You were wondering why I didn’t just speak to you. You’ve blocked me. I can hear you, but can’t answer. Please let me back in. I love you. I miss your smile, laugh, and I will never forgive myself for making you hate me. Please Jas, just try let me back in. My world isn’t the same without you. I miss you. N xxx
I shook my head, but could feel my resolve wavering. I felt him sigh as the walls tumbled down, even though I tried my hardest to build them back up.
Much later in the night he appeared in the barn. “We have to talk,” he whispered, pulling me upright. I groaned as he pulled me into his arms, kissing my head, but I was stiff and cold so I didn’t respond.
I glanced down at his watch and pulled it up close to me so I could see it. “Nate, for fucksake, it’s two in the morning. Couldn’t this have waited.”
His chest shook with laughter and I wanted to punch him. “No babe, I’m sorry, it couldn’t.” He kissed the top of my head and the tip of my nose, tilting my chin up so he could capture my lips in a soul shattering kiss. “I’ve missed you,” he breathed against my lips before he sighed and started speaking quickly. He sounded nervous as he spoke.
“Tomorrow is the eve of Halloween. We will be at the disco from half past six until half past nine. We don’t dress up in costumes since that would be ridiculous, but you have to make an effort. My mum has bought you a dress and tomorrow night, you will be allowed into the house to get ready.”
Nodding sleepily, I didn’t say anything, but tried to go back into my sleeping bag to get some sleep. He sat beside me in the tent and turned on the lantern to the lowest setting. After a few moments of silence he squeezed my hand and I closed my eyes as he laced his fingers with my own.
I started to shiver with the cold and he let go of me. I moved into the sleeping bag and he followed, snuggling down beside me and laying his head beside mine. “I love you. You know that. Right?” He pulled my head onto his chest as I nodded at him and he leaned down, kissing the top of my head. “Whatever happens in the next few days, remember that I love you and you are the only person who has the power to make me better…”
He broke off and I fell asleep in his arms, wondering what he was talking about, but too tired to dwell on it for long.
The next day passed quickly and everyone was consumed with the disco that night; even I’d started to get a little excited. Getting home from school, Nathan’s mum approached me in the barn and told me she had set up my room for me to get ready, but after the disco, I was to come back to the barn. Walking with her into the house felt odd, but not as much as walking into the room and seeing a few of my belongings still scattered about.
“You can collect the rest of your stuff another day. You have to get dressed now. You have one hour.”
As she walked away, I went straight in for a shower and scrubbed until my body felt red raw. Getting out of the shower, I walked into the room and saw a gorgeous emerald green dress sitting on the bed. The dress was long and had waves at the front, with a silver hoop belt. Silver shoes and a silver clutch sat on the bed with an assortment of makeup.
I dried my hair, curling it down the side so it hung over my left shoulder and I accessorised with a silver necklace that had a teardrop on it and earrings to match. I put on a minimal amount of makeup, just eye shadow, eyeliner, and mascara with a little lip-gloss, I was ready to go.
Walking into the hall, I saw Nathan at his room door, looking very dapper in a grey shirt, striped black and grey tie, and dark jeans. As he turned towards me, I saw him groan, and his gaze heated up. He walked towards me, looked like he was about to compliment me, but I then heard his sister’s door open and he barged past me, growling, “Watch where you’re going, mortal.” He walked down the stairs, saying sweetly in my head, “I’m sorry, baby. You look stunning.”
As I turned and walked towards the stairs, his sister glared at me but didn’t say a word to me, which made me very uncomfortable. As we reached the bottom step, I could make out a conversation between Nathan and his father, “Remind them that if they touch her, I will end them,” his father said, sounding exceptionally angry.
“I will, Father, but are you sure you want them to be tempted by her?” Nathan asked, sounding worried.
“They will not betray me. They know better!” With that, his father walked into sight as he stood at the bottom of the staircase, smiling at Jenny. “Daughter, you look wonderful.”
He said nothing to me, didn’t even look in my direction as he motioned to the door, saying, “The car is waiting. Come on. Let’s go.” As I reached the door, he grabbed my arm, hissing into my ear, “Stay with Nathan and Jenny. Do not leave until I come to get you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” I nodded solemnly, noticing that Nathan was in the front seat of the car and Jenny was in the back, the car had seven seats.
As I climbed in, Jenny said, “Sit in the back. We have a few pickups to make.”
Driving into town was fine, but as we started picking up more people, I noticed that they all ignored me, with the exception of Lisa who sat directly in front of me. She kept glancing back and glaring at me, her long blond hair swishing as the turned. If looks could kill, I would have been dead and buried.
Finally, we arrived at the school and I met Danni, Kate, and Lisa Q walking into the hall. I didn’t see Nathan for a while, and then noticed him with his friends, all of whom kept looking at me, making me very uncomfortable.
Lisa felt it too and said, “Are you feeling like the last piece of candy in a sweet shop?”
“Yes, thank God you’re feeling it too. Let’s go and get a drink?”
“Yeah, sure. We can stop looking like a deer in headlights.”
We walked away together and chatted about books when Nathan and a few of his friends materialised at our sides — Joe and two others, named Jackson and Liam. Jackson and Liam stared at us almost hungrily, but both Nathan and Joe looked uncomfortable.
“Well, girls, don’t we look delish tonight,” Jackson snidely commented, reaching out to touch my arm. His touch made my skin cold and I ice shot up my arm from his gentle fingers, but it was the look in his eyes that churned my stomach. He watched me hungrily and licked his lips as he stared down at me. I couldn’t move and I began to shiver as the ice flooded down towards my heart. Nathan cleared his throat once and he ice feeling left me. As I chanced a glanced at Nathan, who just stood there, he asked, “Can’t we just have a bite?”
“No, my father’s edict is still in place. Now let her go. Go back to the dance, you two. Now.” He wasn’t asking and his tone had scared me, so we did as he ordered. We walked away, but Jackson wasn’t about to let Nathan ruin his fun. He reached out, grabbed me by the throat, and pulled me towards him. He twisted my arm up my back and pulled it tighter and tighter. Nathan looked furious as he dragged me across the corridor and into a vacant classroom.
“Come on, Nathan. Just a taste. Here, I’ll start.” He cut my wrist so a little blood dripped out, but before he could bring it to his lips, Nathan had thrown us clean across the classroom.
“DON’T YOU DARE BREAK THE SANCTITY OF AN EDICT…” he bellowed at him while he held me. I could feel myself getting breathless and my face grew redder. “NOW LET HER GO, OR I WILL FUCKING END YOU.”
Jackson’s hand loosened on my neck and Nathan walked over, helped me to my feet, and said, “Go clean yourself up and tell no one of what happened in here.”
I nodded and walked out of the classroom, heading towards the bathrooms. As soon as I was inside the bathroom, the tears threatened, but I swallowed the lump in my throat. As I stood cleaning the blood on my arm, I decided to thank Nathan for rescuing me, knowing that it couldn’t have been easy for him to curb his friends or make them let me go.
My body moved almost of its own volition back towards the classroom and as I walked I thought about what I was going to say to Nathan. When I reached the room the first thing I noticed was that the door was ajar and that a funny smell came from inside, kind of
like cooking meat. Walking closer, I could see through the window panel on the door that a boy around my age was being stripped of his flesh by a crowd of demons, all gathered around him.
I stared blankly into the room, unable to move and I could see sinew, muscle, and blood dripping onto the floor. The boy seemed completely unaware, but turned his gaze towards me. In his eyes, I could see only pain and terror. Gasping aloud, I shoved my fist into my mouth and bit down hard as the flesh in their hands sizzled and turned browner, and the aroma of cooking beef became stronger. The smell then turned sour and the smell made my eyes water. My voice caught in my throat and made me gag.
I felt my stomach turn, but it soon dropped right through the soles of my feet as one of the demons turned towards me. I recognised him. Nathan stood there with muscle, blood, and flesh, in his hands as he froze, taking me in, before he shoved everything in his hands into his mouth.
Revolted I spun on my heel and flew back down the corridor, trying not to throw up. Hearing footsteps, I moved faster as one of them chased after me. “Wait, Jasmine. Please wait,” Nathan called after me. I ran around the corner and saw the same thing happening in a number of different classrooms. Feeling sicker than ever, I stopped, and leaning against the wall, I placed my head down to my knees.
Nathan touched me and I flinched, jumping away from him, “Don’t touch me.” I hissed out the words between my teeth, trying to stop myself from being sick.
“Move then; I can’t be seen standing here beside you.” His tone was ice cold and my whole body shivered at it.
I bit out, “I’m not going anywhere with you.” I stayed with my head between my legs, wanting to lash out at him and feeling a tingling in my fingers. I worked to control it and breathed quickly in and out as I fought to control my emotions.
“Jasmine, come on. Please, just come with me.” He grabbed my arm and I felt my stomach roll again, as an image of flesh in his arms threatened to overwhelm me. He pulled me along and shoved me into the medical room, locking the door before handing me a sick bowl.
“Look at me please,” he begged, kneeling on the floor at my feet.
“I can’t…” I answered, breaking off and swallowing hard.
“You were never meant to see that.” His voice sounded distant, as a ringing sound took place in my ears. His hands made a circular motion on my back and I shivered at his touch, feeling revolted.
“ Jas,” he whispered, “I’m so sorry…”
I cut him off, unable to listen to him anymore. I couldn’t stand it. “So that makes it okay? What happens at a Halloween disco? Is it just a… a … well a fucking feeding fest for demons? And you are okay with that? Why…?” I broke off again, feeling sick at the thought.
He swallowed loudly and sighed before he spoke again, “Yeah, that’s pretty much what happens and I’m sorry you had to see that. It’s all I have ever known. I have to get back. Stay in here. Lock the door and I’ll collect you later.”
He leaned down, ignoring my flinch and softly grazed his lips on my forehead. He stood there for a moment, breathing me in and then turned to walk out the door, closing it behind him. As soon as he was gone, I locked the door, opening it a few moments later for Lisa, who looked faint.
She sat on the bench beside me and laid her head on my shoulder in an oddly comforting move. We sat like that for three quarters of an hour before Nathan came back, and knocked on the door. “It’s time to go, ladies. Lisa, you are staying at our house tonight.”
Lisa blanched at this and looked extremely apprehensive, which made me wonder what would happen next. Little did I know it would be worse than I ever imagined and would almost break Nathan and me apart for good.
As we arrived back at the Stevenson’s there were more cars than ever, and the barn was lit up like a Christmas tree. Lisa and I were shown into the barn by Jenny and I noticed that Lisa suddenly had a sort of deadened look in her eyes. My breath caught in my chest as we walked further into the barn. There were a number of people, both old and young in age, with a few children, some as young as two or three, all sat with the same dead look on their faces.
I went into my stall, changed, and climbed into bed, wondering at the silence from Nathan and trying to get the image of him feeding on that person out of my head.
The whole night I spent tossing and turning until the next morning. I saw the light rise through the window. Later that day, Nathan’s mum came to the barn.
“Jasmine, wear this today,” she said as she handed me a blood red dress, with a straight collar across the neck and a hem dropping down to the knees. She handed one to Lisa and the younger children, helping them into their dresses. Others wore robes of white with red roses on them and no one spoke, not even the youngest of the children.
Something struck me as ominous and as that thought entered so did Nathan’s voice, “Behave please, Jas. This is important.”
“What is, Nate?”
I could feel his smile at me using his nickname, but he didn’t answer and didn’t speak to me again for the remainder of the morning or afternoon.
Eventually, at around three p.m., Nate came into the barn with some food for me. He told me to hide the bowl of pasta and bread and not tell anyone he had fed me. He would get into a huge amount of trouble. He never said anything else to me and never answered any of the pleading questions I kept asking him.
At five minutes to six, his parents, brother, and sister, aunts, uncles, and cousins all came into the barn. They ordered everyone to stand at the tree and blindfolded all of the mortals. We were all led out of the stables, into woods and walked through the trees. I felt my clothes tugged at and asked Nate again, what was going on.
“Please just be quiet or you’ll be killed.”
The blindfold was then taken off for a short time and when I looked down, I was in some sort of blood-red cloak over my dress. I had no other choice than to follow the ‘party’ deeper into the woods where more and more voices gathered, each voice sounding louder and more rambunctious.
The atmosphere became quite jolly within the ‘party’, with members joking around with one another and laughing. I kept looking at Nate, but he kept his eyes straight ahead, moving swiftly through the trees. I then heard his dad and uncle talking about what I thought was me. I was in the lead, you see, the only one not bewitched and the only one alert enough to feel some fear about what would happen. I had concluded that everyone else was under some sort of enchantment as we were blindfolded; they all held still, but I glanced around before Nathan re-blindfolded me.
I almost cried aloud, but a word from Nathan made me stay quiet. “Don’t make a sound, Jasmine!” he commanded.
I hated this and I wanted out of here. I could hear excerpts of their conversations, which scared me more than anything else that had happened that night. The people nearest me, the ones whose conversations were clear, were Mr Stevenson and one of his cousins. I had only met Jack, Nathans uncle, but this relative was even scarier. Nathan whispered, “Jas, don’t even look at him, he’s vicious.”
“I have a blindfold on,” I countered and Nate groaned, “Jas, for fucksake, just walk straight ahead and shut up.”
A voice carried over the wind and I stiffened, only Nate’s hand on my arm kept me moving forward as I took in what they were talking about. “Have you seen her luminosity? It’s so bright.” It was Brian, Lewis’s best friend. Nate’s voice travelled into my mind, telling me I needed to be very wary of him. Brian was deadly and he was almost one hundred so he could sense things that others missed. Nathan stopped there and I focused again on the conversation ahead of me.
As Mr Stevenson answered, “Yet, there is some force protecting it.” I found it hard to keep walking and stumbled as Brian asked, with an odd tone, “But you will break that down surely?”
“Jas, please, focus. You are going to get us both killed here. Just walk okay? Just walk” I moved one foot in front of the other as I listened to their whispered conversation, trying to control how bad
ly I was shaking.
Nate’s dad answered, “Oh, yes. Of course, we shall, but we need to wait another year or so. She will not be ours until after she is eighteen. The laws of mortals, ridiculous huh?”
They then laughed and walked farther ahead. My head swam with this information and I could feel how uncomfortable and upset Nathan was. I felt completely alone and wondered how long it would take them to break me. I wondered what this meant.
All Nate said at that point was, “You’ll see, but please don’t dwell on it today. Just keep walking please.” I tripped over a tree root, banging my head on the ground as my hands were tied. Not making a sound though, I was roughly picked up and pushed forwards. The whole time all I wanted to do was to ask Nate more questions. Where were we going? What was going on? Why I was blindfolded? Something made me keep my mouth shut.
My head bled a little as someone walked over to me and muttered something over my head. The blindfold was then taken off and I was able to scan my surroundings, but I heard a warning in my head from Nate and had to stop looking around. I wasn’t responding to the incantation that had been placed on me in the proper manner. I was worried, tired, and more than a little hungry.
Mr Stevenson walked away to join the party and I was left standing with the other humans, none of whom looked scared or bothered by being in the woods, tied, and blindfolded. We were also on a path lit by low-hanging lanterns and extremely old trees. Looking around again in the lantern light as we started walking, my foot caught on a root again.
The night around me seemed filled with a tangible malice I could almost taste and one that I had never felt before. Since I was busy thinking about that and looking around at the trees lining our path, Nathan caught me before I could fall again. “Will you fucking watch where you’re walking, you stupid little mortal bitch?”
It would have hurt less if he had slapped me. When I looked up, he wasn’t looking at me but at his sister standing a foot away. She turned back to walk and he squeezed my hand gently before letting go. I heard his apology in my head and watched him walk back to his place in the procession.
Ignition (Escaping Demons Saga Book 2) Page 8