The Darkness in the Light

Chapter Ten

When we materialized in a new room, I took a deep breath. I didn't bother looking around, instead keeping my eyes on Jax's. For once neither of us stepped away.

"An Amarok?" I asked quietly.

"He is forever in debt to you, until you release him or he severs his connection to life."

"A life debt."

He nodded and I looked down, still not stepping back. I wondered what he wasn't saying. My heart felt like singing, but for once I contained the urge.

"Where are we?" I asked, lacking anything else to say. Jax looked around and smiled.

"My rooms. I didn't think about where we were going."

I finally stepped back, my curiosity winning over my reluctance to shift. I looked around, studying everything in detail. There wasn't much to see. An unmade queen bed amongst stacks of clothing. A small kitchen separated by a bench. A double seated lounge and a coffee table. A door to the bathroom, same as in my room, wherever that was. The clothing range was entirely shades of black and dark grey, no colours. I smiled, grabbing an unfolded shirt and placing it on top of a pile, folding it as I went.

"Don't you think your style is a bit too colourful for a monster?" I joked.

He had followed me over to the clothing and carefully stepped in front of me, blocking my view. I huffed and looked up at him, feigning annoyance. His eyes smiled, though his mouth remained as serious as ever.

"A monster can never have too black a wardrobe."

"Well, if they had a completely, absolutely black wardrobe they'd be a black hole. Is that too black?"

His eyes were meeting mine, challenging.

"I am a black hole. People that come to close get sucked in and never return. No light escapes me, my little science nerd."

My eyes had been trained on his, those dark circles that I hadn't escaped. His fingers brushed my hair, barely there, barely real. I held my breath, waiting for something more. His eyes never left mine.

"Your little science nerd?" I emphasized quietly, challenging his word choice.

"Everyone here is mine," he said abruptly, breaking our gaze. He dropped his hand and stepped back. Perhaps I was nothing more than a slightly more interesting pet, a dove amongst pigeons. I was just another human to him, the same as everyone else. Yet I had seen how everyone looked at him, how they treated him with respect. Pets could respect, but could humans with their enhanced thinking ever be pets in a world where they were encouraged to live so freely? Could we ever belong to him completely, when there was always some other option, another choice to take, even if it was drastic?

And I had seen how he treated everyone else. He thought he was a monster because that was everyone's first impression, the first thing people thought when he entered their life. I'd since seen the way he watched his people, the way his eyes softened and his face lit up when he spoke of them and the world he'd created. He didn't treat them like possessions, and they treated him like a respected leader, not the monster he saw in himself.

But what did he see me as? Why had he dragged me to all these places, taken me with him as he rescued people and brought them into his world? Was it to show me how he worked, or was there something more to it? Maybe he cared for me, maybe he didn't. Either way I knew he had treated me like I was an innocent victim and he was the monster. That's how he saw his world. He may never have acted the monster, but in his mind, that was exactly what he was.