Tales of a Shifter (P3) - The Secret Threat

Chapter 5 - Painful Amnesia

Chapter 5

Brandon watched the door close behind the three Guardians and took a deep breath.

He wasn't particularly hungry, but for now he wasn't even remotely ready to retire back into his solitary room. Honestly too bored to resign himself to another twelve hours of solitary confinement Brandon went to follow them, but he had only taken a few steps before he was wishing that the sound of food didn't sound completely repulsive.

During the course of the last few minutes his inner battle had take a turn for the worse. Brandon realized that using a small amount of energy after only a few days of rest may not have been the best idea. Brandon put his arms across his stomach and closed his eyes as pain flashed down from his skull and settled in the pit of his core.

Brandon was so caught off guard by the sickness rising that he forgot not everyone had left the sparing room.

"Brandon?" Ezekiel said to him. He was a few feet away about to follow his brother stoop the kitchen , but he had caught Brandon's Ill posture. "What's wrong?"

Brandon opened his eyes and dropped his arms. "Nothing " he lied turning to Ezekiel with a smile. "Im fine."

Ezekiel came over to him. All traces of claw marks and blood had been healed and wiped completely from his skin. "You don't look fine." he said his eyes as blue as the sky above. He gave Brandon a once over from head to toe. "Did you hurt yourself? "

Brandon bit his inner cheek. He used the pain to dull the pull of the sickness. He had to be more careful. The last thing he needed was for Ezekiel to figure out his secret. Again. His memory loss of what had conspired in the clearing had been a miracle. Brandon took a step back and brushed a hand across his sweaty cheek.

"Im fine." Brandon lied again. Then to change the subject he smiled through his progressing nausea. "So what did you think of my epic victory over your brother?"

Ezekiels chuckled and said "No offense, but victory may be a bit of an overstatement Brandon."

Brandon rolled his eyes, even though he was happy that the topic change had worked. "Overstatement?" He asked him with a scoff. "Feeling a little sore for you brother? I thought I did pretty okay for a mortal."

Ezekiel shook his head. "Im not saying that you didn't do good, but what if there hadn't been a table full of things like hand cuffs to use? Its good to be smart, but what if Lander had actually caught you, what then?" he questioned. "You always seem so confident in yourself and it makes me nervous. But it kinda makes me wonder..... Why too?"

Brandon rolled his eyes again. He walked over to the wall next to the table. " Don't get all over protective on me Blue boy, I would have been fine." he said and shrugged away the seriousness of the moment trying to bring a measure of distance back between them. But slowly he felt the gap between them swelling, filling with words, questions that Brandon desperately wanted to avoid.

"You have to stop worrying so much. In a few more days I'm not gonna be around for you to mother hen and I wonder what you'll do with yourself" Brandon said. Then going for another subject change he looked back at Ezekiel and exclaimed. "Anyway. Come on Ezekiel. Let's see some of that amazing stealth that Shifters are so famous for. Do a flip or something cool for me."

Ezekiel smiled knowing smile. Of course he knew that Brandon was changing the subject but he didn't seem to mind much. He grabbed the bloody towel off his neck and dropped it to the ground. "How's this?" He asked before, with a little bounce, he took off.

He ran right into, then up the wall next to the weapons table, then flipped twice. And effortlessly came back down onto his feet with a grace and speed that was all big cat.

"Show off." Brandon grumbled, he walked past Ezekiel and looked up towards the roof at least three stories high. "I went higher then you though." he challenged Ezekiel playfully, but didn't look at him, even as a headache began to drill into his left temple.

"You did do a remarkable stunt... you must have climbed What? A good seven or eight feet?" Ezekiel agreed with him from behind. He sounded happy, calm, but Brandon caught the undertone of dark curiosity in his voice too late.

"Maybe more." Brandon said with a shrug as he continued to look up to the sky. He put a hand the side of his head and rubbed away the thundering ach.

"More then seven or eight feet? That isn't normal for a mortal, Brandon. Not at all." Ezekiel stopped and huffed and crossed his arms and glared at Brandon.

" Tell me...is something helping you do the stuff you do? Like survive fatal Ghoul attacks, come back from the edge of death with out a scratch...fight a Shifter!?" Ezekiel mused. "You know....Im getting the strange sense like...Ive forgotten something. Something that is behind the things that you do...."

Ezekiel stopped and touched his temple. He looked like his head was hurting him and he also looked deeply troubled.

Brandon swallowed as another wave of nausea made him shiver and cut Ezekiel off with a dull question. "What am are you saying?" he said feigning curiosity. Brandon put a hand out on the cool stone and blinked hard trying to pull himself together.

Oh god he cant be....remembering right now

"I'm saying that I'm noticing your doing things that mortals can't do." Ezekiel said simply shaking his head and snarling. His voice calm, but Brandon could feel his eyes, focused, suspicious, watching Brandon's every move.

"I think...your different somehow. Your speed, your senses, your actions? Your healing from injuries far too fast. You're doing thing and hiding things. And something tells me...that it has a lot to do...with the fact that every time you see me since I woke up last week....you look like your about to crumble and confess to a crime."

"Ezekiel..." Brandon tried to rebuff him but Ezekiel wouldent stop speaking.

" And at night I have this sick feeling in my chest! Every day it keeps growing....and when I see you? I feel this terrible..." Ezekiel stopped, put a hand to his throat as if he couldn't swallow, as if he were thirsty.

He hissed then began again. "My heart....It hurts. There's a gap in my head from what happened! Tell me why!" He demanded. "What is going on with you....and with me!?"

And Brandon was speechless in the face of his words. Words that revealed that Ezekiel was quickly losing his amnesia at the worst possible moment.

"Ezekiel....I need you to calm down..." Brandon attempted to back away from the Guardian. "Nothing your saying is making any sense."

This couldn't be farther from the truth.

"Brandon...Don't do this...not now." Ezekiel growled at him in exasperation. "Lying isn't going to work this time...it never works!." Ezekiel spoke to him softly even as he used his weight and body to crowd Brandon into the wall.

A surge of sharp energy across his sense had Brandon rendered speechless for a few seconds, before he managed a weak response that he knew was only going to dig him deeper in a hole. "What do you mean? I'm not lying!"

" And yet I'm starting to remember things that don't make any sense to me." Ezekiel began to explain on a growl. He seemed to struggle with his words, a heavy cloud of surety and compassion pouring through the beautiful blur slits in his gaze as he spoke.

"I've been having these flashes Brandon...." Ezekiel said, stopped, raised a hand to his head and tapping his temple, then he took that hand and reached out, placing it to Brandon's cheek. "I feel this terrible pain inside when I'm around you......God, I even remember the taste of your blood...."

Brandon's heart literally tried to go into arrest as Ezekiel spoke, but the touch of the same man whose words were trying to kill him, somehow held Brandon together. The hand that Ezekiel had placed to Brandon's cheek slowly traveled down the side of his face, across the nape of his neck and stopped to dance at his trembling pulse, making Brandon secretly shiver for more.

"I know that something happened to me last week! Something bad. And I can feel that something happened between us too. But most of all I know....I sense....you have something you're hiding from the world...somehting that you fear.." Ezekiel murmured his eyes flashing up to connect with Brandon's.

At the conclusion of his words Brandon knocked his hands away in pure horror. "You don't know anything!" he shouted.

But obviously fed up and shouting back, Ezekiel snatched up his chin and forced Brandon to look him in the eyes. "Stop pretending like you don't know what I'm talking about!" Ezekeil roared in Brandons face.

Sharp silence followed his stern roar....and Brandon felt something inside of him start to bend....He was so exhausted. Would the running and lying ever end?

"I...can't do this..."

Brandon whispered and shook his head, pulling his face out of Ezekiels grasp, as much to remove the nausea from his senses as to shake off the panic as Ezekiel heavily interrogating him.

Had Brandon been too careless? Maybe, but he knew that Ezekiel was only fishing for answers at this point. He had to be suspicious after what had happened in the woods, the gaps in his memory and Brandon's sudden distancing from him and the rest of the family had to have convinced him that something about Brandon was amiss

But this couldn't have happened at a worse time.

Brandon was too sick to even think strait, much less play a game of wits with Ezekiel. Especially since Ezekiel was turning out to be one sharp cookie.

Glancing up at Ezekiel, coming face to face with his blue gaze burning with suspicions Brandon felt weary beyond belief. "Stop looking at me like that Ezekiel..." Brandon sighed and whispered.

Ezekiel hissed back at him softly. "What are you afraid I'll see?"

Everything...

A small voice cried out in desperation somewhere deep inside, but Brandon tried to ignore it.

Brandon shook his head again as a bout of dizziness swept over him. "I.... I need to leave...." He forced himself to say even as Brandon put a second hand on the wall and started taking deep breaths. Panic and nausea cramped his stomach unpleasantly. Brandon put a useless hand to his mouth.

"Stop it..." Ezekiel commanded him. His voice stern. "I can hear you heart beat." Ezekiel told him, still speaking softly. His calmness making Brandon all the more anxious. "Your heartbeats sky rocketing, it only does that when people are afraid or lying. And I know you don't have any reason to fear me....So you must be lying. "

"I promise Im not...I've got to go to my room! Get away from me...please..." Brandon murmured from behind his hand. He struggled to make the statement as he felt food rumbling in his gut. He knew that fleeing the scene was only going to make Ezekiel even more suspicious, but he needed to get away before this went any further south.

Only before he could step away from the wall he was shocked to feel Ezekiels arms had closed around his waist.

"Ezekiel!!" Brandon began resisting, but Ezekiels hold didn't stop nor did he speak. He just pulled Brandon up against him, an arm around his stomach and a hand placed at his throat had him immobilized and landed back against Ezekiels body. Anger replaced nausea and Brandon gritted his teeth as Ezekiels palm smoothed up and across his throat and closed around his neck keeping Brandon's face turned up and forward facing

"Let me go!" Brandon gritted out as he was forced to look up at ceiling while Ezekiel held him from behind. Before Ezekiel was suddenly snarling in his ear

"No God-Dammit! Give me a reason to do anything you ask me to do! Explain to me what happened in that forest?" Ezekiel spoke softly from behind him. The calmness in is voice betrayed by the storm in his blue eyes. "What did you do Brandon? Why don't I remember what happened?"

"Let me go Damnit. I told you not to touch me anymore! I don't have to answer any of your questions...!" he began. Brandon pushed him and tried to pull Ezekiels arms off, but his hold was like cement. He could feel Ezekiel against him. His bare back against Ezekiels chest was warm and moist from running. Brandon swallowed as he felt the energy between them take a dangerous turn, a sensual turn.

Touch was bad. Especially since both Brandon and the Flame were acting oddly whenever Ezekiel and he were in the same room. Touch only heightened that strange pull that seemed ever present since the attack.

"Before the attack happened you weren't this Cold to me. Why won't you at least talk to me now?" Ezekiel asked him slowly shackling Brandon in his embrace. "I have these memories' in my head...But ever since I woke up I cant speak to you. You've been shutting me out for days, biding your time until the Lock down ends again."

Brandon tried to think, though Ezekiels scent was so close and so heavy it only made him more nervous. The energy inside of him was beginning to push against his barriers...hard. It wanted to flow out of him and into Ezekiel, but Brandon didn't know how to stop it.

He didn't know why the power in him clamored waiting to jump over to Ezekiel ever since he had shared his blood with the Shifter he struggled to understand. He didn't trust himself. He didn't trust his powers. He didn't trust that he wouldn't hurt Ezekiel.

The flame....was so strong. So hungry. So needy. IT screamed inside of him. IT remember how sweet Ezekiel's life was. And it wanted to be released.

And because Brandon was a twisted, weak, monster in his own regard.....he wanted to let it out.

Brandon was hungry. He was needy. He was in pain...

He wanted to possess Ezekiels life, feel it flow down inside of him, strip him naked and own his body....

But...even stronger then this insatiable hunger and desire was the fact that he had to protect Ezekiel. From himself.