RAY HOOK
Year 2014
(Summer, The U.R.T., Crescent Bar)
Every night, he dreamed of her. The dream was always the same: they'd be playing catch in a vast open field covered with snow and a blanket of shine. Ray recognised the place yet he couldn't quite place it. The sun would be shining, and he'd smell morning in the air, yet every breath would blow a wispy cold as though it was winter. But Ray felt warm inside.
Every time, he'd wonder about the warmth, and everytime, he'd stare at her thick blue puffy coat, wondering if it was because he was wearing the same thing. Then, every time, he'd look down—and the white ceiling of his bedroom would be blinking back at him.
"Kate…." He breathed and swallowed, and winced.
His throat was parched—a sign that he'd been crying in his sleep again. He touched the corner of his eyes and cool dampness kissed his fingertips. Guilt and regret swarmed in and sighed out into the air-conditioned coolness.
Squeezing himself into a smaller box under the covers, the young Alpha curled up into a crescent to coax himself back to sleep, back to that dream, back to her.
He missed her so much.
"Where are you, Kate?"
He's searched every forest, every mountain, but the monastery can't seem to be found. Like it never existed.
It doesn't want to be found, of course, the cool silence echoed a familiar critical tone, and Ray found himself agreeing to its logic. It was angry at being abandoned so it hid itself, refused to be seen or heard from ever again. It would not allow itself to be hurt again.
"No…." Ray hugged himself tighter. The wrong must be right. He didn't mean it. He was scared. Please, he begged the darkness, please forgive me. Please give me something, anything. I will do anything. When I find her, I'll stay by her side. Snowy will never leave her. Never again.
"Knock, knock, knock."
His eyes opened, and darkness stared back, glaring with judgement.
"Ray-ster, you up?" His uncle asked, and the door rapped a few times more.
Ray-ster let out a weary groan and flung the covers off him. "Yes, I'm still alive."
At the permission, the door opened and the ex-Delta entered in his cheerful stride, a tray in his hands. "Pancakes with fresh grape jam," he sang as Ray pulled himself into a sitting position to meet the delicious stack of sweet cushions. "Andrea's golden fingers," added his uncle's voice.
Groggily, Ray took the tray and left it on his bedside table. "I'm not hungry." He yawned and stretched to wake the muscles in his back.
"Didn't you just hear what I said?" The tray of sweet warmth and bright smiles landed on his lap, and Ray lifted his own version of 'fuck-off' frown at the grinning geezer.
"Loud and clear. And I said: I'll have it later."
His uncle yawned out on the bed as though he was taking a mermaid shot. ""Cut me some slack, eh, Ray–ster?"
"You need to respect my boundaries," warned the young Alpha.
"I can't have your mum breathing down my neck too." The older wolf pleaded with a pout.
And sympathy won.
Ray snatched the fork and knife in sheer reluctance. "You just don't want Andrea to leave," he growled, watching the knife slice smoothly down the stack and airy cushions. Then, he stabbed with a fork and shoved it into his mouth.
"And she won't leave as long as you've got those beautiful blue eyes." The playboy bar owner flashed an anticipating grin.
Ray chewed blandly. "Take them."
"If only I could."
"Use sorcery." Ray swallowed and sighed, "I hate them anyway."
"Maybe Kate loves them."
It was a tease. He could tell from that impish grin. But Ray didn't find it funny, and instantly, his uncle caught on and changed the subject.
"I still don't get why the King can't help. He's the King for a reason."
Irritation narrowed Ray's eyes into a new warning glare, and his uncle changed the subject again. "The Queen's dying to help too."
Ray picked up the glass of orange juice and downed it like whiskey, then slammed the empty glass on the tray, and his uncle quickly flashed both palms of truce.
"Jesus, I'm not saying that you can't do it."
"Then, what are you saying?"
The ex-Delta studied his nephew's rage then, in a light chuckle, took over the fork and knife. "I'm saying that your parents are worried about you disappearing over the weekends." He sliced the pancakes into a neat cuboid then pushed the fork through in its middle. "They do worry too much, I agree," he repeated parts of their last discussion, and the food arrived before Ray's mouth when he concluded quietly, "But aren't you completely clueless at this point?"
He wanted to put a fist into his uncle's face. But that would make him a criminal here, and this is still the best place to stay. So Ray bit the food off the fork and chewed in greater annoyance.
"It's a huge monastery," murmured his disappointment, "how can it just vanish without a trace?" He caught an answer in his uncle's grinning eyes and immediately slapped that in the face, "even with an avalanche, I can still see where it's buried, can't I?"
His uncle shrugged. "All I'm saying is that you've got options, Ray-ster. Just say the word, and the Alpha King's at your service. Do me a favour: say you'll give it some thought, huh?"
"'Some' is too much," Ray grumbled as another cuboid entered his mouth.
"Wonderful!" The ex-Delta glanced over his shoulder at the opened door. "Hear that? He'll give it a little thought."
And Ray's chewing came to a screeching stop. He checked the doorway and finally caught the shadow on the intruder. "You betrayed me?!" He turned to his uncle, appalled, and those palms of truce shot up again.
"I'm just an employee, Ray-ster."
"Go away!" Ray flung the tray aside. "I'm not going back! GO AWAY!" Rage shot him forward like a silver bullet from a gun, but his uncle blocked his path, holding him back like a leash.
"Ray-ster, calm down! He's here because you disappeared for the weekend so he's worried!"
"I don't need your worry!" Ray roared at the doorway, scratching and clawing the air between them madly, as though he was fighting a monster in front of him. "You said you'll leave me alone so LEAVE ME ALONE! GO AWAY!"
"No one's taking you back, sweetie!" His mother's voice spoke from behind the wall. "You're staying—isn't he, Kee?—your father said 'yes', Ray. He's nodding his head!"
"This room is yours, Ray-ster," Ambrose grunted in pain. A Delta's strength was never a match for an Alpha's. "Remember? It's yours permanently. You know what that means, right?"
The Alpha finally halted. His two blue eyes of boiling flame glared down at the face who finally lost its grin, and, without another word, he flung the leash out the door, then stormed over and slammed it shut in an exploding bang.
*****
The ring of dismissal exploded across the school, and Ray casually closed his books as the teacher muttered a gentle reminder of tomorrow's test to a stampede clearing the classroom. At the sight of him, the teacher flipped to a warm smile.
"Congratulations on winning the BSEC, Ray."
She was talking about the Blue Sky Entrepreneur Competition. Indeed, Ray's team won the grand prize. But, Ray wasn't part of the team, technically. "I was only a consultant, Miss Harriss," Ray replied.
Miss Harriss chuckled proudly. "And when will you be on the team?"
Ray glanced at the clock on the wall behind his teacher and noted that he was going to be late, and flashed an apologetic smile, to which the lady, who looked as old as his mother, waved a hand in dismissal.
"I look forward to your answers tomorrow!" she remarked with the pride of a mother in her tone as Ray dashed past.
After a quick stop at his locker, Ray sped out of school and, in seconds, arrived at the bus stop, just as the bus came to a stop at the curb. An hour later, he was chauffeured into the city, and another twenty minutes later, he got down at the street of Crescent Bar.
His uncle was against the bar top holding Andrea's hand and gazing into her eyes, telling her how mysteriously starry they were. Ray let out a quiet chuckle and turned from them, and moved quietly to the staff lounge.
As soon as he exited the changing room, his fingers working the buttons, his uncle was on the couch sipping his drink, pretending that he wasn't waiting for anyone, and Ray chuckled lightly.
With Uncle Ambrose, apology is never needed. He knows the trigger, expects the frenzy, and accepts any response that Ray would see fit. So Ray moved to the mirror and feigned amnesia about what happened this morning.
"You got those golden fingers."
"Yup, I did." Ambrose smacked his lips tastefully. "And more."
"Even without the blue eyes?" Ray lifted his chin to fasten his bow-tie.
Behind him, in the mirror, his uncle nodded. "Even without the blue eyes."
"So the bar top is off limits today."
"Until I get myself inside her—yes."
His fingers paused at the shirt folded out of his waistband. Ray frowned at his reflection then asked his uncle's lounging frame, "Inside her?"
The older wolf blinked a few times to assess the situation and broke into a knowing grin at the innocent face. "Yes, you heard me right." He held that handsome blue gaze, a surge of excitement in his chest. "'Inside her'."
It was Ray's turn to blink. "Why? How?"
The excitement burst through. Fancy teaching the Alpha's cub about mates! Kee will kill me for this! The ex-Delta smacked his lips tastefully as his right arm slithered around Ray's neck and pulled him close. "What do you mean 'why' and 'how'?"
Ray looked ten times more confused. "I mean—why do you have to get inside her? Can't you just—you know—kiss her? Isn't that what you wanted?"
Ambrose was ten times more amused. "What do you think 'golden fingers' are, cub?"
A glint of annoyance crossed those ocean blue eyes. "Don't call me that. I'm not a kid anymore."
"Yes, yes. So what do you think it means?"
Ray felt his cheeks flame up. "Her—her lips?"
And his uncle sniggered, which made Ray cowered slightly. "Oh boy, those aren't her lips, Ray-ster."
Now, his curiosity is piqued. He'd been getting it wrong all this time?! "Then, what is it?" he eagerly asked.
And his uncle leaned closer to his ear and whispered, "Her fingers. Literally. You know how it works."
Ray followed his uncle's gaze and saw himself in the mirror. Instantly, an image of Andrea on her knees in front of him flashed across his mind, and his face flushed to the tip of his ears in bright red.
His uncle's laugh was still ringing clearly in his head even amidst the earth shattering music; Ray had to double his efforts to ignore it. But then he couldn't even look a girl in her face without seeing her on her knees in front of him, which horrified him and he almost wrecked a couple of wine glasses.
Once his hours were up, Ray ran out of the club as fast as his legs could take him. He decided to walk home this time. The cool night air should help clear his overcrowded mind.
He should avoid the bar for a week. He'd be back to normal by then.
But I need the money for travel. To find Kate, Ray thought about his low finances as he stepped over a large crack in the concrete pavement. Then, the need to find the next location popped in, and he whipped out his phone to do some light research.
But the red dot on the news app demanded his attention, so he double tapped on the square then tapped on 'Business' at the top of the screen. The top headline stared haughtily back:
Ares Corp: "The Future is In Our Hands"
Ray read on.
"It's undeniable, AI is the future. That future is in our hands. We must be ready, we must start early." Teresa Ares, CEO of Ares Corp, had earlier announced the tech company's acquisition of AlphaScan Inc., the developer of a revolutionary scanning equipment that analyses skin lines for the exact age of cancer development. Mrs. Teresa explained that 'Ares Corp's patented algorithm' is the blood of the equipment—a critical piece of the prototype's success. Success is guaranteed, and the sustainability of the human race….
Ray had already stopped walking. He was drinking in the words, fuming like a mad chimney, his rage growing like a wolf under attack. Ray might have been fourteen, but he'd acquired enough knowledge about the business and tech world over the past six years to know that Teresa Ares sucks: she doesn't know how to run a tech company, and she can't run a tech company.
For years, since he discovered the internet, he'd been keeping track of that evil woman. At first, the news was all about her: Teresa Ares, the survivor of her husband's death by their psychopath murderer daughter. Ray was greatly upset by the lies, the names they called his angel, Kate.
Kate is not the psycho—Teresa Ares is! Kate didn't murder his father in cold blood—that woman did!
But no matter how angry he was, the truth remains: there was nothing he could do. A toothless lion, that's what Ray has always been.
He once thought of paying that evil woman a visit, to make her tell the truth, but he quickly learned from his uncle that he has the IQ of an infant to even come up with that. He would go to the police then—they are the upholders of justice in the human world; Ray would tell them what he'd heard and witnessed about the fire that supposedly killed Frank Ares, and they would know what to do with Teresa Ares. And his uncle immediately shot that down too—with Ray's gullible stupidity. That triggered Ray's memory of Rox's remarks about his weakness, shutting him down entirely.
So now all Ray could do was wait. Till he is older and wiser.
But every day, the wait gets harder, especially with that evil woman spending the company's money like a drug addict.
"Frank Ares' company would be gone in no time," Ray breathed, his teeth gritting with worry.
Goddamn it. How he wished he was older and wiser right now. He needed to protect Ares Corp because Kate would want to protect it for her father.