Storm Witch (Scarlet Jones Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  “Suck it, asshole,” Fallon spit, but it only made Adams laugh harder as he moved on to Ax.

  “Axel O’Neal, born and raised in Bloomsburg in a family of Bone witches. You didn’t run away by yourself like Ms. Meyer and Mr. Clarke, did you?” Ax’s hands pulled into fists, the veins in his neck clearly visible. “No, your father, Wayne O’Neal, kicked you out instead.” I’d known he’d had trouble with his father from what Mathias said, but I’d had no idea he was kicked out of his home. Pressing his lips together, Adams shook his head. “A very good man, your father. I enjoyed speaking to him.” Ax held his breath and said nothing, but if looks could kill, Adams would have been lying on the floor by now.

  The blood in my veins had turned to stone by the time Adams stepped in front of my bed. His dull eyes sparkled for a change when he looked at me. I wanted nothing more than to kick his teeth in before he spoke.

  “Scarlet Jones, daughter of Beatrix and Franklin Jones, one of the most powerful Blood families in the country. Your father was quite surprised to hear from me for this matter.” My stomach rolled. He’d actually spoken to my father. “In fact, he swore that he had no idea about what you were, and claimed your biggest fault was that you didn’t have any magic.” Laughing throatily, he shook his head. “Imagine his surprise when I told him the truth.”

  My whole life, I’d wanted nothing more than for my parents to never find about what I could do. I already felt like a stranger in their midst. Telling them about how different I was, was a sure way to get them to kick me out and forget I ever existed. I’d decided to leave home and be away from them, but in the back of my mind, somewhere really deep, I still counted them as family. I still hoped that there’d come a day I could go back home and have a meal in peace with my parents and my siblings. I still believed that they cared about me, even if it was just a little.

  Now, that hope was gone, thanks to Adams. My anger mixed with guilt, which was something I’d never understand. I didn’t choose to be this way, and I knew it wasn’t my fault, but I still blamed myself. Every time my parents refused to treat me the way they did my siblings, I blamed myself, and it looked like that old habit hadn’t died yet.

  It took all I had not to tell Adams to stick it where the sun don’t shine, but I didn’t want to give him the pleasure of hearing my voice yet. Pretty childish, but what else could I do to make me feel better?

  “And now that you know we know you and where you come from, it’s only fair that you tell us how you got here,” Cain said, and Adams nodded. They looked pretty confident that we’d spill our guts in just a moment.

  “We’re not telling you anything,” Ax said, his voice shaking with anger. “Release our magic, and let us go, right now.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr. O’Neal,” said Cain.

  “We’ve done nothing wrong!” Luca shouted. “Who do you think you are to lock our magic and to keep us here? Who gives you the right?!”

  In a second, Adams was close to his bed, his nose an inch away from Luca’s. “I am the law. I make my rights.”

  Luca tried to get even closer to him, but the collar around his neck stopped him. “We have our rights, too. You can’t keep us locked in here forever just because of what we are!”

  “What exactly do you think you are, Mr. Clarke?” Adams asked, slowly leaning away.

  “I’m a witch, just like you,” Luca spit without missing a beat.

  A visible shiver ran down Adams’ back. “You’re nothing like me, Dirt.” There was so much hatred in his voice that I wondered if he really believed we were different. If he really thought that he had right to keep us there, against our will. Don’t know why that surprised me. He was a freaking psychopath. “I don’t know where you come from yet, but you and your kind is dark. Creatures of evil brought here with only one purpose.” He held up his index finger again. I turned to look at Ax. Could it be that Adams thought the way he had? That we were made for the mindless thingies, the demons to feed on? “The world will succumb to chaos if you aren’t stopped. Your energy, your dark magic, was made for creatures that have no place among us. Luckily, we are here to make sure they have no reason to come back.” Oh, yes. Yes, he did think that.

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” Ax asked, laughing dryly.

  “Of course I do.” Adams sounded offended.

  “So why aren’t you doing something about them, instead of imprisoning us? And don’t tell me you didn’t know how. Scarlet tipped you off about them. She sent you three letters, and you never did anything,” Ax said. He’d remembered, and most importantly, he’d believed me.

  Adams looked at me, a bit surprised. “She did, didn’t she,” he said in a dull voice, which meant he didn’t give a shit about the letters. Going after the demons was much harder work, but us? Come on, our own families would hand us over to them without question, so why would they bother?

  “Eddie,” Cain said with a nod, and the guy with the frameless glasses stepped forward. His whole body shook so badly that it took him a few seconds to get something out of the pocket of his beige colored pants. It was a remote control, as big as my hand, with blue colored buttons on it. He pointed it at the TV screen to my right, and both of them came to life. I expected no explanation when I saw what they were showing us.

  I recognized the place instantly. It was my neighborhood. Whoever was recording was right across the street from my apartment, and there I was, too. My heart picked up its beating and I felt like I was there all over again. On the screen, behind me was Ax, and in front of me the pizza delivery guy. I’d just given him the money and sent him on his way, but he walked a few steps, looking at the money, back at us, and then back again. I looked relaxed in the footage, looking around the neighborhood, taking in some fresh air, even smiling a bit, if I could see correctly.

  And then, I noticed. I remembered it with clarity. I’d seen the car parked at the corner of the street. While Ax had disappeared inside the building to get the others, eight soldiers had formed a half circle around us, leaving no way for us to escape. My swords were in my hands, and the others behind me.

  It started so fast, I suspected someone had fast forwarded the video. The way I remembered it, that part before the fighting began had lasted a lifetime. But Luca raised his hand and called on his magic, and as soon as the first soldier was blown away, everyone began to move at once. They shot at us so fast, it was incredible that no bullet had reached us. We’d all turned to our magic to protect ourselves, and soon, the soldiers realized that their guns were useless.

  The one carrying the camera, probably attached to his shirt, charged Ax. He moved so fast, we barely caught glimpses of Ax’s face. To the side, I could see Luca and Fallon fighting two others, and Sienna…oh, poor Sienna stayed behind, looking around without any idea what the hell to do while tears streamed down her face. We’d left her alone in Mathias’s house. The guilt for that caught up with me now.

  The fighting continued and it felt more like watching a movie than real footage. Until the soldier who’d been fighting Ax turned right. I saw my face a split second before he hit me, and I fell to the side. He then threw something at me—the spell stone—and I rolled on the ground before coming back up. With our magic, Ax and I created invisible walls on either side of the soldier, and he was stuck motionless, his wide eyes terrified. The screen went black for a split second, and came back, just as the new soldier carrying the camera threw something forward. I grew bigger and bigger as he ran toward me, and threw another knife that landed on my shoulder. It was easy to see how terrified and in pain I was, and the four fists the solider delivered to my face still hurt like I was reliving every second. My shield dropped and I spun on air with my swords raised, before the screen turned blank again.

  When it came back, the soldier carrying the camera was fighting both Grover and Ax. On the left, I could barely see myself, being held up in the air by my throat, my attacker pressing a spell stone in my cheek. Again, it felt like someone ha
d pressed the fast-forward button, because those seconds had lasted hours while I lived them, but the Scarlet on the screen moved extremely fast. She took out a knife that had been buried in her thigh, and stabbed the soldier in the neck three times.

  Ax fell down on the ground, and Grover followed right after. The solider held out his guns at their faces, but I was more interested to see myself, and the soldier who’d stepped behind me, and kissed the barrel of his gun to the back of my head while I was still on my knees.

  Now, it was time.

  On the screen, I saw myself rolling on the ground, reaching for my swords just a foot away from me. By the time I turned, the soldier’s gun was pointing at the sky, and a second later, he fell to the ground. That was the moment I’d seen him. The mindless thingie. The demon. Call it whatever you want—he’d broken the soldier’s neck, and now he was going to come for me.

  The screen went dark. Silence stretched in the room. I’d almost forgotten where I was, too busy reliving every second of the night the whole world had seen what I could do, something I’d spent my whole life avoiding. But now, it no longer mattered. The ECU had us. We were alive. And we were most likely never getting out of there.

  “If you want to tell me you did nothing wrong again, remember that we saw it all,” Adams said to Luca.

  “You attacked us first!” Grover shouted. “Your people came at us with guns. What the fuck did you expect?”

  “Some respect, to begin with,” Adams said, smiling sneakily. “But all of that is behind us now. We saw the footage, and we saw the demons who took you.” Ah, so this was why Adams and Cain were here. “What we want to know now is where they kept you, and how you escaped.”

  This was rich. So rich and delicious. They thought we’d made it out of that abandoned hospital by ourselves.

  “Let us go and we’ll tell you,” Ax said, raising his chin as if to challenge them. They were never going to give us our freedom back, but if they thought we were strong enough to escape the demons on our own, so be it. I wasn’t going to try and change their minds.

  “We have ways to make you speak, you know,” Cain said, raising his brows. “I’m sure you’re not going to like them, so why not think about it a little first? We know who you are, and we know what you can do. Now, what we do here is simple. We have a pretty clear routine.” Folding his arms in front of him, Cain began to walk back and forth in front of us like he was a goddamn teacher in front of his class. “If you don’t follow the routine, severe punishments ensue. We offer the best for every Dirt in our possession. What we expect in return is respect.”

  The best? Possession? This guy was delusional.

  “Like he said, we’re not telling you anything until you let us out of here,” Luca said angrily.

  “Very well,” Adams said, as if that was exactly what he’d expected to hear.

  But it was wrong. If we didn’t tell them how we got out, or at least lie about it, they were going to keep us in that room, chained to beds, unable to move. If they didn’t let us out of those beds, we were never going to find a way to escape. The assholes didn’t care if we rotted in there and worms ate our bodies. “We’ll be back,” Adams said, and turned to the door. The others followed him just as fast.

  I hadn’t wanted to speak at all to either of them that night, but if I let them leave now, who knew what they’d come with next? Or who they’d come with. The ECU was notorious for its torturing ways, and I didn’t want to put the others or myself through that. So I had a decision to make.

  “What do you want?”

  Adams stopped moving right in front of the door. Turning his head slowly, he met my eyes. The evil smile on his face made my stomach turn.

  “Beg your pardon, Ms. Jones?” Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I took in a deep breath instead.

  “I said, what do you want?” My voice was strong, a far cry from what I really felt inside, but I’d take it. “You made a deal with a werewolf to get us here. I’m sure there’s something else you want.” Something he didn’t want to put his delicate little hands in. “I’m sure you know we’re worth much more out there than in here.” I nodded at the now blank screen to remind him of the footage. We’d fought his soldiers, nearly won, and as far as he was concerned, we escaped from the demons all by ourselves. That had to count for something, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered to come in there at all.

  He laughed a bit, shaking his head. “You’re asking me to trust you, Ms. Jones.”

  “You don’t need to trust me, Adams,” I said, just to spite him. “But you could work with me.”

  “I did made a deal with a werewolf, that’s true,” Adams said, slowly walking back to the middle of the room. “It was to bring you here.” His eyes sparkled once again, and he looked at me like I was food. Ugh. As if the demons weren’t enough to make me feel like fresh meat in a butcher’s shop. Lowering my eyes meant showing weakness. As much as I hated the sight of him, I had no choice but to hold his stare.

  “So, Ms. Jones?”

  His words registered a second too late. He must have caught my surprise before I masked it. He’d worked with Oscar to bring us in there, and now, he was asking the same thing from us. Bring others like us to him? Did he think we were crazy? I’d rather die than do this to someone else—anyone else that wasn’t Adams or Cain.

  But…if it got us out of there, wouldn’t it be wise to take it? It would. I’d make the deal with him in a heartbeat. I’d tell him we’d bring a thousand others like us right to his feet! The lie of the freaking century, and we’d no longer be cuffed to beds deep under an ECU building.

  Except, if he let us go, he’d probably track us, and he’d want his people with us at all times. He didn’t get where he was by being stupid. He was an asshole, but he was a smart asshole, and he could probably smell my lie from a mile away. There was no way we could run and hide from him in those circumstances.

  Dammit. Lying wasn’t going to work in this case. It had to be something else.

  “I’ll take option B,” I said, trying to keep the brave-girl face on for a few more seconds, but I wasn’t sure I managed.

  “There is no option B,” Adams said in a whisper.

  “There’s always an option B.” I had no fucking clue if there was an option B or not, but if there was, this was the surest way I knew of to convince Adams to at least think about it.

  And he did. Looking at the floor for a second, he simply nodded once and turned for the door again. This time, when he walked out, I didn’t stop him. If we were lucky, he’d come back without the people who could make us tell them what we didn’t want to tell them. If we were lucky, he’d really have something else he wanted more than to have us there. I’d steal for him, lie for him, even kill—assuming he’d send us after bad guys. I’d do anything at all for my freedom, and I was never going to take it for granted again.

  “Why aren’t I hungry?” asked Grover when a few minutes passed and none of us said a word. The rest of us were still thinking about what Adams had said, trying to come up with ideas, but failing miserably.

  “Maybe they’re feeding us while we’re unconscious,” Fallon said, flinching. “And I haven’t been to the bathroom in ages.”

  However the ECU was “handling” us, they were doing a damn good job. So good that, if we let them take us into separate rooms, I knew without a doubt that we’d have no chance of working together. Alone, we weren’t going anywhere. There was nothing my mind could come up with, no idea how to get out of there in one piece…except one. As much as I hated it, I felt it in my bones that the time had come to do the one thing I promised myself I’d never do again.

  “I’m gone,” Luca whispered. “How are they doing this?” His words were slurred together, barely understandable.

  What he meant was the sleepiness that suddenly fell on us all, making our lids heavy, impossible to hold up. “Gas,” I whispered, because nothing else made sense. Whatever was behind our beds, it was leaking gas to make us fall asleep.
And just like everything else, it was doing a perfect fucking job.

  Sixteen

  I woke up to the sound of the door opening. That was never a good sign. What were they going to do to us now? Measure us some more? They already knew who we were, so what was the point? I looked at the others, but they were still asleep, and they were showing no signs of waking up soon.

  But when I looked at the door, my heart stopped beating for a long second. The people coming in were not ECU workers. It was Adams again, in tow with a woman I’d never seen before.

  She wore crisp white pants, pressed to perfection, black stilettos, their heels thin and sharp enough to be considered weapons, and a black button up that shimmered in all colors. Her makeup was done, her nails long and painted red, her hair the only part of her body that was a mess, the blonde curls tied behind her head. She had a big, dark red leather bag in her hands. She didn’t look at me while she put it down in front of my bed, and neither did Adams.

  I looked at the others again. Why weren’t they waking up?

  “Ms. Jones, I hope you’ve rested,” Adams said, looking at the woman who’d kneeled in front of her bag and was searching for something. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me about the dragon around your hand?”

  What?

  My eyes moved to the dragon bracelet, looking as innocent as the day I found it. “It’s a brass knuckle,” I said, a bit angry at myself for caving so fast.

  Adams gave me a tight lipped smile. “Where did you get it, Ms. Jones?”

  The woman stood up again. In her hands were two big leather gloves that reached all the way above her elbows. They were brown and worn, but she didn’t seem to mind while she put them on, looking at my dragon bracelet.