by JL Terra
Dad’s shaky hand lifted, and he pulled a folded paper out of his breast pocket. “I’m so sorry, Ben. He said he’d kill your mother.”
Roger snapped, “Give it to him.”
Dad hesitated. Roger shifted his grip on the knife, and Dad sucked in a breath.
Ben took the paper from his hand. “I’ve got it. Let him go!”
“Read it.”
Ben fumbled with the paper. The necklace was heavy, a huge metal circle hanging down on his chest. He looked at the sprawled words. “This isn’t even English!”
“It’s phonetic. Read it exactly as it is written, and we won’t have any problems.”
Ben could feel the guy’s breath on his face.
“Or your dad bleeds out in the woods, and we leave him for the bears. Got it?”
Ben wanted to run. He wanted to fight. “I read this and you’ll leave us alone?”
The man huffed. “If you want your dad to live. If you want your brothers to never know this happened.”
“I’m sorry, Ben,” Dad said. “I’m really sorry.”
“Dad—”
“I had to. He was going to kill your mom. We can’t fight them, or they’ll take your brothers.”
Roger laughed again, a purely evil sound. Ben glanced at the other person, across the grass, standing beside a tree. Who were these guys?
Dad shifted, but the knife prevented movement.
Roger leaned closer to Ben. “I guess you’re our first contestant, and we’ll find out whether blood really does tell. Or not.” He paused a second. “Now read.”
Ben sounded out the jumble of letters that made up whatever words these were. It didn’t sound like anything he knew.
As he said the last word Roger dragged his dad away. He pointed the knife at Ben. “You stay there. Don’t mo—”
A third man stepped between the two of them.
At least, it had the appearance of a man. Ben looked up. In the dark it looked like some kind of freaky statue. The figure of a man but with no features. No ears. No eyes.
“You are now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” Roger yelled. “Say it!” He grabbed Dad, who cried out.
Ben repeated the words. The clay man crouched. Simply folded his limbs down until their faces were level, and then he reached out with a hand.
He jerked back, but it was too late. His fingers went into Ben’s chest. The pain was worse than getting hit in football. Worse than falling off his bike. Even worse than the time that guy hit the back of mom’s car. It was like fire. Like a volcano erupted from this thing’s fingers. Inside Ben’s chest.
He cried out.
“Ben!”
The last thing he heard was Roger’s laugh, and then the tug of the medallion being taken off him. “Much obliged. I’ll be taking your boys now.”
“No.” The word left Ben’s lips before he thought it. “You don’t touch my brothers.” Warmth rolled through his limbs as he stood on shaky legs. “Just me.”
**
Ben didn’t know where he was. He could smell a woman’s perfume. Oranges, maybe lavender. He didn’t care enough to think on it. Instead he put all his energy into focusing on her. She was beside the bed he was strapped to, fiddling with the IV bag.
He tried to speak, but all that came out was a moan.
She stepped back, and the bag swung from the hook. “You’re awake.”
“Let me go.”
She shook her head. Her hair was dark brown, pulled back to reveal round cheeks. The lab coat was open. Beneath it she had a full middle under her black knit sweater, and she wore a knee-length skirt. He couldn’t see anything else. Her long earrings swung as she continued to shake her head. “I have to…”
“You can’t keep me here,” he bit out. She didn’t want to. He could see the doubt on her face. “You have to let me go.”
Fear tasted sour. But it wasn’t fear for himself. He knew now what had happened. There was something evil living inside him. Those fingers, inside Ben’s chest. Whatever bonded them together was poisoning him with those spider veins.
He looked down at his bare chest.
The stain now covered most of his torso. It probably went halfway across his back. On his right side there was a bare stretch of skin. Still time. Was it killing him? Perhaps this thing drew power from his strength. Or it was swallowing him with its own nature.
Death.
It had been going on for years—since those two weeks he didn’t remember. For the first time he was glad. Say the words, and it came to you. Bond with it, and…what? He’d blacked out. This had something to do with his father. He couldn’t ask Dad. Did his mom know? Ben’s thoughts spun like a carousel. Details were missing. He had no idea what day it was. Or how long he’d been here, captive to these people. Whoever they were. He only knew that he had to get out of here.
Now.
She was back at the IV bag, eyes focused on it as she moved dials. “I don’t think you should be alive at all. I’d kill you, but that would leave me to face the punishment. It has to be his decision.”
“You could let me go.”
She swung around, eyes wide as she backed up. “You can’t be released! Keeping you contained is the only way we’re going to figure out how to control it. You should thank us. The world is safer with you here. We’ll find it and…”
“And what? Kill it, use it, save it? What?” He didn’t even know what it was.
“Even if we could…” Her face pinked, and her breath came short and fast now. “He wants control of it.”
Ben laughed.
An echo of Karl’s laughter rang in his mind and bile rose in his throat.
Whatever was in that IV hit his system. He blacked out again.
Chapter 22
Spencer, WV. Wednesday, 20:07hrs EDT
“And what did Ben Mason say to that?”
Elaine’s legs began to tremble. She scrunched up her toes inside her pumps and prayed she wouldn’t fall to the ground in front of the Teacher. “He laughed.”
The Teacher’s brow flickered. Beyond him, the tall window was crisscrossed by metal so that it shone light from outside in squares onto the rug. She couldn’t meet his gaze, not when she had failed. Yes, they had Ben Mason now. But it hadn’t worked.
The ocean of grass on the lawn flowed like the tide under the wind’s ministration. A storm was rolling through. What else could she try? There was only one possibility.
“Elaine.” She heard him stand. Move around his desk. He touched her forearms and she tried not to flinch. “Look at me.”
Elaine shifted her gaze down to him, only three inches shorter than her. She should have worn flats. The only other shoes she had at the mansion were sneakers, though. “Yes, Teacher?”
“We knew it would be difficult to control him.” His mousy nose twitched. “We have taken the necessary steps to restrain him physically, but he still has many weapons. Words are one.”
She had failed.
“You are not at fault.” He stroked from the blouse over her elbow to the watch on her wrist. “Take one of the men with you every time. Don’t be alone with our guest.”
Because he knew she couldn’t handle it. “I’m sorry.”
He frowned. Let go. “We all knew this would not be an easy mission.”
“I’m going to try a different substance when I return.” She’d only come up from the basement to check in with the Teacher and give him the latest update. Everyone was on edge since two of their number had been killed.
The creature. What if the man they had downstairs wasn’t Ben Mason? What if somehow they had found it instead? The thing had ripped Steve and Mark to pieces. The thought of it made her sick.
That was what Ben Mason wanted to do to her…with his words. The man downstairs was just that: a man. He wanted to sever her with his gaze. His laughter. Those accusations.
They weren’t the bad guys here. Once they had control of the creature, he would see.
For you, Mama.
The Teacher returned to his desk. “Tell me of this new substance.”
“The side effects will be…quite painful.” She would take no pleasure in administering it, knowing the pain Ben Mason would be in. He was not a good man. He was the worst kind of man. That was what assured her she could do this.
“What surety is there that it will produce a connection with the creature?”
“It is experimental. I developed it myself, for just this reason.” Elaine relaxed a little. Talking about her work did that. “But I hesitated to use it until now.”
His mouth was a flat line now. “You are aware what he did to my father. What he has done to me.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry—”
“No apology necessary. This is for all of us.”
“Of course.”
“Nothing is too much. You are to exhaust all avenues, Elaine. Get me the result we desire.”
Was it what she wanted? Elaine had devoted her life’s study to this, but there was something yet missing. “Teacher?”
“Yes, Elaine?”
“I require the research materials.” Mark should have gone to get them. Now Mark was dead, and she would never see his handsome face again. “I feel that the research will provide additional answers.”
She hadn’t even thought they should take Ben Mason before she had the research. It had been a dangerous move, but when the Teacher ordered his abduction there was no arguing. Elaine’s concerns weren’t taken into account. The timing had been right. Yes, they had succeeded. But she would need time to complete her part. Time she didn’t think the Teacher was willing to grant her. Internet searches had only garnered her so much information. There really wasn’t a lot written on the subject. Barely anything beyond the myth.
He didn’t glance up from the papers on his desk. “I will send others. They will retrieve Roger Stilson’s personal notes.”
“Thank you.”
“Dismissed.”
Elaine backed up two steps. Turned to the door and let herself out. When she’d passed the two suited men standing outside his office, she exhaled.
Before she went back to the basement and Ben Mason, she needed ice cream. The stairwell was quiet. Hardly anyone was at the house. The rest of them were either on missions or in their rooms grieving the loss of two of their own.
Elaine didn’t have that luxury.
But she did have ice—
“Oh.” She pulled up short just inside the door of the huge kitchen. “Sorry.”
Colin pulled his head out of the refrigerator. “Elaine. Hi.”
She nodded. “Hi.”
“I thought you were talking with the Teacher.”
“I did. Now I’m going back downstairs.”
He grinned. “I think you got lost.”
“No.” Okay, standing by the door was dumb. She crossed the room to the industrial size freezer. “I just wanted ice cream before I go down there again.”
“Is it bad?”
Bad enough she’d eat ice cream even though her waist didn’t need it. Okay, so no woman needed ice cream. That wasn’t the point. She just didn’t want Colin to think she should give it a pass. You don’t care, remember? Besides, he liked Claire.
Elaine selected the salted caramel and shut the door. It slammed harder than she’d intended. Colin had been one of the two who brought Ben Mason in. Had he been hurt? Ted’s leg was broken. Colin seemed fine, though.
“It’s bad,” he muttered.
Elaine looked up from her careful selection of a spoon. She shut the door with her hip and trapped her finger. “Ow.”
He came over, lifted her hand, and stared at her red finger. “That looks painful.”
Elaine snatched her hand from his grasp and stuck her finger in her mouth. How about you pretend for five minutes that you’re a grown woman. A professional woman. No, she had to act like a schoolgirl.
He pulled a spoon from the drawer then said, “Wanna share?”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Or…I could get my own flavor.”
“No.” The word came out louder than she’d intended. She winced. “No, it’s fine.” She sat at the breakfast bar, and he did the same. Right beside her.
You’ve sworn off men, remember? Too bad she didn’t want to listen to her good sense right about now. Why did her life have to be so complicated? She was supposed to have married young, for love. Raised a family. Maybe taught at a small school.
Instead, that thing had killed her mother and left her all alone. It was only when the Teacher took her in that she had finally found what she lost.
“You look a million miles away.”
“I was just thinking about how I got here.”
“Eating ice cream?”
She shook her head. “I know I don’t need it. My waist certainly doesn’t.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
Her heart swelled. “But that wasn’t what I was thinking. Just that I didn’t ever dream of my life being this.”
“I know what you mean.” For the first time she saw an edge of sadness. His sister had been killed, and yet he played it off. Until now. Such a sweet man. Being kind for her, when underneath he was swallowed by grief.
“I’m so sorry about your sister.” His arm was cement under her hand. She squeezed and let go, just in case he didn’t want the comfort.
Colin looked away. “It was a long time ago.”
Did he want her to help? Elaine wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was. “Ben Mason is nothing but death in the world. We know that, and it doesn’t make it any less painful. But I am working on it. Once I have Stilson’s research I think I’ll have a real answer.”
Colin’s gaze darkened. He glanced away so she couldn’t see. What was that about? Elaine lifted her hand to touch his arm again, but he shifted away. Got up and tossed his spoon in the sink. It clanged, metal against metal.
She returned the carton to the freezer and placed her own spoon in the sink. “Like I said… I’m really sorry about your sister.”
“I want to see him.”
Elaine frowned. “What—?”
“Ben Mason. I want to see him.”
“I don’t think—”
He moved closer to her. His face was blank. Cold, almost. But Colin touched her shoulders. “Please, Elaine.”
She couldn’t say no.
Elaine took him downstairs where only she and Doctor Parsons had access. She swiped the card in the scanner, and Colin moved in behind her. He would be seen on security camera. Elaine would be chastised. If they wanted her to keep doing her job, though, they wouldn’t complain too much. All she’d done was let a grieving man see the person responsible for his pain.
Ben Mason could hardly be considered a person.
“He’s through there.” She pointed to the door at the end.
“Another scanner?”
Elaine nodded. “The extra security is important. It means no one can get in or out without access.”
“So if he gets loose, you’d be trapped down here with him.”
“Security would see. They would come and help.” She swiped the scanner on the door where Ben Mason was.
“You’d be dead before they got here.” His words dismissed her entire life in one swoop.
“Colin?”
He didn’t look at her. Just pushed through the door. His shoulder clipped her as he moved, but he didn’t look back. Didn’t apologize.
“Colin.”
“Doesn’t look so tough now.” He strode to the bedside. Poked Ben Mason in the chest.
Pulled out the IV.
“What are you doing?”
A trickle of blood ran down from the center of Ben’s elbow.
“I think you should leave now, Colin.”
It was a mistake to bring him down here. She knew better than to think any man could be nice to her. Not without an ulterior motive.
“I mean it, you need to go. I have to fix his IV. Get medicine in the pa
tient.”
“So you can get cozy with him?” He turned his hard gaze to her, and she saw disgust in his eyes. “Is that what you’ve been doing down here with your patient?”
“I’ve been running tests. Doing my job.” She curled her hands into fists.
“So you say.” He turned back to Ben Mason. “I should just kill him right now. Stick a knife in his heart and finish him. We don’t even know; that might end all of this.”
“It won’t.”
“Because you’re such an expert.”
She moved to stand beside Colin. “I know you’re upset—”
He shoved her back. “You know nothing.”
Elaine’s hip clipped the edge of the table. Instruments went flying. She planted her hand right on a scalpel and cried out. When she lifted it, blood welled in the center of her palm. “You cut me. Get out of here, Colin.”
“Shut up or leave. I’m finishing him.”
He swiped up the scalpel. She tried to grasp it, but he shoved her hands off and stood up. Turned to the bed where Ben Mason lay still and quiet.
“It isn’t time. The Teacher told us to wait. Now move. I have to get the medicine back in—”
“I said shut up.” He called her a foul name.
Colin lifted the scalpel above Ben Mason’s chest.
His eyes opened.
There was no pupil. Only a blood red stare aimed at her.
Elaine screamed. No. Mama, no.
Colin swung down with the scalpel.
Ben Mason broke the restraints holding his arms. He swung his hands up and broke the chains that held him down. The drugs had been an additional layer of protection, but Colin had taken out the IV. Whatever they’d given him wasn’t in his blood anymore.
He grasped Colin’s neck.
Air bubbled from his throat.
Then blood.
Ben Mason dropped him onto the floor, discarded like dirty clothes.
He turned to her.
Elaine ran out for the hall. The door never shut behind her. He was coming. She ran too hard, slammed into the door at the bottom of the stairs and fumbled her card. Tried to swipe it. Beep. No! She swiped again.
Heard him behind her.
Elaine spun around. Faced those glowing red eyes. Ben Mason reached out and touched her face. For a second his eyes turned back to the blue they had been before. “Wha—” He blinked. Glanced around.
