“I know it does. I needed to do something to get the bastard away from you. I need you to do something for me, Arwen, and it is going to sound very strange. Will you do it?”
“Sure, Abigail,” she said with a yawn. Nothing her grandmother could suggest would be any odder than what her last week had been like.
“Good, I want you to stand up.”
Snorting, Ari somehow forced herself onto her feet. The burning in her leg was still there but had dimmed somewhat. “Okay, I’m standing, but I don’t know how long it will last.”
“Are you dressed?”
Ari looked down. “Nope.”
“Damn. Keep the phone with you, go into your room, and put on the first thing your hand touches. I’m coming, Arwen. It’s just taking longer than I would wish. Now, go get dressed.”
Stumbling into her bedroom, she pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and slipped her feet into a pair of bunny slippers. “Okay,” she yawned. “I’m dressed.”
“Good. Now, grab your keys, go to your car, and drive over to Cory’s.”
Frowning, Ari glanced at her front door. It seemed so insurmountable. “I don’t think that is a good idea. I can barely walk.”
“Ari, you need to get out of your apartment. Go now!”
Abigail called her by her nickname; the surprise of it pulled her out of her stupor. Focusing intently on her goal, she grabbed her keys and somehow made it out of her apartment to her car without falling down. By the time she fell into the driver’s seat, though, she felt nauseated. “I don’t feel good,” she moaned into the phone.
“I know, Arwen, and I will help, but we need to get you to Cory’s house. Can you drive?”
“I’ll try.” Placing the phone on speaker and putting it in the passenger seat, she started the car and backed up, focusing intently on the road. She never realized it curved so much nor that it was so dark.
“Pull over, pet. You are too tired to drive. Ignore the phone. Pull over and sleep. I will help.” His breath washed over her ear and she shivered, biting her lip.
“Orion, you bastard!” Abigail yelled from her phone. “Arwen, try to ignore him! Just focus on the road, on Cory. Come on, you can get to Cory. Once you get to her house, you can sleep all you want.”
Blinking her eyes open, once again the dry gray of the road met her gaze, and she pushed a little harder on the gas pedal.
“Stop right now, pet. You are putting yourself and others in danger. You don’t want to kill anyone, do you?” He stroked her jaw softly.
“No,” she moaned. She didn’t want to kill anyone and he was right. If she continued driving, she might cause an accident. Glancing to her right, she pulled into a parking lot. “Must sleep,” she murmured.
“Arwen, no!” Abigail yelled, but this time Ari was too far gone to reply. She could hear her grandmother and Orion, but could respond to neither. An odd thought drifted through her mind. It seemed strange that her grandmother and her delusion were talking to one another. Before she could truly grasp onto the thought, it left.
“Orion, you will not get your hands on my granddaughter. Go back to the nether realm you came from!”
He laughed coldly. “You never learn, do you Abigail? I always get what I want. Always. And Arwen will make a perfect replacement slave. My last one was not able to handle the shift well. She only lasted two years in my realm. Arwen, however—”
“It will be the same!” Abigail snapped. “You will kill Arwen just as you did her!” She snarled the last few words making him chuckle.
“Oh, she is still alive. I never kill my pets. She just does not function.” He chuckled again. “Arwen will be much hardier. There is magic within her, Abigail. I can feel it. Once she is fully my slave, I will teach her to use it.” He reached out and stroked the cheek of the girl who would soon be his. “Give up, Abigail. She is mine.”
“NEVER!” she screamed.
Ari felt his fingers stroke her cheek and her arm. “Sleep, pet. This will all be over soon.” And unable to deny him, she did.
****
Ari’s body ached, from the tips of her toes to the tips of the hair on her head. She didn’t even know hair could hurt. Wasn’t it supposed to be dead? Moaning, she tried to open her eyes, but they were so heavy. What was going on?
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she stopped breathing as cold, damp air settled in her lungs. Was it raining again? If so, what was she doing outside?
Now what was going on? Once again, she tried to remember where she was before she fell asleep, but the memories were vague, unsettling…distant. Almost as though they were the memories of someone else.
“Awake, pet.” The deep voice rattled through her body awakening all her nerve endings. She felt very itchy and uncomfortable all of a sudden.
Forcing her eyes open, she groaned at the darkness that encircled her. “Am I dreaming again?” she mumbled. While she could not quite draw the dream into memory, she had a distinct memory that she’d had a dream once about being in a cold dark room with a strange man.
“Ah, she is awake,” he crooned softly.
As her body stiffened and she sat up, she became aware of the fact she was sitting on cold stone and her body felt as if it had been through a war. “Who’s there?” she managed to get through her lips, even though she instinctively knew it was somebody important.
A deep cold chuckle encircled her, making her feel at home and yet abandoned at the same time. It was a very disconcerting mixture. “The shift has made you somewhat forgetful, pet? No matter. You will soon remember.” The sound of a match being struck and the sight of fire flashing into the air caught her attention, and she turned toward it. Standing a few feet away was a man who looked familiar, holding the flame. He was wearing dark pants and a dark button-down shirt.
He lit a candle with the match and turned toward her, holding the candle above his head so she could not see his face. She had seen this before. She knew she had. What did it mean? Before she could try to figure it out, he crouched down in front of her and took hold of her chin. “Pet, you are mine. You will refer to me as Master. Understand?”
As she went to nod her head, her ankle sizzled making her hiss in pain. Reaching out, her hands settled on top of skin that was slightly raised in an odd, crisscross design. Once again, her memory tugged at her consciousness. There was something about this place, this person that she needed to remember. But what?
He tightened his hold on her chin. “Pet, answer me. What do you call me?” His voice had intensified, and her body seemed to thrum with each syllable. Instinctively she knew that to deny him would cause her pain, and she did not want that. Plus, something within her told her to follow this man—that this was what she was born to do.
As she sat looking at him, his words continued to thrum through her, tightening her chest the longer she held out. Her ability to breathe became hindered and panic built within her. “Master,” she whimpered, relieved when her chest loosened and she could breathe again.
A cold chuckle came from his chest. “Very good, pet.” Standing up, he pulled her roughly to her feet. “I am your master. You are my pet. Above all, you are my slave. Do you accept your master’s enslavement, pet?” The power within his question robbed her of any control. Her lips formed the word yes, while her body did not allow her to vocalize it.
He pulled the candle down so she could see his face, and she could feel the blood drain out of her face as she looked into his cold red eyes. “Pet, you will obey and answer your master. Or you will pay for it.” He leaned in. “And you are already due for several punishments. Do not make it worse on yourself. Answer me. Do you accept your enslavement to me, your master?”
Once again, the syllables started to thrum through her, and her chest began to tighten. Not wanting to be short of breath again, she shouted out, “Ye—” but before she could complete the word, it felt as though her ankle burst into flames. “No!” she screamed, yanking from his grasp and dropping down to rub at the
pain.
A large roar filled the air, and she looked up, horrified to see him glaring at her. “No?” he hissed. “You think you can say no to your master, pet?” A cold hard smile crossed his face. “Fine. Until you are ready to obey, I will force you.” Grabbing her by the hair, he turned, dragging her behind him.
“Wait!” she screeched, grabbing for her hair to stop him from pulling it out. Her knees dragged along the rough stone floor and the combined pain of her ankle and head made everything sharper. She wanted to tell him she couldn’t stop the scream earlier because of the pain, that she hadn’t meant to say no to him. But he was causing her even more pain, and she was beginning to feel pissed off. The shakiness she had felt when she awakened seemed to have disappeared, replaced with pure anger.
“Stop!” she screamed. He ignored her, tightening his hold on her hair and pulling her faster. Her anger grew as did the pain in her ankle until she wasn’t sure whether the pain fed the anger or the anger fed the pain. “You ugly red-eyed freak! Let me go!” Reaching up, she grabbed onto his hand and squeezed.
He let out a roar, surprising her. He sounded like a wild animal. At the same time, he released her hair and jumped a few feet away. As she massaged her head where the hair had been yanked, she watched him. He held the hand she had squeezed in his other as though she had crushed it or something.
“Oh, don’t be a big baby!” she snapped at the small whimpers that fell from his lips.
His eyes flashed to hers, and she started crawling backwards as fast as her hands and butt would take her. He bared his teeth at her, and a small guttural growl left his throat. As if that wasn’t scary enough, his red eyes glowed.
“What the hell are you?” she gasped, still not understanding where she was, but knowing logically none of this was normal.
His growl paused and he chuckled unkindly. “You will learn, pet. In the meantime, enjoy your cell. Until you accept your enslavement, you will not leave it.” Without another word, he dropped the candle and as it hit the floor the flame snuffed out, immediately leaving her in total darkness.
She froze in fear, unable to see a thing. As the sound of his boots made a familiar c-clap, c-clap, c-clap along the stone, it became quieter and quieter. He was leaving. Gulping, she barely recognized the fact before the sound of a rusty metal door opened and closed, the slam of it jarring her out of her stupor.
Okay, where was she, and why was she here? Also, where had she come from? Unthinking, she lay her forehead in the palm of her right hand while resting her elbow on her knee. She wrapped her left palm on her left ankle. Almost immediately, the fog lifted. “Oh, I am…” As she spoke, her hands moved from her skin and just like that, her memory dulled. “Crap!” She had almost known who she was.
Whimpering, she moved her hands out from her body trying to find something besides cold hard floor. In her immediate vicinity, there was nothing. Knowing there had to be a wall to lean against, she turned over onto her hands and raw knees and moved slowly in one direction and felt out ahead of her with each move, waiting for the wall that had to exist.
As she crawled, she tried to bring back the memory she had barely grasped before it disappeared. It had been so clear and then it was gone.
After several minutes of crawling and not finding anything, she became frustrated. “There has to be a wall somewhere,” she grumbled, sitting down for a few minutes. Her wrists hurt from crawling on them as did her knees. Obviously, she wasn’t used to this kind of thing. So, she could not have been here long, right?
Sighing, she crossed her legs and rested her elbows on her knees, cupping her chin in her hands. “So, I’m stuck in the darkness with some red-eyed freak who calls himself my master.” She sighed. She was positive she could not have signed up for this. It didn’t seem like her, even if she wasn’t sure who she was.
Her left ankle tingled, and she removed her left hand from her chin to rub it. Immediately the fog cleared from her mind again. She gasped, her head snapping back, and the fog came back. “Wait.” The first time it happened, she was holding her ankle and her forehead. This time she was holding her chin and her ankle.
“Well, that’s just stupid,” she snorted, shaking her head. There was no way placing her hand on her ankle would magically lift her mental block. “Magic doesn’t exist, except in fairytales.”
Taking a deep breath, she lowered her chin onto her right hand and dabbled her left hand over her left ankle. It wouldn’t hurt just to lay it on her ankle just to see, she thought, scoffing at herself for even thinking something so stupid. The longer she sat there though, the less stupid it sounded. She was trapped in a seemingly endless blackness by some red-eyed weirdo. Maybe there was something to this strange hand on her ankle thing.
Taking a deep breath, she placed one finger on the ankle.
Nothing.
Chuckling at her silliness, as well as feeling just a slight bit of disappointment, she placed her full palm down. Immediately, the fog lifted, and she could see a room. It was small, oval, and had nothing in it except an inlaid wooden floor that was placed in a very intricate design. At the same moment, the design in another form came to mind. “The jewelry box,” she whispered. Her head jerked back and the fog once again settled.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she snapped and once again laid her chin in her hand. This would get old. The only way to access her memories was to sit like this? A strange thought that these were not memories went through her mind, but she pushed it right out again. How else could she be seeing it so clearly if it wasn’t a memory? Before she could settle into any more anger, once again she was in that room, the design was glowing now and someone was chanting something…a name.
Arwen…
That was an odd name.
Arwen…
There it was again. She looked around, this time seeing two women sitting outside the room, their hands reaching toward the door, the name Arwen falling from their lips along with other words and grunts that made no sense whatsoever.
She cocked her head as she realized she knew the two women. One was her sister, Cory. The other was… Abigail! And yet, not Abigail. It looked like Abigail would have looked in her thirties rather than in her nineties. As if all her memories felt it was okay to come out all of a sudden, she remembered being sick, so sick, and Abigail telling her to hold on, and that she needed to get to Cory. “Yes, I needed to get to Cory,” she whispered, remembering how adamant her grandmother had been.
Something had stopped her. A voice. Just sleep, pet. Sleep. As the words came to her, her ankle sizzled in pain, and memories of the other times her ankle had erupted into pain came to her. Every time she had something to do with him, with Orion, her ankle had reacted. “Oh my,” she whispered, realizing whatever the anklet had done to her, it had been trying to help her fight off Orion. Or had it? Maybe it had actually come from him rather than the Interdimensional Dating Service?
Or was he the Interdimensional Dating Service? She gulped at the thought and wondered how many women he had captured in this game he was playing.
“Arwen!”
This time the voices sounded more natural, as though they were talking to her. Figuring she might as well see if they would respond, she whispered, “Yes?”
“Oh, Arwen, we were afraid we would not be able to reach you! Has he convinced you to accept his enslavement yet?”
How did they know? Shaking her head because she could ask them later, she said, “No, and he was really angry about it. Weird things are going on though. Like why when I touch my ankle and my face…” she stopped and flushed a little at the stupidity she was about to say.
“I will explain when you get back. You must come back, Arwen. You need to come back to this dimension before you become too accustomed to his. Can you do that?”
Could she do that? What the hell? She wasn’t even sure how she had got here in the first place. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Cory’s laugh made her relax a bit. If her sister could
still laugh, things must not be too bad. Of course, there was also the possibility she was insane and locked up in a room somewhere. She would not discount that option just yet.
“Ari, can you see the room? The room with the design in the middle?”
Ari’s thoughts immediately flipped back to that first room she saw. “Yes.”
“Good, focus on it. Do not take your eyes off the design. I know this sounds strange, but see yourself in that room. Concentrate on it. Ignore everything else.”
“Yes, Arwen,” Abigail interrupted. “Ignore everything. Including him and I assure you he will come back as soon as he realizes you are in danger of leaving. He cannot touch you while you are not fully in his realm.”
“But he already touched me…several times,” Ari cried out in panic.
“That was when you were in his realm. The more you focus on the design, the more you will drift between them. No matter what happens, focus on that design. Your body will become tired, so tired you won’t think you’ll be able to remain awake. No matter what, do not lose sight of that design. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Abigail. The design is in my mind.”
“Good. Cory and I will help.”
Once again, they started chanting words and grunts she did not understand. As the room and design came into clearer focus, she became aware of a loud sound coming closer and closer. “Something is coming!” she hissed, trying to not lose sight of the design while trying to look around to see if she could see anything.
“Ignore him, Arwen. Just focus!”
Whimpering, she continued to focus on the room with the wooden floor, ever aware that the sound she heard as it became louder was the c-clap of his boots on the stone. He was running in her direction. Her body started to shake as she heard the BAM! as the iron door slammed open and the sound of his boots as he dashed toward her.
“STOP!” he yelled in a loud snarl.
A part of her almost did, but Cory and Abigail shouted for her to continue. Her body, shaking with the energy it took to focus clearly on the room and not defend herself, was becoming very tired very fast.
Your Dimension Or Mine? Page 8
