Christopher Buecheler - The Blood That Bonds: Part 1 of the II AM Trilogy (Volume 1)

The Blood ThatBonds

Chris topher Buecheler

Smashwords Edition

The Blood That Bonds is 2009 Christopher Buecheler

Published by Smashwords.

The Blood That Bonds eBook by ChristopherBuecheler is licensed under a CreativeCommons Attribution - Noncommercial - No Derivative Works 3.0United States License . Permissions beyond the scope ofthis license may be available: please visitTheBloodThatBonds.com for contact information.

Cover Art by Garry Brown

License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Asa free ebook, you are welcome to share it with your friends. Thisbook may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercialpurposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com todiscover other works by Christopher Buecheler. Thank you for yoursupport.

This book would not truly have been possiblewithout the efforts and encouragements of the following people. Iam deeply in their debt:

Caryn Law and Josh(wherever you are), for comments and criticisms that helped shape arough first draft into a more polished product.

Lauren Vogelbaum ,for professional editing on the second draft.

Nora Fleming for her early interest inTwo's adventures.

The aforementioned GarryBrown , for the awesome illustrations for the book andwebsite.

And of course to my parents, Bill andLeslie, who've encouraged me in this and all of myendeavors.

Pour ma belle pouse Charlotte.

Vermont Street. October.

Her name was Two, and she sometimes thoughtshe could smell her death, blowing in from the cemetery that laysouth of her building in East New York. Sometimes she even hopedfor it. Stinking, muttering, moldering death. Cold and dark. Onthese occasions, she felt as if even the dirty embrace of the gravewould be better for her than the squalor she lived in now. Shethought, maybe, she might find some sort of peace that had beenmissing all her life.

Darren owned her building, like he owned thegirls who occupied it. Three stories tall, four rooms to a floor.They lived two to a room, two bathrooms per floor, two kitchens inthe building. Just over twenty girls, every single one of themselling her body each night at his command. In return for the moneythey brought him, he gave them food. He gave them shelter. He gavethem drugs, and the drugs gave them escape.

Two was not supposed to be here. Shereflected on that often, and if she'd ever believed in a God, she'dhave cursed him now. Fickle, twisted fate had delivered her intoDarren's arms. Promises of salvation, undercurrents of doubt,desire, desperation. The cold prick of a needle.

She tried not to think about it.

Darren held the plastic bag filled withheroin above her now, like a treat for a dog. Little better than adog she was, really, down on her knees, eyes wet with tears readyto spill over. Angry, vengeful Darren, so filled with hate. Hatefor his parents, who'd given him his gorgeous mulatto features andthen abandoned him on the street. Hate for his ex-wife, who'd lefthim immediately upon discovering the nature of his business, butstill found fit to take half of what it had earned him. Hate forthe girls he had made his slaves, and who had made him rich. Hatefor the very money they handed over to him every night.

Darren didn't know of his own hate, but itburned in him so brightly it scarred his features. Twisted, cruellips. Pinched brow. Two might have understood this hate, seenreflected in it her own self-loathing, but Two spent most of hertime thinking about the heroin now. She had no sympathy for Darren,or his girls, no sympathy for herself. Lucid existence was the timebetween sleep and drug, drug and sex, sex and sleep. Short burstsof clarity, ever more painful, amid an otherwise blurred, wakingdream.

Beg for it, Two, Darren snarled, and Two'smouth formed words of penitence against her will, pleading throughtears without even realizing she'd meant to do it. She beggedapology for some imagined slight, some invented twist in her voicethat had caused this punishment.
Darren, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry for what I said! But what had shesaid? She'd only asked for her daily ration of the drug, in thesame manner she had for the past four months. If Darren haddetected any real change of inflection, it hadn't been intended.But here she was, on the floor, begging and pleading for somethingshe didn't even want. Begging and pleading and dreaming ofdeath.

* * *

Born Two Ashley Majors, her initials -substituting the number for her first name - worked out to theapproximate time she had been conceived. Her parents had thoughtthis terribly clever. Two would have gladly held it up as evidencebefore God that, whatever mistakes she had made in her life, neverappreciating her parents was not one of them.

For her first fourteen years, she wasAshley, and no one was allowed to call her otherwise. Maturity hadlent a different outlook, and she had begun to see the name as asign of what was becoming a fierce individuality. She would neverlike it, perhaps, but she was most definitely not an Ashley.

Shed left her father at the age of sixteen,her mother long in the grave. Alcohol, and the overwhelming desireto fill the void Twos mother had left, had brought rage and lustinto him when before hed felt only apathy for the girl. Hed nevertouched her, either in punishment or in passion, but the tensionand the fighting, starting around her twelfth birthday, had overthe course of years grown unbearable. At times Two found herselfwishing he would simply rape her, so she could have him arrested.She wondered if that was a healthy line of thought, and decided itlikely was not.

She took with her very little when shefinally left. She had very little to take. Trinkets, clothes,shoes these things meant nothing to her, as during life her mothercould never be bothered to pass down any of the traditional,societal definitions of womanhood. Could never be bothered with herdaughter at all, really, nor with her husband. Two had learned byherself about womanhood, in back alleys and cheap motels, yearsafter her mother had died. Her education handed down by what mentold her to be, what they told her to do. Promises of love, dropsof blood on the sheets.

When that didnt work, when she realized shecould be more than this, it came as an epiphany. A rare glimpse ofsunlight in an otherwise dark life. Shed left her father,apoplectic with desire and dismay and alcohol-fueled rage. Shedleft behind their hole of an apartment. She could do better on herown.

And she had, for a time.

Pool was easy, the angles naturally makingsense to her. Slipping into a bar even easier. New York City copshad far better things to worry about. Bouncers knew it, owners knewit, and a patron was a patron. Particularly short, pretty blondeswith good legs and a cute face. The type of girl who could enticean entire crowd of rowdy young men to stick around for more drinks,dropping dollar after dollar into pool tournaments that,invariably, they lost.

She didnt go home with these men, thoughmany had asked, and in the end this factored into her undoing.Descent and rebirth, and descent and rebirth again. These men couldnot understand her, or why she spurned them. Shed leave them witha knowing smile, standing dismayed in the street. Sometimes shekissed them lightly, thanked them for their interest, but alwayswith that mischievous gleam in her eyes, that sardonic grin on herface. The look that proved that, regardless of pretty words, shetook vicious pleasure in walking away.

It was power, and Two reveled in it. Theability to make men throw their money, their bodies, their heartsat her. Lots of men. Lots of bars. She walked away from every onewalked away grinning her savage grin. For eight months Two lived,celibate as a nun, feeding on the hearts of men.