We flew for a long time. I watched the Texas landscape roll away beneath me, short trees, wide pastures, and gentle hills all blurring into indistinct dark mounds, fuzzy through the gauzy barrier of the ethereal plane. Eventually my captor slowed. I wasn’t sure if he was tired or if we had reached our destination.
Evidently it was the latter, because we circled over one long metal building several times, dipping lower with each revolution. When we landed, my knees gave out and I stumbled out of the demon’s grasp. If I had been planning it, I might have been able to get away at that moment. Instead I sank to the ground.
And maybe I wouldn’t have been able to get away; as I looked around, I realized that there were about ten other demons standing around us. Or at least, I assumed they were demons. When I had pulled away from my abductor, I had also staggered out of the ethereal and into my own world, so I couldn’t see any wings. But they were all looking at me with the same creepy, speculative look that Bartlef had given me at the pep rally, so I was guessing that they had similar motives. And batlike appendages.
“Bring her in,” a voice behind me said. One of the bystanders hauled me roughly to my feet, shoving me through the door and into the building. It looked like some sort of workshop, with power tools and work benches scattered throughout.
Plus one more ominous-looking device that had been pulled to the center. It looked like it used to be some sort of exercise bench—the sort that you could use to do angled sit-ups—but it had been modified. Some sick soul had soldered manacles to the top and bottom. Right. The better to chain you up, my dear. My mind skittered away from the thought.
Unfortunately my body couldn’t follow my mind when it skittered away.
And yes, they chained me to the contraption. Because that’s what evil demons do when they’ve kidnapped a teenage girl and taken her to their lair. Workshop. Whatever it was. I snarled and fought and said ugly words the whole time, but there were three of them holding me down. There really wasn’t much I could do other than try to keep from either collapsing into tears or breaking out into hysterical screams. I’d seen the outside of this building from the air, and I hadn’t seen any lights nearby. I didn’t think anyone would hear me scream. So I tried to content myself with cursing. And spitting.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, demons don’t care if you curse at them. And unlike the Wicked Witch of the West, water—or at least, saliva—doesn’t melt them. And that about covered my options, as far as I could tell. I did get a few good kicks and scratches in, though.
When they had me good and chained down, the one who had flown me in left the building. Everyone else took up a sort of waiting stance.
I think the creepiest part was that they all looked like perfectly normal high school boys. One of them even had on a varsity letter jacket. He looked like he’d probably played in a football game of his own that night.
I decided to switch tactics.
“Okay, you guys,” I said. “That was really funny. Why don’t you let me go now?”
One of them shuffled his feet and glanced at Varsity Jacket Guy. The rest of them acted as if I hadn’t spoken.
“Please?” I said, focusing my attention on their apparent weak spot. He looked at Varsity Guy again, then clenched his teeth. “You don’t have to do this,” I said quietly. “You could just let me go. I won’t tell anyone you were involved. Really.”
“You certainly won’t,” a deep female voice said from the door. I craned my head up until I could see Miss Biet, Fairy’s senior English teacher, standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Taking control of the situation,” Biet said, “Since you clearly know far too much for your own good.” She walked over to me and placed her hand over my stomach; her long, pale fingers stretched out across my abdomen and she closed her eyes. She started humming and I felt a chill radiate from her hand and sink through my clothing and into my skin, spreading out through my limbs.
I fought the chains again, twisting and pulling. And crying and screaming, too. Biet just pushed down harder. “Hold her still,” she commanded. The boys circled me and held me down. She pressed harder, pushing her palm into my abdomen. The harder she pushed, the colder I got, until my teeth were chattering.
And just as my entire body went numb with cold, she lifted her hand and snarled. “Neh Dumaya,” she said.
Varsity Jacket Guy hissed, then smiled the ugliest smile I’ve ever seen. “Mine, then?” he asked.
Biet nodded shortly. She spun on her heel and slammed out the door. Most of the demons followed her, leaving only the three who had chained me down. The weakest link boy wasn’t one of them.
Varsity Jacket Guy took the jacket off and draped it over a table nearby. He leaned in close to my face and whispered, “Did you hear that? You’re all mine, sweetheart.”
Like my original abductor’s, like Bartlef’s, his breath smelled rotten.
“God,” I said. “Don’t you people ever brush?” My teeth were still chattering, so it came out less sarcastic than I meant for it to. The guy didn’t even respond. He just placed his hand on my stomach in the same spot Biet had and smiled evilly.
I squinched my eyes closed and turned as far away from him as I could. This was going to be awful—and I had no choice but to stay right where I was and suffer through it.
Chapter Twelve
I managed to keep my eyes closed for all of about two seconds before they popped back open.
Keep him talking. I had to keep him talking.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
I was surprised when he answered me. “Eddie.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
He drew back a little and looked me in the face. “Those Fairy boys weren’t doing their job. Just like I told Bartlef and Miss Biet—they’re not up for it. Get it? Up?” He snorted at his own joke. “But I am.”
My breath caught in the back of my throat. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” I said. My voice came out dry and cracked.
“Of course I don’t have to,” Eddie said. “I want to.” He nuzzled his nose into the crook of my neck and drew in a deep breath. “This is going to be fun.”
“Hurry up, Eddie,” one of the other two whined. “I want my turn.”
Oh, God. I was going to vomit.
And that gave me an idea.
Might as well go with my gut, so to speak. I inhaled deeply just as Eddie replied to his impatient friend, “Shut up, Pete. You’ll get your turn.”
His breath made me want to gag.
So I did.
And then I thought of every foul, disgusting thing I could come up with.
It didn’t take much. I was terrified, my stomach hurt, and my gut roiled every time I looked at these guys.
It only took a few seconds. Before he even had time to react, I vomited all over Eddie’s shirt.
“Oh, gross!” he yelled, taking a step back from me. “That’s disgusting!”
This from the guy whose breath caused the reaction.
Pete started laughing, bent over, hands on his knees. “Ah, man! Never mind. You can have her.”
“You stupid bitch!” Eddie yelled. He drew back his hand as if to hit me. I gagged again—less realistically this time, but still, it was enough to make him take another step back.
“I don’t care,” the third guy said, coming up behind Eddie. “Get out of the way, man. I’ll teach the bitch a lesson.”
Eddie was stripping off his shirt and wadding it into a ball. “Go ahead, Sims. She’s all yours.”
Sims slid into the space Eddie had just vacated and leered at me.
The sick, sour taste in the back of my throat grew thicker.
“No,” Sims said, clamping his hand down over my mouth. “You spew again and you’ll drown in it.” His eyes gleamed. I didn’t doubt for a minute that he’d keep his word. I swallowed convulsively.
“That’s better,” he crooned. He slipped his hand up high
er so that it covered both my mouth and my nose. “You’ll like this,” he said.
I fought against his hand, fought to breathe. My eyes rolled around wildly as I tried to gasp in air through his thick fingers.
Eddie watched us clinically for a second. He tossed the balled-up shirt into a nearby trashcan and took a step toward the door. “Don’t let her die,” he said. “And hose her down when you’re done. I’m going to take a shower. Make sure she’s ready when I come back.”
The edges of my vision were growing dark, and I heard a whooshing noise that I felt certain was my consciousness slipping away. It was followed by a loud thunk, and suddenly I could breathe again. I had a confused moment—I didn’t think my consciousness was heavy enough to make such a loud noise—and then I dragged in a deep breath of fresh air.
Well, okay. Not so fresh, given my earlier actions. But at least it was air. And fresh or not, I was deeply grateful for it.
Suddenly Mason’s face loomed above me.
I shook my head to clear my vision.
Josh’s face joined Mason’s.
“You get her out of here,” Josh said. Mason nodded.
“Wait,” I said, more weakly than I had intended. Both of them ignored me. Mason started working on the chains that bound me. I raised my head in time to see Eddie and Pete both jump Josh. Josh slashed at them with something in his hand.
“Come on,” Mason said, tugging at the chains. He hissed suddenly, and drew his hand back as if something had burned him. He turned and started scrabbling through a pile of items on the closest workbench. “Got to be here somewhere,” he muttered.
“Looking for these?” Sims said from a few feet away. He held up a fist and opened it. A set of small keys dangled from the ring in his hand. “Come and get them, I dare you.”
Mason literally growled and leapt toward Sims. The air around him shimmered, and suddenly all I could see were his wings, dark blue and stretched out, obscuring everything beyond them.
Then they were rolling on the ground, flashing in and out of my sight—going back and forth from the ethereal, I guessed. Sims had his wings out, too, their bright red hue contrasting sharply with Mason’s.
I’d seen fights before, at school in Atlanta. Some of them had been pretty ugly, but none of them came close to this. Mason fought dirty, kicking and jabbing anywhere he could reach. Sims was worse, biting and scratching as well.
Then Josh was above me, wings flapping, always hovering just out of reach of Eddie, who was moving in and out of the ethereal, trying to take him by surprise. They both popped out of sight.
I couldn’t see anyone anymore, but I could hear the fight going on behind me.
Suddenly Josh lunged in front of me just as Mason and Sims flashed into sight and landed with a crash on the floor. Mason pinned Sims down. Josh pounced, using the object in his hand to jab through Sims’s wing and into the concrete below. Sims screamed, his high-pitched wail echoing throughout the metal building. Josh spun back out of my line of sight.
Mason reached over and held onto the railroad spike Josh had used to pin Sims to the ground. He grimaced as he touched it, and his voice was tight with pain when he spoke.
“You never should have touched her,” he said.
Sims whimpered and tried to crawl away, but the spike seemed to hold him in place. His body shimmered, and he screamed again.
“Oh, no. You’re not going anywhere,” Mason said. He reached over with the hand that wasn’t holding the spike and took the keys out of Sims’s fist. He tossed them onto my chest.
“Can you reach those?” he asked.
I arched my back and fumbled around with my hands until I hooked the ring with my pinky.
“Sort of,” I said.
“Can you unlock yourself?” He didn’t take his eyes off Sims.
I tried to turn the key around to face the lock, but I dropped it.
I heard cursing and scuffling behind me.
“Dammit!” Mason said. He let go of the spike and bounded over to me, scooping up the keys on his way.
With a mind-numbing shriek, Sims used his hands to pull his body away from the spike. His wing ripped as he tore away from the metal. Then he popped out of sight.
Mason cursed again, this time more dramatically. He unlocked one of my hands and tucked the key into it.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. Then he, too, popped out of sight.
I unlocked all the manacles and looked around the workshop. It was empty. I rubbed my wrists and wondered what to do next.
Just then, Josh and Mason both shimmered back into my reality. They took up stances on either side of me, just in time to block Eddie and Pete as they lunged for me.
But this time I was free, too, and made a lunge of my own. I dropped to the floor and grabbed the railroad spike, then spun around to face the guys.
Who were gone. Again. I slowly turned around, trying to remember what I’d learned about self-defense. Somehow, I didn’t think it was going to help me all that much with guys who could fly, let alone disappear.
I heard a slight noise behind me and a pair of arms wrapped themselves around my waist. “Don’t move,” Eddie breathed into my ear.
Yeah, right.
I slammed my arm behind me, aiming the spike not for Eddie’s body, but for his wings. After all, it had worked on Sims.
Eddie screeched—again into my ear—and tried to pull away from me, but I held on, following up my initial thrust by spinning close enough to him to keep the spike ripping through his brown, leathery wing. My task was made easier by Josh appearing behind him and pinning his arms to his side. Eddie’s wings flapped backwards once, ripping the iron spike from my hand and sending it spinning across the floor, but Josh pulled him to the ground and held him there.
“Go get the spike again,” he instructed me breathlessly.
I brought it back and handed it to Josh wordlessly. He knelt across Eddie’s body, his knees holding the other boy’s wings in place. He took a deep breath and then drove the spike into the base of Eddie’s wings, pinning them together. Eddie let out one of the wordless shrieks I was coming to associate with demons who had been spiked.
Mason shimmered into sight, dragging an unconscious Pete. He tossed the boy’s limp form into a heap on the ground next to Eddie, who was still writhing and moaning. Josh leaned back just enough to look up at Mason.
“You up to this, man?” he asked.
I saw Mason’s Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. “I think so,” he said.
Josh nodded and bent back down over Eddie.
“Hey,” I said, “Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?”
“In a minute,” Mason said. He didn’t even look at me. His eyes were trained on Josh and Eddie.
“Go see if you can find anything else to keep them here,” Josh said. Mason nodded and began scanning everything in the room. He didn’t step away from Josh’s side, though.
Josh took a deep breath and grabbed the top of the railroad spike. In one quick, ragged motion, he ripped it out through the base of the other boy’s wings, partially severing them from his back. Eddie screamed and thrashed, but Josh held him down and, with a series of slashes, finished the job.
Eddie’s wings lay on the ground, twitching on their own. Dark red blood pumped from the wound. Eddie seemed to have passed out from the pain. Josh leaned back a little, and used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. It left a deep, reddish-brown smear across his face.
I could taste the bile in the back of my throat and I had to fight not to vomit again.
“Want me to take care of the other one?” Mason asked quietly.
Josh shook his head. “Just come hold this one down.”
Mason took Josh’s place kneeling on top of Eddie. Josh moved over to the unconscious Pete.
I looked away this time, but that didn’t keep me from hearing the ripping sounds, or Pete’s screams as he awoke to the pain of having his wings stripped away.
Like
a dragonfly in the hands of a sadistic child. I shook my head to chase the thought away. Pete and Eddie were the sadistic ones here. This was punishment, and maybe prevention. Not torture.
But their screams said otherwise.
Josh and Mason sat on Pete and Eddie until the two boys stopped twitching. Blood pooled out from their backs and puddled on the floor. The coppery smell of it mixed with the smell of bile. The room smelled like death.
None of us said anything for a long time.
“Are they . . .?” My whispered question faltered.
Josh glanced down at the still form beneath him. “Not yet,” he said, shaking his head. “We’ll need to pin them both down for that.” He looked expectantly at Mason. “Did you find anything?”
Mason shook his head, stood up, and shakily began re-examining the workshop.
“What’s he looking for?” I asked. “Maybe I could help.”
“Iron,” Josh said shortly.
“Iron?”
“Yes. Anything iron.”
“So that’s why you used a railroad spike instead of a knife?”
“Right.”
Mason made his way to a workbench in the back corner.
“You didn’t mentioned iron when I was asking you about that sort of stuff the other day.”
Josh’s eyes flicked up toward me. “I’m not supposed to tell norms about it.”
“You weren’t supposed to tell me anything at all, but you did,” I reminded him.
“Here, man,” Mason said, handing Josh one of a pair of dumbbells with old-fashioned metal weights on the ends. He kept one for himself, and they both began removing the circular weights from the bars.
“Thanks, Mase,” Josh said as he stood up and carefully placed weights on Eddie’s chest, head, arms, and legs.
“No problem.” Mason followed Josh’s example and weighted Pete down. They both left bloody footprints behind as they moved around the bodies.
I rubbed my eyes. “So what next?” I asked.
They looked at each other for a moment before Josh answered. “We get you home,” he said.
“And that’s it?” I stared back and forth between the two of them. “We’re just going to leave these two boys here to die, and I go home? What about when someone finds the bodies? What about all the DNA we’ve left behind? The fingerprints? You know—the evidence!” The pitch of my voice rose higher and higher.
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