11. Monsters Are Made

Yanire wakes up in a cold sweat for the first time in a while. Her body is shivering and the hot flashes are quick to follow. She'd had a dream that Martien found Alvarsson island and kidnapped her, dragging her back to Virginia… it was safe to say she was shaken up. She pulled one of the thicker coats out of her drawers and crept quietly out of the backdoor near her end of the home. The island was always chilly in the mornings when the sun hadn't risen yet, and today was no exception.

She had slipped out into the cool air and felt the sweat against her skin start to chill. The cold was a solid reminder that she was still on the island, and Martien wasn't even within 2,000 miles of her. The sand was soft beneath her feet and the icy water crashing against the waves made her feel safe. Before she'd crashed on the island, Yanire had always found deep waters to be foreboding and intimidating. Now though, she had already lived through the experience of crashing amidst the depths of sea. The crashing waves represented survival to her, power.

She had lived, and she would live again if need be. That was a sentiment she held to very tightly in light of her nightmare. She had survived Martien van Bijvank, and even if he found her again, she would survive him as well. In the time of healing, finding a new way to be close to her son, and the isolation she felt on Alvarsson island Yanire had learned how to be alone. She learned how to be her own safe haven, her own rock. In a strange way, being stranded on an unknown island amidst strangers might be the most effective way she could learn such a thing.

A strange sensation filled the woman as she found herself laughing. It started as a low chuckle in her throat but became a reckless guffaw with obvious hints of abandonment to it. For a moment she feared that this was it; her mind had cracked completely and she was falling to hysterics. Though as any normal humour, it faded and settled back into a sort of serenity. Yanire felt well enough to try and return to slumber, turning and treading back to the house with no real urgency to her step. A sliver of light touched the horizon, signalling it could be anywhere from six a.m to eight a.m. Even the earliest to wake, Miss Polson, generally slept until a little after nine. This meant she could probably get another hour or two of sleep in before getting up for the day.

She pushed the door open as quietly as she could and a blur of motion startled her to a gasp. Her body was slammed against the wall of the hallway and a cool metal pressed roughly against her throat. Yanire's heart slammed as her mortality struck her. She went to scream when the storming blue eyes of Adriel met the fearful brown of hers. Recognition crossed his expression and he pulled away from her as though she had burnt him.

"Fuck- Yanire, I'm so sorry."

He quickly sheathed the weapon and put his hands up for her to see.

"Really, you must be scared shitless. Gods, I'm sorry."

The alarm had left her with a quickness when she looked him over. When he saw the fear leave her face, he moved closer, tilting her chin to the side and checking her for injuries.

"Oh thank fuck, I didn't cut you at all. Are you okay?"

With him standing in such close proximity, her suspicions were confirmed. Deep purple eyebags flashed against his otherwise snow-pale skin. Further his hair was wild and his movements were jerky, nervous. Yanire recognised this state, but she was unsure of how to define it.

Adriel looked like he was losing it. This was not the man she sat with at dinner for nearly a year by now. The usual Adriel was soft-spoken and held himself with great precision and charisma. He was a regular businessman in many ways, with a healthy flair of boyish charm. Adriel had kept himself tidy.

The man before her now wore the same pants from the day before and looked as though he hadn't slept in at least two days. It occurred to her when she noticed the freckles lining his cheeks that Adriel was covering this side to him up from the others. He had worn foundation and possibly concealer to hide this predicament. Yanire pitied this man, upon such close inspection.

There was a nervousness to him as he awaited her response and she suddenly remembered he had been speaking to her.

"I'm fine, you only startled me."

He breathed a sigh of relief and ran a shaking hand through his tousled hair.

"Adriel?"

His eyes shot to her face, uncertainty obvious.

"What happened to your mother?"

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Adriel's eyes shoot to Yanire's face, a newfound darkness evident in them. He searches her expression, prodding for something. She is unsure whether or not he finds it.

Regardless, he nods his head for the woman to follow him and begins walking down the hall. She follows freely at first but pauses, shoulders tense with apprehension, when they reach the doorway to Adriel' room. She had never entered the space before, never even happened upon it while the door was open. Entering a man's bedroom at questionable times of the day was something she avoided, but she scanned him and he obviously lacked the energy for any sort of sexual advancement. She stepped through the threshold, tensing herself just in case.

"Close that door, please."

Yanire obliged, shutting the door behind them and scanning the unfamiliar space. In many ways, it looks a lot like what she expected from what she knew of Adriel. He stuck to grey and blue toned furniture, the simplistic sort and aside from an overflowing laundry bin, the room was spotless. Her eyes flicked to his bed lazily, lingering on the halfway-hidden weapon beneath the pillow.

It appeared to be a hammer at first but she noticed the curve of the blade pretty quickly. Adriel Alvarsson slept with an axe beneath his pillow.

Yanire gulped before following him to the sitting area on the right. It is quaint and simplistic, a basic pleather sofa with a fluffy rug before it and a bookshelf against the wall nearby. She was vaguely curious what sort of books a wealthy heir would fancy, but turned her attention back to him when he gestured for her to have a seat.

Still a bit uneasy in the silence, Yanire opted to sit on the fluffy rug. If Adriel had any complaint at her choice, he did not vocalise it. A stiff air falls between them as Adriel breathes in deeply. The exhaustion on his face is completely unhidden now and he allows his sleepy eyes to fall on the woman, sizing her up in his head.

This could not possibly be a fun conversation to have.

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The man's eyes grew distant and the blue seemed to dull as he dissociated from the words. Yanire's sadness deepened, but she listened closely.

"My childhood was a rather strict one. It's pretty common with rich kids, we have businesses to run and our parents ingrain that into us pretty early. My father implemented a schedule for me as soon as I turned eight. He started with simple things, basic accounting and how one goes about running a business."

His brows furrowed slightly.

"Then when I turned ten, he sat me down for a rather serious conversation. He said that our business was in a morally grey realm, and therefore put us in a compromised position."

He scoffed.

"Naturally, I asked what the family business was. The Alvarsson's run a stream of scientific operations for various governments of the more weaponisable or genetically altering variety. It is, essentially, human experimentation."

Yanire cringed visibly, unable to stop herself. Adriel was indifferent.

"He told me that it would put me in a state of danger and that I needed to be prepared for that. From that day forward, the schedule evolved. The business classes escalated in complexity and I began training in both weapons and martial arts. He started with Brazilian jiu-jitsu, explaining that it was a very efficient fighting style. My father had always been working me towards krav maga though, being that it's a very efficient system for disabling assailants."

His tone was empty, pragmatic. There was no emotion attached to any of it. Yanire was borderline uncomfortable with how normally he spoke of it, like it were a highschool algebra class.

"My childhood was abnormal and there was only one silver lining to any of it."

The man pulled himself out of the daze and looked to Yanire somberly, again scanning her face for something. Yanire stared back with a hint of sadness, but said nothing.

"My mother and sister lived on the island with us."

There was a soft light to his eyes, but with it was a poorly hidden pain.

"My sister was named Asia. She was spared the brunt of routines I underwent. Instead being trained to run the face of our operation. She learned upper class etiquette, how to build and give good presentations, that sort of thing. I don't remember much of the specifics."

"Asia was brilliant though, and she knew it. The snarky brat."

There was the ghost of a smile on his face. Yanire found it almost endearing.

"She forced me into tea parties, started stealing my favourite sweaters when we got older. Asia was- hell, she probably still is the most normal part of my life."

Yanire felt a mild relief that she was still alive.

"Then there was my mother."

His eyes looked wet and dull again, as he disconnected from the words.

"She was beautiful, patient, everything a mother should be really. For the longest time, I thought her to be completely ordinary. My mother and father didn't have the warmest relationship but she always sat beside him at dinner and kissed his cheek before he left for the day."

Yanire couldn't be sure, but she thought she detected bitterness in his tone.

"I grew up very close to her. Some days, she'd take me and Asia down into the basement after our routines let out, and she'd play the piano for us."

"Other times she would take us for little picnics on the beach or to play board games with Secoiya in the living room. My mother tried very hard to make sure we had some semblance of normalcy in our lives. She wanted us to be happy."

Yanire's eyes grew wet. She could tell the story went downhill here. Adriel's eyes betrayed him as a tear slipped out. He did not bother to wipe it away, in fact his whole body had become still as a statue.

"My mother passed away when I was 16, and Asia was 14. We mourned her, and our father took us to her hometown in Norway for the funeral. He said that she had wanted to be buried there, in the same cemetery as her parents. It was the first time we'd met our mother's family in person. They were nice to Asia, being that she was a carbon copy of mom."

"Her sister was inconsolable, sobbing and incoherently muttering. Later our father had told us that she had been praying. Nothing seemed amiss about it, and a while later Asia and I learned to live without our mother."

His eyes were red, the daze had only deepened around him.

"Then my sister found her journals."

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Adriel was completely back to reality now, a rage shaking him from the void of deep sadness. His eyes were alight with danger and his fists clenched at his sides. Yanire grew nervous, but had long accepted that if he sought to hurt her, he'd have done so by now.

"My father had experimented on her, the whole fucking time."

Horror filled Yanire's expression as she held quiet.

"He injected new serums into her bloodstream. Took the new blade shapes and materials to her skin to get a better understanding of their efficiency. He did unspeakable things to her- his own fucking wife! The mother of his children!"

Adriel was shaking with rage now, his voice so low and jarring that Yanire flinched. She was fairly sure she had never heard the man curse up to that point.

He looked at Yanire finally, the rage fading and being replaced with a soul-sucking tiredness that never really seemed to leave him. Adriel looked completely broken.

"Yanire, my mother never said a word."

His voice broke at the end, as he buried his head in his hands. Though she could not exactly see the tears or hear the sobs, it was evident to the woman that he was crying. The woman squirmed a little as she tried to think of what a person should do in this situation.