Then, giving her a bored look, he handed over the bow and quiver, stepped back, crossed his arms, and waited.
She never even got close. Once she hit the roof. Another time one of the arrows sailed out the flap, which was quickly followed by a screech and then several colorful swear words. Her teacher finally took mercy on her when the arrow she’d been about to release suddenly collapsed out of the string and nearly rammed through her foot.
Needless to say, he left with no promises of ever coming back.
The rest of her afternoon went much the same way.
She was taking a much-needed break when suddenly Cain called out to her.
“Flint, you still there?”
Smiling at the sound of his deep voice, she nodded before answering. “Yes.”
But this time she kept her butt firmly on her seat, ignoring the impulse to get up and run to him.
“I’ve got Eli and Seth here.”
Wiping her mouth with a napkin, she set her half-eaten bowl of hummus and carrot sticks aside. If she was going to eat like a pig all day long, it was probably best if she didn’t always just consume sugar while doing it.
“Okay.”
“Flint?”
She frowned, unable to tell which one of the two had just called her name. “Seth?”
There was a small chuckle and then, “No, this is Eli.”
“Jeez, you two even sound the same.” She bit her bottom lip nervously. “So um, how’s it hangin’?”
How’s it hanging was actually code for Do you want to rip my head off right now?
“I’m fine. If that’s what you’re wondering.” She heard him sniff again loudly. “Yeah, totally fine.”
“And Seth?”
“I’m good too,” Seth, who totally sounded like Eli, said.
Try as she might, she could never tell those two apart. And if she was confused, she could only wonder how much more confusing it was for their dates.
The flap was tossed open and first one blond walked through and then the other. Thankfully they weren’t dressed identically.
Seth had on a pair of skinny jeans and a black hoodie. Eli had on a pair of boot-cut Levi’s and a plain white tee. Their icy blue eyes glinted, and they both wore huge smiles.
“Careful. You guys actually seem happy to see me,” she said with a cheeky grin.
Then she was wrapped in two sets of arms and given hard squeezes. But they went easy on her, releasing her just before she passed out from a lack of oxygen.
Grunting, she shook her head and took a deep, dramatic breath. “Get off me, gorillas.” There was no bite to her words.
They chuckled at that.
“Man, you have no idea how happy we are that you lived. I don’t think we could have stopped Cain from going nuclear if you hadn’t.”
“Seth?” She pointed at his chest. His grin was blindingly white.
It wasn’t that she’d never noticed just how hot the twins were. She liked guys after all and they were easy on the eyes. But Cain had happened first.
“No, Eli.”
She swatted his chest. His pec popped under her hand and he winked. “Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.”
Neither of them had ever really been like this with her before. So friendly. But she’d never hated them either. Considering they went wherever Cain did, it would be nice to actually get along with everyone.
“You guys are acting weird.” She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly aware of the sweat and blood clinging to her. She hoped she didn’t stink too badly.
“Things are changing.” Seth stepped to the side. “You’re one of us now, even if you are part hive and stink like Eli’s gym socks.”
She rolled her eyes and snorted. “You guys suck. So now what? Cain gonna make you my permanent bodyguards?”
Eli shrugged. “Would it be so bad?”
“Um. Yeah. Plus, it’s just weird.” She plopped her butt onto the edge of the straw bale. “Apparently I’ve got mad skills trapped inside this body somewhere.” She flexed her slender bicep.
“And how’s the search going?” Eli dropped down beside her, crossing his booted feet and giving her a knowing grin.
“Awesome. I managed to have a whole face bleed today, nearly cut my toes off, got knocked to my behind by one nasty naga…” She said it with a smirk, watching to see whose eyes gave it away first.
Eli picked at his thumbnail. “Cool.” After a minute he said, “Anyway, Adam’s given you your own trailer. Parked it by all of ours.”
“Wow. So this is what jail feels like.”
Seth chuckled. “Could be worse. You might have had him”—he jerked his thumb at his brother—“for company.”
“Whatever.” Eli rolled his eyes, then gripped Flint’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Just want you to know that you’re not going to be alone again, little string walker. We got your back.”
She barely knew them, but she could totally understand why they were Cain’s friends. They had a way about them that made her want to laugh and relax, a calming presence that was actually kind of nice. Even if they were basically telling her that she’d just acquired two permanent stalkers in her life.
“Thanks. But you don’t really have to be around me twenty-four seven, okay? Between you and all the other monsters in this place, I think I’ll be fine.”
Seth moved toward the entrance. “Yeah, well, we’re not taking that chance again. Until Cain can handle your um… smell…” His eyes sparkled with suppressed laughter. “We’ll be his eyes and ears.”
Wadding up her paper towel, she lobbed it at his head.
It never hit him; he’d turned and with a swift flick of his wrist batted it to the ground and then gave her a knowing smile.
He might look like an Abercrombie & Fitch model, but he was still a berserker underneath it all. With a wave of his hand, he walked out.
Eli was headed out as well when Flint said, “So, Carlito, huh?”
He turned swiftly on his sneakered heel and gave her a secret little smile. “He tell you?”
She laughed. “Nope. I figured it out. He’s hot, you know. A total stud.”
Snorting, Eli nodded. “Yeah, I thought so too. But Seth doesn’t know, so let’s just ah… keep it between us and the walls.”
“You mean your own brother doesn’t know you’re gay?” She frowned. As close as they were, she wouldn’t have thought it would be possible to keep that away from him.
He shrugged. “Nah. He knows. And he’s cool with it. But he would not be cool with Carlito. Besides, it was just a fling, nothing serious.”
“Why? He’s so adorably cute and yet vicious all at the same time.”
Eli’s chest puffed up a little after she’d said that, but then a sad crease shaded his eyes and he sighed. “It just didn’t work out, okay?”
She sensed there was a lot more to it than it just not working out, but she’d pried as far as she probably should.
“Fine.” Feeling the need to show him some sympathy, she gave him a quick hug.
Eli grunted, almost as though taken aback by her sudden show of affection, but then just as quickly hugged her back. “Thanks.”
“For the record though, his eyes totally terrify me. When they go all glowy and slitty.” She shuddered.
Snorting, he rubbed her hair.
“Hey.” She swatted at his hand. “I might be ten ways to messy right now, but do not touch the hair.” She held a finger up under his nose.
He kissed her forehead and she totally melted into it.
She’d not been kissed affectionately since she’d woken up. Not the right pair of lips she wanted, but she’d take anything at this point.
“Are you gonna tell Cain what you just did or should I?” She grinned, running her fingers through her hair to pat it back down in place.
“Fortunately for me, he knows I’m gay. So I think my parts will remain intact. Thanks, little walker.”
She beamed. “For what?”
“Just kind of nice.” He shrugged, slipping his hands into his jeans. “That at least somebody in here knows the truth and doesn’t think I’m a weirdo because of it.”
“Well, I don’t think anyone would care anymore, it’s the twenty-first century.”
Backpedaling, he grinned. “Sure would be nice to see the world the way you do. But I do want you to know something.”
“Yeah?” She bent to scoop up the paper towel she’d tossed at Seth’s head.
“Neither Seth or I are gonna be intrusive about this. We just want to make sure you’re safe.”
“What? You mean you don’t want to be all up in this chili?” She ran a hand down her haggard body, giving him a come-hither waggle of her brows.
“As tempting as that is”—the sarcasm was thick—“I’m thinking I hear your next teacher.”
“Wimp.” She chuckled as he waved and jogged out.
What he’d heard hadn’t been a trainer but her actual teacher, Adam. His brows lifted when he glanced at Flint’s top.
He looked much less polished than normal, wearing only a scuffed pair of jeans and a baseball T-shirt. The pretense of this carnival hanging around in Whispering Bluff was fading fast. If they didn’t find some sort of lead to Abel soon, they were going to be forced to move, and Flint never imagined it, but she was really going to miss the place.
“Didn’t go so well this morning, did it?” His deep, barrel-chested voice filled the tent as he walked toward her, hugging a pile of papers to his chest.
She’d not thought once about the final exam to obtain her diploma, and now she was suddenly filled with a case of nerves.
“Today sucked.” She groaned. “Just. Don’t ask.”
“Well, I think it’s about to suck even more. I hope you’re ready for this.”
The test took her the rest of the evening to complete. It was long, boring, and when she hit the science section, she almost yakked.
Thankfully, by the time she finished she was pretty sure she’d gotten most of the problems right. At least school was one big headache off her plate.
Now all that was left was to wait and see.
40
Abel
He stared into the darkness, measuring his breaths as the cramps gripped his intestines.
There was no way to know how many days he’d been kept down here, but he hadn’t bathed the entire time. The stench coming off him was overwhelming.
Just then another powerful surge of heat swept down his body and he went rigid, screaming as every electrical neuron inside him exploded all at once.
But no matter what they did to his body, his brain was on constant alert. Aware of everything. Not only of the pain, but of his mother’s betrayal. Of the fact that he lived in a world he’d never known existed.
Like when a woman with cat eyes—literally cat eyes—had grabbed hold of his arm and instead of nails there’d been claws. She’d held him down as his mother had injected a needle into his brain.
He’d screamed as his muscles had swelled. As his blood churned like water in a heated pot.
Knowing then that he was what Cain was. Understanding that for years his family had kept secrets from him. The pain of that was almost as bad as the tortures he was subjected to day in and day out.
“It’s okay, Abel. No one ever said this would be easy.” His mother’s voice echoed from out of the speakers affixed at the corners of the room.
Kicking out his shackled leg, he struck the cement block wall with his heel. The groaning of a loud crack tearing up the side of it felt overwhelmingly loud. He was ten times stronger than he’d ever been, his body bigger too. No longer was he this lanky, skinny teenager. But his strength and his massive frame couldn’t save him.
His mother wasn’t stopping. She wanted more. He didn’t know what it was, but she wanted more than he was giving. And now this nightmare was getting worse.
At night, when they shoved him back into his cell, he’d cough up blood. His temples always throbbed.
He was dying.
Being ripped apart from the inside out.
“What’s happening to me,” he roared, then bit down on his tongue when a massive seizure gripped him.
He couldn’t remember much after that. Just the banging of his skull on the concrete and his mother’s dogmatic words pumping like poison through the empty chamber. “You’re becoming what I need you to be, Abel. Becoming what you should have always been. Mommy’s here. Just accept this, sweetie. Don’t fight it. It’s almost over now. Almost over…”
Always she said the same thing, and all he could do was shudder, curl in on himself, and try not to cry too loud as he waited until the next fit hit.
Janet
* * *
Janet jerked, kicking off the sheets covering her legs, grunting and writhing as fire gripped her soul.
As a shadow demon, she controlled the element of fire, but this fire was different, this fire was not her own.
Visions whirled in her mind’s eye.
Abel strapped down to a bed. Cattle prods being shoved into him, Layla’s voice an eerie, almost robotic-sounding thing blaring instructions through the loudspeaker.
“This is who you are, my son. This is who you really are. You will win. You will fight. You will be our greatest asset.”
Abel groaning. Twisting and turning as tears streaked down his face, fighting desperately to not pass out from the pain as test after test was performed.
Night after night, Janet saw all these things. In her mind’s eye, she screamed at him to wake up. Screamed at him not to sink into the brainwashing, to know that he still had friends, still had people looking for him. Coming for him.
But he never heard her.
The bond between them had grown so strong now that Janet was beginning to smell the metallic waft of blood oozing from his open sores.
The sharp tang of rubbing alcohol offended her nostrils as, after each session, they’d douse him in bucketfuls of the stuff, ensuring he’d not suffer infection at their hands.
At first, the pain had been so intense that all Janet could do was scream as it consumed him and then her.
She inhaled heavily, her sweat-soaked body convulsing upon the bed as hands she couldn’t recognize pushed her down onto the bed.
Adam had sent nurses to take care of her. She was dying.
She sensed the weakness of her dimmed spirit skating through her bones like a toxin. If she was dying, it meant Abel was too.
“Abel,” she moaned, reaching out to him. Knowing the physical distance between them was so great no amount of will could ever make it less. But in her head he was there.
As the minutes sped by, turning into hours and then days, she began to fight for control of her senses.
Remembering that she was not actually in a darkened cell bound by her wrists and ankles to a metal gurney but that she was in her trailer, at the carnival, and that if she could control the fear and pain stemming from the daily tortures, she might actually be able to turn this nightmare into a tool of discovery.
But then someone was tying a rope around his neck—their neck—and she couldn’t breathe. She clawed at her throat, gasping and scrabbling as the invisible bands tightened more and more.
“Calm down, Janet. Janet, calm down!”
A voice she didn’t recognize screamed at her, hands were shoving hard against her shoulders, pinning her to the mattress.
No panicking, some still-sane corner of her mind reminded her. You can breathe. You can breathe, Janet, so do it!
She sucked in a breath, and suddenly the spots dancing in her vision disappeared. She was still in Abel’s head, still seeing what he was seeing, but now she was no longer fighting the torment. She kept reminding herself that she was okay, she was okay. And if she was okay, then he would be too.
Shaking, hurting everywhere, she forced herself to focus. To look beyond the pain. And for the first time she saw more than just the darkness or the hands that hurt.
The hands weren’t covered. They were long, smooth, and white. On the index finger was a tattoo of a faded, lime-green shamrock.
And for the first time since the attack that’d taken Abel from her, Janet smiled. Though every inch of her screamed in pain, she now knew she could save actually save him.
But the moment was cut short as the hooded figure lowered the paddles to Abel’s chest and a flash of fire licked at her heart.
She cried out with a voice grown raw; lost once more to the madness of that pain.
Adam
* * *
The carnival medic—a pride Nephilim named Maddox, scrambled to revive Janet, whose heart had suddenly flatlined.
Adam spent whatever free time he had at Janet’s beside, hoping against all hope that she’d survive these torments. Everything this kanlungan felt, his son did too.
Every trial, every bit of the suffering was not only hers but Abel’s. He knew his wife. Knew the way her devious, brilliant mind worked.
Adam had fallen in love with Layla the moment she opened her mouth. She hadn’t been simply smart, but a genius. Having been together now nearly three decades, he knew exactly what she was doing and why she was doing it.
She was torturing Abel to bring his beast out. It was clinical, methodical, and all of it calculated.
Abel had been mere weeks from a natural turn. But she was bumping up the timetable. The methodology she used wasn’t in and of itself a cruelty, though he hated every inch of her for it. Pain and the beast were viscerally two sides of the same coin.
To a twenty-first century human, the idea that none of this was cruel would seem barbarous. And even though Layla had been technically born a human, by nature her spirit had always been more akin to his kind. Pain, death, torture, they were simply a part of everyday life for those like him. His world was cruel at its kindest, and sadistic at its worst.
The Complete Tempted Series Page 43