The Unleashed

by Danielle Vega

  Hendricks went cold with fear.

  She had to do something. She had to stop this.

  “Reform the circle,” she shouted to the others. “Do the séance.”

  And then she jumped into the chasm herself.

  CHAPTER

  28

  Hendricks hit the ground with a thud. She groaned and slid her hands under her shoulders to push herself up to all fours. Pain moved up her body. Her chest ached, and her knees trembled as she steadied herself. She blinked, trying to make out anything in the black.

  The darkness down here was all-encompassing. The smell of damp dirt filled her nostrils. She couldn’t see them, but she had a sense that the walls were very close around her. She held out a hand and touched something moist.

  She drew her hand back, recoiling. Whatever she’d felt had seemed . . . alive. Horror moved through her. She didn’t want to stay down here long.

  She looked up, blinking at the darkness above her, trying to make out the top of the opening she’d just fallen through.

  Rain beat down on her, clouding her view.

  “Hendricks?”

  Hendricks turned. She could just make out the silhouette of Portia lying on her side on the ground a few feet away. The gag had fallen out of her mouth.

  “Oh my God, you’re okay.” Hendricks crawled over to Portia and tried to undo the bindings at her wrist. “I thought—”

  Someone grabbed her from behind and then she was flying. She slammed against the sides of the chasm, and it seemed to press into her, almost like it was reaching for her. She rolled to the ground, shaking. When she lifted her head, she saw the shadowy shape of Justin standing above her.

  Demon. The word sprang to her mind, unbidden. Black-and-orange flames flickered around his eye sockets, and his skin seemed to be melting away. It slid from his skull in thick, fiery clumps. Staring at Hendricks, he snapped his teeth together with a sharp click, a warning.

  A bit of his skin dropped off of his face, hitting the ground just inches from where Hendricks lay. It smoldered in the dirt.

  Horrified, Hendricks crawled backward. She was shuddering all over, her muscles jerking. She drew a long, sobbing breath, and said, “What do you want?”

  Justin was suddenly in front of her, crouching so that his face was only inches from hers. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her into the side of the chasm.

  “I want her,” he said, and his burning eyes flicked to where Portia was still lying in the dirt. “I want her power.”

  Hendricks squirmed under his grip. Once again, she had the sensation that the dirt pressed against her skin was reaching for her, caressing her. Eddie’s voice filled her head.

  This town is rotten.

  “You don’t,” Hendricks said, trying to fill her voice with confidence she didn’t feel. “That’s not Sam. She doesn’t have any power. She’s not the medium.”

  Justin looked confused for a fraction of a second. And then, he began to laugh. Still holding her in place with one hand, he reached into his pocket with the other and pulled out a knife, which he opened with a flick of his wrist. “Liar.”

  All of a sudden, Hendricks heard a scratching sound.

  It seemed to be coming from behind her.

  Fear tightened her throat.

  Oh God, what is that?

  The dirt walls of the chasm were writhing. A wasp broke through the wall an inch away from her shoulder. Its wings pushed through the earth first, and then the rest of its wriggling body followed. It skittered over the wall before, wings twitching, it took to the air.

  From her spot lying on the ground a few feet away, Portia began to scream. Hendricks opened and closed her mouth, but no sound came out.

  Another wasp wriggled through the earth beside her ankle. Another followed, and another, another.

  Hendricks was pounding against the dirt wall now, the heels of her feet kicking clumps of earth to the ground. Justin, laughing, only held her more firmly in place.

  Wasps poured from the walls, their bodies swarming Hendricks, wings twitching at her skin. She opened her mouth to scream. But Justin’s hand closed around her throat, and there was no air in her lungs. Darkness flickered at the corners of her eyes. She groped around against the dirt wall for something to hold on to, and a stinger dug into the flesh between her thumb and forefinger. She pulled her hand away as sharp prick told her that a wasp had stung her.

  Portia, still curled on her side, her ankles and wrists bound, tried to scoot away from the sea of insects as they crept closer to her face.

  Blood oozed from Justin’s eye sockets. As Hendricks watched, the fire spread. Now it was crawling over his face and down his chin, moving to his neck and shoulders, quickly turning his black clothes to ash.

  Hendricks tried to twist away from him, the flames were so hot. Justin only held her more tightly, his fingers digging into her neck, making it hard for her to breathe.

  Smoke filled Hendricks’s nose as Justin lifted his knife to her cheek. Hendricks tried not to scream. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  Portia had managed to roll herself onto her knees. She leaned back against the opposite wall of the chasm, trying to use it as leverage as she pulled her feet beneath her.

  The wasps had surrounded Hendricks now. They climbed up her legs, tangled in her hair, burrowed into her ears and nostrils. Portia sobbed quietly as she tried again to stand.

  Justin pressed the sharp edge of his knife into Hendricks’s cheek. She felt a burning in her face, and then the warm ooze of blood moving down her cheek. She used the last of her strength to flail wildly in his arms, but it was no use. The world around her began to flicker. The pain in her face grew—

  Something cold swept over her. There was a thin, cracking sound, and from the corner of her eye Hendricks saw a layer of ice begin to creep across the walls of the chasm.

  A wasp dropped out of her hair and landed on the dirt floor beside her feet. Dead.

  And then, one by one, the rest of the wasps began to drop to the ground. The chasm itself seemed to go still.

  Justin flinched and moved his knife away from Hendricks’s face. “What’s—”

  “Eddie,” Hendricks choked out. She knew without a doubt that it was true. She remembered the dead flower in her locker, the dead grass that had surrounded her the first time she’d seen Justin in the cemetery. Ileana said those things could be signs that someone was trying to reach her from beyond the void.

  Which meant that Eddie had been with her all along, trying to keep her safe, just like always.

  On the other side of the chasm, Portia had finally managed to crawl to her feet. Releasing a guttural scream, she lowered her head and charged forward—

  Head-slamming right into Justin.

  Justin’s fingers sprang away from Hendricks’s throat. She dropped to the ground, moaning. There was a sound like metal clanging against ice and then the dull thump of Justin’s body. The flames that had been crawling up his face had gone out.

  Hendricks didn’t fool herself. She knew he wasn’t really gone. She rolled onto her stomach, gulping down breath after breath. The air was thin with cold, the ice stretching. Her throat burned.

  “Did I get him?” asked Portia, gasping.

  “Yeah.” Knees shaking, Hendricks pushed herself to a stand. It was getting harder to move. Hendricks didn’t know how long they had before the entire chasm froze over. “We have to get out of here before he comes to. Give me your hands.”

  Portia turned her bound wrists to Hendricks, and Hendricks quickly dug her thumbs into the ropes and worked them free. Portia knelt and got to work on her ankles.

  There was a moaning sound that made Hendricks freeze.

  Justin was starting to move.

  Hurry. Hendricks’s hands trembled as she pulled at the bindings on Portia’s ankles. T
he ropes were thick beneath her clumsy fingers. With one final tug, she pulled the last of the ropes free.

  “Go!” she shouted, and Portia leapt for the chasm wall, using the twisting, frozen roots to pull herself up toward the surface.

  Hendricks scrambled after her. It might have been her imagination, but the ice seemed to be creating little footholds into the dirt wall, making it easier to climb.

  Thank you, she thought.

  Portia scrambled over the side of the chasm above her. Her head reappeared a moment later. She reached down a hand.

  “Come on!” Portia called.

  Hendricks let go of the wall, grasping for Portia’s hand. Her fingers grazed Portia’s—

  Something grabbed her from behind, yanking her back. Hendricks’s fingers slipped.

  “Hendricks!” Portia screamed, but it was too late, Hendricks was already falling. The back of her head slammed into the icy dirt. She groaned, her eyes closing.

  When she opened them, again, Justin was towering over her, his face blackened and rotting. He was staring deep into Hendricks’s face, as though seeing her for the first time. Understanding flickered in his eyes.

  “I see,” he said, grinning a terrible grin. “She’s not the medium. You are.”

  CHAPTER

  29

  Justin wrapped his bony, gnarled hands around Hendricks’s shoulders and dragged her to her feet, shoving her against the side of the wall.

  She was trapped. She wouldn’t be able to get past him.

  As Hendricks watched, the fire began to spread from Justin’s face to the chasm around them, melting ice as it jumped from the earthen floor to the walls, flickering, growing. A flame snaked toward her.

  Hendricks released a cry as the heat drew closer. She looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing. Just melting ice and dead insects, the bloody stump of a rat’s tail.

  Something sour churned in her stomach.

  Eddie, help, she thought. But she didn’t feel Eddie’s presence down here with her anymore.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Justin said, his lips twisting into a gleeful sneer. Hendricks saw that his teeth were all broken and blackened and half-rotted from his mouth. His gums were bloody. He brought his fist against the side of the chasm, knocking a clump of dirt to the floor. “Not ever, not now that I have you.”

  He punched the chasm wall again and again. The dirt shuddered and moved, crumbling around them.

  Hendricks looked up. The sliver of sky had grown narrower. It was as though the walls were creeping inward, the crack knitting back together.

  The portal was closing.

  “Justin, you have to stop,” she said.

  But the thing holding her was no longer Justin. That boy, she realized, was gone forever. In his place was this skeletal, burning monster. Maggots crawled out of his black eyes, and, wriggling, dropped to the ground. Flames licked at his lips. Strands of black hair still clung to his scalp but it was dank and matted, plastered to his skeletal features with sweat.

  “You’re mine,” he said, his voice a hoarse croak.

  Hendricks wracked her brain, trying to think of what to do. A dark thought came to her. But once she thought it, she couldn’t let it go.

  Maybe I should let the portal close with me inside.

  What was left for her up there in Drearford? She was a medium, like Samantha. Ghosts like Justin would follow her for the rest of her life. Everywhere she went, she’d see flickers of the dead. Whenever she met someone new, she’d wonder whether they were really there.

  Maybe it was time for her to die. Let someone else be called.

  And, if she stayed down here, she could be with Eddie forever.

  No.

  The voice inside of Hendricks’s head was small but insistent.

  No, she wouldn’t give up. No, this couldn’t be the end.

  No, no, no.

  She was a fighter. Now was the time to fight, not just for her life, but for things in her life that mattered. Things like prom and graduating and college. Things like her friends. Connor and Portia and Raven and, well, Finn and Blake, and Ileana now, too.

  She curled her fingers into the dirt wall behind her. She loved Eddie. She would always love Eddie. But Eddie was dead and she wasn’t.

  Not yet.

  It was time to let him go.

  She wanted to live.

  Gathering what remained of her strength, she threw an elbow into Justin’s face. A jolt of pain shuddered up her arm as her skin broke against the last of his rotten teeth. Justin sputtered and stumbled backward, slamming into the opposite wall.

  Hendricks didn’t waste time. She grabbed again for the lowest root and pulled herself off the dirt floor. Pain flared through the muscles in her arms. Her shoulders burned.

  Up one foot off the ground. Two. Her toes kicked at the rocks and dirt of the wall, sending it tumbling to the ground. Twice, she nearly slipped and went tumbling back to the ground, but both times, she seemed to grasp hold of a tree root at the exact moment before her balance tipped backward.

  She twisted her hand around the root and pulled herself higher.

  There was a shuffling sound below, and then Justin was on her, tearing at her ankles—

  “You belong with me!” he was shouting in his hoarse, inhuman voice. “You’re mine. You can’t get away—”

  Hendricks held fast. The root rubbed the skin on her palms raw. She cried out in pain, but she didn’t let go.

  Gritting her teeth, she yanked her foot out of his grip—

  And then slammed it back into his face.

  She felt the impact shudder through her and heard the shuffling sound of Justin stumbling backward. Hendricks pulled herself higher.

  One foot closer, and she could hear her friends’ voices echoing through the night. Her arms trembled. She grit her teeth and climbed farther.

  Up and up.

  Now she could tell that they were chanting. Their voices layered over each other, sounding stronger than she’d ever heard them before.

  “Take him back! Take him back!”

  Warmth spread through her. They hadn’t given up. They were still fighting for her.

  Hendricks glanced back down into the chasm and saw that the ritual was working. Justin was fading. He looked thinner than before, so insubstantial that Hendricks could practically see straight through him. Bits of him were drifting away, disappearing into the wind like ashes. He tried to gather himself, tried to pull his legs beneath his body and stand, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength.

  Yes, Hendricks thought. But when she turned back toward the surface, her heart stuttered. The crack was closing. There wasn’t any more time. She had to reach the surface now if she didn’t want to be trapped down here forever.

  Somehow, she was able to find some lingering strength and pull herself up the last few feet, exhaling in relief when she felt solid concrete below her fingers and the cool brush of wind on her cheeks.

  She’d made it.

  She pulled herself up, collapsing on the foundation of Steele House, seconds before the portal slammed closed behind her. Hendricks thought she smelled a waft of cigarettes and baby shampoo. Goodbye, she thought. And then everything went black.

  * * *

  • • •

  Seconds or hours later, Hendricks came to.

  Slowly, slowly, the darkness around her faded. Pain replaced it. It wasn’t there one moment and, the next, it was in every part of her body—her legs, her arms, her face. She wished, for a sliver of a moment, that she was unconscious again, if only to have a few more moments relief.

  She eased her eyes open. The world swam for a moment and then settled. She saw gray concrete splattered with dirt and blood. Her blood. She groaned and for a long moment she just lay there, breathing. She doubted she’d be able to move. />
  She was suddenly aware that she was alone. No one was leaning over her, poking her, wondering if she was okay.

  Fear moved through her.

  Where were her friends?

  “Guys?” she moaned. Gingerly, she rose. In the darkness, it took her a few moments before she was able to make out a huddled mass at the corner of the foundation and hear the whispered sound of nervous voices.

  They were looking at something.

  Hendricks stared at them for a fraction of a second, trying to figure out what had them so transfixed. And then understanding washed over her and she felt a pang deep in her chest.

  Raven.

  All at once her pain was forgotten. She pushed herself to her feet, her legs shaking as she stumbled across the foundation.

  Raven couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be.

  “Hendricks.” Connor turned, seeing her approach. “You won’t—”

  “Is she okay?” Hendricks shoved past him and dropped to the ground next to Raven. Her heart was beating hard inside her chest, and it took her a moment to understand what she was seeing.

  Raven was sitting. She was actually sitting. Her eyes were open, and she had one hand pressed to her head, like she was recovering from a headache instead of three months in a coma.

  Slowly, she lifted her eyes to Hendricks’s face, a hesitant smile flickering over her lips.

  “Hendricks,” Raven said in a deep, croak of a voice. She smiled weakly. “What’d I miss?”

  CHAPTER

  30

  Hendricks saw the flashing red-and-blue lights as soon as they turned the corner.

  “Shit,” Raven muttered, from the front seat. “This is going to be fun to explain to my mom.”

  “You think she’ll be mad?” asked Hendricks. She’d insisted that Raven take the front seat, so she was squeezed in the back of Connor’s car, along with Blake and Finn. Vi and Portia had set off on foot, needing a few moments alone.

  “Do I think she’ll be mad?” Raven pursed her lips, pretending to think. “I think she will have many emotions, one of which will most definitely be anger. Especially since I can’t exactly explain why I had to sneak out.”