by Anita Oh
He grumbled under his breath as he waited, shuffling from one foot to the other. When I thought he'd waited long enough, I spoke up, still keeping myself hidden.
"Do you have the video?" I asked him, trying to project my voice so he wouldn't find me straight away and stomp on my head.
He snorted. "Do you think I'm stupid? As if I'd bring the video so that your little werewolf buddies can jump out of the trees and attack me and take it."
Wow, that plan was actually way better than my plan, dammit!
"It's in a safe place. Once you fulfil your side of the bargain, I'll tell you where it is and give you my passwords so that you can check it is deleted."
"I have no guarantee that you don't have backup copies of it or you won't just release it once you have what you want."
Astor was definitely not as good as his word, that was for sure.
He sighed as if I was the one being troublesome. "I don't know where some cheap-ass commoner like you gets off doubting me, but I guess I should expect it from you."
He took out his phone and started dialing someone on speaker phone.
"This is Tennyson Wilde."
"I'm sending you through a video," said Astor. "After you watch it, call me back and tell me what was on it." He hung up without saying anything else, which I bet made Tennyson Wilde mad.
A few minutes later, Astor's phone rang.
"It's a video of you saying any footage of supernatural activity released by you is false," said Tennyson. "That you have a long held grudge against us and have tried to discredit us with lies, as well as several other more embarrassing confessions. You do realize this is not good enough. Just release the video to us."
Tennyson kept talking but Astor hung up. Did he have no concern for his own wellbeing at all? Tennyson Wilde was going to end this guy for sure.
"Is that good enough?" Astor said.
It wasn't, not by a long shot, but it was the best I could hope for from Astor, and better than I'd expected.
"Delete the video," I told him.
"You seem to be expecting a lot without giving anything back," Astor said. "How about you show yourself and then I delete the video."
"How about you break the spell and then I show myself." It was worth a try.
Astor snorted. "Even if I could break the spell, you think I would?"
Suddenly, my hiding spot didn't seem to provide much cover. My blood ran cold at his words. He couldn't break the spell? I'd known he'd capture me, maybe even torture me a bit, but I'd thought at the end of it all he'd get bored of it and make me big again, or I'd convince him somehow, find something to use as blackmail. The thought that I'd never be normal-size again wasn't something I'd ever seriously thought about. It didn't seem possible to be stuck like this.
"Oh, don't worry," Astor said, laughing. "It's not like it's forever. You're getting smaller all the time. Soon you'll vanish completely."
Was that true, I wondered. Or would I just keep getting smaller, smaller than even an atom. It would be like existing on a completely different plane, in a different universe. What would I eat? What would I do? It might be okay if I was among friends, if there was someone to help me make provisions should I become too small to be seen, but if Astor caught me I'd be forced to dwindle away to nothing. My family would never know what became of me, or Sam, I'd just vanish. It was terrifying to think about, in some ways even scarier than dying, to just become nothing.
I was paralyzed by my thoughts, completely absorbed in them, so I didn't notice when Astor moved until the stalk of bamboo I was hiding behind started to shake. I ducked under a leaf but I knew it wouldn't hide me for long. Astor was looking for me and it was only a matter of time before he found me.
I had to run.
It was hard to keep my footing on the straw ground covering, it was all slippery from the melted snow, so it felt as if I was running in place as I ducked and weaved through the foliage. Astor was right above me and I knew that as soon as he spotted me I was done for. The best thing I could do was to stay very still and hope he didn't notice me, but my mind was seized with panic and I couldn't help but run. I felt like an ant, skittering about on the kitchen sink trying to avoid the inevitable end, waiting for the faucet to turn on and flush me away. I ran deeper into the bamboo forest, hoping to at least confuse him, or bore him into giving up. It was pointless. The air was filled with his booming laugh. He knew exactly where I was, he was just playing with me.
I had to outsmart him. Even at two inches tall, surely my brain was still bigger than Astor's. It was my one advantage. I had to create a diversion so that he didn't see where I went to hide. I ducked under a broad leaf to give myself a moment to take in my surroundings and come up with any ideas. I spotted something almost immediately. Rats. They were cowering out of harm's way and it was kind of a jerk move of me to disturb them but I was sure they'd be safe. Astor would be looking for anything small and running around on the ground. He'd know in a moment if it wasn't me but that moment might be long enough to save me. I grabbed the biggest pebble I within reach and climbed to a slightly higher vantage point then threw the pebble with all my might to crash down just behind where the rats sheltered so that they fled in all directions.
As I'd expected, Astor let out a yelp and flailed around, trying to stomp on the scampering rats, but they were too fast for him. I took my chance and ran as fast as I could in the other direction. I ran blindly, only thinking to get away from Astor, to find somewhere to hide. There was nothing. Nowhere was safe. My time was running out. Astor was stupid but even he would soon realize the rats were only a distraction and come after me again.
The bamboo had shot up rapidly since I'd been in there last and there were new shoots all over the place. I leapt up onto the nearest bamboo shoot and began to climb. It was slippery, difficult to find a grip or a foothold, and I'd lost track of where Astor was to know what was safe. I climbed as far as I could, and when I felt as if my muscles were about to give up completely, I found a spot where two wide leaves crisscrossed over an offshoot from the main stalk. The offshoot was wide enough for me to sit comfortably and the leaves provided ample coverage. I settled in and waited for Astor to give up, not yet daring to hope that I'd get out of this in one piece.
As I waited for it to be safe, I kind of wished I wasn't alone. Of course, there was no way I could've told the others my plan, they'd never have let me go through with it. I missed Hannah. I wondered if she missed me, if she worried about what had become of me, if she'd realized she'd been wrong about me. Before her, I'd never had a proper friend, a girly friend, to talk about boys and TV shows, and it had been a different sort of luxury for me to hang out with Hannah. More precious than all the diamond chandeliers or medieval tapestries, but special because of the rare sweetness of it. Kind of like the Special French Toast, only not edible. If Hannah had been there with me, well I mean that would suck for her of course. It wasn't as if she'd be able to do anything to help and we'd both be facing tiny doom, but at least we wouldn't be facing it alone.
The bamboo forest became still again. The rats stopped scurrying, there were no clomping footsteps. Even the wind in the leaves had stopped. It was quiet enough that I could feel every thud of my heart, and I listened as it slowed down, as my body became calm. Maybe everything wasn't lost after all. I could get back to the Golden House. Tennyson Wilde had that video of Astor as back up against any scandal, so they were free to act against him. Even if Astor didn't know how to break the spell, surely he knew who he was taking orders from. We could get the information from him somehow, or maybe the Wildes knew someone who could break the spell on me, or even just stop the shrinking. I mean, not that I wanted to be tiny forever, but it was better than nothing. People coped with all sorts of disabilities in this life, being two inches tall was hardly something to complain about once you got used to it.
I waited and waited but still couldn't hear anything. Maybe Astor had given up already. I started to feel a bit cheered. Everyth
ing had been seeming so bleak but really if you looked hard enough you could find a way out of any tight spot, right? I waited some more just to be sure, and then a while longer. I started to need to pee, so I knew I'd have to stop waiting soon, but held out as long as I could, just to play it safe.
Finally, I decided I'd waited long enough. I'd been sitting there at least half the night and I was sure Astor didn't have the patience to stay still and quiet for that long. He'd obviously given up and gone back.
I stood up on the offshoot and stretched out all my limbs, feeling my joints pop from where I'd seized up being in one spot for too long. I wasn't sure which direction I'd ran into the forest, so I pulled back the leaves that were covering me so I could figure out the best way to get back. That's when I saw it, covering the entire sky. Astor's big, ugly head grinning down at me like a vengeful god.
It was the face of my doom.
Chapter 17
He snatched me up with a triumphant snort, squeezing so hard I thought my eyes would pop out.
"Careful," I told him. "I have a very tiny bladder."
"Shut up," he said. "I've had enough of your talking. If I hear another word out of you I will rip your tongue out."
He didn't seem to be kidding, so I didn't say anything as he stuffed me into his pocket.
This was bad. This was really bad. The worst, even. The actual worst. Astor had made it clear that he didn't want anything from the Golden, and if he wanted me dead, I would already be dead. That didn't leave a lot of options and none of them were good.
Astor's pocket had a funny smell, strong and sharp like burning rubber. It was a far cry from the soft warmth of Tennyson Wilde's pocket, that was for sure. I started to feel motion sick with the smell and the jiggling around. The Green House wasn't terribly far from the bamboo forest but of the three houses it was the farthest, and by the time we got there and the jiggling stopped, I felt super gross.
If I'd been hoping for some sort of explanation when we got back, an evil villain monologue that provided the solution to all my problems, I was in for disappointment. Astor said nothing, just pulled me from his pocket, shoved me into a box. Then, before I had a chance to even look around, he shut the lid up tight. I was left alone in the darkness. I still really needed to pee.
In some ways, it was better than I expected. I'd seen pictures of lab experiments on animals, horrific stuff, and I'd been thinking along those lines. That'd he'd pin me to a board by my hands and feet and do awful stuff to me until I died. Force me to inhale chemicals and drink poison and then just watch me and laugh as my insides turned out. Being stuck in a box wasn't painful. It wasn't scary. It was a different kind of awful than that. I couldn't tell the passage of time, for one thing. I could judge a bit on account of the need to pee getting more urgent, but it might have been minutes, maybe hours, I had no way to tell. I didn't know if he'd ever let me out of there or just leave me to starve and die.
I couldn't hear anything beyond the box, had no way of knowing where the box was placed in the room or if Astor was still there. It was getting hard to think of anything besides wanting to pee. No way was I peeing in that box, being shut in there with the pee smell, so that Astor could find me all urine-ified, and laugh and call me some pee-related nickname for the rest of my high school career. I needed to get out of the box and find somewhere dignified to relieve myself. And then maybe escape. Mostly pee though, to be honest.
I thought about making a lot of noise. Maybe Astor had a roommate and they could find me and let me out. I quickly ruled that idea out though. Whoever Astor roomed with would no doubt be a similar shade of buttface in the whole buttface spectrum and I couldn't rely on them for any sort of help. No reason to give Astor an ally in his torturing of me. I was worried that the box might be perched precariously on the edge of something and any sort of commotion would lead to a plummet to my death, but in the darkness I had no way to tell how deep the box was to climb out of. I tried jumping as high as I could and I couldn't reach the top, so it wasn't an option anyway. It seemed to be a fairly sturdy cardboard box — stronger than a shoebox but not as big. There was no way I could come up with some elaborate escape plan when the need to pee had driven everything else from my mind, so with no other options, I ran as fast as I could and threw my full weight at the side of the box, hoping to tip it over or break through it. In the dark, I couldn't actually tell where the side of the box was, so I ran with my arms out in front of me and just hoped for the best. My first attempt knocked it, but it didn't tip. I tried again back the other direction and the same thing happened. The run up wasn't helping, it was just tiring me out. I tried kicking it in like a door but the cardboard was too thick to hit through, though that seemed to shake the box up as much as running at it. I jumped at the wall with my shoulder, propelling myself at it with all the force I could muster up, and finally, the box tipped over.
I cautiously walked along the wall, which was now the bottom of the box, worried that each step might overbalance the box from whatever it was sitting on, maybe a table or a dresser? It had definitely been on something, because Astor hadn't had to bend down to the floor to put me in the box. I was still walking blind, but if I was careful about it, I could throw myself backwards if I felt the box starting to fall.
I didn't fall. When I hit the lid of the box, I pushed at it until it cracked open and I could crawl out. The room was dark but enough moonlight fell through the window that I could make out that I was on a messy desk. There were empty food containers that had been there so long they'd started up their own eco systems, some crumpled up tissues, a bunch of empty soda cans… soda cans, that was just the thing I needed. I hoisted myself up onto one of the cans to relieve myself.
It wasn't until I finished and climbed back down that I noticed the pair of big, golden eyes staring at me. My heart leapt — first with hope because I'd obviously been conditioned by werewolves, but then with fear because this wasn't a werewolf, this was a big floppy eared hound dog. And sure, hound dogs were cute and sweet but they were also bred to hunt little things like me, and they didn't mess around about it.
"Hey cute doggy," I said to it. "What's up with you? Me? I'm just here hanging out in this box." The box I was edging back toward before Snoopy here could get any bright ideas. "Just hanging out like a human who you should definitely not eat."
The dog's tongue lolled out the side of its mouth as it stared up at me. It seemed kind of familiar.
"You live here with that jerk, Astor?" I asked it. "Is he as much of a jerk to dogs as he is to humans."
The dog sniffed up at the air and then circled around a few times before settling in, curled up in a ball with its feet tucked up under its chin. Probably thought I didn't seem delicious. That was fine by me, but I still needed to figure out a way down from the desk and out of the room. I had no clue where Astor was or when he'd be back. My best guess was that he was contacting his boss, and normally I'd be all set to spy on him about it, but right then I just wanted to be back safe in the Golden House. I could see no way down from the desk that wouldn't end in broken bones but what I did see was Astor's desktop computer. I used all my forced to click the mouse and wake it up. If I could send off a message to Sam to say where I was, then if my escape attempts failed, at least someone would know where I was. The mouse was heavy and hard to maneuver but finally I dragged the cursor over to the school app and opened it up. I sighed as I waited for it to load, tapping my fingernails against the plastic of the mouse. It was so slow. Astor would be back before it loaded. Astor would be back and have tortured me to death and then repopulated the planet with mini Astor polo kids before it loaded, that was how slow it was.
I got up the messaging system and noticed that Tennyson Wilde was at the top of the list from when Astor had contacted him earlier with the video, so I clicked on him, because it would probably take another ten hours to find Sam if I did a search. Then I ran over the the keyboard and started to type. "helplu" I got out before I heard the door open. As
fast as I could, I ran for the enter button and dove for it, banging my fist down on it to be sure the message sent.
The light flicked on and I stayed totally still, my face squished down somewhere between the "P" and "[" keys and my arms sprawled out on either side, not wanting to look up and face the inevitable.
"Get out of the way, dumb dog," Astor grumbled. There was a thumping noise, and I heard the dog yelp.
I wanted to get up and stab Astor in the eye for hurting the dog but I also didn't want to make him aware that I'd escaped the box. As few things clattered around and I squeezed my eyes shut tight. It was the most pointless form of denial but I couldn't help but hope when I opened them again, everything would be okay somehow.
It was easy to tell when he noticed me, because he stopped clomping around and everything went quiet. Then the world swirled around in a rush of color and movement as Astor picked me up by the leg, dangling me in front of his face.
"What are you doing?"
I didn't answer him so he shook me.
"I was going to leave it until tomorrow to teach you a lesson but if you can't wait, I guess I'll start now."
He took something out of his pocket with his free hand, and there was a flicking sort of sound. After I moment, it became horribly apparent what the sound was. A lighter. He held me above the flame for a moment, still dangling me by the leg, then lowered me down closer to the heat, laughing. The more I squirmed to get away, the more he laughed. My hair hung down, and there was a sizzling smell as it burned, and the air filled with the stench of it. He moved the flame up, closer to my body. I twisted around, trying to lift myself high enough to get a hold on his hand, to bite his fingers off so that he'd let me go, but he just thought it was funny.