Picture this (Birds of a Feather Book 3)

by Lena North

  “It’s better,” I said vaguely.

  “Ah,” he murmured.

  “Tell your brother I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Carson’s gets it, and Boz will understand too.”

  “Yeah, they’re great. Will you tell them that I liked being with them so much?” I asked.

  “No need to stop.”

  “But –”

  He interrupted me immediately, “They don’t like you because of Kit, little girl. They like you because of you.”

  He’d called me a little girl, a nickname he used often and one I normally thought was cute. This time it annoyed me for no reason at all, and I pulled at the door until he let go.

  “You’re going home?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, got into my car and drove off.

  With the lights from the front porch behind him, Miller was just a dark silhouette, and I watched him until the road turned. When I got to the crossroads, I stopped even though the road was dark and empty. Then I leaned my forehead on the steering wheel and thought about what I’d just done. It hadn’t felt good to hurt Kit, but it had been the right thing to do, and I knew he wasn’t in love with me any more than I was in love with him. He hadn’t seemed terribly upset, so maybe we could just go back to being friends again.

  My mind drifted as I sat there, thinking about my life, and then I accepted what I’d known deep down for a long time. I wouldn’t apply for jobs in any of the museums or art galleries. I hated the idea and would never be happy doing that kind of work. I had struggled for so long, but I could be a waitress a bit longer. Things would be easier without the fees for my classes, and there had to be another way to make money from my art. I’d already made a few replicas for insurance purposes, and I could perhaps do some illustrations, I thought. If things didn’t turn weird because I’d broken up with Kit, I could perhaps ask Bo, he was always full of ideas.

  Yes, I thought. I’d restarted my life several times before so I could do it one more time. I’d find a way.

  Then I took a deep breath and turned the car toward Prosper, feeling lighter and happier than I had in a long time. I slowed down when I passed through a small village, and when I saw an old lady waving at me on the side of the road, I slowed down even further and rolled down my window.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  “My car is over there, and it won’t start,” she said and pointed toward a dark gas station just ahead. A small gray car stood there with the front door open, and I sighed. I really didn’t want to deal with some random old woman’s problems right then, but not helping her would be rude, so I rolled forward until I was parked just next to her car, and got out.

  As I approached her car, I noticed her hands, and how big they were. Then everything went black.

  C

  hapter Four

  Don’t do it

  The pounding in my head woke me up, and my first thought was that I was sick. Then I moved and felt the rough concrete floor scrape my cheek, and I knew that something was horribly wrong. It was dark though somehow not the pitch-black darkness of night, but instead, a dark gray that made me wonder what time it was. I still had my wide, pale pink top on, and the cute, beige capri pants. My feet were bare, and my long silver earrings had been removed.

  “Hello?” I said.

  The word seemed to dissolve in the darkness, and no one answered. I called out again, slightly louder, but nothing happened. Nobody answered.

  Fear swept through me, my head hurt, and I was feeling nauseous as I got to my feet and tried to find a way out of the gray bubble I was caught in, using my hands to feel my way around. The walls were made of concrete too, and the rough surface scraped my fingertips softly as I slid my hands over it. High up on one of the walls were three round openings. They were small, and I couldn’t see outside, though a little light seemed to come through them, and it softened the darkness. The room was small, maybe seven or eight feet on each side, and on one of the walls I felt what I thought was a door, but there was no handle on it. I pounded my fists on the metal surface and started calling out for someone to come, for someone to help me, but nobody answered.

  After a while, I sat down again, leaning my back against the wall. Nothing made sense, and I pulled my knees up toward my chest and hugged my legs as I tried to figure out what had happened. Someone had kidnapped me, but why? I was a nobody. I had no money so they wouldn’t get a ransom, and there was nothing to gain from locking me up in this awful little cell. It took a while to figure it out, and I must have been reeling from the after effects from the drug they used to take me away because I should have known instantly.

  Wilder. Jinx. Hawker, the birds, their group. Of course, it had to be related to one of them. Wilder’s step-father had schemed to obtain the crystal they found in the mountains, the one that they’d thought harnessed energy that he could somehow use. Perhaps it had something to do with that, even though Jinx had determined that the stone was useless for that purpose. Jinx herself could be the reason too, I thought. Dante was guarding her ferociously, though, and so did everyone in Marshes, so she’d be difficult to capture, but I had been an easy target. If they threatened to hurt me, Jinx’ enormous loyalty would perhaps make her do things, or give them information she normally wouldn’t willingly part from. Though, she had no memories of whatever they wanted to know since she got hit on her head by a log when she fled into the river. Maybe someone knew about the connection Hawker and the group had to their birds?

  I jumped and gave up a strangled scream when a small hatch at the bottom of the door was pulled to the side with a scraping sound. There was a soft, dim light outside and a tray was pushed into my room. I got a swift look at the plate on it, and the water bottle next to the plate. Then the hatch was pulled shut again. I started calling out to whoever had pushed the food into my cell, but there were no sounds. When nobody responded, I stopped screaming and listened. I heard nothing. No voices, not even footsteps. Just silence.

  The food was awful, but I ate it and drank all the water. It was getting colder, and I huddled in a corner, curled up in a ball and wrapping my arms around my legs. It reminded me of the nights I’d spent sleeping outside, and quietly, softly, I started crying.

  I sat there for a long time, sobbing and gasping for air. Praying for someone to save me, pleading with a God I didn’t quite believe in to help me.

  Then things got worse.

  Slowly, water started to fill the floor. I felt it on my right side first and stretched my hand out only to yank it back when it touched the cold water. When the floor was completely wet, I got up and started to feel my way around the room again, although this time along the bottom of the walls. There was a pipe leading into the room, and through it, water slowly poured. I pulled off my pants, bunched them up and tried to stem the flow. At first, it seemed like it would work, but when the pants were soaked, the pressure from the water pushed them into the room. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to push them back in, the water kept coming, and after a while, I stopped trying, and stood up and tried to think of something to do. I didn’t know how high the water would rise and hoped it wouldn’t fill the room.

  It felt like it went on forever, but when the water reached my knees, it seemed to slow down, and then it started receding, just as slowly as it had started. I sat down again when the floor on one side of the room was clear of water, pushing my hair out of my face and trying hard to breathe slowly. I wondered what had just happened, and then I reached out, dipped my fingers in the water and licked on them. And I knew.

  The water was salty, which meant that I was kept in a room somewhere by the open sea, and it had pushed into my cell because it had been high tide. This meant that it would happen again, but it also meant that I could keep track if time, I thought. Then I curled up in my corner and waited. I cried a little as I sat there, shivering from the cold, but after a while, I fell into a fitful sleep.

  I woke up when the hatch was pulle
d to the side and another tray was pushed into my cell. I screamed at whoever had been on the other side of the door to let me out and to talk to me. My shouts were again met by a complete silence. Then I ate the gruel they’d given me and drank all the water. The tide came in, and I stood pressed against the wall, waiting for it to pass and trying to determine how long time it took for the water to flow, and ebb. Jinx would have known exactly, and would probably have found a way to use it to her advantage, but I’d grown up on the plains, close to the mountains, so I didn’t. I wasn’t even sure if I counted the seconds and minutes right, but it was something to focus on to keep the panic from spreading through me. Then I crouched down again, wept, and slept.

  The tide had risen five times when the door was suddenly thrown open and bright light flowed into the room. It hurt my eyes, so I closed them, and then rough hands pulled a hood over my head. They pulled me to my feet, and we started walking, although they had to hold me up because my legs didn’t seem to carry me.

  “Jesus, she stinks,” one of the men grunted.

  I did. How could I not stink after more than two days in that small cell, I wondered. I’d had to relieve myself, and had washed off as the tide rose, but the water was muddy and smelly, so it didn’t help much.

  “Please,” I said, not sure what I was asking for, and then I was jostled to the side and pushed to sit down on a chair.

  “We’ll record a little message for your friends,” a man said.

  “Water,” I croaked. “Please, can I have some water, I can’t survive on one bottle each day.”

  There was a silence, but then someone made a low grunting sound and a plastic bottle was pushed into my hand. I could see through the bottom of the hood, and there was a small red tattoo on the hand that gave me the water, but I didn’t care. I screwed the top off the bottle with hands that were shaking and tried to nudge the hood away so I could get the opening to my mouth. There was another grunting sound, then bright light flooded the room and the hood was pulled off.

  My eyes burned, so I closed them and drank the water. Someone was standing behind me, and he growled quietly, “You’ll tell them what day it is, and ask them to do what we tell them.”

  “I don’t know what day it is,” I whispered.

  He moved to the side and I saw the black baklava covering his face before he swiftly slapped me across the cheek. Then he shuffled some papers around and pulled out a newspaper.

  “Hold this up,” he said, but I stared through my tears on the sheets of paper on the table, right in front of me.

  There was a list of names, and my gut clenched as I read it.

  Johns

  Mackenzie

  Keeghan

  Harper

  Black

  The five families in Norton who had the paranormal abilities. In these families, there was a child in each generation who had the paranormal ability to communicate with a bird of prey. Hawker and Wilder from the Johns family, Mac was a Mackenzie, and Miller and Kit were Keeghans. Byrd and Olly were from the Harpers and Snow was the only remaining Black.

  A weird sobbing sound made its way up my throat, and I couldn’t stop it.

  “Yeah, we know all your friends, and we’ll take them down one after the other, even if they’re stupid enough to try to cooperate with us,” a voice sneered from behind the bright lamp that was aimed at my face.

  There was something oddly familiar with that voice, but before I could figure out what it was, the man next to me pushed the papers away, and hissed, “Shut up and put that away.”

  “Let’s start,” someone growled, and then the newspaper was pushed into my hand.

  I had been right, more than two days had passed, and as I held the paper up in front of me, I tried to push back thoughts about my friends and how they would worry. I had to plan.

  “Ready,” a new voice murmured, and I turned a little which earned me a hard shove that almost pushed me out of the chair.

  “We have something you want,” the man beside me started, and went on, “You have something we want. There’s a note for you in the mailbox at the fag’s store, just follow the instructions and we’ll do a swap.” Then he pushed me again, and grunted, “Talk.”

  I murmured the date, and held up the paper, refusing to say anything else. There was a long silence, and then the man pushed me again. I dropped the newspaper on the floor and used my hands to steady myself. Then I looked straight into the black void where I hoped the camera was.

  “Don’t do it,” I said, clearly and in the strongest voice I could muster.

  The man punched me straight in the face then, and the slap I got before had been nothing compared to the sharp pain that exploded in my head.

  “Don’t do it,” I repeated when I’d caught my breath.

  He hit me again.

  “Give us the stone from the mountains or things will get worse,” he growled.

  “It isn’t worth it,” I rasped out. “It isn’t, Jiminella,” I rushed on. Then I raised a hand and pulled it over my wet hair as if to push it back, and said succinctly, “It isn’t, Sweetwater.”

  I spoke slowly, so the brief pause I made in the middle of Jinx’ name was barely there, but I hoped that they’d notice and my uncharacteristic use of her last name would tell them that they should listen.

  When he took hold of my hair to pull my head back, I glared at him. All I could see was his eyes, and the blueish gray gaze was furious. He shook my head a little, but let go of my hair again. I felt blood running from my nose, so I wiped it off with the back of my hand and took a deep breath through the throbbing from my eyes and swelling lip.

  “Don’t do it,” I said and stared right forward.

  The man roared, and in the corner of my eyes, I saw his fist coming toward me. Then everything went black.

  I woke up when I inhaled water and realized that they’d brought me back to my room and that the tide was coming. Everything hurt and I moaned as I got up and tried to stand. My legs gave out under me immediately, and I tried again. Then I crouched by the wall, and let the tide wash over me. The water was cold, and my teeth clattered as I sat there and waited for it to ebb away. Then I sank down on the floor, and everything went black again.

  They gave me food once a day, but I drifted in and out of consciousness and sleep, so sometimes I didn’t get to it until it was cold, although I ate it anyway. A few days I missed it, and had to wade through the water to find the tray, and grab the water. They gave me two bottles since that day they filmed the message, and I hoped that this meant they wanted me alive. After a few days, I lost count of the tides, so I stopped trying to figure out how much time had passed and it didn’t matter anyway. There was nothing I could do but try my best to survive, so I focused on that. Everything was blurry, though, and I thought I had a fever, but I kept breathing and refused to give up. They would come for me, I told myself. Wilder would never give up, Jinx was so clever, and they had their birds to help them look for me. “They just need some time,” I murmured to myself repeatedly. Our country was small, although if they had to send their birds out to look for me without even knowing where to start, it was big enough to take a lot of time before they found me. If they understood that I told them I was by the salt water, they would start looking along the coast and around the islands, and they wouldn’t see me, but I hoped they would spot the men moving around. There had been at least four men in the room with me, and I thought I’d heard more in the background, so the birds would surely see them and report back.

  The hours I was awake, I mostly spent thinking about my life. It had started out good, but that hadn’t lasted. I’d been crushed and destroyed more than once, and I’d never let it break me. Even when everything had been really, really bad, I’d never let life defeat me. I promised myself that I wouldn’t give up this time either, so when the walls seemed to be closing in, and my breath hitched in my throat, I pushed the tears back and made myself think about the good things. An
d there had been plenty of good things too, through it all. Maybe it wasn’t the kind of good Kit was aiming for, but to me, it was the kind that meant something, and I thought about it as I lay there in a darkness that shifted from pitch-black to soft gray and back again.

  There was the smile in the eyes of someone who loved me and learning to dance with my family on a back porch. My mother’s soft caress across my cheek, shooting my first buck, and the wild laughter from three young boys. Pride when I got accepted into Uni… Wilder and Jinx, and all the fun we’d had. And through it all, a pair of warm, gentle eyes full of strength and laughter.

  I hadn’t told my friends what had happened to me in the past, and as I lay there thinking about it all, I knew that when they had gotten me out of the awful place I was in, I would try. Maybe I could talk about it, finally? I wasn’t ready to go home again, and the thought of what I’d left behind hurt, but I could start talking to my friends about it and maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

  The door was suddenly flung open, and I scooted backward until my back was pressed against the wall. I kept my eyes shut because the bright light hurt, and then a voice growled from the door.

  “Here’s what happens when you don’t follow instructions. You have one more chance.”

  There was something about the voice that made me open my eyes as swift steps moved into the room. Before my eyes had adjusted to the sudden light, I felt his boot slam into my belly, and when I realized what it meant, I almost smiled. Hawker hadn’t given in. They hadn’t tried to swap the crystal for me. They’d done what I asked them, so maybe that meant they’d understood my message. That thought gave me a glimmer of hope, and I wheezed out a low, “Don’t do it.”

  Then there was darkness again, and I was back to the rhythm of drifting into sleep, trying to crouch so the tide wouldn’t go above my head, and sleeping. Time stopped existing, and I could have been there for a week, two, or just a few days, when I suddenly heard a soft sound. I didn’t move and didn’t open my eyes.