by Rainy Kaye
He had always been just Jada’s ex-boyfriend.
Sasmita and Fiona followed right behind, and I tried not to draw attention to Sasmita flexing her fingers, as if preparing to take out these guys all the way back to Y-chromosomal Adam.
“To the right,” the man with the ponytail said from behind his respirator.
I hung back a step and then navigated so Fiona was in front, arm’s reach from Randall and me. She trudged on, barely more than a zombie. Her head lolled to the side a little. I wasn’t sure she was even blinking.
Before long, we turned off the asphalt and onto a dirt road that opened into a field. Set back from the road stood a log house, the deck supported over an incline by brick posts.
We headed up around the side, toward the stairs. My soles slipped on a patch of snow, and my breath puffed out in front of me as a chill settled in my lungs. The aesthetics of this town was no longer so charming.
One by one, we filed up the staircase and onto the deck. Our footsteps made hollow clunking sounds as we gathered around, huddling close for warmth and comfort.
Our captors came up behind us. The man with the rifle lowered his weapon and pushed past Sasmita to the front door. He flung it open, and then jerked his hand to gesture us inside.
Sasmita went first. I took Fiona by her upper arm and guided her past the man, keeping her close to me. Randall followed right up against me. The man and woman with guns strolled behind us, weapons raised. The others stepped in and Tommy closed the door.
Darkness.
Then lights flicked on around the interior. I squinted, taking in my surroundings.
We were standing in a large open room. They had gone all-in with the log theme, from the chairs and sofa to the log-shelf mounted above the enormous brick fireplace. All the wood was broken up by a few sheepskin rugs on the floor and decorative vases and planters in brass and copper.
I tilted my head back a little to the ceiling fitted with log beams and recessed lights. On the far end of the room was a loft, but I couldn’t make out what was up there because of the tightly spaced railing.
Two more people entered the room, coming from the direction of the kitchen which I could just barely make out from where I stood. One was a woman with graying red hair that sat in on her shoulders. She held a dishtowel. The other was another teenage boy. They both wore respirators.
The woman surveyed us and then turned to the man with the rifle. “Take them to the bedroom while I call Nancy.”
The man hesitated.
“Now, Paul,” she said through gritted teeth, fidgeting with the towel. “I don’t trust her or that monster she calls a husband a second longer with my daughter. He’s got plenty to choose from now.”
She turned and disappeared back into the kitchen. The boy followed after her.
The man—Paul—lifted his gun but didn’t aim it at us.
“Down the hall,” he said, gesturing with the barrel. “Will, Liz, you watch over them and don’t you dare fuckin blink, got it?”
The woman with the gun nodded and turned toward us. Her clothes stood out to me all at once: a blush pink t-shirt that said Unicorn in glitter, pale blue-gray jeans that clung like paint, and white chunky shoes.
I hadn’t realized until now—she was young. Maybe nineteen or twenty. The family dynamic of the group fell into place. They all sported the same red hair and blue eyes. The woman from the kitchen was probably mom to at least the teen boy with her. Tommy and Liz were either brother and sister or cousins. I wasn’t sure how Paul, Will, and the other two men—one with the ponytail and the other wearing a Genghis Khan shirt and camouflage shorts—fit together, but the familiarity was there.
They had a purpose for us. I just wasn’t sure what exactly, yet.
The man in the Genghis Khan t-shirt took the rifle from Paul and turned toward us.
“Get moving,” he said with a sharp edge.
I nudged Fiona to start walking. She shuffled forward, barely lifting her feet even as she stumbled on the sheepskin rug.
Liz and Genghis herded us down the hallway and into a bedroom. It was a small room with more log furniture, including an adult sized bunk anchoring down a large distressed pink and blue rug. We ambled in. I hesitated, heart pounding in my head, as I tried to determine how much longer we should play along.
Of course, that was kind of up to Sasmita, since my magic was taking a stroll on a beach somewhere, or more accurately, Jada probably was, and had decided to bring our supernatural abilities along.
What could she possibly be using it for?
She always said our magic was stupid, worthless, and often couldn’t care less about it. Just figured she would start finding a use for it about the time I really needed it.
Liz and Genghis stood in the hallway, door open. Genghis posed with the rifle like he was holding a musket in a painting from the 1700s.
Still gripping Fiona’s arm, I led her across the room to a log chair with white cushions in the corner. She sat on her own accord and stared straight ahead, her hands folded in her lap.
Her fingers had darkened in a mottled pattern.
I started, and then ignoring the fact we were hostages, bent down and lifted one of her hands. Her fingers were dark from tip to just past her middle knuckle, and the black trailed upwards toward her hand in thin veins. It resembled ink.
I looked up, into her face. “Fiona. What happened to your fingers?”
Her gaze searched and registered the room past me, but she didn’t say anything.
I shook her hand a little. “Your hand, dude. What happened to it? Is that…frostbite?”
Even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t true. The longer I stared at the marks on her fingers, the more I picked out curved, geometric designs. It seemed intentional, like a finely designed tattoo, but it had not been there earlier.
Something was wrong with her, more than I had realized.
What had happened to her in the time she had been imprisoned on that steamboat in New Orleans?
Low talking came from the hallway outside the room, but I couldn’t make out the words. Genghis was looking away, speaking with someone. Liz’s attention was torn between us in the room and whoever was in the hallway.
A moment later, the teen boy from the kitchen appeared with an armload full of half-face respirators. He dropped them on the lower bunk and then turned to us.
“You should put these on,” he said, his voice slightly muffled through his own respirator. “There’s something in the air killing people, and—”
“That’s enough,” Genghis said. He lifted his gun and waved the barrel at us. “Get them on, and don’t ask questions.”
My thoughts flickered to the bodies that had been on the main street. They hadn’t been wearing respirators, and these people with them were still standing. Maybe Tilda had been right.
I dared to move toward the bunk bed, despite the gun pointed in my general direction, and snagged two of the respirators. Tucking one under my arm, I returned to Fiona. She stared, with narrowed predatory eyes, at where Genghis stood behind me, still flaunting his weapon like a penis extension.
I turned back to her.
“Don’t worry about him,” I said in a low voice, lifting the mask to her face. “Let’s get this on you.”
She jerked to grab the respirator from me and deftly fixed it into place.
I blinked. “Well, okay, then…”
She went back to staring at Genghis, like she was imaging the thrill of choking him to death. It was the strangest sight I had seen, and that was a pretty high bar these days.
I took the other respirator from under my arm and fumbled with it until I got it properly secured on my face. Somehow, it felt right to be wearing it, like it fit the bizarreness my life had become. I might as well have been wearing an oxygen mask on a distant planet.
Randall and Sasmita already had on their masks. Genghis looked between us. Then, as the teen boy slunk out of the room, Genghis lowered his rifle.
I rested my hand on Fiona’s shoulder, but she didn’t respond. She just continued to survey the room, catlike calculations in her eyes.
In a way, I felt like we hadn’t rescued Fiona. Instead, we’d saved the wrong person.
Noises came from the front of the house. I tried to steady my heartbeat pulsing in my ears and listen.
The front door closed, and there was talking, but it didn’t seem excited or the least bit friendly. I could only catch a few groups of words—Paul found them, and they look healthy—and none of it boded well for our immediate future.
Footsteps came down the hallway and I turned to the doorway as a middle-aged couple adorned in respirators entered. They wore matching powder blue, the woman in a dress and the man in a suit.
I bet they had a whole closet full of obnoxious t-shirts to wear on vacation.
Behind them stood the woman from the kitchen. The two newcomers paused just inside the room and studied us in turn: me, Fiona, Randall, and Sasmita.
Goosebumps ran up my arms and down my back.
The woman strode across the room, toward Sasmita. I tensed but resisted the urge to lunge at the woman. I needed to keep my guard over Fiona. She was the most helpless out of all of us.
Sasmita took several steps backwards and bumped into the wall.
The woman hooked her finger under Sasmita’s chin, under the mask cartridges, and tipped her head back. She peered into Sasmita’s eyes, an expression on her face like she could decipher her soul.
She snapped her hand away and turned to Randall. Wrinkling her nose, she passed him and came to a stop in front of me.
“Move,” she said.
I stood in front of Fiona, shoulder stance, arms crossed over my chest. I didn’t budge.
Her expression darkened over her mask.
“Move,” she said with stiff certainty.
I faltered, and then straightened my back. “No.”
Genghis jerked up his gun. Liz looked at him, her eyes wide, and fumbled to follow suit. Genghis lifted his chin, waving the barrel at me.
I was of no use to Fiona if I was dead.
Swallowing hard, I side stepped out of the way.
The woman bent to look Fiona in the face, but her attention snapped to Fiona’s darkened hands. With a sneer, she turned away, facing the woman from the kitchen.
“None of them will do,” she said. “We can’t trade.”
The woman from the kitchen took a step forward.
“That can’t be.” Her voice quivered. “Nancy, we brought you four outsiders. Four. That’s more new blood than this town sees in a good year, let alone since that—”
Nancy raised her hand to silence her.
“We told you before, Becky, a male will not do. So, you brought us three, not four. I used to think you cheated at Yahtzee, but I see now that you’re just not very good with numbers. Furthermore, one has something…” She pointed at Fiona. “This girl needs a doctor, so that’s out of the question. I just don’t think—”
The man in the blue suit lifted his head. “What about that one?”
He gestured toward me. My heart skipped, and I had to force myself not to step back from them. I shuddered in my spot, my vision swimming.
Nancy looked at me from over her shoulder.
“That one?” she said with such disgust I was offended, even though I imagined it wasn’t a good thing to be in the running in whatever game this was. “There’s nothing special about her.”
Before I could react, the man in the blue suit closed the distance between us and grabbed my arm. He pulled me close to him. I could imagine the smell of old sweat and unbrushed teeth, but the respirator was doing a pretty good job at keeping out odors.
“Come look closer,” he said.
Nancy huffed but sidled next to the man. Together, they peered down at me, like I was some kind of bug they were trying to identify. I squirmed, not quite daring to pull away, but trying not to feel his fingers on me.
Nancy nodded.
She turned back to Becky. “We’ll take her.”
“You’ll bring Madison back?” Becky gushed. Her words—and posture—softened with relief.
Nancy shrugged. “If you’re sure.”
Becky’s jaw dropped as she started to protest, but Nancy cut her off with a wave of her hand.
“I’m just saying,” Nancy said, “you were thinking about sending her to her grandparents in Vancouver because you couldn’t stand her anymore.”
“I wanted her to clean her room,” Becky stammered, “not die.”
“Maybe if you had kept her away from that secular music, it wouldn’t have been so bad,” Nancy said. “All I know is, everyone was getting real tired of you going on and on about your delinquent daughter every Thursday night after Women’s Bible Study class.”
Becky narrowed her eyes.
“Just consider it reprieve from the gossiping about his affair.” She flicked her hand toward the man in the suit.
He snapped upright, the skin around the mask turning red and purple.
“That’s enough,” he said. “We’ll take this one in trade for Madison, effective immediately.”
I jerked forward. “Wait, what?”
If they had meant to kill Madison, and I was being exchanged for her freedom, then this was turning into a horrible visit.
Zero stars. Would not repeat.
The man spun me around to pin both of my arms behind my back. I twisted in his grasp, but he tightened his hold on me. With one arm, he caught me around the chest. I threw my head back, trying to connect with his face, but missed.
Randall reached for me. He was saying something that I couldn’t understand. The world was drowned out by the roar in my head.
Fiona continued to sit unmoving, feline expression painted in place
The man tugged me back toward the door. My feet gave from under me, and my heels dragged along the rug.
Sasmita darted from her corner, fingers spread in claws. Blue magic spun from her hands and crackled through the air.
Nancy swiped her hand upwards, throwing up a magical wall that blocked the bolts. They disappeared into nothingness.
“Run!” I screamed, my voice drowned out to my own ears, but there was nowhere for my friends to go. Genghis and Liz remained in the hallway with their guns. Becky’s mouth moved, as if she was arguing something, but I had no idea what.
Randall charged forward. In two strides, Ghengis met him and swung the butt of his rifle into his face. Randall dropped to the ground.
“I got plans for you,” Ghengis said, hauling Randall to his feet. Randall’s head lolled as his eyes struggled to stay open.
“Randall!” I threw my weight forward, wrenching my arm. One hand slipped from the man’s grasp. I clawed and beat at him as he continued to drag me toward the door. I tried again and again to bring up my magic, but it wasn’t available. “Run! Get out of town! Get out of town!”
I swung my head back again. It connected with the man’s face.
Nancy bustled over to me. I noticed too late as she raised her glowing hand to my head and tapped my temple.
I went limp, crumpling onto the ground. I tried to push back up, but my limbs didn’t move. My vision rolled in and out, and I couldn’t seem to find my hands or feet. My mind floated, conscious but cocooned in darkness. I got a vague feeling I was being lifted up, carried, but it was difficult to separate the sensation from the liquid emptiness around me. I pushed against it.
She had used magic on me. I wasn’t going to be able to evade the effects by willpower alone. I didn’t know any kind of counterspell—if such a skill existed—and my magic was gone anyway, so I was stuck waiting for the emptiness to fade or for her to graciously remove her magic that was keeping me subdued.
I could only imagine that when she did, I wasn’t going to like where I found myself.
4
A tingling sensation filled my mind, and it took me a moment to realize it was in my limbs, instead. Something ro
ugh, like carpet, pressed against the side of my face. The darkness in my brain lifted, and I found I was lying stomach down on a floor. All my senses had returned, but my eyelids were too heavy to open.
Footsteps shuffled around my head.
“We can’t take off her mask,” Nancy was saying from nearby. “Can’t risk her getting tainted.”
“Well, she’s going to be tainted if we don’t finish preparing her,” a man said from farther away. I didn’t recognize his voice. He wasn’t Nancy’s unfaithful companion in the blue suit, but I imagined they were all so hospitable to tourists.
With effort, I placed my palms on the carpet and started to push myself upright.
A heavy foot rested between my shoulder blades.
“You just stay right there, missy,” the man said. “Let’s make this as pleasant as possible for all of us.”
My heart pounded against my chest bone. What were they going to do with me? Something told me their idea of pleasant was significantly different than mine, especially knowing they’d had unsavory plans for Madison, the girl for whose life I was unwillingly bartered.
From somewhere nearby, a door opened and then closed.
My eyes snapped open. I was lying on the floor of a small room with folding tables shoved up against the wall. Classroom chairs with slotted backs had been flipped over and stored hanging off the edge of the tables. A row of white cabinets stood against the adjoining wall, and a chalkboard had been scooted to the side. Beside the only door, a framed picture of the Virgin Mary had been hung upside down. I had heard about burying an upside down statue of St. Joseph in the yard to sell a house, but I couldn’t imagine the significance of turning the portrait of the Mother of God. I doubted anyone was buying or selling real estate around here anytime soon.
My brain scanned for any recollection between now and the time I was magically subdued in the cabin with Randall, Sasmita, and Fiona but found only emptiness.
Fiona. She needed me. Randall and Sasmita would keep her safe, but it was my duty. I had been on the mission to find her. I had sworn, even if just privately to myself, to get her help for whatever had happened to her. Staying here wasn’t an option. I wasn’t quite sure where the blue duo had taken me, but I had to assume we were in a church, or wherever they held the rancorous Bible Study.
