Exhumed

by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  Jamie was struck next and he stumbled, let out a bark of pain as blood bloomed over his shoulder. They’d hit him from behind too—we were surrounded.

  Oh shit, oh shit—

  The next hit was a Taser, numbing my muscles and I slumped onto my knees heavily.

  I think I hated fake-Mishka more than the real one.

  ****

  I awoke in chains, in the back of a van just as it jerked to a halt.

  The bag on my back was gone and my hands were manacled painfully into a knot against my spine. The rear doors popped open, white moonlight casting over me, and I caught sight of Jamie equally bound at my side.

  Jesus, so Mish and Nate get away and I get screwed over even more.

  “This isn’t my fault,” Jamie said immediately.

  “Duh.”

  Armed men hauled us out and toward a non-descript building—warehouse, apparently not the compound he would have had me in four months later, so I didn’t know if we were still in the province or not.

  Rough hands shoved me down a flight of stairs behind Jamie, and they kept us moving single file. The farther we went, the more it reminded me of the compound. Walls were cinderblock, painted cream-colour, and I glimpsed doors with glass set into them and hallways beyond on each landing. At the bottom I got another shove—like I needed the reminder to keep walking—and through a door into a long corridor. I did a few mental calculations but nope, I hadn’t a damn clue how to get out. I didn’t escape on my own before—Nate found me. Now he didn’t know to look for me.

  He didn’t even know I existed.

  Neither did Nic. She was still asleep in her coffin, waiting for her wife—who she didn’t know had been abducted too—to come and find her. Peri was on the other side of the world. Ryann was a kid being trained as a Hunter, Ellie a teen psychic living what I imagined was a very difficult life.

  Absolutely no one.

  At the end of the hall waited Sean, tall with thinning hair, very blue eyes, and features startlingly similar to Nate. At least it was easier looking at him like that than it had been when he’d taken Ellie’s body.

  “No matter how many times you die, I can’t get rid of you,” I muttered as I stalked along.

  “Zara Lain.” He hadn’t stopped smiling at me. “So nice to meet you.”

  “Fuck you too, cockbite.”

  “Uh, sir,” Jamie shuffled a few feet ahead of me, “I just want to assure you that I have nothing to do with her—”

  He yelped when one of the guards urged him forward with a cattle prod. Honestly, if I’d had one of those when I knew him, I wasn’t sure I could’ve stopped using it.

  We stepped through the doorway into the long row of cells I still remembered distinctly—still had the odd nightmare about, strapped to the table in the dark, starving and going mad. I suppressed a shiver and kept my chin lifted.

  “No questions?” Sean asked as he followed. “None at all?”

  “Vampire army, apocalypse, blah blah blah. Been there, done that. Hey, can you tell me in detail what the actual prophecy entails—”

  That got me an agonizing shock with the cattle prod and I swore to fucking god if I got out of this one, I’d write an article for the VETA quarterly magazine about how the goddamn things should be banned. Except for use with irritating people in lineups at the mall.

  I stumbled into a cell and slammed onto a long metal table; my chained hands at my back flew apart and cemented to my sides.

  Sean stood calmly in the doorway and I blinked, pain receding.

  Jamie was ranting his objections in the background, pleading for deals, but apparently it wasn’t needed in this reality—not when he didn’t know about other vampires in hiding that he could turn in.

  I was bolted in place with straps I didn’t remember and glanced around frantically, panic clawing its way up my throat. Not again. Jesus, I couldn’t take this again.

  My throat was dry, aching, and my voice came out thin, hoarse. “Nate?”

  He had a beard and exhaustion played across his features, but it looked like him. “Yeah, Zara, it’s me.” His voice reverberated through me, shaking me to my core.

  Stupid Technicolor dreams. “No. You’re dead.”

  Then I felt his hand on my face—his fingers so hot they seared my skin—and he looked deep into my eyes. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m not.”

  Oh my god. My throat got lumpy—he came for me. I wasn’t alone. He fucking came back for me, didn’t leave me alone. Not alone.

  “Not this time, Ana.”

  I glanced back at Sean as he stalked toward me. His hand came out to skim my bare calf and bile rose in my throat. “That’s not my name.”

  “It is.” Fingers danced over my flesh. “No matter what you call yourself. You are Ana Fidatov. And no one is coming for you.” His hand had ridden past my knee and I thought long and hard about all the ways I could tear it from his fucking body. “For now, my brother and his bride are safe. I’ll hunt them down, of course. Later.”

  I shook my head. Blinked. My eyes were wet—I’d started leaking tears at some point because he wouldn’t stop touching me and wild fear clawed under my skin. “You’re not Sean. This isn’t real.”

  “No?” A bruising pinch against the inside of my thigh and I yelped. “Seems real.”

  I levelled him with a glare. “Because Sean wouldn’t be trying to feel me up. He was gay, you idiots.”

  He paused and tilted his head to the side. Frowned. I saw it again, that thing that had been wearing Mishka’s face as well. “Really?”

  “Really. Didn’t he bring a plus one to the Court’s annual Christmas shindig?”

  “We don’t have shindigs.”

  “Kinda figured. If you’d made me a member, I could’ve started a party planning committee.”

  “Do you think you’re funny?”

  “Usually. You should rummage around my brain for the bit about the Supreme Lying Leader of the Lying Cunts of—”

  I didn’t get to once again use the c-word multiple times in a sentence as the lights shut off and my lips clamped shut. Pain exploded at the back of my skull and fire licked my throat, skin popping and bubbling; red played over my vision, where we were, when we were, I didn’t fucking know—knew nothing but the pain.

  Cold metal drew down my chest, sliding under my skin. I gasped, cried, couldn’t keep my mouth shut. More blades slicing, filleting.

  No one’s coming, Ana.

  “Goddamn it, that’s not my motherfucking name!”

  No one’s coming. Another slice. No savior in the dark. No ghost back from the grave. And you’ll never, ever leave here.

  Don’t cry, don’t cry...c’mon, Zara, don’t cry! I denied the scream as long as I could even as fresh pain scored me. Oh god, it hurt. My limbs were weighted as I struggled, the straps no longer felt but I may as well have been bolted down. I can do this, I can handle this...

  But he was touching me again and I couldn’t handle it—not when he pinched my nipples painfully, not when something hot and wet like a tongue dragged up my throat and hands in my hair yanked harshly at my scalp. Hot tears slicked down my temples and my feet shifted sluggishly, heels slipping on the smooth table surface. Claws sank into my thighs, biting down bone-deep, and another scream tore from my throat. Babbling words left my lips and I tried—fuck, I tried—to remember it wasn’t real, to not feel every touch, every tear, every burn. Tendrils of the thing on me, over me, everywhere around me, sank into my brain, wiggling and pulling and violating, plucking at my thoughts.

  All alone in the dark, Ana, it purred in a deep voice against my ear. My heart beat violently, painfully hard against my ribcage and my thighs were wrenched apart.

  Jesus fuck no. Anything else. Any torture, but I couldn’t—wouldn’t... Another sob bubbled up. I was fucking Zara Lain. This was my body and I controlled it—I was the goddamn one in control of everything. This didn’t happen to Zara—

  You are Ana. The words pulsed down deep until I b
elieved them. Pavel took, didn’t he? Took even if you did not want to give. Ana is weak. And no matter the mask you wear, she is who you are.

  Ana.

  I was Ana.

  I was meek and trusting, weak and stupid. The thing over me tore my flesh, sliced agony through me, invaded me, and I couldn’t stop it—couldn’t do anything. I sobbed and shook, hyperventilated like a human, terror blasting adrenalin through my veins. It ripped through me and flesh tore again with every movement. Little hitching noises left my lips, scared whimpers of girl. I was a girl. This body was young—younger, really, than it had ever been treated, and now it was violated, things moving in me, working through me—

  Pain pierced my throat, a tickle of blood snaking down my neck somehow noticeable despite everything hurting me everywhere else. Pain and then something pulled. Connected me, warmed me, held me gently. My body was boiling, heating up like I might bubble over, and as the force pulled me again, I reached back. Locked on. Let it tug.

  I stretched, paper thin, ready to snap and break apart and fall into the pit waiting for me. But the threads holding me together, frayed and damaged as they were, didn’t let go. Didn’t break.

  And I slammed into myself—into arms around me, fingers tangled in my hair, holding my head against a beating heart.

  Chapter Forty

  Damaged

  I took two deep breaths of stale, moldy air. Realized I didn’t need them.

  Took a third anyway.

  I trembled head to foot, a weird broken noise invading my ears—it came from my own lips, which I promptly clamped shut. Still, frightened whines tickled my throat and I couldn’t make them stop.

  Then I really felt it. Felt the embrace I was locked in, and it didn’t matter that it was gentle, didn’t matter whose it was—my skin felt dirty and broken down deep, crawling like bugs sliding over my skin.

  No one’s coming, Ana.

  I scrambled, feet scraping noisily on stone, grime biting into my palms. My eyes were slits barely open enough for a blurry glance at my surroundings, and I took in a glimpse of a long dark prison of empty cells and stains of blood almost black on the flagstone floor. I saw the broken metal cot a moment before my shoulder struck it, pinned myself there between it and the bars of the far wall. Curled. Got my knees up to my chin and hair fell over my face. I slid my fingers through my hair, feeling where the thing sank in. Dragged my hands over me. Phantom pain remained, burning in my lower half, but jeans were intact, skin hadn’t been breached.

  Not physically, at least.

  I huddled there for god knows how long. Shaking. The other presence a few feet away didn’t move but I felt the weight of his gaze, a pressure on me even as I shrank away from him. When wakefulness cast a fog over the memories of that thing, of everything it did to me, I had enough distance to check myself again.

  My fingers fumbled over my throat where two holes were closing over, wet blood sliding under my touch. I tasted it, too, as I swirled my tongue around my mouth, and caught the copper scent thick in the air—not just mine. My blood in him, his blood in me. Connected.

  “It was the only way I knew to wake you.”

  Nate. I squeezed my eyes shut and curled deeper into myself.

  He didn’t leave me there, in the dark. Again. And a pull on my blood—with an exchange of his—tugged me back to him. There were holes in my brain now, places the thing had touched, but that nightmare was held at bay by the lingering warmth of Nate still holding the edges, the connection trailing between us.

  He came back for me.

  And almost as clear as if he’d said it aloud, I felt the assurance that he always would.

  Don’t you ever wonder...what it would’ve been like? If I’d done things differently, if you’d never met her? The holes gaped in my head, still. If that’s where I went, what the fuck happened to him? How did he manage to wake himself up, to drag himself out of whatever Arabelle did to him before me? But I couldn’t keep thinking, wondering—my brain couldn’t take much more fucked up shit happening, and the dream state was sticking to me, hovering in the back of my mind. I licked my dry lips and held onto my knees like they might escape from me, anchoring myself to the ground.

  I heard no one else. Sensed no other presence. I had time to get my shit together.

  If I ever would.

  “Are you all right?” His voice was dark, hovering on the edge and if he fell, I didn’t want to be there for the aftermath. His rage—not anger but real, deep rage—always sounded like a tightly coiled spring about to jerk up.

  I ignored the question. Memories were rattling around my head, dancing with pointed feet like spiders, and I didn’t want to shine the light in there and look. Distance between us stretched on, severing the connection that had dragged me back from hell.

  My throat felt bruised from screaming when I finally spoke. “Where are we?”

  “Underground.” He sighed and moved, feet shuffling over the ground. I tensed for a moment but he didn’t approach, instead walking to the other end of the cell. Flesh whispered over metal—he was probably checking the bars. A moment later something rattled that might’ve been the door, and he walked back. The cot shifted behind me—made sense, he might look for a useful tool there.

  I gathered my voice again. “Can you teleport yourself out?”

  “Magic’s blocked. It has been since we got here.” He sounded strong. Voice clear, besides the razor edge of anger. “I assume we’re still in the Court’s building but I haven’t seen anyone.”

  “Peri?”

  “I woke up with no one but you here.”

  And how did you wake up so easily? Or did me turning you crazy make it easy to deal with the mind fuck? I didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know. I also didn’t want to get up and figure out what the hell was going on—I wanted to stay huddled, at least until I stopped shaking.

  But you are Zara-Motherfucking-Lain. And you will get up and deal with this shit.

  I wiped at my eyes. Found them wet, so rubbed harder at them, and dragged my hands back through my tangled hair. I glanced up, blinked until the space solidified. The cell was maybe six by six, broken cot with no mattress behind me, and though Nate rummaged around, there wasn’t anything that would really help us. The rear wall was old, crumbling brick; the other walls went straight up into the darkness of the ceiling, metal bars as thick as my wrist. Cobwebs wafted and dust motes fluttered in weak light spilling from an open doorway twenty feet to my left.

  My hand moved for my gun but found nothing there. Even my jacket was gone and anything helpful I’d had in the pockets lost to me. Arms bare and scuffed up the odd place. Still had my boots. That was good news, at least; I eased my feet forward a bit, their soles scraping on the flagstone, and got my shaking hands working at the zipper to the side. Plenty of enemies would take my jacket, but few ever went to the trouble of hauling off my boots, too.

  I slipped out a switchblade and set it on the floor, then fumbled around with another pocket and withdrew a set of picks and a tension wrench. Lined them all up pretty, re-zipped my boot, and took a moment.

  A long moment. Staring at my knees, at the floor. Feeling like I might fall apart again because everything was right there in my memory, all the slicing and tearing and raping, an echo playing over and over so that my body tensed.

  But no, I had to get my ass going and deal later. I scooped up the tools, got my feet under me, and hauled myself up. But I tipped, lost my balance, and he caught my arm, held me up straight. Folded me into him.

  I hated him. I did. I was pissed and betrayed. But he felt right, like I belonged there, and my eyes went wet again, buried in his chest. So I let myself have a moment, not to let myself fall apart and be comforted, but to gather a bit of strength.

  He came back for me. Why did he have to do that? Why make it harder to hate him?

  When I was ready, I shouldered out of his grip, rubbing the back of my hand over my eyes again. “Just don’t...touch me. Right now.” I didn’t wa
nt anything touching me—would’ve stripped down and scrubbed myself raw in a shower if there’d been one. I slipped the switchblade in my pocket and went to investigate the cell door, all bars like the wall, where an old fashioned lock waited.

  “Are you all right?” he asked again.

  No. Jesus H. Christ, I am so not fucking all right. I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I will be, but I’d rather not do the time warp again. I just need a gun. Or a knife. Or a sword. I’m not picky.”

  “And a target.” His voice had a bit less weight to it, like my desire to get stabby with someone smoothed over some of his worries.

  It was infectious because some of the tension eased from my shoulders as I knelt by the door. “That too.” I slipped my hands through the bars and felt around until my fingertips skimmed the lock hole, and I twisted to slip a hook pick in. The lock looked old and I thought it should be all I needed, but I’d find out.

  He stood at my back, across the cell but still far too near. I dragged the pick along, feeling my way, and—

  The fucking thing snapped.

  I cursed a string of expletives that were mostly incoherent and set it aside, wishing I could start ranting at him fucking me up by watching me, but that wasn’t it. There was still a tremor in my hand I couldn’t disguise and he wasn’t the cause. This time.

  I reached for another pick. “Need a plan for when we get out of here.”

  “Find the others and run.”

  “Quality plan. I was thinking of starting with makeshift weapons, but sure, you get the missus and Peri and—”

  “Jesus, would you stop—”

  At least arguing got my mind off of things. “That’s what she is. So take them and run. Get a head start.” Because I am going to start taking everyone out one by one who has pissed me off. It seemed about the only measure of control I could get back—to start feeling like myself again. First would be the Court here, of course.