27. Hard Rock Hallelujah.

I continued to watch movies and had dinner. The kitchen was empty; I had a decent meal just by myself. I heard that Lepard and Demon were out hunting, and I wasn't surprised when I knew my husband's temperament—his rage. We creatures with supernatural rage have our own adaptive mechanisms and have learned to live with our rage, at least most of the time. 

It had never been fun for me to be a creature with this rage. I know that I have gone to a hell of a lot of shit at times and it had all made my rage even worse. I guess the honorable Dr. Kendrick had no idea what he created when he put my rage in my mind.

I remembered all those times, during those seven years, I walked in the street like a zombie, covered in blood and guts, my arms up to my elbows bloody and my mind was just this white-hot rage that burned. But I hurt no innocent, even in my most feral state. If you call that, I know the difference between right and wrong. Never kill innocents, not unless I have to, but not in my rage. Thank god there had been so many zombie movies and whatnot that most of the time, people just assumed that I had been doing some roleplay or coming home from some conventions of zombies.

I was already pretty good at controlling my rage if I didn't blow it all the way out. I had learned to deal with it over the years and it had not been easy, not at all. So I was pretty damn strict with myself when I let it out fully, because getting it back in was not easy.

I was not a pussycat, and I had my own demons, so to speak, my own darkness. It was easy for me to blame my tendencies to kill everything in my way when I unleashed my rage when I was cornered, but it was not just my rage. It was part of me, one part that was now put back to sleep, but I knew I had it in me and it would and could wake up if there would come a time.

I can still remember how it felt, to unleash it, accept it, and let it out. That darkness, that killer instinct, it is alluring; it is seducing, as you won't have any problems with your past, your feelings, or any other shit that plagued my life normally. But Damon had pushed it way back down, put it into some kind of sleep, but I felt it still.

My rage was another thing that made me feel less. It gave first this feeling of freedom, and power almost, and then it took me a while to reel it back in. It was a bit like a dog coil leash; it would come out, but you could stop it, but if you pulled it out too fast and too hard, the mechanism broke, and the leash wouldn't retract anymore. I do remember when I had dogs, and it was not easy to work with those leashes. They broke now and then.

We had so many dogs and I spent a few moments remembering my time with them. I seldom reminisced about my human life, for many reasons, first, it was in the past, and second, if I would really delve into it, I would miss it, back then, everything was so simple, so easy and even I was different creature a human, that part of me, still existed, even if it had been through hell and back. 

I had lived with my rage before I was supernatural, well I was kidnapped and experimented and they started to back then create my rage. To create supernatural white-hot rage in someone's mind is not an easy feat, and I guess my mind could take it.

Even though they had no proof, no tests were done on my mind in order to see if I could do it. That's why they were evil, immoral scientists and I was the result of those tests and experiments. Well, that experiment, what turned me into a lab-made werewolf, it also triggered my evolution and I am nothing like that creature anymore. 

And it is also one of my secrets, big ones and it might get this whole pack a lot of trouble if they ever get a whiff of it. I had made my mind pretty secure. There were things I would never reveal to any of them. They were my burdens, my secrets, and, as always, I was the one protecting everyone. 

I sighed to myself. It was rare for me to remember my past, and at that time, I had shared little, not with anyone, and I had only talked about that time a little. Not tell my story from the beginning as well as I remembered. I did not think that I had any rotten stuff in my mind because of that time, just because my mind, well, it just accepted everything that I went through, and my rage, well, it kicked in a little later. I thought to myself that I should maybe sometimes tell someone, like Magnum, or Wulfe. Not sure if I want to damn Salvatore to know anything but someone neutral. 

My mind was like, well, you could describe it as one vast space and there were a lot of secrets and sometimes I felt like my mind was the museum. Full of old stuff that everyone admired, but then again, it was not useful in everyday life. 

I laughed to myself at my bizarre metaphors and then went to the shower. I washed myself with cool water and enjoyed myself because it was pretty damn hot in here, and I couldn't stand that much heat. I had turned the air conditioning in my room to cool, and I got some more ice-cold bottles, enormous bottles, of Coca-Cola from the fridge in my room. I had a fridge there and put them in there to wait.

I took it easy, enjoying my life. Getting my memories sinking into their hiding place, and letting my mind calm down, move on and not let that damn past weigh so much. I tried to enjoy as much as I could as I knew that one can never know what life brings you next time and you gotta have these good times in reserve to pull you through. 

It took Damon a week to get the compulsion down on Mariella, and he was really impressed with Mimi's strength and how clever that compulsion had been. It had taken drugs, telepathy, and his skills as an interrogator to find that seam and then try to unload it. But he loved the challenge and was looking forward to the next time Mimi would do someone's compulsion. He hadn't had a challenge that good in a long time, and the feeling when he punched through it, he beat Mimi. Oh, that was juicy.

But he respected how damn strong Mimi was. She is really strong, and he should remember that, apparently, and remember it well. He could weaken Mimi, but since she'd buffeted her vampire powers with her will, it wouldn't help so much now. It was good to remember that they had a real powerhouse in their hands, but something tried to surface in Damon's mind and he knew he had a memory or something that was coming out. 

He thought and thought and then he remembered, Damien and that damn woman, a long time ago when Damien had kidnapped him in order to get Mimi. Damien had had a woman there, pregnant and Damien had drugged him too much, so he had forgotten it. But this had jogged his memory. He felt stupid; he had been weak not to remember.

How Damien had boasted that there were several women pregnant. Well, I guess Mimi has taken care of them. When it came to Mimi, she should be checked over. But he should get her to Medbay, put her under anesthesia, and then see if they can find the cavity again or if she has hidden it. That caliber memory had left a huge cavity and there would be a lot of gunk left in there, to rot. And it was not a good thing to have in one's mind. 

But first, he should make sure that she doesn't take her rage out, so he needs to be discreet, drug her, or calm her down secretly so that she doesn't have time to get her rage out in the open. He was not sure if his psychic abilities would be enough, even. But then, when she has problems with the procedures, she may not even come in for blood tests now. It was not a good thing at all. He looked still sleeping Mariella and knew that once she would awaken, maybe she could tell some sort of plan. How to bring Mimi down. Get her and help her, too. 

He sighed in his mind, knowing that this would probably not happen, not just yet, and he did not want to tranq her with the dart. He wanted to help her, give her honey, not vinegar. He was sick of that in the past when he had made a plan, that involved little vinegar and once he had gotten vinegar, the plan usually failed so he did not give honey to Mimi. And that had then strained their relationship further.

He tried to rack his brain to get some sort of result, but no, even if he would drug her food, she might not eat or then keep her rage out all the time. Talking. well, she could be more stubborn than Lepard and the entire pack together, so it was not going to work, not yet anyway. And as he knew himself. He might get bored and be with Mariella. She wanted him, at least.

When Salvatore informed me after more than a week that he broke my compulsion and his knowledge of Damien's son, when Mariella told or showed him everything, and he would like to have a blood test, I wished him to fuck off. I also took a fair amount of my rage out to show him I didn't want any cleaning of the mind or even a blood test now—no medical intervention of any kind. I had just gotten that damn memory pressed back into hiding and did not want to think of that right now. It was not time to remember those awful smells, not sounds, not sensations that memory brought up. 

Now, I should be spared any work that even remotely resembles the horrors I went through. I knew that somewhere along the line, but not for a long time yet. Suppose Salvatore didn't understand that, then let it be. I kept my rage on display all the time. I was alert when I went out to eat or saw Damon.

He did give me food, but I was super sharp, so there were no drugs in my food, or if there were, my rage took care of them. I let my rage show so he would understand and leave me alone. To go be with Mariella. I am not nice and friendly when I am cornered. I was feeling extremely threatened. I was ready to pounce. That memory was one of the worst that I had. I knew that I would have to tell more about it in order for them to pull it out. Not gonna happen. 

Damon sighed and continued cooking. He had tried now a few days to appease that beast, but no. He had not drugged her food as she was cornered as it could be, and somehow it almost broke his heart. He wanted that caliber of terrible memory out of her mind. She deserved better, but she was just too scared, too volatile for him to act.

He said to Mariella, who was baking. " As you have discovered, darling, we have a near-feral beast here, and I don't want to distress her any further. She feels so cornered, I can feel it too. I want to help. I want to clean out the cave because there will be leftovers; when they get to simmer there, they will rot, so soon it will be full of rot. But now that she's decided, she won't let me help her. It's so damn frustrating, you know? I know it will be hard for her to go over that memory, but it needs to be cleaned. "

Mariella turned to look at Damon and wrapped her arms around him. She was comforting him; she was feeling his frustration, his need to act, but it was not possible yet.

She murmured in his ear, "Yes, I understand, but you can do nothing about it now. Unless you electrocute that rage down and drug the lady, but then there are consequences for that, too. "

Damon sighed and kissed his wife. " I know all about them, no doubt about it."

They continued cooking, and Damon wondered how he could help Mimi, get her to relax a little, and be in the pack. They would have to do something in the pack then. Some sort of activity. He knew Mimi was not cycling so much, but how about something new?

He said to Mariella, "Darling, look online and see if we can do any new activities in the pack. Like an obstacle course or something, I know there are supernatural ones. It would be fun to go in that kind of thing as a pack, and take that feral beast unload too."

Mariella started looking. She opened the laptop, scrolled in her time, her fingers typing away, and said, " Yeah, come and have a look. There's a survival course here, made for packs. Shall we take this one? This could be it. Not too easy, but fun enough for us and for Mimi, too."

Damon came, sat down at the table, and started to study on the computer, which course would be best for the pack. A paintball fight would be possible. Damon laughed at the thought that the entire pack would be Mimi's victims on it; she would probably snipe them all, but then again, he could be on Mimi's team. Yeah, that could be fun.