by Lola Gabriel
He pressed send, and they both sat in silence, staring at Noah’s phone. They didn’t have to wait long for the response. Noah read it out loud to Raina.
“Congrats, man. I better get an invite to the mating ceremony.”
“Fuck,” Raina said.
“Yeah. Fuck. Shit, Raina, I should have known!”
“No one could have guessed your father would pull this shit,” Raina pointed out.
“No, no, I should have known Chessa has Sanmere in her! She has prophetic dreams, but I didn’t put that together until now. She had a dream last night, she called it a nightmare, and I thought that was all it was. I even told her about the ones I had when I was a kid. She didn’t go into much detail, but she said she was being tortured by a monster. Fucking hell, Raina. I have to go. Do you have any idea where I can find this Freya?”
“I’ll call Harvey and get him over here. He knows how to get into Freya’s lair, and hopefully he can give us an idea of the layout so we can get in and find Chessa easily. But—”
“There’s no ‘we,’ Raina. I appreciate you giving me the heads-up, but there’s no way in hell I’m taking you with me and risking your life.”
“Screw that shit! I’m not asking for your permission, Noah. I’m coming with you, and that’s that.”
“But…” Raina raised an eyebrow, and Noah nodded his head. “Thank you,” he said, genuinely grateful.
Raina made the call.
“Harvey will be over in ten minutes,” she said.
“Why are you willing to do this?” Noah asked.
“Because as much as I don’t want to marry you, you’re a nice guy, and I reckon we can be good friends. And friends help each other.”
Noah shook his head. “There’s more to it than that.”
“Okay, you want the truth? The truth is, I believe in love, and I’m not going to stand by and watch love be torn apart. One the other hand, helping to destroy a Matchmaker? Well, that feels like a purpose, like I’d be doing some good for the world.”
“Fair enough,” Noah said.
His mind was racing, and his heart was pumping faster than it ever had before. It was killing him, sitting and waiting for Harvey, knowing that every minute they wasted was a minute Chessa was in the hands of Freya, someone known to torture her charges.
After what felt like ages, Raina’s doorbell rang. She spoke into the intercom and buzzed the door open. After a few minutes, there was a knock on the apartment door, and when she opened it, a man wearing black ripped jeans and a blue t-shirt stepped inside.
“Come on in and close the door, Harvey,” Raina instructed him. “We were right. Freya’s new charge is Noah’s mate. We have to help her.”
Harvey shook his head. “Look Raina, I’m sorry if I misled you, but there’s no way I’m going anywhere near Freya. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but I must warn you, going to her lair will be a suicide mission. I’m a seven-hundred-year old vampire, and I’m pretty strong, even if I do say so myself. And even I’m not crazy enough to mess with Freya Montgomery.”
10
Chessa opened her eyes slowly, instantly aware of the pounding pain in her head. She reached up and rubbed her temple, where most of the aching seemed to be coming from. Her fingers came away coated in warm, sticky blood. Her eyes widened, her headache forgotten for the moment as the memory of her dream rushed back to her.
No. This can’t be happening. That dream can’t have been real. That monster can’t have been a real thing. It was just a dream. This is a coincidence, and there’s a rational explanation. There has to be.
The metal bars of the cage and the metal cuffs around Chessa’s wrists and ankles that kept her bound tried to tell her otherwise, but she refused to believe that the monster from her dream was real. How had she even gotten there?
It all started to come back. Freya, the nurse who had looked after her mom, had asked for her a ride him, and then… then what?
Then Freya punched me in the temple and knocked me out, Chessa remembered. Oh, my God, I left my mom alone overnight with someone who could do that to me so I could have sex. I’m the worst daughter in the world.
She shook her head, trying to make sense of everything that was going on in her head. Surely Freya hadn’t really punched her. She had to be confused. Freya was lovely. She couldn’t be involved in this.
Chessa heard a door open to her right, and she looked that way with a sinking feeling. She knew what she would see even before her eyes registered it. A staircase, the top of it hidden from her view. Feet began to appear, their steps light. Chessa’s heart almost stopped, and she held her breath, waiting for her nightmare creature to step into view. She let her breath back out in a sigh of relief when she saw Freya. She began walking quickly towards the cage. She must have been with Chessa when she got knocked out. Maybe she’d managed to fight off their attackers or something, and now she was here to get Chessa out of the cage.
The relief died inside of Chessa when Freya made no attempt to free her. Instead, she stood outside the cage, out of Chessa’s reach, even if she had found the courage to try to grab the woman through the bars. Her face wore a sinister smile, the sort of smile Chessa had only ever seen in horror movies and on pictures of serial killers. Her eyes looked kind of glassy, as if she were in some sort of trance. Freya blinked, and the illusion was gone. She still wore the creepy smile, but her eyes looked normal again.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Chessa asked finally when she could bear the silence no longer.
Freya shrugged with one shoulder. “Why does anyone do anything in this world, Chessa? Money. It’s nothing personal.”
“I don’t understand. My mom’s not rich or anything. She can’t pay any sort of ransom!” Chessa’s words dried up in her throat when she thought of her mom again, of her being alone all night with Freya. “Did you do something to her?” she demanded. “My mom? Did you mess with her meds?”
“Relax, Chessa. I really am a nurse. This is just my sideline.” Freya gestured to the row of cages. “Mind you, the fee I’ll get for you might be enough for me to finally stop nursing for a decade or two. And in answer to your question, no, I didn’t mess with your mom’s meds. I didn’t do anything any other nurse wouldn’t have done. She’s not a part of this.”
Chessa wasn’t sure whether or not she believed Freya, but she had to put thoughts of her mom out of her mind, at least for now, and work out how she was going to get herself out of this mess. One thought niggled her, however, and she had to ask, even though the idea of the answer she might receive scared her.
“Bridget doesn’t really have the stomach flu, does she? You got her out of the way so you could come to look after my mom instead of her, didn’t you?” Chessa accused.
Freya made a noncommittal noise. “Collateral damage. A shame, but necessary.”
“I can’t believe you killed her,” Chessa murmured, her voice shaking.
“What? I didn’t kill her. I used mind control on her, made her think she had a stomach flu so she called in sick and I could volunteer to take her shift. God, you’re so dramatic.”
“But you said she was collateral damage!”
“I meant she lost the money for the overnight shift, that’s all,” Freya said.
Chessa felt a small relief at that. Freya had no need to lie to her about Bridget. Now she had to get her mind back on track and find a way to convince Freya to let her go.
“Look, I’ll get you the money. However much you want. It might take a while, but I’ll find it, okay? Just let me out of here,” Chessa said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
“I’m afraid we both know I can’t do that,” Freya replied in a voice that sounded almost sad. The smile she wore, the one that made her eyes glint hungrily, told another story.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” Chessa shouted, angry suddenly. She walked to the front of the cage and gripped a thick bar in each hand. She shook them. She might as well have been t
rying to shake a house. There was no give in them at all. Freya watched her in amusement.
“I’ve told you what I want. Jeez, I hope you get better than this at listening, or Kyle really isn’t going to be happy with you.”
“Who the hell is Kyle?” Chessa demanded.
“You’ll find out in good time, my dear,” Freya answered. “That won’t be for a couple of hours yet, though. In the meantime, why don’t we have a little fun?”
Chessa’s jaw dropped as Freya began to change before her eyes. Her first thought was that Freya must be a shifter like Noah, but as she watched, she soon changed her mind about that.
Freya was nothing like Noah. Her teeth grew longer and more pronounced and became silver. Her long red hair seemed to disappear inside of her scalp, and the skin on her head and face became a meshed pattern of black lace, her eyes the burning red of fire. Her tongue split down the center, and two grotesque arms grew from Freya’s breasts. Chessa felt her head spin, her vision blurring as Freya stood before her, the monster from her dream.
Chessa gripped the bars of the cage, trying to steady herself. She took long, deep breaths, swallowing down the nausea that spun her stomach and threatened to overpower her. She couldn’t let herself flake out now. If she did, it would be game over for her. Her vision began to return to normal, and the room around her slowed down and finally stopped spinning. Still, none of that changed the creature that stood before her.
“What… what are you?” Chessa asked quietly. Freya gave her a predatory smile that sent a shudder through Chessa’s body.
“I’m a demon,” she replied, like it was the most obvious and normal thing in the world. “Don’t tell me Noah didn’t tell you about demons.”
Chessa shook her head, unable to speak. How did this… thing know Noah?
“Well, let me enlighten you. Demons take many forms when they shift. Some worse to look at than others. Some are so attractive you would just come in your panties looking at them. Now, I’m sure you’ve heard the human stories about demons? Hell creatures, always the bad guys. That’s not true of real demons.”
“Are you sure about that? Because from where I’m standing, you look pretty fucking evil,” Chessa said. She knew she shouldn’t wind Freya up, but could this really get any worse?
“I’m just a survivor, Chessa. I do what I have to do to get by. And besides, like mortals, some demons are assholes. Some aren’t. In my defense, I do spend like forty hours a week looking after sick mortals, so obviously, I’m not all bad. Anyway, enough chat. I want to have some fun with you before Kyle gets here.”
Freya took a step closer to the cage, and Chessa took an automatic step back. She knew what was coming next. She’d seen it in her dream. Freya would grab her with the gross extra arms, and then she would grab her head and do… Well, she didn’t know what she would do. She had woken up before she had found out, but whatever it was, it wouldn’t be something she would enjoy.
Freya kept walking, and Chessa kept backing up until she felt the back wall of the cage pressing against her back. Freya stood at the bars and smiled at her. She reached in with her two extra arms, but they weren’t long enough to reach Chessa.
“Chessaaaaa,” Freya said in the hissing whisper Chessa remembered from her dream. “Come to me, Chessaaaaa.”
Chessa found her feet moving, stepping towards Freya. She tried to stop, to back up, but it was no use. Her feet carried her forward like she was no longer in control of her legs. She wasn’t. Freya was.
Chessa felt hot tears running down her face as she got closer to the bars. She put her arms up, trying to fend off Freya’s, but Freya was too strong for her. She gripped her upper arms and pushed her other two arms through the bars of the cage. She grabbed Chessa’s temples and squeezed, sending a shock of pain through the open wound there.
The pain stopped suddenly, and Chessa’s vision went white, a blank canvas that didn’t remain blank for long. She saw herself as though she was watching a movie playing out on a screen.
She stood beside her mom’s bed. Ally was sleeping. The Chessa in the movie reached for the spare pillow. She pressed it down over her mom’s face and held it in place. Chessa tried to move or scream, but she was frozen there, a silent observer. She watched as her mom kicked her legs and scratched her arms, attempting to pry the pillow away from her face. She couldn’t get it off, and a desolate feeling flooded her as Ally’s fight grew weaker and weaker until she was finally still.
The screen turned white again, and then it was filled with color.
Lexi, her twin sister, was walking along a street Chessa didn’t recognize, singing quietly under her breath. She reached the crosswalk and paused, looking both ways. She stepped out into the road, and Chessa saw herself driving her car, flying around the corner from nowhere. Her car slammed into Lexi, and her sister flew through the air and smashed down onto the road with a sickening crack, her head at an angle no human head should ever sit at. Her eyes were glassy, and a single trail of blood ran from her mouth and one of her ears.
Just when Chessa thought her mind would break, the screen went white again. Slowly, it faded away, and she found herself back in the cage, her gaze fixed on Freya’s blood red eyes. Freya watched her with the sort of amused look a child wears when they’re pulling wings off flies.
“Had enough yet?” Freya smiled.
“It’s not real,” Chessa said. “You’re making me see it.”
“Does that make it any less real, though?” Freya asked.
Chessa didn’t get a chance to answer her or even think about the question before her vision whited out again. She saw her mom being smothered by the pillow again, and she saw Lexi being hit by the car and thrown up in the air again, only this time, she wasn’t the one hurting them. It was Noah.
After the first two screens, Chessa expected it to end. Instead, it went on.
Another flash of white, and Chessa was back at Noah and Raina’s wedding. She saw them say their vows, and then they kissed, but the kiss went on, deepening and becoming more passionate. Chessa could hear herself whimpering. She wanted to look away or close her eyes and found she could do neither. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of pain, the kiss ended. Both Noah and Raina turned to Chessa and looked at her with wide grins, and before Chessa knew it, they had their heads thrown back, laughing hysterically, pointing at her. The laughter bounced around, echoing so loudly that it was deafening. She wanted nothing more than to put her hands over her ears and block the sound out, but she remained frozen, an observer with no choice.
When the vision faded to white once more, Chessa knew better than to relax and let herself hope it was over. She saw herself huddled down in a corner, her arms wrapped around her knees. She could see the fear in her own eyes. Noah stood over her, towering her, screaming and shouting in anger as Chessa tried to make herself smaller.
At first, she couldn’t make out his words. They were just noise. But then they became clearer, and she heard him saying that his life was ruined because of her, that he should have married Raina when he’d had the chance.
Suddenly, Chessa wasn’t watching the scene anymore. She was in it. She was looking out through her own eyes, watching Noah above her, his face contorted with anger, twisted in a way she had never seen it before. She felt a stab of fear in her gut.
“I hate you, Chessa!” he snarled at her. “I’ve lost everything because of you!”
“No,” Chessa whimpered. “Please, I love you!”
“Love me?” Noah scoffed. “You’re pathetic. You don’t love me, and I as sure as hell don’t love you. Why do think you’re here, Chessa? How do you think Freya knew where to find you and to take you? It’s because of me. I arranged this. To get you out of my life for good.”
Hot tears ran down Chessa’s face as Noah lunged towards her.
Before he reached her, she was back in the cage, looking into Freya’s bright red eyes.
“Why are you doing this?” Chessa asked through tears.
>
Freya pulled her hands back from Chessa’s head, and Chessa tumbled to the ground in a wretched heap. She looked up, watching Freya suspiciously. She smiled sadly at Chessa.
“I’m not the one doing this to you,” she said. “I’m not the one with the power to break your heart, am I? I’m not the enemy here, Chessa. You saw what Noah wants to do. What he will do. Kill your family, break your spirit, and then turn against you.”
“No,” Chessa said, shaking her head frantically. “Noah would never do that to me. He… he loves me.”
“Are you sure about that? I mean, where is he? Why isn’t he here trying to save you?”
“He has no idea where I am, that’s why,” Chessa said. “But he’ll find me. He’ll go to my place, and my mom will tell him where I was going, and he’ll find me.”
“Or he won’t, because he doesn’t care,” Freya shrugged. She reached out suddenly, surprising Chessa as she gripped her temples again. Chessa’s vision went white, and then another mind movie began to play.
She was home, walking up the stairs, when there was a knock on her front door. She went to open it, and Noah was standing there.
“The test results are in. Come with me, and we can get them together,” he said to her.
She saw herself going upstairs, telling her mom she had to pop out for a little while with Noah, and then she was coming back down, happy and excited to be with him again. She got into his car, and then they drove out to the middle of nowhere, to a house on the edge of a mountain range. She saw herself walking beside Noah to the door, and then she gasped as Noah jammed his elbow into her temple. Her unconscious body crumpled to the ground, and Noah scooped her up roughly, throwing her over his shoulder.
She saw him carry her down a set of wooden stairs and throw her into a metal cage. He attached chains to her wrists and ankles. When he was sure that she was secure, he stepped out of the cage and locked it, dropping the key in his shirt pocket. Footsteps sounded on the stairs again, and Chessa watched Raina enter the scene. She saw Chessa unconscious in the cage and smiled.