Crucified: The Rise of an Urban Legend (Swann Series Book 9)

by Ryan Schow

  “You know me,” I say, lost in his eyes. I blink fast twice, try to pull away, but I can’t. Almost everything falls away to this eternal bliss: the music, the crowds, Chloe, Netty, my friends…

  “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Georgia says, almost spellbound. I step forward, put my hand to his cheek, cupping it. The things that explode into me look like something you’d see if you trolled the Manson Family’s minds all at once. The gore, the bloodshed, the bone crunching disposal of his victims, it has me reeling. Thankfully it also ejects me from his head.

  My eyes clear as he stares at me, amused by his hold over me, and his hold over Georgia.

  “You sick fuck,” I say.

  “See,” he says. “I told you I knew you.”

  I refuse his eyes. He has a vampire’s gaze.

  “Georgia, let’s go,” I say, taking her hand.

  “I don’t know you,” she says, still dreamy. I send fire into her chest. It’s just a gut reaction, but it works. She cries out, jolts back, tries to get her hand free of Aloysius’s hand, but he doesn’t let go.

  “If you don’t take your hand off her,” I say with force, “I’m going to take your hand for myself.”

  “We lovers now?” he says, sly, coy, insulating.

  “I know what you are,” I hiss.

  “Then you know what I’m going to do to her.”

  “Yes, but you don’t know what she’s got inside of her.”

  “And what’s that?” he says, like he’s entertained by my horror.

  “Fire.”

  Now Georgia looks at me. This is her secret, but now a stranger knows: me.

  “I like a little spice in my meals,” he says just loud enough for me to hear.

  Suddenly he jerks his hand out of Georgia’s like he’s been burned. Looking over at her, the redhead’s eyes are ink black, her skin translucent.

  “You’re not the Alpha here, Aloysius,” I say.

  “You know my name.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, Savannah Swann,” he says, letting out his own little secret, “I’m pleased to finally meet you.”

  He reaches out with his burnt hand to shake mine, but I use my mind to slice open his palm, the skin flaying, blood boiling to the surface.

  He winces, then abruptly claps his hands together, splattering both Georgia and me with speckles of his blood. We both reel. Grinning, he wipes his hands on his black pants then shows me both palms.

  Like a magic trick, there is no wound.

  “Parlor tricks,” I say.

  With my mind, driven by fear and wrath, I break all his fingers on both hands.

  He flexes them into fists, little popping noises emitting, and then opens them back up and says, “Who’s got the parlor tricks now?”

  But then his face erupts into flames and he tries to stamp them out. He ends up hitting himself in the face fast enough and hard enough to put out the fire, but by then he’s burnt to a crisp from nose to chin.

  “Well done,” I say with a smirk.

  Okay, that was shameless. It was shameless and no one laughed, but inside, I swear to Jesus the humor was spot on.

  Leaning forward into the burnt taste of him, I say, “Fix that, fuckface.” Then: “C’mon Georgia.”

  “You burned me!” he snarls as we’re leaving. Looking back I show him the middle finger and smile.

  “Well done?” Georgia asks with a grin.

  “I knew someone would find that funny!” I say, and she laughs, but only for a moment.

  “When we get out of here,” Georgia says, “you’ll have to tell me what that was about and who you are to Brayden.”

  A second later, Netty is by my side with Charles. She’s looking a little freaked out by the hysteria that’s gripped the people behind us, the people who saw Aloysius’s face catch fire.

  “I’m going to go home with Chloe if you’re okay with that,” I tell her.

  There is a long silence between us, then I feel her burrowing into my mind. Trying to understand what the F I’m thinking. I open up a telepathic line and say, “I want this. But only if you’re okay.”

  I am, she thinks.

  Okay, so she’s fine. Good. I open my emotions up to Chloe, feel her insecurity, then take her hand in mine.

  “So you said you know Brayden?” Georgia says.

  “He’s in Texas,” I say, my tethers fully hooked into Aloysius, who is making his way out back, away from me. “He’s telling his father about his chin and nose implants.”

  Georgia blanches, like she knows what this means.

  “Those were implants?” Netty says.

  Georgia looks at Netty and says, “You know him, too?”

  “He stayed with me after the whole…” and that’s where she stops.

  She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t want to bring up the fact that she slept with my bestie-with-a-peen, or lost their baby. And she certainly doesn’t want to do this with Charles here.

  “It’s time for you to get back to your friends,” I tell Georgia. “If that guy comes at you again, don’t look at his eyes. Just roast him. Fully.”

  Everyone else thinks roasting is an expression, but I tap into Georgia’s mind and say, “He’s a mutant vampire. We’ll talk later.”

  She looks at me, then looks around like she’s not believing the things she feels are true. She’s wondering, did I imagine that?

  “Did you just say something?” she asks.

  “Of course I did,” I say aloud. “But we can talk about that later.”

  “How?” she says.

  “I’ll call you.”

  “But you don’t have my number.”

  I recite it to her in her head, and by now everyone’s feeling extra drunk because this sort of choppy conversation is making all of us uneasy.

  “Tomorrow,” I say. “Now go. Tempest is getting worried.”

  She goes.

  Turning to Charles I say, “You’re taking her home, yes?”

  “If that’s okay with her,” he says, looking at Netty. She nods. “Then yes, I am.”

  “Treat her good, Charles,” I say, but I only say this because I know he will.

  Turning to Chloe, I say, “You want to get out of here?” She looks over at me and I can see it in her eyes. The answer is yes. “Good. You can text your friends from the car.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  On the way home, as I’m following Chloe to her place, I call Raven and tell her I’ll be staying overnight.

  “Are we going lesbian tonight?” she asks.

  “Is that okay?”

  “You want to know what’s weird?” Raven asks. “I never really thought about that before, but I’m thinking of hooking up with her the way you’re thinking of hooking up with her and that’s okay.”

  Just then a call comes through.

  “Hang on,” I tell Raven.

  “Hey,” I say.

  There’s no need for caller ID. I have my own caller ID.

  “Hey,” Elizabeth says back. “Patch me in.”

  I conference Raven in.

  “So now we’re going lesbo?” Elizabeth says.

  “I think maybe we should try this,” I add. Then: “I want to try this.”

  “We’re all us,” Raven says, “so whatever you feel, we feel as well.”

  “And?”

  “We’re not lesbian, but we do like Chloe,” Elizabeth says.

  “A lot,” Raven adds.

  “So this is okay?” I ask.

  “You want to see where this goes,” Raven says, like she’s telling me this rather than asking. Of course she’s telling me this!

  “You know I do,” I say. Then: “Future us said it was okay that we did it. That we did this.”

  “So we should,” Raven says.

  “Yeah, but she’s not a long term thing as much as it’s a one time thing,” Liz says. “Right?”

  “I guess,” I say.

  “Don’t think of me as Liz,” Elizabeth war
ns me.

  “Sorry.”

  “Go have fun,” Raven says. “But like Liz said—”

  “Don’t call me Liz!”

  “—don’t make a thing of it because August is cool with once, but maybe not twice.”

  “I already know that,” I say. I’m here now. They know this so they say good-bye and I’m glad all of me could weigh in on this.

  Chloe parks and I find a nearby spot for the RS5. Inside, her place is gorgeous. She uncorks a bottle of wine, pours me a glass, hands it to me.

  “Can I wash up?” I ask.

  “Sure,” she says, taking me to the bathroom.

  I close and lock the door, pull out my phone and call Georgia to make sure she’s okay.

  “How do you really know me?” Georgia says.

  “I told you, I’m a friend of Brayden’s,” I say.

  “You said that already.”

  “I’ll explain everything when I get there tomorrow.”

  “I don’t live in SF.”

  “I know, ding-dong. You’re at Astor. If for any reason that guy sees you again, do to him what you did to that boy in the lab.”

  “H-how do you know about that when I barely know about that.”

  “What exactly do you know about that?” I ask.

  “A girl was killed, and then I burned a boy.”

  “But why?”

  “Because the boy killed that girl.”

  “Who was the girl?”

  “I-I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure it out.”

  I take a deep breath, hear a light knock on the bathroom door and say, “Almost done.” Then to Georgia I say, “I’m the dead girl. But we can talk about that tomorrow.”

  “You’re…you’re the…what?”

  “I’m that girl, Georgia. I have to go. Just stay away from that guy.”

  “Who is he and why did he target me?”

  “He’s Hitler’s son.”

  “Savannah?” Chloe asks.

  “I have to go, Georgia. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  When I open the door, Chloe is standing there with a glass of wine and that look on her face.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, concerned.

  I step forward and kiss her. Not like I’d kiss someone for the first time, but like I’d kiss August. When I break away, I look at her and say, “This is new for me, so if I hesitate for a moment or two, you have my permission to move me forward.”

  She hands me the glass of wine, I take a sip, and then before I know what’s happening, our mouths meet, we make our way to her couch and after that, she’s peeling off my clothes, laying kisses on me where I am now naked.

  Most of the night is a blur, a haze of lust and exploration, a taste of all things scary and new and wildly sensual. But during that erotic hour and a half of letting go, I learn what it’s like to be with a woman. I can’t say if I’m good or not, but I can tell you this, I was so swallowed up in the emotions of Chloe that I rode them like a wave and from her perspective, I felt like I was amazing.

  When we wake in the morning, I ask her, “Do you need to get to work?”

  “I already texted my boss, told her I’d be in after noon.”

  She leans over, kisses me on the mouth, then shoves off the covers and walks naked through the room, stopping at the door to the bathroom to look back at me.

  “If I didn’t tell you,” she says. “I absolutely loved last night.”

  I’m still cresting the wave of her emotions, not necessarily sure what my own emotions are at this point.

  She starts the shower, sits down to pee, and that’s when I start thinking about peeling out of her head. A moment later, she’s at the door again saying, “You want to shower together?”

  I love the way her body looks, and I love the way she’s looking at me, so I stay in her head and say, “I do.”

  I crawl out of bed, walk naked toward her, then follow her into the shower. She offers to wash me, and I let her. She wants me to wash her and I want to because I’m her and I want what she wants.

  She kisses me when we’re clean, and then she kisses me some more and after that, honestly, I’m too embarrassed to tell you what happened. All I can say is I loved it. And for some reason, I realize this is going to be the moment August will love to hear about most.

  We eat breakfast at the table in front of the window overlooking the city.

  “Can I see you again?” Chloe finally asks. I knew it was coming.

  “If I tell you no, will you think it’s you?”

  Her expression softens. Her eyes dip slightly and she says, “I might.”

  “If I beg you not to think that,” I ask, “will you believe me?”

  “Did we go too far last night?” she asks, teasing a lock of her hair around her finger.

  I laugh and say, “Hell, no.”

  She glances back up and says, “Is this your token lesbian experience?”

  “I’ve kissed a girl before—”

  “That’s not the same as what we did.”

  I feel a surge in her emotions brought about by memories of last night. They rush over me as well and I have to say, I like it. I know what Liz and Raven said, but it’s hard for me to step out of this energy. Chloe is beyond enamored with me. She’s desperate for more of me, and honestly, I don’t care that we’re both women.

  The same sex notion concerned Netty after she was done with Chloe, but how do I feel now that our night is over? How do I feel as me and not her? I pull out of her head completely for the first time since I stepped in there.

  I draw a deep breath, look at her with my eyes, feel her with my own feelings, and I have to say, it’s not much different from how I’m feeling.

  “I like what we did,” I say.

  She reaches across the small table for my hand, takes it and says, “Then let’s do it again.”

  “Okay,” I hear myself say. I should have said no, broke her heart while it was less fragile, but I actually want to see her again.

  “When?”

  “Let me think about my schedule here for a second.” I dip into August’s head, roll through his mind, realize he wants a few more days with his father, who is finally coming around, then my eyes clear and I say, “I have to be in Sacramento later today and maybe tomorrow, but maybe tomorrow night?”

  “Okay,” she says, shy again, hungry again.

  “Can I ask you an honest question?” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think there’s a possibility with us?”

  “Do you want me to be perfectly honest back?”

  She hesitates, then says, “Of course.”

  “I have a boyfriend.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “I do.”

  “Then why do this with me?”

  “Because he’ll like hearing about it.”

  “So he’s into this?” she asks, unsure of how to feel.

  “Yes,” I admit, “he just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “So how do you know he’ll like it?”

  “Because it will only be one encounter between us.”

  “You said you’d be with me again.”

  “And I will.”

  “But you’ll tell him this happened only once?”

  “I won’t lie to him. Which means between now and tomorrow, I’ll be figuring out how to tell him we saw each other twice.”

  “What if we really like each other.”

  “I do like you.”

  “But enough to see each other a third time?”

  I sip my juice, then look her in the eye and say, “Let’s be together tomorrow like there won’t be a third time. Can you do that?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know that I can.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

  “Nor will you ever again,” I tell her again, smiling.

  “But I want you to myself,” she says, more a girl than a woman now.

  “With me you can’
t be selfish.”

  “And that’s why I don’t know if I can do just one more time with you.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  She trails her fingers slowly over the collar of her robe, slides it slightly open enough to expose her breast. Then: “I guess it means we put everything into one last time. Then I spend the next week crying and trying to pull myself together.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “Do I have another choice?” she asks.

  “Not really.”

  With that, she stands and takes off her robe, then says, “Come ruin me now.”

  I stand, take her hand, and—staying in my own head this time—I walk with her to her room, looking at her ass, wondering if mine looks that good walking.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Driving home in my RS5, I’m thinking about everything: August, Chloe, Netty, Raven, Georgia and now this creature, Aloysius.

  I reach out to find him and it takes a moment, but when I do, I am swallowed up in the darkness that is this man. But he’s no man. He’s a monster. A truly horrifying monster. He’s a serial killer with the Fountain of Youth serum, a voracious thirst, and dark plans for the future. Plans that involve destroying humankind as we know it.

  And why is that? Because things are wrong with both his brain and his genetics.

  When you have mutations like ours, there are always complications. I’m on edge all the time because I love the fight, I love violent justice, and apparently I now love surfing other people’s emotions.

  I call Raven when I get near and tell her to come out. She says she’s eating.

  “Pack a doggie bag bitch,” I say in jest. Now she’s both chewing in my ear and laughing at the same time. Then more serious: “I don’t want us being in the same place with our family.”

  “Stop being an asshole and come inside already,” she says. “We’re going in the spa in a few minutes.”

  Letting out a sigh, I head inside and as weird as it is, I say hello to my family, who are kind of freaking out for a second that there are two of us in the same room.

  “This is fucking weird,” Rebecca says.

  “Language!” my father says.

  “Hi Dad,” I say. He gets up and hugs me and whispers, “This is fucking weird.”

  “Language,” Raven says.

  We eat and laugh together and slowly but surely, the five of us start feeling like the four of us but with a plus one. Me. Or her. Whatever. The point is, it’s nice outside and the spa sounds amazing.