Amor Caecus

Chapter Two

It took a week for them to have another conversation. A week of slowly discovering her way around what she figured was medium sized cavern. A week of virtually silent cohabitation, the only words spoken being muttered curses when Jane walked into a table or hate filled remarks when the constant low sound of hissing got to be too much for her. It had started with a question, after the ten thousandth time Jane had bumped into a stray chair. A question asked with such genuine confusion, that Jane almost didn't notice how bizarre the question actually was. Or how it would change her world forever.

"Are you that scared of me that you won't even look to stop hitting the furniture?"

Jane froze, her hands gripping the back of the chair. She left out a breathy laugh of confusion. Her brows furrowed, and she let out another small, almost startled laugh, this one borne of barely contained rage.

"What did you just say?"

"I already told you, you have no reason to fear me. I'm not going to hurt you, I haven't even so much as touched you once. Your stubbornness is doing nothing but causing yourself pain and, quite frankly, embarrassment."

Being blind her whole life, Jane's hearing was top notch. With her added Hunter blood, she could hear farther than a dog. Therefore, she was able to turn around and know exactly where Medusa was positioned in this hell hole she called home. She truly didn't know how to respond to this, but the sincerity in the monster's voice rang through her head, so she decided to answer it seriously.

"I can't...look to see where I'm going because I'm blind." She spoke through gritted teeth. Her mind at war with itself, trying to decide if now was the time to attack and probably die or if she wanted to live a little longer.

"By choice! It's ridiculous, I think I've proven myself harmless to you by now."

Yep.

That was it.

Right there.

Jane gripped the chair harder and flung it to her right. She heard it crash but she could care less at the moment. Her father was dead, she had been missing for days and she knew that no one was looking for her, and she was now stuck in a cave with a fucking myth and no idea what she was going to do when she left.

She wasn't in the mood to be mocked.

She took a step closer and the sound of hissing rose, the snakes permanently fixed on Medusa's head sensing the danger drawing closer to them.

"Like being a monster was your choice, right? Like being attacked, raped, and cursed was your fucking choice?"

She took another step in her direction, and she felt the air shift as Medusa stood from where she must have been sitting. A small part of wondered how hard it would be to kill her while she was in human form. A much bigger part decided that she didn't care.

"Unlike you, I can't shift back and forth from blind to seeing. I don't get to just turn off the thing that makes me defective. But I'm okay with that. I'm okay, because you can stay in your human form until the day you die, but you will never leave this place. You will never be able to look at another person, who isn't blind, without killing them, and you will never get those fucking snakes off your head. You are stuck being a monster just like I'm stuck being blind. Only difference is that people don't hate me for my deformity. No one is storming into my home to murder me for kicks."

She did a complete about face and continued the path she had been on, to the corner she had claimed when she arrived. She was halfway there when the hissing died down and a soft voice called after her.

"You don't know, do you?"

Even as Jane stopped in her tracks, her brain was screaming at her to keep moving. Her hands balled into her fists and she clenched her jaw, but she didn't keep walking. Instead, she titled her head down and back to the side, the only indication Medusa was getting that she had Jane's attention.

"Do you see darkness?"

Her stance didn't change, but the confusion must have shown on her face because Medusa continued.

"When your eyes are open, is the same as when they are closed?"

Jane already knew the answer, but she closed her eyes anyway, counted to 10, and opened them again.

First there was nothing. Darkness. Black.

Then there was silver.

She knew other people's description of blindness. It was always black for other people. She had figured that the silver fog that clouded her sight was a result of her Hunter blood.

"I'm a Hunter. Things are different for us."

"Sive partiales."

"What?" Jane turned around fully now. She knew no rumors of Medusa possessing any other powers than that which allowed her to change form. Yet, she had definitely said something in Latin, the language of Magick users.

"Sive partiales. Latin. It means Partial."

"I know what Latin sounds like." A 10 second pause, at the most, before a reckless decision was made and acted on. "Partial?"

"Your mother was human. You're only half Hunter. Each Partial has a different...gift. Always connected to the five senses."

Half Hunter. She knew that already, technically, but she didn't think it actually meant anything. Hunters weren't meant to procreate with humans because it killed them. Something in the way the were designed. Only men could be Hunters and mating with normal human women, Naturals, always resulted in the death of the mother. In order to keep the race of Hunters going, they needed to be assigned an Enhanced. A woman who was aware of Hunters, the dangers that existed in this world, and the cost of bearing a child for one. They were "volunteers" who were housed in a classified facility out in Texas, where they were modified so that they could handle at least two child births before dying.

They were kidnapped, experimented on, and kept for breeding.

It was one of the reasons her father had kept her hidden, why they kept moving. If anyone knew she existed, a female with Hunter blood, they would have taken her to the same place and did tests on her to see if she was viable for childbirth. If her father's blood had enhanced her enough to carry out the task, or if it damaged her. She was not supposed to exist. All other......Partials had been discovered at, or not long after, birth and killed. Except for her. Or so she thought.

"Others have survived?" She asked.

"Of course. You thought your father was the only one clever enough to avoid detection?"

Yes, she had. And now she felt incredibly stupid. A monster knew more about her people than she did. "Where are they?"

"I don't know. Scattered about the planet, I'm assuming. I've only known a handful over the centuries. Never for very long."

"And they could- they could do things. With their senses." It wasn't a question, but she held her breath as she waited for an answer. This was the part that she didn't get. This was the part that scared her. This was the part that meant either her father didn't know as much as he thought, or he had lied to her.

"You're not blind, Jane. You never were."