by M. Lathan
Chapter Fourteen
I woke up in Paris. My suitcase was on the floor by the bed, my cell phone on top of it. I rolled over and found a note on the pillow. I knew it was from Lydia. Her handwriting hadn’t changed.
Christine, what you’ve seen today, I never imagined I’d have to show you. My life has been one horrible decision after another. The worst of them all apply to you. I know I’m probably the worst thing you could’ve imagined for a mother. That’s why I wanted you to believe in Catherine and Raymond. I wanted there to be these normal people who could only be separated from you by death. Not the truth—that your mother is an awful person who took you from your father and hid you in that horrible place. I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you today and every day I let you sit at that school. I love you more than life, and I am sorry I have never shown you that. I know you are upset, but please stay in my apartment until I find the hunter who came to your house. I’m so sorry, baby. For everything. I love you.
I crumpled the letter and threw it on the floor. Her life was tragic, more awful than expected, but there were seventeen whole years that she let bad predictions and that Kamon guy keep her away from me. I was alone and out of place because of the powers she’d passed to me. And she’d been so dramatic in leaving my dad. She didn’t fight for him either. Or why couldn’t she just take off and leave me with him? I would’ve at least had one parent. And how could she not have known how miserable I was all these years? She just didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to see how awful her decision turned out to be.
I took off the fancy dress and pearls and put on sweats. It was eight o’clock at night and I was beyond starving. I rummaged through her refrigerator and found a lot of prospects for dinner—cheesy pasta, pepperoni pizza, and ranch dip for the tortilla chips on the counter. This was from Sophia. A note that said, Eat up, dear, was taped to the glass casserole dish.
I put the entire thing in the microwave and watched the tiny blue flowers on the glass revolve slowly, images of Lydia in all of her forms intruding.
“Don’t think about her,” I ordered myself as I sat on her fancy cream sofa to eat. They obviously planned for me to stay a while. A stack of girl-friendly DVDs were on the coffee table. All set in high school. All about love. I popped one in. After the third kissing scene, I wanted to die. I missed Nate so much, even though that ache was nothing in comparison to the hole Lydia left in my chest when she ripped my heart out.
The movie ended with the couple making out at prom. The next movie was eerily similar, just with two pep squads and making out at a cheer-off. I cracked open the chips, still hungry, and covered my plate with ranch dip. Sophia would be proud of my pig-out.
I walked around her home, crunching on greasy chips, instead of starting another movie. This was where Lydia had been while I was hidden in hell—the lap of luxury. Part of me wondered if she’d been sad all of these years, missing her husband and child. The other part of me, the girl I’d tried not to be, wanted to fight her.
And Sophia, too. I shook my head, thinking of when she’d cried about letting me stay at school so long. And all the other times the truth was apparent—her laughing at the newscast, getting freaked out about me knowing Lydia was psychic, waiting on me hand and foot.
Sophia was right. My life was down right bizarre. Actually, I’d watched Lydia Shaw breastfeed me today. I’d say that was a little more than bizarre.
Her apartment had four rooms besides the living and dining rooms. I’d slept in her bedroom. I opened the door next to it and shook my head. Lydia needed an entire room for a closet. I counted seven long racks that stretched from one wall to another. Most of her clothes were black. Her heels, too. The exceptions were white dresses and suits and one lonely red shirt on the last rack.
The next room was her gym. She had three complicated looking machines, some weights, and a very worn punching bag hanging in the corner.
The last room on the hall was an office. I still wasn’t clear on what she did for a living.
By the look of the office, I’d say nothing. It was too neat and stylish to be used for actual work. I sat in her white leather chair and wiggled her wireless mouse. There couldn’t be anything important stored on the computer because there wasn’t a password.
I clicked on the Internet and searched her name. The web knew nothing about Catherine and Raymond, but everything about Lydia. The first result was about the Nobel Peace Prize she’d received a year after killing Frederick Dreco. The second was a fashion blog that follows her chic style in the press. The third, a conspiracy site detailing a rumored connection to the death of a senator. The comments at the bottom of the page all bashed the author for trying to degrade the woman who saved the world. Hilarious.
Nate was right, she worked for the world, the United Nations, as the Special Defensive Coordinator, whatever that meant. Our names appeared in several of the results together. Leah Grant, the missing girl, and the famous woman.
I rolled my eyes at the screen. She’d been pretending to look for her hidden child.
Before the articles about her heroic acts could piss me off, I closed out the browser.
I spun around in her chair. As I looped around, a picture on her desk caught my eye. It was of Cecilia and Vincent as they walked hand in hand on a beach. Her painful past squeezed at me, forcing my mind to pull the loose ends of her story together. She’d sent me to their home, she never cleared out the studio, maybe she was afraid to go in there beyond clearing blood and bodies. I knew I would be.
“You really wanted to help me, CC,” I said.
“System activated,” the office answered back. “Passcode correct.”
I jumped out of the chair as the left wall opened like an elevator door.
“Whoa.”
Barefoot, I walked behind the wall and into what had to be her real office. Something I’d said opened it. I’d bet it was CC.
Television screens covered every inch of the room. They showed surveillance footage for major landmarks, on a live feed apparently.
The first ten screens were all places I recognized in America. After that, I could only identify the Eiffel Tower. The others were random skyscrapers, mansions, and bridges.
So she … watched things all day. That seemed boring.
The center screen, the biggest of them all, showed a map with blinking red dots. It showed Europe, then it switched to South America, then to Africa.
“What does this track?” I wondered out loud with my hand on the screen.
Then I knew. It tracked Kamon, the man who had cut me out of her stomach in her vision, the man she’d feared would hurt me out of revenge.
“Bedtime, my sweet,” Sophia said at the door. She didn’t mention I was snooping in Lydia’s office. She laced her fingers through mine and walked me to the bed.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Working. She’s always working. Keeps her mind clear, without my help.” I lay down on her pillows, then shoved them away. I didn’t want to let her scent drive me insane, or drive me to love her—I wasn’t sure which would happen. “Are you ready to talk about things?” I shook my head, and she tucked me in. “I’m sleeping on the sofa, right in there, if you need me. Do you want anything now? Perhaps the chips you left in the office?”
“Okay.” She snapped, conjuring my ranch-covered chips. She dimmed the lights, and I thought of something to ask. Something I’d wondered about since I met her. “Sophia…”
“Yes, love?”
“You’ve always taken people in who needed you. Why not me?” She sat on the bed. It was silent for a minute.
“I knew you’d ask me that eventually,” she whispered. “Working for her was never my plan. All of the agents I had connections to were killed. I was desperate enough to go to her and demand that she help me, and she ended up needing me as much as my family, and I needed her.” She let her tears fall without wiping them and bit down on her trembling lip. “They have no idea who I work f
or. Gregory knows but no one else. I’ve kept the two biggest parts of my life separate. I’m sorry.”
I adjusted my head on my arm, my makeshift pillow, and Sophia stood like that was enough of an explanation. It wasn’t. And it wasn’t a reason to cry. It was something bigger. Something obvious.
“You were afraid of me. Lydia Shaw’s copy should be rude and violent, right?” Her breath caught, and she covered her mouth.
I turned over in Lydia’s bed, trying not to cry. Sophia had actually believed what I’d feared about myself for years. That I was evil and dangerous. I still didn't know if I was or not. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep her family safe from me.
“I judged you from what I saw while Lydia watched. She saw her little baby, but I saw a little girl who never said anything. Or laughed or played. I never called you a copy ever again, but you fit what I thought one was. It’s a stupid bias I shouldn’t have had, dear. Copies are people, and even though you’re not one, I shouldn’t have let fear stop me from loving you and taking care of you.”
She was crying so hard that her words blended. I remembered a moment where I’d seen a hint of fear in her eyes—when I’d grabbed her hands in my room and she’d almost pulled away.
“I wasn’t even planning on meeting you now. She’d been planning to take you from school days before I did. She was trying to get things together, and like always, I was just trying to get her to go to work and do her job and keep things going for all of us. Selfish, like I’ve always been when it comes to her personal life and you. She’d missed several meetings already. Kamon had heard about it. I volunteered to watch you to avoid a disaster and happened to fall in love with you that night in the kitchen. Dear, I understand if you hate me now. ”
I refused the dramatic cry pounding against my chest. I pulled Lydia’s comforter over my head, trying not to think of her watching me through a magic mirror and crying in this very spot.
“It wasn’t your job to raise me. I don’t hate you,” I said. “I just want to be alone. Goodnight.”
She whispered it back, still crying, and left the room.
I fought the urge to sleep brought on by sadness and the oranges lingering in this bed, not admitting to myself that I was waiting up for Lydia. I stopped staring at the clock at eleven. In New Haven, mingling time was ending. It was the perfect time for someone to bang on my door for a laugh, and Lydia was working. She would have missed them bullying me, probably like she’d done for years. I lasted until three AM. Either I’d missed her between then and when my eyes popped open at eight, or she never came home.
Sophia hovered over me without talking as I crawled out of bed and washed my face. She walked me to the dining room for breakfast. As she sat my plate down, I looked into her bloodshot eyes. She looked like she’d been crying all night.
“May I sit?” she asked. “She doesn’t usually let me.”
I slammed my hand on the table, rattling the glass, a lifetime of anger shooting out of me in a moment. I was surprised everything around me didn’t shatter or catch fire. “I’m not her!” I screamed. I took a deep breath, sinking into my chair. I certainly sounded a lot like her just then. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“It’s okay, dear. I know you’re not her.” She sat in the seat next to me and snapped herself up a plate. “You are more like your father. She says that all the time.”
“When can I leave?” I asked, because I didn’t want to cry today.
“I don’t know yet. She found the camera in your closet and the picture of you and Nathan. We know it was a part of Remi’s plan. You came close to being turned over to someone very dangerous, and Lydia is very upset about that. We’ve done some digging, and it seems like Liam is more dangerous than I thought. All this time of keeping you away from this life could be wasted if she doesn’t clean up the mess I made by bringing Remi into your life. You’re powerful. These hunters would give anything to have you. Own you.”
“Why?”
“Because of the things you could do. Influence thoughts, create wealth. And they would believe that you’re capable of killing without leaving a trace, even though I know that you’re not. That’s not even considering Lydia and what some would do to hurt her or extort her. Taking you would give someone a lot of power, dear.”
She didn’t have to say that they would breed me. That fact clogged the air along with everything else. I was still in danger.
I couldn’t hide my fear. My fork trembled on the way to my mouth. We ate in tense silence, and she cleared the plates when we finished.
“This place is very safe. She wants me to leave you here while I take care of some things.”
“Of course she does.”
She hugged me then obeyed her boss’ orders to leave me alone in her home.
As I brushed my teeth and hair, I stared at myself in the mirror, seeing a lot of him and glimpses of her. I made a mental note to avoid my reflection for the rest of my life.
I stuffed my arms with snacks and drinks and went in the most interesting room in the apartment. “CC,” I said and activated the system again.
I dumped my snacks in Lydia’s white chair and rolled it into her real office. I watched the screens for hours. It was kind of cool being in several countries at once. I had to stop watching the Kamon tracker. He moved around so much and so fast. It freaked me out. My heart jumped all three of the times his red dot flashed near Paris.
I heard my phone chime in her room, and I ran to answer it.
“Hi, Emma,” I said.
“Chris, are you alright?” she asked. I stretched out on Lydia’s bed and sighed. I was so far from alright.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “How are you guys?”
“We’re okay. Well … Paul and I are. Nathan isn’t really talking to us. I’m sorry we left. He scared me, so I went along with it. I don’t want you to think I feel differently about you now. Paul either. We know you’re not evil.”
“Thanks,” I said, wishing Nathan would’ve been this cool about it. They also hadn’t kissed me countless times. He had a right to be more disgusted, I guessed.
“I was calling to see if you’ve heard from Sophie. We’re getting worried. She isn’t answering and we saw you on the news.”
“What?”
“The news. It’s saying you’ve been found.”
I ran to the TV and clumsily mashed buttons on the remote. It kept switching between white noise and the DVD menu for the cheer-off movie. “Emma, what’s it saying? I don’t know how to work the TV … maybe because I’m in Paris.”
She tried to help me navigate it, but it was no use. She ended up just telling me since I wouldn’t be able to understand the news here anyway. My face was on most of the channels out there. The story was that I’d been found alive and unharmed and was in a safe place. Apparently, I reported never seeing a witch and couldn’t recall much from that night.
“Sophia is fine,” I said, when she finished. “I saw her a few hours ago. She’s probably working.”
… With her long time boss and rival Lydia Shaw.
“Thanks. If you speak with her, please tell her to call.”
“I will. Oh, and … Emma, could you tell Nathan I said hi and that I’m sorry?”
“Sure.”
I decided to watch the teen movies instead of surveillance. The next one on the stack was the same as the last two, just with a soccer team and kissing at the state championship. I couldn’t lie. I liked them all. I changed it out for the next movie about the antics of the ghost of a homecoming queen. I called Sophia while the previews rolled.
She answered on the first ring.
“Hi, love. Did you eat lunch?” I um-hummed slowly. I shouldn’t have been surprised that I could reach her when they couldn’t. “How can I help you?”
“Emma called. They’re worried. Where are you?”
“In California getting your house ready.” She sighed and paused. “No more lies. I was getting your house ready, bu
t now I’m trying to locate Remi. We are having trouble finding her and Liam. All we know is that they’re looking for you. Obviously there’s nothing to worry about since you’re safe at your mother’s house.”
I groaned. “Don’t call her that. Please, call her Lydia.”
“Okay, love. I will. And I’ll be done soon and will be there to make you a nice dinner. You aren’t scared, are you?”
“A hunter is after me … besides that and everything else, I’m fine. Don’t forget to call Emma.” She agreed, but it felt like she wasn’t about to call her. I heard the worry in her voice. She was too focused on work right now to answer the phone for her family.
I put my phone on the table, trying to forget about everything but the movie on the screen.
The newly crowned homecoming queen hopped into her pink convertible and sped down a dark road. Poor thing. As her car flipped, my cell phone beeped.
One new message from Nathan.
I took a deep breath and flipped the phone open. My thumbs shuddered, trying to get to the message.
Hey, Chris.
Chris! Not Leah. I exhaled loudly and smiled. I replied, Hi. I’m so sorry. Are you still mad? I almost died waiting on his response.
No, baby. Where are you? he texted back, two minutes later.
“Thank you, God!” He’d realized like Sophia had said he would, and of course I would forgive him for running away from me. No question.
Paris. Long story. I love you.
I love you too. I miss you like crazy. I’m dying. I need to see you right now. It can’t wait.
I looked around and rolled my eyes. I wanted to see him, too, but I knew Sophia wouldn’t bring him here.
I replied: Sophia will be here before too long. I’ll ask her to bring me to you.
No. I’m in New Orleans. I just had Paul bring me to the house to see you. I thought you were still here. Please come see me. I’m going crazy from being away from you.
I stopped the movie, smiling. At least something could go right in my life. I could still have him, the first person to love me. Well, the first person I knew to love me.
Okay, baby. I’ll see you in a sec, I replied.
I ran to get dressed up, even though he’d mostly seen me in sweats. I pulled on nice jeans and a black lace shirt I’d never worn. I rolled my eyes when I slipped my feet in the pumps from yesterday. I was doing way too much. He already seemed over it, but I needed to make sure I’d get my boyfriend back.
I brushed my hair into a ponytail. Searching for pins to make it tighter, I found a tube of lipstick. Red lipstick. I slicked it on and smiled. Hopefully, I was about to smear it all over his lips.
I closed my eyes and opened them in front of the mirror in my bathroom. Well … Cecilia and Vincent’s bathroom.
“Nate?” I called as I walked down the steps to the second floor. CC met me instead. I shook my head at her. “Later,” I whispered. “We can talk later.” I knocked on his door. It was open but empty. “Nate?” Now Vincent was behind me, I could feel his taller chill as he grabbed my hand. “I know we need to talk, but I’ll come back after I handle this, okay?”
He followed me down to the first floor. I thought maybe the doors were locked and Nate couldn’t get in.
I went out to the patio, alone now. The sun was setting on a quiet and normal day here. Calm and easy like I needed my life to be.
“Nate?”
He didn’t answer. I’d forgotten my phone in Paris, so I couldn’t call him to see where he was or reread the text to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood him. While I waited, I planned what I would say to him. I walked around to the pool, remembering my birthday night. Maybe I’d bring that up. I just needed to convince him of how much I loved him. Well, that I could love at all.
Or maybe I could write him a letter telling him I was glad he was born like he’d told me. That was the moment I realized how deeply I was in love with him. Or maybe, since he was a goofball, I’d get some eggs from the fridge and pretend to scramble them on the concrete. Maybe it would ease the tension. Then we’d kiss, hopefully.
I heard whispers and smiled. He had to be walking this way, maybe on the phone or talking to Paul too softly for my ears.
“Hey, babe,” said the wrong voice. I jumped and spun around. Remi smiled, decked out in black leather. “Don’t you look nice. Got a date or something?”
“Where’s Nathan?”
“You’ll see him soon enough,” she said. “This was too easy. All I had to do was use Sparky’s phone and you came running to me. Well to him, because you’re a slut. What kind of girl comes over from a text?”
She took one step forward, I took two back, and she laughed.
“So you turned yourself in, but you still wanted to see your boy-toy, right? I’m so happy. You almost ruined things for me.” Her tone seeped into my ears, speeding my heart, and awakened my darker side, my furious side. She stepped up again. I didn’t move this time. “Oh! There she is. I’m tempting you, like you told me not to. Show me what you got, show me some magic.”
She did not want to see what I had.
She shoved my shoulder. I shoved right back, but harder. Then she had the audacity to slap me. Me … the girl who could debone her.
For the quickest second, I considered restraining Leah or Lydia or whoever the villain inside of me was, but I’d done that enough over the years. Suddenly, Remi had long blonde hair like Sienna, then short black hair like Whitney. Then her face and hair changed to the countless other girls who’d joined in on the Leah bashing. Everyone who thought being called a lesbian was hilarious and loved to see me fall and scream.
My hands clutched her throat before I felt them move. I brought her to the ground easily; I used more than my hands to get her there. I grabbed a fist full of her hair and slammed her head against the edge of the pool for the slap. Then again for bringing the hunter to my house and ruining my life. Then harder for those girls who I’d never get to punish.
It looked like she was screaming. I couldn’t hear it, but I did see the blood running into the pool. I thought about pushing her into the water and holding her under, but I didn’t. I guessed Lydia hadn’t made me a killer. When it came down to it, I didn’t want Remi to die.
I just wanted to beat her ass.
Considering what I could have done, I’d taken it easy on her. I’d been moving things since I was an infant. I supposed I could have moved her heart out of place. I had a lot of power packed in my little body, according to Sophia, so really Remi should be grateful that I only busted her face up.
But I still wasn’t prepared for her to smile as she rolled over, blood slithering from her nose to her mouth, coating her teeth. She laughed. Before I could react to the new whispers in the air, a needle pierced my neck.
“She’s going to be pretty useful once we get this magic out of her,” Liam said.
I couldn’t move. Every muscle in my body stiffened. Like if I fell, I’d shatter like glass.
“I want to drown her. Just kick her in. I’ve already brought in three today,” Remi said. She got up and reached for me. I couldn’t feel her hands. I couldn’t feel my own.
“No, I like this one,” Liam said. “And you promised four.”
She dropped me by the pool. I tried to open my mouth to scream, something, but I couldn’t. I was numb, shackled there, this weak, vulnerable body on the pavement. As they argued over Remi killing me or not, my vision blurred.
It felt like I was dying … and that felt nothing like what I’d dramatically called death before. This was quiet and slow. It didn’t burn. It felt empty. Like everything was drifting away from me.
And all I wanted, of all things to want, was my mother. I wanted her to hold me. Sing to me. I wanted to smell the most calming scent there was in the world. I wanted to tell her what I hadn’t before. That I missed her. Even though I didn’t remember her face, the moment I smelled her I knew I’d been missing her for a long time.
I rem
embered that feeling, of wondering where she was, of hoping if I screamed enough she would come back to me. I remembered when that hope faded, when she faded from my infantile brain, only leaving whispers of herself behind—her scent and her song.
Tears poured from my eyes, but I couldn’t wipe them. I still couldn’t move.
To say I couldn’t feel any part of my body, I’d never been so in touch with myself. I knew what was wrong with me now. Why I’d been so quiet as a child, what had made me so sad and lonely. I could call it depression, or an inherited personality, or both. But I was overwhelmingly sure that at the heart of it, I was just a girl who really missed her mother.
Liam ordered Remi to pick me up. For a moment, I thought I was going into the pool, about to meet the exact death she’d saved me from—a hunter drowning me—but we moved from my backyard instead.
It was darker where we landed. Bricks raced passed my eyes as she carried me down a hall. A squeaky joint told me a door had been opened.
“Remi, you need to get to the infirmary. You can’t go in his quarters looking like that,” Liam said. His quarters? “Especially not when you have four offerings. He won’t be pleased.”
Offerings?
She slammed me down on the cold brick floor. I heard gasps and some commotion. “Get back!” Liam screamed. “Remi, insert her needle. I won’t be here to do it for you every time.” Remi kneeled in front of me, her face still bloody. “You don’t have time for a stare off. Get it done.”
I barely felt her grab my dull arm. She fumbled around on the ground, and Liam smacked his lips. It sounded like several things made of glass dinged on the floor but didn’t break.
“You need to be smarter than you are if you’re going to make it here,” Liam said. “This is a simple blood test needle. Something you’ll do every day. No one asked you to do anything difficult … yet.” He sighed, and Remi scrambled to find a vein on my arm. “I see several, Remi. Hurry!” I felt a prick. Remi bit a piece of tape off and secured the needle in place. “Clean this mess up when you come back. We need to rush to get you fixed since you let this tiny girl beat you up.”
The door slammed, and I tried to roll over to my back. I felt too heavy to move.
“Christine!” Emma said.
She pulled me up and propped me against the wall. I could see the room then. The walls were made of old red bricks with chains coming from them. One was attached to Emma’s ankle. Paul’s, too. There was a pale, almost blue, man asleep and chained in the corner. Next to him was a dark-skinned woman with a little girl in her arms. She couldn’t have been older than five. And in the last corner, Nathan. He stared at me with sad eyes. I had to look away.
“How did she find you in Paris?” Emma asked.
I pried my mouth open against the immense pressure.
“I came back to the house because … I thought Nathan texted me to come see him.”
“I don’t have my phone,” he whispered. I nodded. That would have been nice to know before I went to New Orleans like an idiot. “You beat up Remi?”
I wanted to deny it, but I nodded again. He looked at the ground. Still disgusted by me, I guessed.
Whatever Liam stabbed me with was wearing off. I could feel the stinging needle more. Then I saw the needles in all of their arms except the sleeping man. Even the little girl’s.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“I heard them say they need to blood test us before we can be offered since the lead hunter doesn’t hurt humans. Just us,” Paul said.
That would work well for me, but they would find magic in their blood.
“Are they watching us?” I asked. They all shook their heads. “No cameras?”
“None,” Paul said. “I don’t think these humans need things like that. They only need our blood and a flame.”
“But Remi knows you guys,” I said. “Why would she need to test you?”
“She knows us, he doesn’t. He needs proof,” Paul said.
I saw the glass vials Remi had spilled on the ground, and I got an idea that could keep us alive, at least until Sophia noticed we were missing. Or Lydia. “I’ll give you my blood. Those are empty. We’ll fill them up and use them for your tests.”
“You can’t do that. You’ll pass out,” Nathan said.
“Someone, hook a few up to my arm. Quick,” I said, ignoring him.
“You’re human?” the woman asked. I nodded. “Please, do one for my daughter. I won’t even ask for me. Please.”
The woman crawled to me, her daughter curled and afraid in her lap. She took one of the empty vials from the ground and hooked it to my arm.
“Do one for yourself, too,” I whispered. “If she makes it, and you don’t…” I paused, about to choke on my words.
“I feel weird asking,” she said and I … snapped.
“So you want to sacrifice yourself so you can be her hero? You’re not a hero because that’s stupid! You would rather risk your life than raise your daughter? You’d make her grow up without you? It will be your fault that she won’t know who she is. Hearing about conditions and creatures and just accepting it as fact. And she’ll miss you, even if she doesn’t remember everything about you! You’ll turn into a terrible feeling, deep in her heart, and it will never go away. You can’t…”
A chain slid across the floor as Nathan came closer, cutting off my rant. The woman had backed away from me, and the little girls eyes were bulging out of her head. Emma swept her hand over her lungs and up to her mouth, like she was reminding me how to breathe.
“Sorry,” I whispered to the woman. “I’m … yeah … sorry.”
“It’s cool,” she said, face still turned up. “And thanks. I’ll keep all of that extra stuff in mind.”
Nate took another needle from the ground and wiped the tip on his shirt, sterilizing with cotton. “It’s for her,” he said, nodding to the lady that Lydia’s baby, who grew up to be Leah, had just gone off on for no reason. “Close your eyes so you don’t feel it.” It didn’t work. I felt the pinch and the blood rush out of the vein he’d poked. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, even though I wasn’t. I’d been tricked into meeting Remi, had a fight, been drugged, and was now offering up my blood to a child and projecting my pain onto her innocent mother.
“I’m sorry she made you think I texted you,” Nathan said.
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have believed her.” My legs regained feeling and I kicked them around, rattling the chain on my ankle.
He gently pulled the little girl’s needle out of my arm when the vial filled. “Can I see her?” he asked her mom. She brought her daughter to Nathan. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. “What’s your name?”
“Kelsey,” she said, in the cutest voice I’d ever heard.
“Hi, Kelsey. I’m Nathan. I’m going to tape this on your arm, but you have to keep very still so it doesn’t go in, okay?” She nodded. “And when they come to take it off, I need you to pretend that it stuck you. Can you pretend to cry?”
She smiled and looked back to her mom. “Yeah,” Kelsey said.
“Good. And you also have to pretend to be human, okay?”
“But, I’m not. I can make stuff fly,” Kelsey said.
“I know, but we can’t say that today. It’s a game,” Nathan said.
She smiled, her little eyes excited. “What do I get if I win?”
“I’ll get you a new doll,” her mother said.
Nate had pulled Kelsey’s old needle out and taped the new one on while she wasn’t paying attention. I wanted to smile with them, but I couldn’t. I’d probably given them false hope. Remi could pull off the tape and see that it wasn’t in her arm and we’d all be screwed.
I was close to crying by the time he’d finished securing a new needle to Mallory, Kelsey’s mom. But we had to try something. I was too weak to even try to move myself, and they were all too afraid to try a spell, fearing it would backfire. Lydia would call them idiots f
or that.
“Can you do more?” Paul asked.
“I can do all,” I said, still hopeful. Paul crawled over and slid two more needles into my arm. I smiled at Emma instead of wincing. They hurt even more since the drugs had completely worn off now. “You, too,” I said to Nathan.
He shook his head.
“Stop being an idiot,” Emma said. “You expect us to leave you here?”
“You’re not coming with us, Nathan?” Kelsey asked. “Please come.” I don’t think any of us could have been more persuasive than that. He couldn’t tell her no, so he found yet another vein to puncture on me.
“What are we going to do with those?” Emma asked, pointing to their vials filled with blood that wouldn’t pass the test. I rolled my eyes. My plan seemed even more ridiculous now.
“Maybe I can help with that,” the sleeping man mumbled. Nate pulled me closer as the really sickly guy sat up in what I hoped was a puddle of sweat. “Cover the little girl’s eyes.” He coughed and crawled to the blood. Then he drank it … like literally downed the whole tube, then two more after that one. “That’s better. Much better.”
It was so disgusting that I almost didn’t notice I was in Nate’s lap. Almost. But it wasn’t the time to comment on it, not while the guy sucked down blood and licked the remnants from his lips like it was fudge. The nuns would call him a demon—not a vampire, apparently they didn’t exist. They were only evil spirits inhabiting human bodies that were demented enough to drink blood. And because I’d been raised to think that, I was terrified of him.
“Is he going to go potty again?” Kelsey asked. Mallory shushed her, and Paul laughed. He and Emma weren’t trembling like I was. I looked back, and Nate was glaring at my arm, not at the … whatever he was.
“No, sweetie, I’m not,” he said. As the color came back to his skin, I saw that he was actually kind of handsome. “Because we are about to get out of here. If they think you’re a witch, you must have human powers, and this is obviously my lucky day. Did you make her drop the needles?” I shook my head. At least I didn’t think I had. “She’s just really dumb, then. I know her boss is. The blonde guy. Complete idiot. Now that I have a little strength, I might be able to help.” His voice was southern and charming and … Emma really noticed how cute he was.
Paul pushed her. “Stop staring,” he said.
“They’re done,” Nate said, pulling out the last three needles. The evidence of our scheme was all over my arm. Nate saw, too. “Can I?” he asked, raising my arm to his mouth.
I nodded, and he licked the puncture wounds. “Ewww,” Kelsey said. Her mother shushed her again.
“Do you have the rest of this forecasted, gorgeous?” the former sickly, now handsome, man asked me.
“No,” I whispered.
“I can help. I’ve been here for two weeks. They bring in new prisoners every few days. They either join them or…” He sighed, looking at Kelsey. “They get K. I. L. L. E. D.” Thankfully, she didn’t put the word together. “Let me handle it,” he said. “Follow my lead when they come back.”
He stuffed the rest of our evidence in his pocket, the unused blood and all—possibly a snack for later.
“This will work,” Emma whispered. “They’ll just … let us go.” No one answered her childishly hopeful thought. “How much time do we have?”
“Probably less than an hour,” the guy said. I was too scared and tired to ask his name.
“I think you’re going to faint soon. You should rest,” Nathan whispered in my ear. “Do you want me to put you down?”
I looked up, right into the eyes that hated me the other day. I wanted to ask him to take me back, but since I couldn’t take knowing that he was only being nice because we could die soon, I just shook my head and nestled on his chest.
I didn’t fall asleep completely. Faintly, I heard them talking about how Remi had asked Emma if she could have her wizard boyfriend bring her to Texas to see her. Sophia had told them to stay away in the one brief moment that they’d seen her after the blow up at my house, but Emma agreed to meet at a bar out of habit of saying yes to Remi. Paul went to protect her. Nate went to give her a piece of his mind. She pretended to apologize to them. They remembered eating half of an appetizer, then waking up in this cell. Liam had taken Mallory and Kelsey from a nearby restaurant by himself. They were his offerings, we were Remi’s. And Phillip, the … whatever he was, couldn’t be killed easily, so he was being tortured in the cell, wanting to drink his cellmates every day but restraining himself.
It dawned on me as I floated somewhere between sleep and awake that I shouldn’t think of Lydia or being a copy around people who could read minds. Liam obviously couldn’t read mine because he thought I was a witch.
“Think she’s going to be able to walk in those after giving so much blood?” Emma asked, sounding three miles away. I felt my shoes come off. “I think I can fit them.” Other shoes, lighter ones, went on. “I love these. I wonder if she’ll let me borrow them.”
Besides the fact that it was wishful to think we’d be alive to share shoes after tonight, those weren’t mine. At least I didn’t think so. They could belong to the person I couldn’t think about.
Our cell door opened and startled me awake in Nate’s arms. Remi looked better, like her face hadn’t collided with concrete. Liam shoved her out of the way so he could walk in first. I wouldn’t call him handsome. He looked like an average guy, like the boys at school, but older. Thirty, maybe.
“Test the blood then get yours in line, Remi. They’ll be after mine,” Liam said.
Phillip gestured to Mallory to cover Kelsey’s eyes. He stood behind Liam, and I wanted to cover mine, too. He grabbed him by the neck and raised it to his teeth. While we braced for a bite, he reached in Liam’s pocket and pulled out a radio.
“Transport to sector five. There are humans here,” Phillip said, in a perfect imitation of Liam’s voice.
He dropped Liam and stood over him, waiting for him to stand. Remi jumped at Phillip with a needle in her hand. He smacked it and it shattered on the ground.
“Listen, Liam. She lied to you. We are human,” Nathan said.
Liam scrambled to his feet, pointing at Phillip then at Nathan. “Liars. You will be tortured for what you just did.”
“No, it’s true!” Emma said. “We can prove it.”
Phillip kneeled in front of Kelsey and peeled the tape slowly away from her needle. She remembered to cry. It was very convincing. She may have a future in acting … if she lived through this. “Test it,” Phillip said.
Liam took a lighter from his pocket and tipped the vial over it. This time, I was glad to see nothing happen.
“I watched you!” Liam said. “I was sure. Shit! He’s going to kill me. A human kid. Shit!”
“I know for a fact that mine are not,” Remi said.
“Test me,” I said, holding my arm out. It was the only one still inside a vein. She did the test and gasped. The rest of them pulled out their needles before it could be done for them.
“Something’s wrong. They’re … I don’t know … they did something. Let’s just bring them to him. He’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Shut up! You answer to me. I should’ve known when you couldn’t get me pictures of them in action. Don’t say another word, Remi. Understood?” Remi nodded and bowed her head. She didn’t seem like someone who’d submit so easily. Maybe the purging had changed that. Or maybe she was afraid of him. I didn’t know for sure. I was entirely too tired to hang on to any of the whispers in the air.
Liam snatched his radio from Philip when the rest of their tests came back negative. “Hurry with that transport. Now!”
“If you don’t walk me out with them, I’ll make you both my dinner,” Phillip said. Liam nodded and unchained us from the wall.
When transport came, Liam prepped us to keep quiet in the halls and threatened to find us if we ever breathed a word of this to anyone. Nathan held my hand the ent
ire time. The outside air was cool and salty, and waves crashed against the shore, too calm to say we’d just walked out of hell. To my surprise, Liam pointed to a boat and ordered us to move towards it. I’d assumed transport was a person with the power to bring us home.
“You are making a big mistake, Liam,” Remi said as we pushed through the sand. “We can’t go in there with nothing. This is my big night. My first night with him. I can’t fail!”
He groaned as Mallory lifted Kelsey inside the boat. Then Emma and Paul went. Then Phillip. Nate stepped in and turned around to lift me up.
“Okay. Her. We can take her,” Liam said. “The famous one. We’ll say we got her because of that. If he blood tests her and finds magic, then it will be a plus. Maybe … maybe it will work.”
While we were stunned, Liam, who apparently had an infinite supply of needles, pulled another from his pocket. Nate grabbed it before he jammed it into my neck and crushed it in his hand.
Liam winced and glared at me. “If you don’t come, everyone on the boat is getting off,” he said. “Your choice.”
It was an easy one to make.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“I’m staying, too,” Nate said. I shook my head at him, trying to push him away. He held my arms against my side and pressed his forehead against mine. I gave up. He wasn’t going to leave me.
Freedom was so close, and it was snatched out of my reach. Emma and Paul yelled for us as the boat sped away from the shore, and Remi and Liam pushed us back inside.