I half expected privacy glass to creep from the bottom up, like the cars my father frequently traveled in. The one difference between Dimitri and Father? My father guarded his secrets in varying ways, but Dimitri spoke openly. His men knew not to betray his trust.
“Where are we going?” I asked as the driver pulled the car away from my house. Each passing yard, fence, and gate taunted me that I might never make it home again.
“You tell them about me.” It wasn’t a question.
I shook my head rapidly. “No, I wouldn’t tell anyone anything.”
“No. I get visit from police yesterday. They say you tell them that I sell you the cocaine. I denied it, of course, but you have caused me a great problem.”
“Dimitri, I never said anything. I was in that place just biding my time. They got angry that I wouldn’t speak.”
Suddenly, the conversation with Doc replayed in my mind. He asked who Dimitri was, and I told him, My dealer. He could have waited a few days. Jesus. Still, lying was the best solution here.
Dimitri instructed the driver to take us to an address I didn’t recognize.
“Where are we going?” I asked again.
Dimitri didn’t answer me. He didn’t have to. My scalp itched where the stitches crawled over it, a centipede of thread. The silence in the car crept into my bones. “I swear I didn’t tell anyone about you, Dimitri.”
Still no answer. The car took lefts and rights, too many to remember in order. If they were trying to confuse me—and they probably were—it was working. Easing into an alley, the driver stopped the car. A man made of solid muscle stepped toward the car and opened the door for Dimitri, who barked two words. “Bring her.”
As Dimitri walked away without a backwards glance, Muscle walked around, opened my door, and motioned for me to exit. My feet hit the ground, one at a time, almost as if life were moving in slow motion. The concrete was broken, cracks splintering from one tagged building to another across the alley. Garbage in a nearby dumpster made me cover my nose as I stepped out of the car, avoiding a questionable puddle. Was that blood?
Breathe.
Step.
Breathe.
Step again.
I had to remind myself to do both.
Climbing a small flight of stairs to a loading dock, the lackey led me inside a large, dilapidated warehouse. It was empty of everything but a few makeshift beds huddled in a corner. Dimitri waited in the center of the large space. Maybe the beds belonged to homeless squatters. My eyes searched for them. Maybe one would get help.
Empty. The building. The beds. Dimitri’s eyes.
The guard shoved me toward the middle of the room, straight toward him. I stumbled and Dimitri caught me. “You caused me problems. Now I cause you pain,” he said, before punching me in the ribs. Fire bloomed and spread through my abdomen and chest. I gasped for air he had no intention of allowing me to have. I was going to die in this piss-scented warehouse. “You know what to do,” he ordered to the guard, walking away. “I’ll call the others.”
What others?
When the giant came at me, I blocked his arms, scratched out toward his face, and kicked toward his knees, his groin. It wasn’t enough. He was much better at fighting than I was. In all honesty, it was only seconds before the fight in me was gone. I just wanted it to end.
I wanted it all to end.
The giant’s fist crashed against my jaw with a sickening crack. I laid on the floor, staring at the air conditioning shafts and pipes that ran across it in predictable patterns. When he lifted me by the shirt to hit me again and saw I couldn’t stand upright on my own, he let go of me. I flopped to the floor, trying to push myself up. Blood poured from my nose and mouth, pooling beneath me.
“Get up!” he roared.
I tried, not because he told me to, but because I wanted away from him and the pain. Pushing away with my toes, I made it a few feet before the kicking began. He laughed at me as my fingernails dug into the cracked concrete. He was going to kill me. This was it.
When one of his polished shoes connected with my temple, everything went black.
4
The rhythmic sound of air being sucked in and expelled from a tube woke me. I blinked, unsure of what I was seeing. How did I get here? The scent of antiseptic weighed heavily in the air. A man with dark, slicked-back hair pushed a bucket out of the curtained area, using the handle of his submerged mop to steer. He whistled sweetly. The floor shone, still wet with bleach and water. A woman lay in a hospital bed, wires and tubes streaming out of her like rays of sunshine. Her eyelids were taped shut. A stream of staples flowed down her scalp. Every inch of her face was bruised, swollen, or cut. One of her calves was raised in the air by a sling hanging from a metal contraption. The machines beside her, whose music had been steady, suddenly became erratic. An alarm sounded, its frantic beeps summoning a nearby nurse who slipped on the wet tiles on her way to the machines, righting herself at the last minute. She quickly checked the patient’s pulse at her wrist. Two more nurses ran into the room, and then there were four. It was a flurry of activity.
“Her blood pressure’s crashing,” the first nurse who arrived announced. She was precise and sharp with each movement. “Ephedrine ready,” she ordered the others.
One flew into action. It must not have been the first time the woman had needed the medicine, because they had it readily available on an end table near the bed. A nurse used a syringe to ease medicine directly into the IV. Within a minute, the alarm’s shrill sound quieted and the beeping became rhythmic.
“I’ll watch her for a few minutes,” the first nurse said, punching words into the electronic medical record.
The other three nurses gingerly stepped over the drying puddles of water on their way out of the room.
I hovered near the ceiling above the scene, watching the machine breathe for the woman, watching as the nurse looked her over, checking the pulse at the ankle resting on the bed. She shook her head. “Keep fighting, Carmen. I hope they find the bastards who did this to you.”
The woman was me.
It should have panicked me, but I didn’t feel anything but tired. I saw that they had busted my head open again and beat my entire body, but it was hard to tell what else they did. A chill ran up my spine, causing me to shudder. Why did Dimitri leave me alive?
Was I alive?
If I were dying, why in the hell did I have to die wearing a hospital gown? Under all of the sheets and blanket, I knew my ass was hanging out. I hated those gowns worse than scrubs.
I covered my ears against the noise coming from above; a high-pitched scream so loud, it could shatter glass and bone. I was floating over my body again, over the room, but still felt the hair on my arms stand on end. Looking over my shoulder, there was a black, glittering film that stretched across the room in a slight arc. Though it was as black as coal, it was thin and swirling, molten. I reached my hand out, knowing somehow that the ebbing fabric wouldn’t hurt me. Dipping my finger into it, I expected it to be drenched with goo when I pulled it out, but my finger came away clean. I couldn’t see what lay beyond the fabric, only that there were shadows moving; like a light was cast from behind it, and their shadows were the only evidence that it was real.
From my right, I heard the sound of smacks on bare skin and shrill screaming. I eased through the building, through wall and ceiling, and peered into the hospital room next to mine.
A disoriented woman, also in a hospital gown, floated over her body. Two men grabbed her wrists and were pulling her toward the molten black dome hovering overhead. It looked like the fabric of the dome had torn in two, and a fissure sat directly over her head.
“Leave her alone, assholes!” I screamed. All eyes snapped to me.
One man looked at the other, grinning lecherously. “Two for the price of one. Our lucky day.”
Before I knew what had happened, a noose of crackling blue lightning whipped around my neck. I was reeled further into the room by the man w
ho’d struck me with the bolt. He was gray; his skin, clothes, hair—even the whites of his eyes—gray. He was taller and thinner than his friend, but his friend was gray, too. Soon, the woman I tried to save had a lightning collar of her own. It flickered and pulsed in a leaping, jagged circle around her neck, ever changing, but never loosening its grip. The shorter, broader gray man disappeared into the fissure, pulling the woman through the hole behind him. She cried out, but allowed him to pull her anyway. My captor followed suit, and then I was being tugged toward the tear myself.
Hell, no.
Reaching toward the ceiling, I tried to grab anything that I could anchor myself to, but there was nothing. My fingers slipped right through everything. He jerked me hard, and I resisted harder, leaning back against his tugs. When I came to within a foot of the hole, I looked at the fabric as it flapped along the tear; a torn, dark flag battling the wind. I was able to touch it earlier; maybe I could grab hold of it, keep myself rooted in this reality. Instinctively I knew that whatever lay beyond was bad. I could taste the bitter flavor of despair and desperation as it leaked through the fissure.
I grabbed hold of either side with both hands and held tight, gathering the fabric and twisting it around my palms. When the man tugged, he met resistance. When he tugged harder, I gritted my teeth and held tighter. The flesh of my neck sizzled as the lightning leash dug into my skin. The smell of burnt hair and flesh made my stomach turn. I screamed in agony, but still held on as tenaciously as I could. The more he jerked and pulled, the more the lightning burned me, but I didn’t want to go inside the hole any farther.
My body was too weak to keep this up much longer.
Soon, my feet were inside. Then my knees and hips. Soon my stomach, chest, and head was inside. The only things keeping me near my own body, near my hospital bed, were my hands as they held onto two tiny swaths of fabric that gave way with each jerk the tall gray man gave.
My left hand slipped, leaving me holding on by only one hand. The torn pieces flapped angrily overhead, loud as a freight train. From below, my captor sneered, standing in a meadow that should have been a vibrant green, but was the same dull shade that he was. Gravity didn’t matter here. I was either going to crash or float, and neither seemed to be a good option. I chose option number three—to fight. Fighting was all I had left. But I was so tired.
I tried to swing my other arm up to get a firmer grip, but it was too late. The fabric tore off in my hand. I held onto it stubbornly, expecting to crash to the ground, but it was as if gravity didn’t realize I was here yet. My captor reeled me in. As soon as my feet hit the ground, gravity behaved itself, allowing me to stand on my own two feet.
“Stupid girl! Do you know what you could have done?” The man looked up at the hole. “You ripped it,” he said in a voice that hinted at both fright and awe. “It ain’t sealing! You...you tore it.”
I opened my palm where a piece of the fabric still shimmered in my hand. I watched as it began to move, and as my skin slowly absorbed it.
The man’s mouth opened wider than seemed possible. “What have you done?”
“I tried to get away from YOU!”
A loud buzz came from overhead. The hole, the one that I’d widened ever so slightly, finally morphed, flexed, stretched, and ultimately sealed itself.
“No!” the woman next to me yelled, reaching out for what was gone. “How do we get back now?” she cried.
Her gray captor snickered. “You don’t.”
I’m tripping. That’s all this is. I’m in the hospital. No doubt Dimitri and his thugs worked me over pretty good. I’m on medicine and in a coma or whatever. I didn’t float in the air, and I certainly didn’t see a hole in anything over my head. There’s no fabric over the earth, anyway. They don’t have lightning leashes. This lady isn’t even real, and neither are the gray men. I’m having a crazy, drug-induced hallucination. Fabric doesn’t soak into skin. None of this stuff could possibly happen. When I wake up, if I wake up, I promise to call Doc. I’ll do anything. I’ll get straight.
The portly gray man did not mess around. This might be just a dream, but in it, he was the leader of the pair. The pecking order had long been established. “Let’s get them to the gate, Gus.”
Gus, the tall, skinny man with a goatee that matched his gray skin, didn’t even argue. “We’ll make a mint tonight, Chester. Bet the Reddies will be more than happy to entertain the pair of us.”
“They better be,” Chester snickered, rubbing his stomach as if he’d eaten too much. “Been a long go since we caught a pair.”
The woman who walked beside me bawled. She’d been crying since the hole in the sky closed. Her tears dripped onto the electric collar around her neck, immediately sizzling them into tiny puffs of steam. The grassy field we landed in was peppered with large boulders, and the surface of a small pond glittered in the distance.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Pamela.”
“Why aren’t we gray?”
Chester snorted, but answered, “You haven’t been here long enough.”
“And where exactly is here? Oz?”
Gus nudged Chester. “This ain’t no wonderland, doll.” Gus was an idiot and had obviously never seen The Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland.
“It’s Hell, right?” Pamela asked, bawling louder. “We died and now we’re in Hell.”
“It ain’t Hell, either.” Chester slapped Gus on the chest. “We didn’t properly introduce their new home. Ladies, welcome to Purgatory.”
5
Slimy snot began running from Pamela’s nose, oozing close to her upper lip, but Pam wasn’t worried about it, so why should I be? She shook all over as she stumbled, trying to keep up with Chester. I decided I wasn’t going to freak out. This wasn’t real. Eventually, I’d wake up from the coma and this nightmare would end.
“Pam, you need to calm down.”
“I’m not going to calm down! We’re in Purgatory! Don’t you get it? We’re not going back!” More tears sizzled on her crackling collar.
Okay, then. Have yourself a little bat shit crazy party, Pam.
I looked around, determined to enjoy the views of this so-called “Purgatory.” Maybe Dante had been in a coma. Maybe he had a crazy dream like this one before he wrote the Divine Comedy. I hadn’t read the entire thing, but my high school English teacher was obsessed with his work. She had illustrations and posters of artist renderings of what they imagined the characters and levels of Purgatory looked like. One was a stepped mountain with a different deadly sin on each level. If this was Purgatory, there were no mountains here.
Leaving the field behind us, we carved a path through a maze of abandoned houses. In the distance loomed an imposing cityscape, where skyscrapers jutted into the sky like any city you’d see on Earth. Everything was coated in varying shades of gray.
We followed the concrete road past homes and down a long hill. No people were outside their homes. No cars were being driven. Could one drive a rust-bucket in Purgatory? Probably not. Where would they get gasoline?
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.
Chester answered, “In the city. Most people don’t live on the outskirts.”
“And we’re walking through the outskirts? These...neighborhoods are the outskirts?”
“You’re a bright one,” he snickered, nudging Gus, who looked back at me and laughed.
Pam just blubbered beside me.
“Are there more cities?”
Chester nodded. “All over. They’re abandoned, though. This is the only one that’s alive.”
Alive? It seemed dead to me. Of course, it was fitting if this really was Purgatory. Alleys were littered with dumpsters and puddles, reminding me of my last trip to The Castle. Townhomes sat empty; the curtains and blinds in the windows shut securely, while some doors were left wide open. There were no animals here, either. I expected to hear dogs barking, or perhaps see some cats slinking in the shadows, looking for food. Maybe they
were in the city, too. Or maybe animals just didn’t come here.
“Why’d you come and get us? Isn’t it risky leaving this place to go through the hole into our world?”
“You’re full of questions, girl,” Gus answered.
“You would be, too.”
His brows kissed one another. “Suppose I would. It is a risk to leave, but if we catch a floater, it’s more than worth it.”
“Did you just call us floaters?”
Gus smirked. “Ironic, eh? Just like shit in a bowl, you are.”
“Fuck you, Gus.” I kept walking behind him. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a dick?”
He shot a nasty look my way, or maybe that was his happy face. I couldn’t tell.
Pamela wept. She lamented over the people she left behind, pleading with Gus and Chester to release her, to let her go back home.
“Please, I have two little boys. They need me. Their father works nights. I need to help my elderly mother. My family depends on me. I have to go back. Please!”
I kept quiet for once, letting her work the pity angle. I didn’t have anyone to go back to. No one cared if I was here, or in the hospital bed fighting for every breath. No one cared if I lived or died. But I wasn’t above lying and creating a worse sob story if it worked for her. Even though I doubted it would. I had a feeling that Chester and Gus didn’t care about the sad lives of ‘floaters.’
The streetlights were busted out, chunks of plastic and glass lying beneath them on the asphalt. It wouldn’t have mattered if they were lit. Nothing could brighten the dull in this place. Except the graffiti—which was everywhere, and it, too, was comprised of gray pigments, though the words themselves were colorful and mostly consisted of four letters. Pamela gasped when she read a few of them.
“What kind of place is this?” She began hiccupping in earnest.
Keeper of Crows (The Keeper of Crows Duology Book 1) Page 4