffed and folded his arms to show the Lycan that he wasn't about to back down. "This is her choice," He reiterated.

Karou dressed in the 'uniform' provided, a white t-shirt and dark grey jogging pants. They were so oversized that they hung off her petite frame almost comically. Once she was decent again, Nate peeled back the screen and gave her a nudge into the cell. She expected the cell to close immediately, but it remained open while she looked around. The prison cell was a hollow cube of concrete, one way in, one way out. In there, one could have no idea if it was night or day or how much time had passed. It was disorientating by design. The isolation was total, and the stimulation zero. Just bare, sterile, whitewashed concrete all around, and the floor was cold beneath her feet. Her bag had been confiscated and emptied onto a metal table by Apollo. He noted each item on a clipboard and loaded them into a plastic storage box. Sitting down on the bed, Nate and Apollo finished their task before taking their leave and marching back up the steps and out of sight. 

Hand lingered over the cell's console, Warren looked her over one last time. "Karou, you've made your point now." He sighed. "Do you honestly want to stay here?" 

Frustratingly, she seemed perfectly fine and sat on the bed with her arms wrapped about her shins. Even if her clothes were too big and she only had one blanket. Even if there was no shower and she had no idea whether the prison food would aggravate her allergies, she had neither her sketchbook nor books to read; the outlook was bleak. "You won't let me leave," Karou stated the obvious, but his question gave her a small glimmer of hope that he might cave if she kept to her plan. It wasn't that she didn't like her life at the Compound; it was just that she didn't know how much longer she could stand the emotional torture of living in such a small space with Warren Howard and his icy façade.

"I can't," Warren wasn't going to budge, though he was struggling to keep up the appearance of indifference; his brow no longer furrowed in annoyance. Leaving the cell door wide open, he went to sit on top of the table opposite her cell. He rubbed over the back of his neck and sighed for what felt like the tenth time. Karou's stubbornness was equal and as tiresome as people found his. Perhaps he'd met his match. Absentmindedly, he looked into her box of belongings—he was surprised to see the style of underwear Karou had been wearing, recalling how embarrassed she'd been by the risqué selection of garments Ms. Finch had purchased for her. His moment of appreciation was fleeting, and he tore his eyes away because it was ungentlemanly to have noticed her under things in the first place. Clearing his throat, he explained, "I know you don't enjoy living with me, but none of the other accommodations have space for you…"

"Living with you isn't so bad when you don't make me feel invisible." Karou wiped her face with the back of her forearm when she felt her eyes welling up. "Just... acknowledge my existence, won't you? You don't have to care about it."

Her words were cutting, but they didn't tell him anything he didn't already know—he was extremely introverted. Yet, to his mind, he had shown that he cared about her existence, at least enough to keep her alive. As cruel as he could seem, he didn't want to lock her up down there. The cells were for petty criminals; those who chose not to behave were shown some discipline via a night or two in a cold cell. Karou was not a criminal, but if he had to scare the spirit of revolution out of her to get her back to the unit with him, he would. "There is one other option..." He paused, awaiting her reaction. "Other than this cell, or the unit, I mean."

"Okay..." Karou accepted cautiously. "What is it?" Then, curiously, her head tipped to the side in her usual adorable way.

"I can show you…" Warren hopped down off the table and started in the direction of the stairwell.

Tentatively, Karou stood from the iron-sprung bed to follow. Retrieving her tennis shoes from the confiscation box, she pulled them on and tottered after Warren to catch up with his long stride—he'd idled in the corridor. Once she'd caught up, he led her outside, over the courtyard and through another locked door on the west side of the main building; Karou had never noticed it before. Down another similar-looking concrete staircase, they came to a large vault door.

The gasp the door seals made when it opened stirred her from her thoughts, and curiosity carried her forward. Warren flicked on the lights; still, Karou strained to see, they were so dim. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she was relieved that the room was just storage, full of stacked pallets and crates. She recognised the logo, the crate's bore. She recalled seeing it in Warren's office and figured it belonged to his business. It spelt out: Redford. 

During one of their rare personal conversations, she'd asked Warren about his work, and he'd told her he was the head of a successful biological's company. He'd clammed up when she questioned further, but she'd put two and two together after fetching him blood from his office safe and saw the logo was on the packaging. The thought that all those crates were full of blood bags made her blood run cold. Until then, where the blood Warren consumed, on an every other daily basis, had come from had never taken up much space in her mind. While Karou took her time looking around, Warren traversed the room's length to another door. Before now, she'd trusted the Vampire, but since learning that she meant nothing to him, she felt less inclined to abide by his whims. Call it instinct, but she was hesitant, confronted with the unknown secret place beyond the high-security vault door.

What confronted her was like nothing she'd ever seen before. 

In the sterile, ultraviolet light, she could make out that they'd entered a glass booth that separated them from the chamber beyond. What the facility was was so obvious that the brutal reality was winding. Feeling rattled and wishing she'd followed her flight instincts, she looked back over her shoulder… Too late. The door was already locked behind them. With empty lungs, her heart raced to make her momentarily light-headed. 

Yet, as harrowing as it was, it was impossible to tear her eyes away. Morbidly curious, Karou examined the contraptions and their hosts methodically.

Tall metal columns reached the ceiling like life-draining trees. On their branches sat people. Hundreds hung in formation, circling thirty-something columns, suspended, sedated, and wound in tubes that supped away the blood from their veins. The substance lost its characteristic crimson colour under the UV light, which made the scene feel more sterile and less grotesque. She supposed the machines themselves were quite ingenious if she removed the fact that they reduced people to livestock from the equation. Karou had witnessed so much violence in her short life that her perspective adjusted quickly. The initial surprise subsided, and Karou accepted that she had been conquered; it left her feeling numb as she stared at the machines. So, this is my other option. When she finally tore her eyes from the sad depiction of her race from higher up the food chain, Karou looked up at Warren despondently. "Are you going to put me in there?"

"If I'd wanted to put you in there, I would have the night you arrived," Warren replied while staring down into Karou's eyes. The lighting and the fearful, sad tears that had welled in them without her knowledge made them appear bluer… and prettier.

"Then why did you bring me here?"

"Lots of reasons," Warren said in a hushed voice. "To show you that this is what I am. This is what I do and what I've become very successful at. This is why I live the life that I do. Karou, I'm not just an asshole; I'm a real-life, walking, talking monster. If you want to be my... 'friend,' then you should know that this room exists." Warren sighed and ran his hands back through his hair to comfort himself as his carefully constructed façade crumbled before the eyes of a girl who should have been nothing more than his prey. 

Karou knew her ploy had ultimately worked when she registered the vulnerability of Warren's body language. It was rare that his body betrayed his feelings, but now, even though his eyes were black and hollow looking, to the point that she couldn't construe any emotion from them, the way he held the rest of his face said a great deal. A man who was otherwise a highly private individual was willing to reveal something about himself this atrocious to coerce her into remaining his roommate. Would he rather she hate him to the core than let her leave the Compound? Now, she felt no cause to celebrate her triumph; she didn't like the dirty feeling that being successfully manipulative left in her chest. Still, if this wasn't an indicator of how toxic Warren's character could be, she didn't know what was, yet he seemed so ashamed of its existence.

"But mostly, I think I wanted to prove to you that I lied."

"You lied?" Karou didn't understand and tipped her head to the side the way she always did when intrigued.

"Yes. I lied. If you meant nothing to me, I would've put you in here. Your scent betrays that your blood tastes delicious. As a procurer, I know that your lifetime's worth of it could make me a lot of money if I hooked you up to one of these machines. You see? I could do much worse things to you than make you live with me."

"If I smell so... tasty, then why haven't you bitten me?" Karou asked, playing the devil's advocate. If she were honest, she was curious, she wanted an answer for all of the darker questions now that he'd shown her his darker side and the core of his Vampirism. Somehow, this revelation was what she wanted. All this time, she'd just wanted to get to know him.

Warren shrugged one shoulder, unsure how to answer. "I'm still clinging to whatever remains of my humanity by making the right moral choices despite my bloodthirsty nature."

"You... don't like what you are, do you?"

"I have moments where my zest for life ignites brightly enough for me to ignore my inner darkness—" Warren was too proud to admit that self-loathing marred his mental health. "—but they're fleeting."

His answer made Karou sad. Sadder than she'd ever felt for herself throughout her years of neglect. "Everything happens for a reason." She muttered. "If you weren't still alive, who knows what would've happened to me? In some twisted way, I'm grateful that you are what you are. Don't they say that the road to self-love starts with learning to accept your ugliest parts? It's only natural for you to want to take blood from me."

"That being the case, maybe I should get it over with already?" He mumbled spitefully. "You're just too easy to obtain. I would be taking advantage of your willingness."

Karou's brows arranged in a puzzled expression. "Are you saying you'd only bite me if I struggled because... it's more fun that way?"

"Oh, there's always fun in the chase." He rolled his eyes. "But that isn't my point. My point is that the thought of it doesn't terrify you like it should. What I want might be natural, but your reaction isn't." Warren gestured to the room beyond them by combing his hand back through his hair in his exasperation. "Look out there, doesn't that prove my brutality, my emptiness, my incapability to care? Doesn't this frighten you at all?"

"No, I'm not scared. All this proves is that you've been trying to protect me by keeping your distance... That shows that you're not as monstrous as you think you are. You can and do care, even if not for me, but just for the sake of your morality." Karou reasoned and looked away from him and at the machines again. "And besides, they're sedated. They have no idea what's happening to them. They're not afraid of being attacked by a 'monster'. This is just evidence of how you've chosen to survive. You haven't done this to satisfy a twisted desire to hurt people. This is how you've managed to keep others like you alive without killing Mortals in public." Karou paused, glanced at Warren and continued, "And I don't believe that deep down; you're a jerk, either. You're not acting like one right now. He's pretend—the person you become when you think you need to hide who you really are. Sometimes I bet your reason is bullshit." Karou made her point with a stunning amount of confidence. "You're making yourself feel guilty for something you haven't even done. And I—I just want to know what it feels like."

Warren had stepped closer, peering down into her face more intensely. Entranced by the look in her eyes and bewildered by her words, he didn't abate how his gaze might've affected her. He couldn't stop wondering; did she have him all figured out? Did she already know him better than he knew himself? "You have no idea what I could do to you." He whispered, half hoping to scare her and half that he could show her without consequences.

"Whatever it is, it doesn't scare me... because you lied when you said I meant nothing."

"What did you think I meant instead?"

"I don't know but we can find out, can't we?" Karou smiled up at him, as wholly fearless as she was hopeful. Karou had no idea how sultry the tone of what she'd said was to Warren's mind, but his appetite for her was thoroughly whetted as if his thirsty eyes didn't already show that.

"What are you?" Warren posed a question much more profound than it sounded.

She continued to smile sweetly and lifted one shoulder to shrug. "Oh, I'm just a girl."