Punishable Deed

By Marcia Young

In an act of generosity Kyla Sumpter takes in an abused pregnant woman she's never met. Kyla finds out before long that it's true that no good deed goes unpunished. Fleeing her abusive verian boyfriend, an abused human woman finds shelter with Kyla Sumpter. But safety is elusive and soon he's hot on her trail, wanting her—and their unborn child—back in his clutches. Kathe wants to hide, but Kyla and Kathe’s brother have a plan: lure Okey to them and remove him once and for all from their lives!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcia Young
• Release date: Dec 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301254637

Marcia Young

Marcia Young was born in the northwest and raised in the southeast. Having visited roughly a dozen countries, and lived in two, there is no place called "home". She currently resides in the southeast with her husband and their teen. Hardly a prolific writer she tends to write mostly when her husband is deployed, and when she should be paying attention to other things.

Book preview

Punishable Deed

Marcia

young

Verian Series:

Punishable Deed

Hybrid

Marcia Young

Copyright 2012 by Marcia Young

Smashwords Edition

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Prologue

In the aftermath of the violence, the room was deathly silent. The rage had been spent and an eerie stillness had descended where a moment ago a tempest of savage fury had battered itself against the walls of the tiny apartment. The calm that pervaded the room was perverse, twisted in its stillness.

Purpling bruises ceased their bloom across the artificially tanned skin that was pulled taunt over a delicate neck. Thick black rivers of mascara slowly dried in the path they run over high cheekbones and along a rounded feminine jaw before dripping onto a thin beige carpet. A thin stream of blood had stopped welling from a plump bottom lip. It had left a trail that dipped into the grooves made by flakes of torn skin, dribbling and sliding down onto the floor, where the cheap carpet had greedily sucked up the moisture. An emerald green eye stared vacantly up at the popcorn ceiling, while the other was swollen shut, puffy with blood that had escaped from ruptured capillaries; the faintly purple skin squeezing it closed.

The sparse yet tastefully decorated room stunk with the sharp ammonia smell of urine and the foul odor of defecation. A press wood table was tossed haphazardly onto its side where it had slid to a stop against a wall. One stiff, straight leg was splintered and broken, like its owner; blood was smeared across the jagged edges glistening brightly. Bits of glass sparkled in the afternoon sun streaming through the sheer window curtains as it bathed the woman lying motionless on the floor. Slivers of glass and wood were wedged into her skin as blood stopped welling around the foreign objects.

A snort of disgust cut through the silence, echoing obscenely off the eggshell white walls. The shrill wail of a phone somewhere deep within the apartment sounded hysterical in the stillness pervading the scene. The snick of a lock being thrown open was barely heard over the click of the answering machine and a female voice cheerfully informed its silent audience of her news.

Hey, kiddo, I’ve got the greatest news. You know those tickets you were dying to get for the concert next month, the girlish squeal was barely contained in the messenger’s excitement. I got them! Isn’t it great? I really thought it’d be sold out by now and it was a close thing. They’re not the best seats, but who cares? We get to go! I guess you’re out with your beau right now so I’ll stop by later tonight. Bye.

A flash of sunflower yellow hair slipped through the front door as the sun danced across a rose gold locket grasped in the hand of the person departing the premises. As the door snapped shut the room once more descended into silence as the answering machine clicked off and the cheerful voice faded out. The sun continued to sparkle obscenely on the copper colored hair spread in tangles around the silent woman as her body cooled and stiffened as the morning progressed.

Chapter One

The high pitched shrill of the phone ringing brought Kyla out of her blissful slumber with a start. She wondered groggily why she had bought a phone with such an annoying ring. It certainly woke her up quickly enough, though. She glanced at her clock through heavy, sleep encrusted eyes from under a thick comforter that she had tugged over her head; it was two in the morning. Who the hell was stupid enough to call her at two in the morning, she thought furiously. Everyone knew she wasn't a morning person. Focusing on the persistent ringing of the phone, she tossed back the warm bedding and stumbled to the obnoxious device resting across the room in its stand.

Hello, her voice was thick and husky, a good indication of just how deeply she had been sleeping before the interruption and tinged with anger. Discreetly, she tried to clear her throat. Stumbling into the corner of the table, she rasped out a few well chosen words while rubbing her injured hip. She just knew that was going to leave a bruise in the morning.

Well good morning to you, too. The amused voice on the other end could drop dead for all Kyla cared at the moment. That table corner hurt!

Sarah, it's not morning, it's two a.m. she snapped. Slowly, her mind focused on this somehow-important fact, sending up mental alarms. Why was she calling at two a.m.? Is everything, okay? The sharpness of Kyla’s tone betrayed her worry. Bringing up her free hand, she rubbed the sleep induced crust from her eyes, hoping that would wake her up. Deciding that whatever had prompted her wayward friend to call after all this time, at this time, it wasn't good.

Kyla made her way to the kitchen. There was no possibility of her falling asleep on one of those hard bar stools she kept at the kitchen island.

Sarah hadn't called her in almost two years, not since she moved away after high school. But that didn't mean she didn't recognize her friend's voice after all that time. They had grown up together and no amount of time or distance would ever truly separate them. She was a good friend but, through life and ambition, they had just drifted apart. Sarah wanted to make it big one day. Kyla wanted to make their hometown big, while maintaining its slow and easy life style. It was a delicate balance she was determined to bring about. The sleepy town of BlackWell, South Carolina, wasn't even on a map, at least none that she'd ever seen, aside from the town map. Most of the families who resided there had been there for generations, with only the occasional immigrant, literally or figuratively, settling in.

Kyla's family had lived in the town for generations as farmers, craftsmen, anything and everything; they’d done it all at one point or another. They were blue collar, middle-class people through and through, and proud of it. They worked hard for their bread and butter and were honest to a fault. Her grandfather had been hired several decades ago to serve as the caretaker for the town’s old plantation. The family that owned it didn't know what to do with their inheritance, but did know they wanted to keep it, even if they didn't live there anymore. History was big in the South; you couldn't help but live with the ghosts of the past.

Kyla's father had met her mother in college during the late seventies, the first in the family to attend college, a great source of pride for the family. Her mother had been attending the same college in South Carolina, despite being from California. She had wanted a change of scenery and so had decided to attend the small, respectable college, in part because it was out of the way.

Her mother and father were a study of contrasts that somehow melded into a beautiful harmony of matrimonial bliss. Her father was tall and slim with thick hair so dark a brown it almost looked black. Her mother was blond, blue-eyed, of average height with plenty of curves that had rounded out after childbearing. They couldn’t be more different in looks or personality; the laughing, vivacious California girl and her warm, but reserved, Southern boy, who never forgot his manners.

Kyla had inherited her father’s height and his warm caring nature. She had also managed to acquire her mother’s curves, along with her long, wavy, ash-blonde hair and pale blue eyes. It made for a tall, lovely woman. Not that Kyla cared much about looks. People were far more interesting to her and she was exceedingly curious as to why her friend chose this ungodly hour to contact her.

I know I haven't called in a while and I am sorry about that, Sarah began.

A while? Sarah, it's been two years. At least I get emails from you, so I won't complain, but tell me what's wrong. Shuffling around the kitchen of her house, Kyla decided she was going to need something to wake her brain fully and get her through this, whatever 'this' turned out to be. She took a full breath of the rich, deep aroma from the freshly ground beans that soon filled the air as her coffee percolated.

I'm sorry, I really am and I'll try to call more often, but not too soon, okay? There was an edge to Sarah’s voice that Kyla thought sounded like suppressed panic. Finished shoveling sugar and cream into her mug, Kyla took a deep breath and steadied herself. Sarah was definitely in trouble, but that was hardly new. The panic, however, was. Sarah wasn't inclined to panic; she tended to face things head on and was normally level headed, unless you added her boyfriend, Daniel, into the equation. That man could bring out her temper quicker than anything else, without even trying most of the time. He had confided in Kyla once that he enjoyed the sight of an enraged Sarah and it was worth the bumps and bruises.

So tell me.

Well, remember how I mailed you about my friend Käthe Ioffe?

Yeah, she wasn't sure where this was going, but she wanted to be more comfortable. Taking a sip of her coffee, she settled onto a stool at her kitchen island. One of the things she loved about her house was its spacious, country style kitchen with the large windows surrounding the back door. If it had been daylight, she could have seen onto her porch and into the garden beyond from where she sat. Gazing absently out the dark windows, she turned her attention over to Sarah.

Well, it's like I said when I ranted to you about her situation. She swears she's in love with some verian named Okey. Only he treats her pretty bad.

He smacks her around, huh? While Sarah had never come out and said so in their emails or IM's, Kyla always had a feeling of tension whenever this Okey was mentioned. Like Sarah wanted to say more, but was afraid to, in case she was mistaken in her assumptions.

Yeah, I never saw the marks. Käthe was careful to keep them hidden, but she's finally admitted to it.

So go to the cops. Sounded simple to her, what was the problem?

I would, but he's threatened to kill her.

 Like I said, go to the cops. They'll put a restraining order out on him. If he violates it, he gets arrested. Really, why were they making this so difficult?

"She won't go; she's terrified of him, especially since he could easily get to her without violating it. He's a verian and could use his powers to attack her from a distance. There’s no telling what kind of powers he has, and you know he has some, they all do."

Kyla chose to let the last comment go. It was too early in the morning to deal with a discussion of how, to verians, it wasn’t a ‘power’ that they possessed it was simply a part of them; much like each human had their own level of intelligence, talent and physical strength. As Sarah said, they all had some unique ability. What she failed to grasp was it didn’t automatically translate into a destructively evil and power-hungry individual. Sarah, like most humans, while not necessarily prejudiced against verians, was wary of them because they were different and able to do things no human ever could. Kyla herself knew several verians whose ‘ability’ was either an instinctive knowledge or healing powers.

If you tell them, the cops would take that into consideration, ya know. Kyla was getting frustrated. She didn't have patience for people who kept making excuses like that to stay with someone who'd beat them. In her opinion, it was better to die free than die a captive. That's what the girl was, as far as Kyla was concerned. She was a captive to her heart and her fears, and she wasn't strong enough or brave enough to free herself.

Look, it's just not that simple. She could hear Sarah huff over the line. She rolled her eyes; Sarah was always a sucker for a sob story.

Okay then, what do you want? It was obvious that she wanted something. She wouldn't have called at two in the morning after two friggen years of silence if she didn't, and her pussyfooting around the matter was pissing a very tired Kyla off; not to mention the blatant attempt to manipulate her softer feelings. Despite what some people thought, she did have them. She had just learned the hard way that some people would take advantage of those feelings, and you never knew who those people were until it was too late.

I got Käthe to agree to leave him. Apparently she's pregnant and he hates hybrids.

 You've got to be kidding me? The irony of the situation was too much for her and the dark amusement carried over into her tone. She's with a verian who hates hybrids and she's human? Honestly, this girl isn't very bright, Sarah. I know she's your friend and all, but come on.

Verians were an ancient flora-based humanoid species that predated humans by hundreds of thousands of years. Each verian had unique abilities, compared to humans, not unlike their cousins, common plants. Humans were often looked down upon since they were a much younger fauna-based species. In a verian’s eyes, they had two things going against them, the youth of their species and the fact they were mammals. Very few verians bothered with humans at all and even fewer involved themselves romantically. Only in the last hundred years or so had humans begun to gain equal rights, but hybrids, as rare as they were, were treated with contempt by most beings. They had their basic sentient rights and that was it; and that was only in the developed countries like the United States.

Hybrids were the rare, though rising, subspecies produced when a verian and a human procreated. Each was unique, ranging from the ethereally beauty of some verians to ugly, nightmarish creatures of others; and their powers were as varied as their looks.

A heavy, frustrated sigh met her ears. Look, will you stop judging and listen?

Fine, fine. Do continue this tale of woe.

God, Kyla, this is serious! This ass is going to kill her when he finds out. She's lucky that he hasn’t sensed it yet. She has only a few weeks, though, until he will be able to sense the life growing inside of her. She needs a place to crash until we can contact her brother, someplace no one will look for her because no one would know to look there. Sarah's voice was steadily rising during her rant, causing Kyla to raise an eyebrow at the phone. Sarah certainly was passionate at times, she mused.

Ah, and a friend you barely speak to would be a great choice. Her voice lacked any of the bitterness one might have expected from her. Really, it did make sense, and she loved Sarah like a sister, hence the bickering. Kyla set her empty mug down on the counter, pondering whether she really wanted this pregnant woman in her life, for however long.

Look, Kyla, I know how you feel about women like her, but not everyone is strong enough to leave everything behind like you did. I know I haven't been the best of friends but Käthe needs help. If she crashes here, then she'll be found almost immediately. It'll be one of the first places Okey looks. You and I only communicate by email, or the occasional IM, and that's only once every few months. No one would think to look for her in BlackWell. You've never even met Käthe, for God's sake.

Well, that is true. Kyla said wearily. "No one would think to look here. This town is pretty small and if you don't know where it is, you'd probably never find it, unless you happened to drive by."

And we both know hardly anyone does that. Kyla frowned into the phone at Sarah’s helpful reminder. Really, she didn’t have to sound so damn chipper about it. Kyla did know that people rarely drove by, but she was working on fixing that. She loved her little town and she felt it could become a great tourist spot. The problem was that to get to it you had to take state roads hardly anyone used and it was nestled along the banks of the Savannah River between nothing and more nothing.

Yeah, I know. Kyla sounded a bit deflated, but she recognized the truth when it was told. Look, as much as I don't have sympathy for someone who sticks around in a situation like that, at least she is trying to get out. Sighing in annoyance, she continued after a brief pause, I'll do it. Kyla could feel the tension that had built up during their conversation vanish at her words.

A squeal pierced her ear making her jerk the phone away for a moment. Thank you so much, Kyla. I'm going to rent her a car tomorrow and have her drive down.

Hey, hey, hold up. Since I agreed to help, we're doing this my way. If this guy of hers is smart, then he'll look for something like that. I'll rent the car under my name. No one there knows it. Give me the number of a rental place, a national one. After jotting down the number, Kyla pulled her laptop over, went online and pulled up directions. I want you to write this down. Giving Sarah directions to Charleston she continued, Now, I'll meet her there tomorrow.

Tomorrow? But it's like a twelve hour drive, maybe more.

How soon can you get her here without raising suspicion? You need to do this right. Something dawned on Kyla making her flinch at her own stupidity. "Wait, if she just ran to you about leaving him today, then she needs to wait. If you waited to call me, then we can meet tomorrow. You want him to think that she's not going anywhere before she makes her move. Don't let her give notice to anyone that she's leaving. No one can know 'til after it's done."

I won't be able to arrange that 'til next week, then. She stayed with me last night, but he demanded that she go home this morning. She went with him willingly, but we had discussed her leaving him. I told her I'd work something out.

Next week is too soon. He'd be looking for it, she mused quietly. How long until he figures out that she’s pregnant?

Probably a month at the soonest.

Okay, here's what we'll do: I want her out of there three and half weeks from today. Do not contact me again by any means. If you want to get in touch with me pass a message along through Daniel, and only if it's an emergency. We can't leave a trail for this guy to find, if we can help it. He probably won't be able to get a hold of your phone records, but you never know. They do list all calls on your bill, after all. Have Daniel call me from a pay phone in a noisy area. He'll be less likely to be overheard with a lot of background noise. Do not talk about this to Käthe.

Kyla continued to give directions and make contingency plans with Sarah well into the morning. Finally, with only an hour left before she had to get to work, she hung up. Leaning her elbows on the kitchen island and resting her head in her hands, she sighed in emotional exhaustion, her ash-blonde hair falling about her shoulders in a messy cascade, still tousled from sleep. She had a lot to do in the next three and a half weeks.

Groaning, she pushed herself up to start getting ready for work. No matter her selfish ways, she was just a softy at heart. Her conscience always seemed to get the best of her in situations like this. She really didn't have much pity for weak women, but this Käthe was trying to get away, she was trying to be stronger. If she could help her along the way, she might as well. The chances of this Okey guy finding her here were pretty slim. BlackWell was a tiny town and always had been. As long as everyone did their part, she'd get Käthe to her brother safe and sound.

Chapter Two

Sarah hung up the phone with a sigh. Her instructions had been memorized; Kyla wouldn't let her off the phone until she could recite her duties from memory. Nothing was to be written down. It was too risky. She felt nervous and jittery. She finally had a way to help Käthe. She had suspected something was wrong for quite a while. While the girl was vivacious, there was always a shadow in her eyes; a kind of sadness lingering there, pushed back and half-forgotten. Women in abusive homes often felt like they had nowhere to go, and she supposed that living like that could eat away at a person's very soul. Sarah had decided to help after their heart-to-heart last night when Käthe had finally admitted that she was abused by her live in boyfriend.

Käthe's brother worked for Rapid Fire, Inc. and would help her out, she thought, nodding to herself. Sarah was sure he’d do so gladly. The problem was finding out how to get hold of him. All Sarah had was a last name and a company. Unfortunately, Rapid Fire, Inc. was a large corporation. The kind Sarah hoped to work for one day. She couldn't ask Käthe about him. There needed to be as invisible a trail as possible if they were going to do this right. She also knew that Käthe never talked about her family to Okey; as far as he was concerned, she could have risen from the sea one day, fully grown, like Venus.

If Sarah had taken Käthe in, Okey would have found her in no time. Like this morning, or rather, yesterday morning. It was six a.m. now and she needed to get started. First, she needed to talk to Daniel after classes. She had no doubt that he'd help her. But for now - bed, her first class didn't start until ten.

***

Sarah stared up at the tall building before her. The bustle of the city swelled around her, but she was oblivious to it as she focused on gathering her courage for what she was about to do. She had succeeded in getting an appointment with Yarilea Edelweiss, the President of Rapid Fire, Inc. It hadn't been easy and had required some creativity with the truth on her part, but she had done it. She had spent the week and a half since her dead-of-the-night conversation with Kyla in securing the appointment with the damned hybrid in question. It had involved significantly less time to find out what position Edelweiss held in the company. She realized that he was busy, but still, you would think that he'd call her back or something, considering she had said it was important. Snorting at the thought, she figured that his secretary probably had lots