by Sofia Grey
The woman crooked a finger at me. “Come.”
This shit wasn’t going to happen to me again. I’d run before she locked me in that room one more time… and leave without Kitten? Not an option. I swallowed down my fear, convinced my frozen legs to move, and followed her through a secure door into another part of the club.
She held a door open and gestured for me to enter. I blinked and tried to breathe normally, my chest already tight with anxiety. Balling my sweaty hands into fists I lifted my chin and entered the room, the door closing behind us.
She took a position standing by the door, arms folded.
I let out my breath. A different room. This had a single wooden chair in the middle and a glass wall along one side. I pressed my face to the glass but it was just blackness. My heart raced, and I longed for a cigarette.
“What’s going on?”
The Asian ignored me.
Remembering Eve, I glanced at her. She drew patterns on the glass with her fingers, keeping her focus away from me. “I dunno.” She didn’t sound convincing, and my heart hammered a little faster.
I turned to face the Asian. She still hadn’t answered me. “You wouldn’t tell me, anyway. Right?”
No reply.
Any harsh words I’d been about to unleash were silenced. The other side of the glass lit up to show a similar room, empty, one wooden chair in the middle. I had a bad feeling. I looked at Eve and saw that she was staring intently through the glass. My heart stuttered when the opposite door opened and Kitten walked into the empty room. She looked cautious as opposed to scared. In a heartbeat I went from anxious to terrified.
Kitten was followed by two heavy-duty bouncers, and the door closed firmly behind them. I heard their footsteps, the snick of the door catch, and Kitten’s voice.
“Am I in trouble?” Puzzled.
I smacked the glass with the palm of my hand. Kitten didn’t appear to notice. I hammered with both fists. No response.
One of the bouncers asked her to remove her jacket, and as Kitten tugged it tighter, the Asian woman spoke. “She can’t hear or see you. It looks like a plain wall to her.”
I spun around, my fists tight. “For fucks sake, why do you want her? She’s done nothing.”
A horrified cry made me turn back. One bouncer held her wrists, the other dragged her jacket down, ripping it away from her body. I pounded on the glass. “You bastards, leave her alone.” She had to hear me, to know I was there.
“Keep your hands off me!”
I’d forgotten that my Kitten was a fighter. I watched, helpless and utterly useless while she wriggled. She let loose with a kick, and then tried to elbow the men.
They grabbed her while she screeched and yelled abuse, but paid her no attention. In less than a minute, she’d been subdued with her hands behind the chair, and her ankles tied to the legs.
I turned to face the Asian and swallowed hard. “Please let her go. Whatever you want, you can have it.”
Eve raised a warning hand, but I ignored her. “You want my Talisman? Fine, but let her go.”
“Dante.” Eve’s voice was like a whip.
I flicked a glance at her and she pointed to Kitten. I followed her finger and saw who’d just entered the room with Kitten.
Alistair.
13.5 Katherine
Every instinct screamed that the man standing before me was evil. I couldn’t move my arms or legs, and my fingers were already going numb, but none of that mattered. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Tall to the point that it was uncomfortable to stare up at him, I still couldn’t make out his face clearly, even when he stood right in front of me. I blinked and squinted, but he still looked foggy. He looks like Gabe’s spirit did at the séance.
I shivered. The closer he moved, the colder I felt. I clenched my jaw while I tried to breathe through my nose. It felt as though little icicles were forming around my face, down my neck, and trickling along my arms. I sucked in a harsh breath and tried to speak past the chattering of my teeth. “I want to know why you’re holding me here.”
I think he smiled. There was a flash of teeth and a smell like decaying vegetables and then he spoke.
“Hello, Katherine.”
His voice was a harsh croak as though his throat was raw. As though he wasn’t used to speaking.
“Who are you?” I was pleased that I managed to sound pissed off rather than petrified. If he came any closer he’d hear my heart galloping along, trying to break out of my rib cage.
“I am Alistair. We have a mutual friend.” Dante.
“Yessss.” I blinked. I hadn’t said his name out loud.
There was that strange, almost smile again. “I must thank Dante for bringing you to me. He’s going to fetch his brother now. Such a well-trained boy, I have high hopes for him.”
“Dante doesn’t have a b-brother.” My face was stiff with cold, but I couldn’t stay quiet. “You’re just a c-clever c-con man.”
“He didn’t tell you Raphael was his brother?”
I stared. Josh had said something about being known as Raphael. Did he mean that Josh was Dante’s brother?
“I see,” he continued. “There are a few things he didn’t tell you. Like where to find your mother.” He smiled at my sharp intake of breath. “He didn’t tell you he stole from your father.” There was a soft, rustling noise, and his hand appeared, clutching a row of medals.
No. They looked just like the ones from home. This was a trick.
“No trick. Dante stole them and used them to pay his debt. The only reason he wanted you was for your money. He will bleed you dry, Katherine.” He was lying. He had to be.
“What about,” I licked frozen lips. “My m-mother?”
“Let me show you.”
The medals disappeared, and he extended a long, bony finger toward my forehead.
I could hear Dante inside my head, yelling, shouting No. What the hell was happening to me?
13.6 Dante
My fucking knees were shaking. At that moment I would do anything to get Kitten free. When the little Asian woman told me to go and get Raphael, I went.
13.7 Josh
Suki’s colleagues had one major problem with their planned exposé: a lack of evidence. Everything could be explained away. We sat through a tedious dinner with two sharp-suited lawyers who kept reminding everyone how far the program could go. I left the restaurant feeling at a stalemate.
There was nothing back from Katherine so we headed to Armageddon as planned, Suki’s two colleagues making up the group. The line to get in snaked down the street, and one of Suki’s people groaned at the sight. “Can’t we go and get a drink somewhere, and then come back when it’s shorter?”
I leapt at the suggestion. I’d prefer Suki not to be here at all, and this way I could make sure she stayed at a safe distance, at least for the moment. We debated where to go and ended up at a wine bar a block away. I sent a text to Katherine to check if she was okay, but when she didn’t reply I began to feel unsettled.
“I’m going back to check the line.” Suki got up as well, but I shook my head. “Stay here, babe. I won’t be long.”
I trudged back in the drizzle to find there was still a long line of people waiting to get in, and no reply from Katherine. Nothing from Dante either. I paused and considered my limited options. Bribing the door bouncer?
“Josh.” Looking up from my phone, I saw Dante jogging toward me, boots slapping on the wet pavement. “Hey, man. You on your own?”
“Yeah, for the minute. I thought we’d find you here.”
He glanced away, up the street and then back at me with a smile that didn’t make his eyes. “Come with me. I can get us in.”
Something didn’t feel right. “Have you seen Katherine?”
“Yeah, we were just talking. She said she was waiting for you.” He looked up and down the street again, shuffled his feet, and scratched his chin. His eyes finally met mine. “Are you coming?”
“Sure.”
<
br /> A flicker of relief flashed across his face, and was quickly masked. My suspicions grew.
I set off beside him, walking briskly up to the head of the line. He kept his focus on the entrance. “Your phone not working, Dante? I tried to call you.”
“Battery’s fucked.”
We reached the main doorway and the customers waiting to file past the doorman. Dante nodded to him, and he waved us straight in, to the grumbles of the crowd. The roar of the music was loud already, and I could feel the vibrations through my feet. I’d not been inside the club before, and I wanted a moment to get my bearings. A wide staircase led down a short way, corridors branching left and right. Dante set off down the stairs, the thumping beat getting louder with each step. At the bottom, he placed a hand on my arm and held me back.
His eyes looked wide and dark, and I saw a thin trickle of perspiration on his forehead. His fingers gripped me through my fleece. Whatever was wrong, Dante was scared. Badly. Doubt churned in my stomach.
“Josh.” He hesitated, opened and closed his mouth as though unsure how to speak. “I’m sorry.”
13.8 Katherine
I wanted to recoil. I couldn’t move. When Alistair’s fingertip pushed my forehead, the breath caught in my throat. It felt more like a hot skewer sliding through the layers of skin and bone, piercing my brain. I whimpered.
Pictures swirled in front of me, revolving and spinning faster than I could make them out. For a second they froze—an image of Dante staring at a pile of silverware in my father’s kitchen. Dante reaching out and taking the medals, slipping them into his pocket. No. He wasn’t a thief. That was a lie my father used.
“That’s nothing.” Alistair chuckled in the distance, and the pictures blurred and shifted, pausing to show Dante, standing in a shadowy yard. He was talking to someone, pocketing a bundle of notes and handing over a small cellophane-wrapped package. Dope. My heart stuttered. Dante is a dealer? I fought for control, to stop this crazy trick he was pulling. It was a hallucination. Or he’d hypnotized me. I wanted it to stop. I wanted…
Dante. An image of him standing in a dark alley, a vicious knife in his hand. A man lying at his feet. Blood all over the ground. Oh God, no. He can’t have knifed his friend. I couldn’t believe that.
“That is just as real as this.” Alistair’s whisper crept into my head.
More swirling images. They paused to show me screaming at my mother, the car swerving, the bike crashing into us, the little boy flying over the bonnet, the van about to hit us. Tears sprang to my eyes. Mum. The horror on her face. My last sight of her.
Gone. I saw myself walking down my father’s drive in the rain, darkness closing around me, and the tears on my face mingling with the raindrops, utterly alone and unloved.
“Stop this,” I managed a whisper. “Please make it stop.”
13.9 Dante
I had to warn Josh. Make him aware of what was going down. His face hardened at my words, and I rushed on before he could say anything. “They’ve got Kitten. Katherine. Fuckin’ Alistair’s got her.” I swallowed and then sucked in a steadying breath. “He wants the Talismans. He can’t just take them, so he’ll try to persuade you, offer you a deal or something. Try to stall him.”
His jaw tightened. “And he’s persuading you by threatening Katherine? What about the other girl? Nanette.”
“I don’t know. I think she’s here somewhere.”
He rubbed his chin and stared at me. “Do you have any idea how to get out of this? Or were you planning to serve me up as dessert?”
I spoke slowly, thinking as I went. “If the Talismans were destroyed, he might let Kitten go.”
Josh closed one hand protectively around his bracelet, already shaking his head.
“I know.” My brain churned furiously. “But if he thought I was going to do that, wreck them, it might give us time to come up with something better.”
“Wreck them like how?”
My mind was a blank. I stared at the wall opposite, hoping for inspiration. A scruffy poster advertised a band I’d never heard of and a brightly colored arrow pointed to the fire exit. Fire. I patted my pockets, dug deep into my leather and produced my Zippo. I met Josh’s eyes and nodded.
“No way. Not my Talisman.”
“Do you want him to go after Suki?”
“No.”
I crouched down, tugged my own bracelet off and laid it on the floor by my feet. “I need yours, Josh. I’ve not got much fuel left. This is a one shot deal.”
13.10 Katherine
The pain drilling into my skull was unbearable. I felt impaled on Alistair’s finger but at the point where I thought I would pass out, it ceased. The pressure eased. I gulped in a deep breath to quash the rising nausea and let my head drop forward, my eyes tightly closed. Had he done this to Dante? Would he do it again? “What do you want from me?” It came out as a croak.
“You have such potential. What do you want most in the world, Katherine?”
I shook my head. The words ‘see my mother’ were on the tip of my tongue, but I held them back. He knew anyway, the bastard.
“Your mother. How badly do you want to see her, hmmm?” His voice wrapped around me, insidious and tempting. “I could take you there. Would you like that?”
“She’s dead.”
He chuckled. “I could take you to her now.” I felt an icy finger trail down the side of my face, and nausea rose, burning my throat. A memory of Dante flooded into my head. He’d made a deal with Alistair to have his grandmother back, and Alistair had tricked him. Was he trying to trick me now?
The icy touch rose back up to my forehead and settled dead center. I shuddered. Not again, please not that. “Little Lost Girl. Don’t you want to tell her you’re sorry?”
“Yes.” I blurted it out without thinking.
13.11 Josh
I stared at Dante, hunched over his Talisman, Zippo in hand… remembered when he’d trusted me with his Talisman. With a gut wrenching sense of foreboding, I loosened it and slipped the leather over my wrist, holding it a moment longer. “You’d better be right about this.” I spoke softly, my words laced with menace. Placing it on the floor, next to his, I stepped back and watched as he trickled lighter fluid from his Zippo over them both.
He nudged at them with the lighter, turning them over in the small puddle of fuel, making sure they were well coated. Flammable. I swallowed.
“What now? Do we wear them like that?”
I read indecision on his face. “I don’t know,” he muttered, and I groaned inwardly. So much for his bright idea. “Do you have a bag or anything?”
“Yeah, sure.” I glared at him. “I always have a handy little box for carrying fucked up Talismans.”
“Bingo.”
I watched as he rummaged in his pockets and produced a crumpled cigarette packet. “It’s for my roll-ups.” He shook out the flakes of loose tobacco and then gently slid the stinking bracelets inside the carton and closed the flap. “Best if you keep them.” He held out the packet to me.
I didn’t particularly want to let mine out of my sight, so I took the box and pushed it to the bottom of my jacket pocket. “Okay, Einstein. What’s next in the plan?”
He gave me a crooked smile. “I deliver you to Alistair.”
13.12 Dante
My chest was tight with fear. Alistair’s predictions had come true. I’d watched Kitten being attacked by the bouncers, and Josh had followed me inside Armageddon. He hadn’t shown me anything beyond that, which could mean I might not be around for much longer or…
My neck prickled, and Eve appeared. “Nanette’s here.” Her gaze slid to Josh, then back to me. “And you need to get your arse in gear, Tat-Boy.”
Ignoring Josh’s look of confusion, I replied to Eve. “Where is she? Is she okay?”
“She’s not hurt.” Eve seemed to choose her words with care. “She’s in a room upstairs. You need to demand to see her.”
“Eve. Can I save Nanette and Kitten
? Or is this all just a waste of time? Are they already fucked whatever happens?” I desperately wanted a crumb of hope.
Behind her I could see the Asian woman advancing. I stared at Eve, willing her to say something positive. Something to help.
“You have to make a choice, Dante. Choose wisely.” She vanished, her words ringing in the air.
Someone else had told me that recently… I racked my brains. The spirit at the party of Josh and Suki’s friends. He’d shown me the blackness that covered my face. What fucking choice? I wanted to yell after her, but it was no use.
The Asian woman nodded to us. “Come with me.”
As before, we went through a secure door and then into a room, shocking and familiar. The other side of the glass. Kitten, wide eyed and panting, tied to a chair. The fuckers. Adrenaline slammed through me along with a rage so deep it could have been primeval. It was hard to breathe, my lungs rasped with the effort. I clenched my fists and with hard won control, didn’t launch at Alistair.
Beside me, Josh made a low noise of horror. I stared at Kitten and recognized the shell-shocked trauma on her face. Alistair had been sifting through her memories and nightmares—something else I hated him for. She didn’t acknowledge me at first, but then she blinked and some of the confusion cleared from her face.
Alistair spoke first. “Raphael.”
I stepped forward. “Let her go. I’ve brought you Raphael. I’ve kept my end of the bargain, you don’t need Katherine as well.”
Kitten frowned at my words.
I advanced a step, fury making me bold. “I know you have Nanette here. If you let Katherine and Nanette both go free, I’ll give myself to you. Raphael and me, for the girls. Seems like a fair trade.”