Sweet Venom Arc 03 Ch. 15

"Diego...?!?"

Karen's worried voice snapped him out of his haze.

"W-What happened?!? Are you okay?!"

Diego slowly opened his eyes and looked down at himself.

His fire was already starting to die down, and the anger in his eyes flickered to confusion as he tried to work out what had happened in the last few seconds, when the stinging pain kicked in. Blood flowed from between the fingers of his clenched fist. He glanced over to see his other hand still on the handle of the fridge, now bent out of shape. The metal had caved around his grip cleanly.

He released his other fist and shards of the bloodied glass tumbled out of his hand. Several pieces remained embedded in his palm, his skin sticky with both blood and wine.

He stood, frozen in shock. Although the anger continued to bubble away inside him, it was subsiding fast.

"I-I-I'm sorry, I don't know what happened. I need to get Fairylin her drink."

"Shush! Silly man! Forget about Fairylin, she can wait five minutes. Let me take a look at your hand."

She quickly fetched a stool from the breakfast bar and sat Diego down, before turning around to fetch a first aid kit from one of the cupboards. Blood still poured freely from his hand.

"I-I'm getting blood on your floor!" Diego panicked, watching as the red puddle spread thickly over the shiny black tiles. "I just cleaned those!"

"SHUSH! I don't care about that! Let's just make sure you're okay!" Karen's tone was snappy, but not angry or even irritated; she sounded worried, and serious. She turned his hand around gently and quickly plucked the shards of glass from it, demonstrating a skilled hand as she whipped the pieces out, and they tinkled pleasantly against the floor. Diego winced a little as the shards were removed, but otherwise remained still. Karen pressed a towel against the wound, but the fibres quickly became soaked in blood.

"Hold that there. I need to get the spray." She spoke softly, and Diego did as he was told.

As she fumbled in her kit for a silver can of medi-gel spray, Fairylin's voice called out from the garden.

"Karen, darling? Is everything okay? Has Diego fucked it up again?"

Diego's face hardened again at the scything sound of her crooked voice, and Karen noticed the scowl immediately. She cast a glance over her shoulder towards the garden.

"We're fine, stay outside please Fairylin." She commanded firmly, snapping her fingers three times. The patio door immediately began to slide shut with a gentle mechanical whirr.

"Are you sure darling? I can discipl-" Fairylin carried on, despite now being muffled through the thick glass door.

"- Activate sound barrier." Karen continued clearly, speaking to the house computer. A faint blue shimmer appeared over the glass and Fairylin's voice was immediately silenced.

"There, just me and you." She smiled at Diego, then did a quick double take at his eyes. His purple irises were encircled by a flickering golden ring, faint, but there all the same.

Were they... always like that?

Diego seemed unsure of what to say to her. His eyes searched around the room, looking anywhere but at Karen.

"Thank you." He murmured, the corners of his lips twitching. He felt the stinging in his neck again, a searing surface pain on his skin.

"You're welcome. I heard what she said to you. She's an absolute asshole. I'm... I'm sorry about having her over so much. She just... she's paid me a lot of money. She's one of my biggest clients and is basically the entire reason I even have this estate, and even -." She stopped herself, suddenly turning red. Karen sprayed the blue medi-gel onto his hand, and with a fizz and a hiss it immediately started to sooth the pain. She wrapped his palm in a silver bandage, tightly tying it off, but just as she did the jewel on the flashy-looking bangle around her wrist began to flash red.

She tapped it with her little finger quickly, prompting a small red holoscreen to project from the jewel, only readable to her.

*WARNING - COLLAR MALFUNCTION - PSYONIC INHIBITOR FAILURE - LABOURER MAY BE DANGEROUS*

*ACTIVATE PANIC ALARM?*

Karen gasped, pulling away from Diego in fear. Her eyes were wide and fixed on the lizard.

"Karen? What's going on?" Her sudden change in demeanour immediately had Diego on alert, almost overriding his own concerns.

She pressed herself back against the far wall, almost cowering. She glanced down at the holoscreen projecting from her wrist, then glanced back, unsure herself of what to do. She'd been assured that these collars were state of the art, they didn't just break...

"Karen!" Diego insisted.

"Y-Your collar! It's broken!"

The tension in the room skyrocketed. In the heat of the moment neither of them noticed, but the burning around Diego's neck, and the smell... The collar had half melted, its circuitry visible and it was starting to smoke. Karen's wings curled around her body, her shoulders tense and raised, fingers hovering over the alarm.

Diego wrapped his fingers around the front of the collar, and yanked it off in a single stroke. He held it out in front of him, tilting it back and forth as he examined it closely.

"I'm not sure how I did that." He said, half chuckling. He looked back at Karen, who hadn't moved at all from the far side of the kitchen. She was frozen, staring at him, as though waiting for something to happen.

They locked eyes, and a million thoughts ran through Diego's mind.

The familiar crackle of his psyonics tingled all over his body, right to the tips of his fingers. It was a feeling he'd so greatly missed. His power had been returned to him. He could do it. The thoughts, the rage that had burnt into his core just minutes ago, he could do it. He could smite Fairylin before she even knew what was happening, could leave her a pile of dust and ash atop her precious deck chair. And Karen too... in mere moments, he could be free...

But the rage had passed now. And looking into Karen's terrified eyes, he knew... he couldn't do it.

I can't fight my way out of this. I won't. I could still get out of here though, with my psyonics it would be a cinch to escape the mansion... but how would I get off the planet...

That wouldn't be so easy. Even if he managed to commandeer a ship, there's no way he'd be able to pilot it. And if he could, where would he go from there? Where would he start?

As he milled over his conflicting thoughts, Diego sighed gently and placed the broken collar on the work surface nearby.

Besides... I have an escape plan already.

"I suppose you'd better get me a new one then."

Karen's shoulders relaxed a little upon hearing his words.

"You're... You're not going to try and escape?" She asked, her wings slowly unfurling. "I know about your psyonics... Your file said your psyonics are strong enough to hurt people."

Diego swallowed loudly, shuffling awkwardly on the spot.

"Is that so...? Karen. I wouldn't hurt you. Collar or not." Despite the lizard's awkward demeanour, he seemed to be telling the truth.

"What about Fairylin?" She asked suspiciously, watching his face closely.

The lizard considered his words carefully for a few seconds.

"I'd use a word of power on her." He replied, a smirk appearing on his face.

"A-A word of a power?" Karen stumbled, unsure of what exactly that meant.

"Yeah." Diego sneered. "Cunt."

He wiggled the fingers on his good hand and with a cheeky smile, the tension in the air suddenly disappeared. Karen stifled her laugh, the corners of her eyes glassing up.

"Don't let her hear you say that... I'm... glad." She smiled, stepping forward. "There were some spare collars provided with the kit. You had me scared there for a second, I thought you were going to... do something..."

"I've made quite enough bad decisions, don't you think?" Diego sighed, following Karen as she led him through the house.

"At least you never sold your services to Fairylin. I also have to pretend to like her." They walked together down to the basement. As they passed Diego's bedroom, Karen stopped and stared in through the doorway. Her eyes glazed over the stone walls and wooden furniture within; it wasn't a bad quality, or even that ugly, but it wasn't up to her standard. She felt a pang of guilt ripple through her.

"What's up? Did I forget to tidy up or something?"

Karen leant on the doorframe, rubbing her chin.

"No, it's not that. It's just... a shame that you don't get to enjoy the views of the estate from down here. Fairylin has her lot locked in the basement, it's just... how it's done, you know?"

"I... guess so. It's kinda cosy down here though. Warm." Diego laughed softly, nursing the wound on his neck.

"So if I offered you a bedroom upstairs, you'd say no?"

"You'd give me a bedroom? Upstairs?" Diego recoiled, taken completely off-guard.

"If you wanted it. Unless you'd prefer your 'warm and cosy' basement?"

"Fuck the basement." Diego replied instantly. "I'm sure the heating works perfectly throughout the manor."

Karen burst out laughing at the lizard's complete one-eighty, shaking her head.

"Consider it done. We'll pick you a room out together tonight."

Tonight? That quick? Diego thought to himself, smiling. As he followed Karen into the storage room though, the smile slipped away. It was only a few minutes ago that he was having some truly awful, old thoughts about everyone within the DA. About Karen. He wasn't sure exactly how he was supposed to feel, but the pit in his stomach told him that those thoughts had been wrong. Not everyone in the DA was terrible. It was so much easier when your enemies were all equally terrible, but life was complicated, and tarring everyone with the brush was something he had grown out of a long, long time ago.

Just then, a second uncomfortable wave of guilt flowed through him.

Karen was under the impression he had chosen not to run now because he had learnt better.

But... He had an escape plan lined up.

He didn't need to go on the run now... By his own admission, escaping the DA was much more important than Karen's opinion of him, but based on what she'd told him, escaping would certainly impact her in some way. The thought of Fairylin belittling Karen because he escaped from under her suddenly made him feel even more uncomfortable than before.

"Well, here we go!" Karen's voice brought Diego out of his thoughts and back into the storage room. It was a large room lined with heavy looking wooden shelves, well built and sturdy, lit with bright but warm hanging lights. There was a chest-high table to the side with some high stools around it, which Diego sat at whilst Karen picked up a small box. She quickly brought it over and clicked the case open, pulling a new collar out, identical to the original.

"Wait, what am I doing?! I haven't sprayed your neck, you've been burnt!" Karen rolled her eyes and pressed her fingers to her forehead. "Ugh. I'm sorry. I got a bit spooked in the moment. I've left the kit upstairs. Cmon, let's go look at that burn you've got."

"Oh, don't worry about that. I got this."

Diego pressed his fingers together and drew them apart slowly, forming stringy bright orange web-like lines between them. He danced his fingers over his neck, threading the strings into his neck which seemed to weave into the burn, disappearing completely but visibly relaxing the wound. A few seconds later Diego moved his hand away; you couldn't even see that he'd been burnt.

Karen watched him closely in awe, her mouth slightly agape as she watched the amber threads form out of thin air, and disappear just as quickly.

"Wh-What was that? Did you heal your neck?"

"Yep! Took me a while to learn that one, highly-targeted psyonic healing. Not very effective for a squad though, it's quite draining and a little slow to apply."

"T-That's incredible! I didn't know you could do that!" Slowly, Karen's impressed expression tapered off into concern as she processed what she'd just seen. "Y-You shouldn't be able to do that..."

"What do you mean?" Diego raised an eyebrow.

"Uhm. Sorry, I misspoke. I mean... Your file mentioned that your psyonics are limited to low-level and dangerous... It mentioned nothing about being able to heal. Forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong, but isn't healing much more difficult than hurting?"

"Yeah. Hurting someone else with psyonics is just a case of conjuring something that is... well... able to hurt them. I know that sounds stupid when I say it like that, but people can be very easy to hurt, you know? Healing is complex and difficult, which is why psyonic healing is such a rarity." Diego relaxed back in the chair and slowly moved his neck, satisfied with his psionic work.

"Then your file... H-How did the EnSec Division miss something like that? N-Nevermind. Don't worry about it. I just... I need to look at your file again. Cmon, let's get you collared up and pick your new room!"