The Man In The Machine Read online

  The Man In The Machine

  Silas Vale

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Silas Vale

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

  First ebook edition February 2019

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  Valearith

  Valearith is the world in which all of my novels will take place. Because this is the second novel I have published, as well as the first novel series, this doesn’t make much of a difference. In the future, however, many novel series’ will begin to overlap, and those overlaps will be explained.

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  An Unlikely Appearance

  A Wayward Traveler

  Learning To Walk

  No Child Of Mine

  A Reintroduction

  Old Charges

  A New Friend

  Second Chances

  Future Leaders

  Leaving The Past Behind

  Meet The Maker

  Better Promises

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank everyone who has welcomed me so openly into the writing community on all social platforms. This book is dedicated to you, and I hope you enjoy where this series is going. There are many more to come.

  An Unlikely Appearance

  Cigarette smoke hung heavy and black in the small Vancouver apartment, with the night sky outside not holding too much of a contrast. The windows were thrown wide in an attempt to combat the stifling summer heat, but it did little good. The activities taking place within the apartment created a heat of their own.

  Blake Medea laid with her head pressed into the pillows, an attempt to stifle the screaming moans that ripped forth from her throat.

  There, behind her, performing acts that would drive any man or woman crazy, was Emma. The girl she'd met so long ago, returning once again.

  Her and Emmaline had never been stable; they'd broken up too many times to count, Blake had gotten with others, Emma had gotten with others, both had cried, scratched, attacked, fucked, and repeated the cycle over, and over, and over again. Frankly, the two of them being in the room together and not screaming, in one way or another, would be a miracle.

  They'd had a rocky relationship, and what they had at that point in time wasn't even a relationship, but they still loved the pleasure they brought each other. And oh, they were both very good at that.

  Their pleasure was interrupted, however, when the phone began to ring. With a passing glance towards the television, which was blaring some old episode of a show nobody watched, Blake glimpsed a name in the top right corner of the caller ID.

  A name that made her heart stop in her chest.

  She pulled away from Emma, all to the woman's anger. She tried to pull Blake back down, but if Willow was calling… Something wasn't right. Blake hadn't spoken to her old best friend in a few years, after their whole predicament with… Well, she tried to forget that part of her life.

  But she'd never forgotten what she and Willow had gone through together.

  Therefore, she pulled away from a very angry Emma, picked up the phone, and clicked the green button.

  "Willow? Hello?"

  "Hi." A tiny voice chirped from on the other side of the call. "Do you know my mom?"

  … What?

  Aisling Grace held her mom's cell phone in one hand, and was sitting in the closet of her room with her cat. Her hair was a mess of orange curls, and she wore a black headband to push her bangs back and out of her face. Her hair was seldom brushed (because she didn't like her mom brushing it, as she always tugged a little too hard), and she looked like a wild-child. Her hands were usually covered in dirt from playing outside at the neighborhood playground, and her smile was missing a tooth since her first one had fallen out a week or two ago. Her skin was pale like her mother's, and dotted with dozens of freckles.

  But none of that stood out when one got a good look at her.

  Because Aisling Grace had her father's eyes, the most brilliant purple a person could ever see.

  It was a shame her father's personality didn't live up to how beautiful his eyes were.

  She reached out with one tiny hand to pat her cat's head, the Bengal meowing and rubbing against her legs. "You're, um… Blake, right?" Her brows furrowed nervously. "My mama's name is Willow."

  Blake's heart jumped to her throat.

  Willow had birthed a child?

  The two hadn't spoken, and that was mostly Blake's fault, but she still would have expected Willow to contact her with news that big. Blake supposed that it meant she hadn't completed Nych, and… Had taken someone else.

  Eventually, she remembered that she was on the phone.

  "Christ, uh… Hey, sweetie. Where did you get this number? Is your mother okay?"

  If something had happened to Willow… Blake would have to go find out.

  That was her best friend. She couldn't let anything happen to her.

  "I'm on my mom's phone!" Aisling smiled slightly, but kept her voice soft. She heard a thump somewhere off in their house, and shrunk back into the closet a little more as she remembered the real reason why she was calling this number. "… My mama told me lots about you." She reached over, pulling her cat into her lap and wrapping one small arm around it. She was smaller than most kids her age.

  "She said that you used to protect her and stuff." Aisling frowned, lowering her voice even more. "Do you think you could come protect her again?"

  Oh no.

  "My daddy's really mean sometimes." She whispered into the phone. "And he hurts my mama and me, and I don't want him to anymore."

  Christ.

  Of course, Blake wasn't all that surprised. Willow had always been one for the party crowd, but never truly had the party in her. She probably met a guy she thought she could handle, who eventually broke her down.

  "Uh… Sure, sweetie. I will be there in a little bit, okay? Do you know your address? All the big girls know their address, do you think you could text me yours?"

  Blake had already started dressing herself, and eventually, she looked up at Emma.

  There was a scowl on her face.

  "So you're just going to leave again, huh?"

  Dammit. Blake really didn't have time for this. She covered the speaker so the girl wouldn't hear, and said, "Willow's being abused. You know the redhead from all those years ago? The one with the cancer boyfriend? Yeah, I need to go help her."

  "Of course you do. It's always you, Blake, isn't it? You're the only one who can help. I can tell you that if you leave that door, I won't be here when you get back. Ever again."

  Blake hesitated. She let out a long, drawn-out sigh, and pulled on the rest of her clothes.

  "Pack your shit, then."

  She grabbed her keys, her wallet, and walked out the door on a very angry Emma.

  "Alright, honey. Send me that address."

  "Okay." Aisling nodded, putting the phone on speaker as she migrated over to the text messages. After a second or two, Blake's phone dinged. "There you go!" Aisling chirped, taking the phone off of speaker again and holding it back up to her ear. "I sent it to you. I think they're arguing right now."

  "Alright, sweetheart." Willow's address was about fifteen minutes from the apartment, and when Blak
e got into her car, she put it into her GPS. She also connected her phone to the Bluetooth in the car so that she could talk while having her hands on the wheel.

  She didn't want the girl to hang up. She wanted to know if something happened.

  "So… What's your name, sweetheart?" She asked, putting the car into reverse and backing out of her parking spot.

  She just wanted to keep her talking.

  "My name is Aisling." She reached a hand out and gently rubbed beneath her cat's chin. "I have my cat here too. Her name is Mitzy." Luckily, she seemed like a chipper and quite talkative little thing.

  "My mama said you guys went to college together." She tilted her head to lightly rest against one wall of the closet. "And she talked about a guy named Nych, but she also said that Nych died, and she gets really sad when she talks about him so she didn't tell me very much."

  Blake cursed under her breath. She'd told the poor thing about Nych? Why in the hell did she go and do that, when she'd already decided to be with someone else? She would never understand that woman as long as she lived.

  But Blake pressed on, going ten over the limit in hopes to get there before anything escalated.

  "Has your dad ever made you or your mom go to the hospital, Aisling?" She asked coolly, hoping the answer was no.

  She knew Willow. She knew how fiery she was. Hopefully the asshole she was with hadn't taken any of her words to mean something they shouldn't.

  "Uh. No." Aisling shook her head, thinking quietly. "Whenever he's really mean Uncle Terry picks me up and I have a sleepover with Dean." Terry… That was a name Blake hadn’t heard in a while. Willow didn’t typically talk much about her brother.

  There were another couple thumps, and Aisling looked to her closet door nervously.

  "… Could you hurry maybe?" She asked after a second. "I think they're fighting."

  Blake cursed, this time audibly. "I'm coming, sweetie. Hold on."

  Four minutes more passed in complete silence, before she pulled up in front of a rather large house. She wasn't surprised; Willow was a genius, and therefore could likely afford a big house.

  Right now, however, the sound of shouting could be heard, even from the driveway.

  Blake pulled out a pocket knife that she kept in her glove box and moved towards the house, eventually throwing open the door.

  "Back. Off."

  "You talk to me like that again and I-" From the entryway, Blake could see into the living room. It was a big house, nicely furnished, and certainly up to par for a woman of Willow's caliber. The coffee table had been overturned, spilling a can of beer across the beautiful hardwood floor.

  And there was Willow.

  Being held up against the wall by a man with sandy blond hair and brilliant purple eyes.

  Marcus, as was his name, looked to Blake with drunken, angry eyes. His lips curled into a snarl, and he gave Willow's collar a tug. "You called her, didn't you?!" He snapped, and Willow looked towards him with a venomous sort of anger as she reached up to grip his wrist and try to push him back. "You stupid bitch!" He snarled, giving the poor redhead a bit of a shake.

  "I did no such thing!" Willow snapped back at him. "You get your drunken hands off of me, Marcus!"

  Marcus stared at her with an unknown expression, and Willow receded somewhat nervously. He released her collar, but before the woman could sufficiently back away he lunged forwards, punching her in the face and sending the woman to the ground.

  Blake's mind immediately went dark.

  Quick as a snake, and just as slimy, Blake darted in between them and slammed Marcus against the wall, holding the blade of her knife against his cheek while pushing her other arm into his throat.

  "What kind of man hits the woman he has children with?" She spat in his face, the blade quivering slightly against his cheek. It was dangerously close to his eye.

  "What has she done to you, huh, buddy boy? Has she ever struck you first without reason? Or what, is it just because she speaks her mind?"

  Blake's mind was racing with violent thoughts, but she calmed them. She couldn't get sent back to jail.

  "You aren't a man. You're a boy who never learned how to grow up. And you'd better watch your tongue with me, or I promise you that I will cut it out."

  Marcus snarled at her, tilting his head back into the wall to try and get away from Blake's knife. "I'll call the cops." He said, narrowing his eyes. His breath, not to mention the rest of him, reeked of alcohol. The beer spilled across the floor didn’t help his case.

  "No you won't." Willow propped herself up, turning away from them as she lifted a hand to her face. "I'll have them arrest you, Marcus."

  "Excuse me?!" His gaze turned towards Willow, and he resisted the urge to try and lunge for her. "You don't-"

  "I've…" She saw the chance, and she took it. "I've been building a case against you for months. Every time you left a mark on me or Aisling, I photographed it." She looked down at the blood on her hand, and pressed her eyes shut. "So Blake is going to let you go, and if you don't leave this house right now and never come back, I'm calling the cops and having you arrested and put in jail for years."

  For a moment, a brief flicker of panic crossed his face. "So that's it then?" It quickly morphed back to anger. "You're going to kick me out onto the streets? You know very fucking well I don't have any family left to go to you bitch-"

  "That's a good fucking thing, then," Blake said, still not relenting in her grip. "Because if you had another family, there's no way I would let you out of this house unless you were in handcuffs. What happened to your mother, beat her to death too?"

  She’d pat herself on the back for that one later.

  "So you're going to walk out of this house, and I guess I'll let you hold onto your manhood. But…" She looked him up and down, wagering on what bit of his body he wouldn't need.

  Eventually, she looked him directly in the face and hit him in the mouth with her elbow. The audible crack of a few teeth could be heard as Blake leaned in and whispered in his ear.

  "That's for hurting my best friend."

  She then threw him to the ground and kicked him hard in the chest.

  "And that's for getting me dumped. Now get out of here, you piss-poor excuse of a human being."

  Willow sighed, closing her eyes for a moment before she walked over to the door and locked it. She turned back into the house, and cast a glance to Blake. "… Aisling?" She called into the house, and let out a heavy sigh. She looked… Exhausted. Like the weight of the world had been placed on her shoulders.

  "… Yeah?" Aisling called out after a moment, sounding somewhat shaken.

  Blake tossed her knife up into the air, caught it, and slid it down into her black combat boot.

  When Aisling emerged from her room, she was quickly scooped into Willow's arms as the woman hugged her daughter close. She sighed, walking over to the couch to sit down and comfort the scared girl. "… He's not coming back, Aisling." She said softly after a moment, combing a hand through the girl’s messy hair.

  "… He isn't?" The little girl hugged her mother back tightly, frowning. "Are you okay?"

  She didn't seem to care very much for her father.

  "Yes, I'm fine." Willow nodded, despite the fact that her face was bleeding. "Don't worry about me, okay? It's not going to happen again."

  "Damn right it isn't." Blake said aloud, sitting down, uninvited, in the chair across from Willow and Aisling. She shed her black leather jacket, revealing a blue tank top that was stained slightly with sweat. Holding a man hostage like that could really work someone up.

  "Jesus… God dammit, Willow." Blake began, putting her head in her hands.

  Eventually, she looked back up at her, with sadness etched into her features.

  "What the hell happened?"

  Willow glanced towards her with sad eyes, and then perked up slightly when she looked back down at her daughter. "You hungry?" She asked after a moment, and a smile crossed her face. "You can go make
cookie ice cream sandwiches if you want, I'm going to go and get myself cleaned up and then I'll come make one too. Sound good?" She raised an eyebrow, and couldn't help but grin when her daughter's face lit up and she ran off to the kitchen to go make the delicious-sounding treat.

  She watched her disappear into the kitchen, and then sighed and wiped blood from her face again. "… I can't do it."

  What?

  She buried her face in her hands. "Marcus helped pay the bills." Her shoulders started to shake with silent sobs. "And I'm not smart enough to fucking finish him. I don't- I don't have the tech. It's impossible." She was talking about Nych. He was still plaguing her, more than ten years later. "How the hell did you even show up here?"

  Blake's eyes were solemn and unreadable as she stared at Willow, gauging what to respond to first.

  "And I bet it's been years since you even tried, right?" She asked, looking to Willow with sadness finally evident. "You just gave up one day, threw in the towel, said fuck it to your promise?"

  Ouch. That truth stung.

  "Listen up, Willow. I know what you felt for Nych. I know that every waking day for a year after, you barely wanted to move. I saw that, and eventually, I pushed you away. Yeah, I regret that now, considering this."

  She gestured to Willow's face, her disdain evident.

  "God, Willow… You need to get back on your feet. I had to come down here because your daughter called me out of the blue, and told me her dad was hurting you."

  Willow looked up at her, tears in her eyes before she eventually looked away with shame. "… You think I wanted this?" She said softly, wiping tears away from her eyes. Her hair was more organized, straightened and pulled back into a bun. Her face was somewhat slimmer and more elegant, with high cheekbones and a sharp jawline. She sniffled quietly, casting a glance towards the kitchen to make sure Aisling wasn't listening.

  "I tried everything I could think of." Willow murmured. "I just… I can't figure out how to get his brain properly hooked up to the machinery, and…"