by Mason Sabre
Jason rubbed at his arms as he walked around. He gave a shiver.
“What’s wrong?” Crystal asked, watching him with curiosity.
“Nothing. I’m just cold.”
“Yeah?” and there she was again, having to get close to him … too bloody close, but no, he was right. It was cold. There was a breeze across her skin, yet there was no source for it. She held her hand out to feel it. “Oh …”
“What?”
She didn’t answer him as she went to the windows. They weren’t barred or nailed shut or anything else physical that would keep them in place. “Come and open one of these. You like glass windows?”
That comment earned her a crooked smile. “Open one? It’s boarded up.”
“I know. Just humour me. Come and open this window.” The window itself was still intact where she was. The board was on the outside, probably protecting it from vandalism.
The windows were those large sash types, old. They had strong elasticated ropes inside them that would hold them in place when they were open.
Confidently, Jason stalked to the window, grabbed the edge of it and pulled. Nothing. “What?” he leant into it, bending at the knees, gripping harder. He gave an umph as he struggled. “What the …” Crouching down, he squinted and ran a finger along the edge. “Is it glued?”
“Nope,” Crystal said. She handed him a piece of wood that had been on the floor. “Smash it.”
“You want me to break the glass?”
“Yep.” She didn’t move out of the way this time. She was confident about this, and he brought the wood up like a rounders bat ready to swing when the pitcher struck.
He swung the wood, and it slammed into the glass creating the sound of rattling and the splintering of wood. He let out a series of curses when the force of it vibrated along his arm and made him drop it. “You did that on purpose. What the hell is up with it?” He picked the wood back up and turned it over in his hand as if looking for some trick.
“Warded. Old magic, but that’s what it is. That cold you’re feeling? It’s magic in the air, except it’s been here a long time.”
“I thought this was a Human place.”
“Yeah …” she ran her fingers along the sills, picking up the static from the power there. There were only echoes of it now, but it was strong enough to keep shifters inside and out. Strong enough to keep shifters … she stared at the beds, her thoughts ticking over in her head. “Give me your hand.”
“What? Are you crazy?” He crossed his arms across his chest as if to keep them safe.
“Yep. But we want to see what happened here.” It frightened her, touching him, but she was curious about it. What she was feeling with him was nothing like other witches had claimed when they had their familiars. This was something more … something stronger.
Jason had shut his eyes, blocking her out maybe. “Okay,” he said. When he opened them, he let his arms drop and held his hand out to her. “Just to see.”
Placing her hand in his, she stood by his side and closed her fingers tight around his. The lights were down. A yellow glow filled the room, and she realised that the walls held dimly lit lights. She let go of Jason, and the normal room appeared. “You are like my eyes to another world,” she said, then she took his hand again, fully prepared for the lights to change, for the room to morph into a time … she wasn’t even sure when.
The beds had people in them. Girls … hooked up to IVs that hung above them and machines. The bleeping in the room was constant—a rhythm of the souls stuck there. Everyone was silent. “Shit.”
She let go of Jason’s hand so abruptly that she almost lost her balance. Her hand burnt inside, but when she rubbed at it, there was nothing.
“What the hell was that?”
What indeed?
“People,” she said. She stared around the vacant room now, almost not believing that these beds were abandoned. “Let’s try another room.” He followed.
The room next along the hallway had its door shut, but it wasn’t locked. It was small too. It was reminiscent of a dental surgery. In the middle was a motorised chair, but it was like the beds. The top and the bottom had restraints attached to it. On the counter there were bottles. Some of them were standing, some were on their sides. All of them were exact replicas of the bottles they had found in Shayla’s house.
“Do you suppose …”
“We found some kind of testing shit,” she said, reading his mind. “Give me your hand. I want to see.”
Chapter 8
She took a breath before she took his hand. It was mostly out of caution than any nerves. Crystal was afraid. Not of him, but herself, of what all of this meant. Daring to question it was like daring to meet her creator and ask why … why she had been born magic and others had not. It’s a gift. Maybe that was what he was. Some kind of magical gift that had been given to her, not to question, not to sit and analyse, but to take.
It was one of the most frightening things she had faced, but she knew she had to let him in enough … she had to let part of his mind touch hers, and it was like a black silken rope between them that reached through the darkness. She could control it if she focused enough. Maybe she could control him with it.
Bracing herself, Crystal threw her mental walls into place with an almost jarring accuracy. She let her stomach settle, so it didn’t flip over when she switched worlds … if that was what she was doing … time, perhaps. Every image she had seen, every person, victim … they had been when this house was still used. They were echoes maybe?
Whatever the hell it was, it was a sure-fire way to induce vertigo, and she wasn’t ready to spill her guts up again.
“Ready?” he asked, his hand held out to her.
She wanted to tell him no. That vulnerable part of her that was too afraid, too chicken. But they’d not find Shayla if she gave into the need to run inside her. “Ready,” she dared to say, nodding at him.
He took her hand in his, strong, powerful. She could hold onto that if she needed. The warmth of his skin bled into hers and she focused on that as she let her eyes close and willed the other world into her mind.
Like the other places, the room came to life in front of her. One moment she was standing with Jason in what was an abandoned looking dental surgery, and now she was standing with him in a brightly lit room that buzzed with life and hummed with the sound of the fluorescent light above them. It was such a contrast, clinical in its setting. She gripped Jason’s hand harder, needing him there, or she would surely close her eyes again and not look at the horror in front of her. He squeezed her hand back.
In the chair there was a small boy … small at least, but he had to be in his early teens. He had that scrawniness about him where his body was between the stage of boy and man. His face was red with teenage acne, but his hands … they were tiny and bound to the chair. Straps held him in place at every part of his body he might use to get away. His hands, his feet, across his chest, there was even a strap that went across his head, holding him down and in place.
A growl resonated beside Crystal and she remembered Jason could see what she was seeing. His animal need to protect the young and the vulnerable pushed against her mind as his wolf fought with what he was seeing.
“It’s not real,” she whispered to him. “Remember that.”
The wolf beside her stilled after a moment, as if he understood what she had said. She wished she did. She wished she could feel it wasn’t real and just a memory the room held. She was so desperate to let go of Jason and let this image leave her, but instead, she clutched his hand and made herself look.
If this boy, no matter who he was, or when he was, could go through this, then she owed it to him to look—someone owed it to him. The harder she held Jason’s hand, though, the brighter the images came out in front of her. She went unsteady on her feet with it, and a hand came and caught her elbow. There was a man in front of them … a big fucking man who looked like he chewed nails for vitamins. He was standi
ng at the door with his arms crossed over his chest. His face was stern, and his nose was set at an odd angle like it had been broken one too many times. Maybe it had. The corner of his mouth was turned down, but there was something else … someone else. A doctor maybe? She wore a white coat. It was open at the front, and she didn’t have the usual stethoscope hanging around her neck, but her hair was back, her face bare, free from make-up. Much too busy to bother with that kind of thing.
There was a syringe in her hand, and she plunged it into the boy’s neck without so much as a blink, even when the boy clenched his jaw and bucked against his restraints, the evil bitch just carried on and then turned her back on him as he panted in the chair. She said something to the big man at the door, although there were no sounds, no screams. When he moved towards the boy, the boy screamed, and his bladder gave out, creating a slow growing pool that ran down the support of the chair.
Crystal let go of Jason’s hand, thrusting herself out of the image and whatever it was they were doing. She was breathless, her heart beat wildly in her chest. She didn’t need to see that shit. Her mind could already run away with the small token it had been given and make everything else up. Overactive imagination, her mother used to say.
“It’s not real,” Jason whispered from beside her, repeating the words she had believed just moments ago. He was a voice that latched onto her brain, his hand was supporting her. She pressed into him again. His breath was warm against her skin, against her neck. She didn’t move just yet. She didn’t trust herself to stay upright without his help. She let her head bow with the heaviness that was weighing her down inside. “You’re okay?”
“Yes.” A lie. She slipped down, her legs buckling and her body staggering. She’d seen worse than that in her life, felt worse than that, but … this one. That child … “I can’t breathe.” Strong hands caught her, but she almost knocked Jason down too and he struggled to remain upright, but he didn’t let go of her as he caught himself on the door frame with one hand, crushing it almost under his grasp.
“Jason …” She came out of his hold, and he slowly leant sideways, almost sliding down the wall in front of her. His eyes moved in slow blinks. Blood ran from his nose, across his lips, and down his chin. “Hey …” she said, grabbing for him before he fell fully to the dusty floor. “What’s wrong?”
He gave her a slow laboured nod and between them, they both gave into what was bringing them down. She slipped in between his legs. “I will be okay. I just …” His entire body shook. He was shivering like he was cold, but beads of perspiration ran down from his temples and his hair was wet with it.
“Did I cause this?”
“I’ll be okay. Just give me a minute.” His words were panted out. They came like painful spasms from his throat. He was the opposite to her. Her body was coming alive, buzzing. Adrenaline ran along her spine in short bursts of bubbles. “Feels like I’ve just done a days’ worth of work at the gym.”
“I’ve drained you, haven’t I?” She checked her magical pot. It was fuller than it had been before. Fuller than it had been in years. “I get my power from you?” With the magic she had used to see the rooms, it didn’t make any sense. She should have been the one on the floor. He should have been carrying her around like a rag doll. She had to give it back to him. “Sit still,” she said. She placed both of her hands at the sides of his face, thumbs hooking just in front of his ears, then she leant into him. She kissed him. A gentle kiss across his lips, so slight, but the magic was like stroking energised fur. Yes … yes. This was how to give it back to him. She pressed her lips against his, envisioned the magic flowing from her into his body.
His mouth was both soft but firm against hers. All that masculine strength held wrapped in something protective, something feral. He kissed her back, savoured her, and she was standing on a ledge with him, one she knew she’d topple off if he moved in the wrong direction. Just one slight step and she was a goner.
Breaking the kiss, she licked across her lips, tasting the saltines of him mingled with the metalic taste from his blood. They were so close, inches apart and when he opened his eyes, they were blue fire burning brightly. “Better?” she asked, and she realised that it was her shaking now. She pressed her hands into her lap to keep them steady.
“Yes.” His voice was stronger, louder. “If this is what it takes to find Shay, then so be it.”
If this is what it takes? The kiss? He meant the kiss. Crystal gave him a slow nod, one he probably hadn’t even noticed, and backed away. “I’m just going to take a nosey around the room.” She tried to keep the hurt edge out of her voice, but it was there, loud as a bell. Damn thing.
There wasn’t actually much to see in the room. The chair in the middle was old, torn in places. There were stains around the base of it, dark stains, light stains, all of them mingling into one. She didn’t need to test them, or ask Jason to scent them, to know they were probably a nice collection of different bodily fluids.
The bottles on the counter, though, they had different colours, and the logo was off, but still the same. The fucking Human Project. She’d give them a project all right. Straight up their backsides and out of their heads. That boy … she couldn’t shake the image of him from her mind either. When she went to the chair, he was there, even though he wasn’t. His frightened eyes … she was sure he was dead now. Whatever had happened to him. She could feel that with utmost certainty. Maybe it was better he was. At least the suffering was done.
“There’s magic in here too,” Jason said. He’d got up, and she hadn’t realised. He’d also cleaned the blood from his nose and was holding a rag in his hand. He rolled his shoulders. “I can feel it.”
“Maybe that was from me?”
“No,” he said … his voice almost dreamy. “I …” He looked right at her. “It’s different. You know?”
She knew. “Give me a sec.” She rummaged in her little shoulder bag and pulled out a small empty vial. It wasn’t really a vial, though. It was a suction vessel of the magical kind. One that could pull magic from the air and hold it. Crystal hovered it above the chair as if she were scooping invisible water. Then she capped it. On the counter, where the bottles were, there was a bowl at the back. A quick wipe with the edge of her top and it was clean enough. She snagged a hair from her own head and popped it into the vial, quickly putting the lid back. Then she pulled out a lighter, held the vial over the bowl, flicked the lid with her thumb and lit the air under it.
There was a small pop, the same pop a champagne bottle makes when it's being opened, then a fizz. Only this spat into the air and down into the bowl. Fragments of coloured embers fell—a broken rainbow of colours. They landed in the bowl in a pile of ash. “No …” she said. “No. I ….”
“What?”
Crystal had to hold onto the counter to keep herself standing. Her mind swam. The colours she had just seen snaked into her memories and yanked them out. “I …”
“Crystal?”
She put her hand over her mouth and pressed down hard. Her other hand, she put it up and wagged a finger at Jason for him to stand back. She needed a minute. A bloody long minute at that.
“Is it Shayla?”
“I know who did this.”
Chapter 9
Crystal’s first instinct was to run, to go home and slam her door, and tell Jason she couldn't do this. Adrenaline shot along her spine in waves, sending her into fight or flight, but she stayed rigid, frozen to the spot and completely immobilised with the realisation of what was going on. She breathed hard, her chest heaving from the effort of it all. If she didn't calm herself down, she was going to hyperventilate and then probably throw up.
“Crystal?” Jason’s face loomed in front of hers. He was a shadow right then, a confusing spot on her visual horizon, but he saw right into her and she felt more open and vulnerable than she had ever done in her life. He did something to her … something on a fundamental level.
She swallowed hard and the pressure in her
chest made her want to retch. “Shayla’s dead.” Her words were harsh, but her tone was soft, caring, honest.
Jason took a moment to process what she had just told him, the flickers of emotion going over his face tugging at Crystal’s heart. She didn’t mean to hurt him, but there was no way to sugarcoat what she knew with absolute certainty. “Yes,” he said eventually, not fighting it. His eyes were wide and for a second, Crystal could hardly believe she had said those words to him, but she knew it. Jason knew it. He had come to that conclusion himself back at the house, yet to say it … to actually confirm what he already thought … that was the knife in his gut.
“I still want to find her, though. I owe it to her to give her some kind of proper burial.”
She wanted to hug him. She wanted to hold him so damn tight that the look in his eyes would vanish. “If you’re sure,” she said.
“I know she’s gone.” He was nodding as he spoke as if trying to convince himself of something. “I know her body isn’t here, but I …” He paused, and his delicate blue eyes met Crystal’s, almost bringing a gasp from her as he caught her in his gaze. “I can’t just let them use her and then dump her body like she’s trash. You know?”
She did know. She knew better than he would ever realise. She went to put a hand on him but stopped.
“Do you know where she is?”
A pause. She pulled her hand back. “You can’t go there.”
The look of defiance on his face. “I have to. I can’t just … Tell me where she is.” He hovered in front of her. The feel of his wolf’s presence was like fur licking against her skin.
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
A flash of colour went across his pupils, and he ground his jaw down, creating a tick at his temples.
“You can’t, Jason. You can’t go there and fight them. I can’t tell you where she is.”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. She watched him as he rotated his shoulders, as if settling himself, then he simply nodded at her and walked past to go down the stairs and back out of the building. She could have let him walk away then. He had no idea where he was going. No danger, but something tugged at her gut and she knew without a doubt that later, when she was alone, guilt would gnaw at her bones for leaving the poor girl to the mercy of those who had her, but also, for leaving Jason’s heart as a festering wound inside his chest.