Darkness Haunts

by Susan Illene

  One thing was for certain—panicking would get me nowhere and could make things worse. They had me locked up tight with no way to get out, but that didn’t mean opportunities wouldn’t come. I needed to bide my time and figure out my options. If they were going to kill me, they would have done it already. Not to mention Felisha had said they wanted me for something. They would have to keep me alive for that.

  There was one problem with that line of thinking.

  No one had come to check on me, though a guard stood nearby. With his werewolf hearing, he must have heard the racket I made trying to get free. Were they planning to let me rot down here in a slow death? With no food, water, or way to get warm, it wouldn’t take more than a couple of days. If hypothermia set in, it could be even less.

  Hopelessness hit me with the realization I had failed Mrs. Singh and my best friend. I never even got close enough to see Aniya. My senses told me there were several humans in the house, but I didn’t have the energy to figure out if any were her. It wouldn’t matter anyway, if getting out of my own situation couldn’t be done. What would they do to her if I didn’t save her?

  Did my actions make things worse?

  Following that train of thought wouldn’t do any good right now. I needed to focus on my immediate problems. Like the fact no heat reached this room and it had to be freezing. I began to shiver and couldn't seem to stop myself. My teeth were chattering so hard it was a miracle they didn’t knock themselves out. After what might have been hours, I grew tired and weak from exhaustion.

  Dark thoughts ran through my mind as I hung there with nowhere to go and nothing to do. My body stopped shaking after awhile, whether from shock or adapting to the environment, I didn’t know. The manacles continued to dig into my wrists and my toes grew numb. Staying awake became difficult. My eyelids drifted closed. I’d sleep—just for a little while.

  ***

  Time stood still. I’d fall asleep only to be woken soon after by sharp pains shooting through my arms. Breathing in this position wasn’t easy either. A day must have gone by since my arrival. I had sensed both vampires and werewolves outside the door, and guessed they were rotating according to daylight hours.

  A werewolf waited outside now, pacing back and forth along what must have been a corridor of some sort. His emotions were volatile. He had been there the other night at the cabin. I suspected he held a grudge. Funny how the bad guys always got angry at people who defended themselves.

  The lack of food and water, along with the constant pain and discomfort, was wearing me down. I couldn’t think clearly. In a strange and twisted way, the room became both my prison and my sanctuary. So far, nothing had hurt me here, excluding the chains holding me in place. If I had to die, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing and maybe even for the best. Anything would be better than staying stuck in this room for much longer.

  The werewolf stopped his pacing and unlocked the door. It opened inch by inch, creaking along as it went. Before my eyes could adjust to the brightness, he closed it behind him, taking the light away. He stood there in silence. I barely breathed.

  He took a few steps closer, moving in behind me. I wanted do disappear. His werewolf vision gave him an advantage. I could sense lust rising from him. It felt like his eyes were roaming over every inch of me. I desperately wanted to cover myself and tried shifting in my chains. It wasn’t the cool temperature in the room making me cold now.

  I jerked when his rough fingers traced over my skin, starting at my shoulders and moving downward. My body recoiled, but I couldn’t get far from him. He laughed and reached around to my breasts, squeezing them hard. I cried out. It hurt. I wanted…no, I needed to make it stop. I was a fighter. I couldn’t let one disgusting werewolf do this to me.

  "Get your dirty paws off me, you stinking mutt,” I gritted out.

  He smacked me hard on my ass. The sound echoed against the walls.

  "I don't think you’re in a position to talk, little whore,” he said before continuing his explorations. The sick bastard.

  Both his body and breath stunk. I grew nauseous from the combined assault on my body and senses.

  "Don't touch me.”

  His darkened shape moved into my view. "You'll learn to enjoy it.”

  "I will never enjoy it, you sick fuck.”

  I kicked my leg out, trying to nail him anywhere I could. He side-stepped out of the way. The lanky man could move fast. Lacking any other options, I spit in his face.

  "Stupid bitch.” He swiped the dribble off his cheek. “Try that again and I’ll shackle your legs…apart!”

  He smacked me again. My head swung to the side as pain exploded in my cheek. Okay, that really hurt. At least one of my back teeth had been knocked loose. I had to press my lips together to keep from making any kind of sound. No point in giving him that pleasure.

  He froze when the lights came on. The door flung open, banging against the wall. Another werewolf entered. Though I couldn't see him, he had the feel of an alpha about him. It was the same one who had captured me in the woods.

  "That's enough, Kevin,” he growled out.

  "Ah, come on Derrick,” he said. “She has it coming after the trouble she caused us. You weren't there when she killed Janice or you’d understand.”

  Derrick? That was the same guy who visited Emily. Was his showing up a good thing or a bad thing?

  "Doesn't matter. I allow you a lot of freedom but molesting women, regardless of who they are, isn't one of them. We don’t treat females—any females—that way. Now get out of here and don't let me catch you in this room again.”

  I could feel the command in his voice. The weaker werewolf responded to it. He huffed, but he left without further argument. Smart thing since the alpha wolf had to be about five times his strength. In fact, Derrick registered on my senses as being almost two centuries old. I hadn’t paid attention to his age that day he passed me by on the street, being in too big of a hurry to get away, but it bothered me now. Werewolves, on average, didn’t live past a century, if that. How had he managed his longevity?

  The alpha followed the other guy out and shut the door behind him. The light remained on, though, and a few minutes later he came back holding a bottle of water. Saying nothing, he held the opening to my mouth. Not knowing when another chance might come, I accepted it, enjoying the taste after having nothing to drink for too long. The werewolf remained quiet while I chugged it down.

  At least there were no lusty vibes coming from him.

  With lowered lids, I studied the man. He looked like a typical alpha werewolf with a stocky build made large by heavy muscle. Unlike the other guy, this one was well-groomed with a fresh-shaven face, and his long brown hair had been pulled back in a ponytail at the neck. I guessed it to be about shoulder length or a little longer. When his brown eyes turned to mine, my gaze jerked away, focusing on the nearby wall instead. That might be considered a submissive move to his kind, but I was the one stuck without any clothes on, chained tight. It made it kind of hard to act all that tough.

  His mouth opened as if to say something, but he grunted instead and left without a word. The light stayed on, a small favor to me. I wasn’t afraid of the dark, but I’d discovered I didn’t like it much in this place. Derrick stationed himself not far from the door.

  I let out a silent breath of relief.

  At least one person here had some decency. He might have knocked me out during our scuffle in the woods, but his stopping a man from molesting me still upped my opinion of him. It would have been nothing for him to ignore it. Not to mention his care of Emily. She hadn’t talked about him much, but what little she did say had been good.

  My opinion of sups had gone on a roller coaster ride since arriving in Fairbanks, meeting the good, the bad, and the questionable among their ranks. I couldn’t settle on whether the good ones counted or if it was better to consider them all bad—no matter how moral they first appeared.

  No one else came again for a long time. Doubt and worry
set in as the hours trickled by and nothing else happened. When new visitors did arrive, I wanted to go back to my solitary existence. The human witch and two of the werewolves from the attack on my cabin entered the room. Derrick had left his station outside the door not long before that. There wouldn’t be anyone to intercede for me this time. Whatever this group wanted, it couldn’t be good. The three came in with revenge on their minds. I could feel it in their moods as they circulated around me.

  The witch stood off to the side, the furthest away, and wore a sickening grin. She had a long, narrow face with icy blue eyes and long, stringy black hair. Her frail body didn’t have a hint of curves, which was made worse by her being on the tall side. No one would ever call her beautiful.

  The one thing that saved her was a pert nose and full lips. If she’d ever bothered to look friendly, the two features would have softened the harshness making up the rest of her. I didn’t think that would ever happen, though. She might be young at twenty years old, but she had already been dabbling in the black arts. It would make her appearance and disposition grow worse if she continued down that path.

  The witch placed her hands on her hips, attempting to appear tough. It didn’t work with her slight body and under different circumstances I might have laughed.

  “You killed my sister. I’ll make sure you pay for that, you little bitch.” Her voice came out in a screech.

  “You tried to invade my cabin. What did you expect? A welcome party?” I asked.

  Her eyes lit up with rage. “How dare you!”

  I could feel the waves of maliciousness coming off of her. She nodded to the two weres, who stepped closer to me. The witch no doubt wanted to watch me get hurt without having to get her own delicate hands dirty.

  I shook my head and let her see the pity in my eyes. “This won’t bring her back, you know.”

  She tightened her jaw and waved at her companions.

  The first strike to my chest took the breath right out of me. One of my ribs must have cracked, if the piercing pain was anything to go by. There was no chance to focus on it further. Successive blows rained down on me after that. Each man took a turn holding me in place while the other took his shots at me. They rammed fists into my back, chest, and legs—along with the occasional strike to my face.

  They weren’t using their full strength, but it still hurt like hell. Death might have been preferable under the circumstances. The torture of waiting for them to come didn’t compare to the physical punishment I was getting now.

  My body jerked like a puppet on strings as they worked me over. It was methodical and brutal. Blood poured from my nose and down my face. I could taste it on my lips. My manacled wrists were being gouged from holding up most of my weight. They’d crushed one of my knees and the other one was having trouble keeping up.

  The witch laughed and smiled the whole time, encouraging them to hit me more. I passed out twice, but they threw buckets of ice water on me to solve that problem. One of the vampires from the other night brought the ice in and stayed for a few minutes to watch. My senses gave me a vague impression of him, but my eyes had swollen to the point I couldn’t see well anymore.

  Every sup in the area had to have heard my torture-filled cries until my voice grew too hoarse to make much noise beyond a whimper. Through ragged gasps, I begged them to stop—my dignity having long since fled out the windowless room, but my tormentors laughed at my pleas. They found my pathetic mewling to be a source of amusement.

  A person in deep pain has no pride; only the desperate will to make it stop. I was no longer Melena Sanders—I was a stranger. A woman who felt nothing, saw nothing. Nothing but the intense pain coursing through her body. A broken creature with no hope of survival. If there was a light at the end of the tunnel, the flickering bulb above my head wasn’t it. The faces of my tormentors were no angels—they were hell’s minions and I’d stepped into their purgatory.

  Hours might have passed before it ended, maybe it had been less. There was no way to be sure. I was having difficulty breathing, but enough breath reached my lungs to somehow keep me alive. They freed me of the chains and one of the weres caught my body before it fell to the floor. Even his lighter touch hurt to the point it brought visions of blackness.

  He set me up against the wall in the corner. I slumped, but managed to stay semi-sitting up so I could breathe easier. He stepped back to examine the damage he and his cohort had done. I could just make out his shape through my cracked eyelids. After seeming satisfied with my condition, he turned to the witch.

  “You think that was enough?” he asked.

  The coldness in her voice reached me. “It will never be enough, but it will have to do. Variola wants her later tonight.”

  The witch swept out of the room without a backward glance. The two werewolves followed, shutting the door behind them. My blurry vision barely allowed me to notice when the lights turned off. My awareness was fading fast. Within moments I passed out, unable to keep myself conscious any longer.

  ***

  A hand rubbing my arm disturbed me from an uncomfortable sleep. I came awake and moaned when the pain from my injuries came rushing back to hit me with full force. It must have been too much for them to let me sleep for long. My eyelids were swollen and gritty from the dried blood and tears encircling them. I managed to open one of them enough to see who kneeled before me.

  A couple of slow and agonizing blinks later I recognized her. She was the last person I expected to see. Why would the sups have let her come down here?

  With a shaking hand, I reached out to touch her tear-filled face. Sharp pain shot through my shoulder. I gritted my teeth through it and managed to graze her cheek. Wet drops ran down my fingers, leaving streaks through the grime. She didn’t seem to care about the filth covering me. A mixture of guilt, sadness, and fear reflected in her eyes. After days of searching, I had found Aniya, and now my body was too broken to help her. The irony of it was not lost on me.

  She looked good, which made me feel somewhat better. No bruises or scars marked her skin. Her long, dark hair had been left loose and framed her tear-streaked face as she looked down at me from a crouch. She grabbed my hand as it began to drop.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured over and over again.

  “It’s okay, Niya,” I whispered. Not much of my voice remained after all the screaming I’d done earlier.

  “No, it isn’t, Mel. You’ve been hurt because of me. I never meant for this to happen and wouldn’t have come here if I’d known about Philip. He can control me in ways I can’t…” she stopped.

  I followed her gaze to the alpha werewolf standing at the open door. Disappointment emanated from him, but I couldn’t figure out the reason for it. Did he disagree with my friend being here? His arms were crossed as he observed the two of us with a shuttered gaze.

  I directed my one good eye back to Aniya. “What did Philip do to you?”

  She lifted her shoulder in a small shrug, still not looking at me. “He…he influenced me somehow. For awhile, I didn’t notice that he never went out during the day and didn’t eat food. It didn’t bother me in the beginning, though it should have. Eventually, his influence wore off. They said compelling a human too often can cause that. The others can still make me do things, but not him.”

  I hadn’t known about that, but it made sense. As a younger vamp, he probably didn’t know his limits yet or what to do with a human girl like Aniya if he wanted to keep her around long-term.

  “So he tricked you and then wouldn’t let you leave?”

  A blush crept up her cheeks. “Yes, but at first we were staying somewhere else—a smaller house a few miles from this one. After his influence wore off, I tried to get away, but he caught me and brought me here. I’ve been stuck in this place ever since.” She pinched her lips together as she glanced up at the rest of the house. What had they been doing to her for all this time?

  There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but it was getting harder to
concentrate. The werewolf’s growing impatience was clawing at my senses as well. Aniya and I didn’t have much time left. Whatever we wanted to discuss, it had to be now.

  “Has he hurt you?” I had to know that much.

  She shook her head and blushed. “No, not really. I think…I think he loves me.”

  Of course he loved her. Why else keep her in good health for so long? I tried to take a deep breath before speaking again, but my ribs protested, making me groan. Aniya rubbed my arm in light strokes. I wanted to tell her to stop, but didn’t. When the pain subsided to a more manageable level, I continued.

  “What do you think of him?”

  “Mel, I don’t know. Before I found out what he was, I thought I was in love with him. Now…it all seems so wrong.”

  She bent her head down, allowing her hair to cover the new tears that were no doubt falling. I wanted to be mad, but Aniya could be so innocent sometimes. She didn’t have the luxury of knowing how to protect herself against the darker elements of the world, and it seemed stupid to be angry with her over something she couldn’t have known about.

  Part of me wished I’d told her what was out there, but everything Wanda had taught me said to never reveal my knowledge of the supernaturals to anyone. I still hated knowing my friend was trapped here and my chance to help her had been taken away.

  “Niya, take care of yourself, all right?”

  Her eyes rounded at my words. I had spoken in a rush after seeing the werewolf move toward us. She jerked when he grabbed her arm, but he forced her up anyway.

  “Time to go. Variola gave you ten minutes,” he said in a gruff voice.

  Aniya refused to move at first and nodded her head toward me. “What about her? What are you going to do to her?”