by A. B. Marie
He leads me back into the house. “I think you’re a genius, baby. Now, I think that we have put it off long enough. Let’s go to the magic room and set up all of our school supplies and get started. We have our first practicals with Collins and Nolan soon.” I head up to the library and grab my bag of school supplies that Mark organized for me for our first semester of Master’s Two courses and I hand him all of my books to carry down. We get organized and I sit at the desk going over what we would be learning in classes.
“We already know all of this shit.” I grumble while looking over the syllabi and skimming the books.
“Yep. But we need to stay on top of this shit, Maya. Just read through the syllabus and we will practice together. Then we can go play in the new room.” He winks at me and sits at the desk beside me to look over his work. We spend the next few hours highlighting what we should study over the next few weeks, then I sat and watched Mark go through several different spells and potions. Magic has always come easy to him, he does something once and can always replicate it, no matter what. As I watch him closely, I notice that his lips aren’t moving as he does his spells. Has it always been like that for him? When I open my mouth to bring it up to him, the twins come rushing into the room.
“It’s Graham. He’s missing from campus. Collins and Nolan can’t find him anywhere.” Ross says while he’s panting and out of breath. His hair is a mess and his clothes are in disarray. I stand up from my chair at the desk and walk over to him.
“What the fuck do you mean?” I scroll through my phone and see that I haven’t talked to him in a few days. “When was the last time he was heard from or seen?” We all start to rush downstairs, and Mark decides it’ll be faster if he picks me up bridal style to job down the stairs.
“Nolan said he hasn’t been in his class all week. After he didn’t come to dinner with you all last night, he started looking ans asking around.” Troy explains while we make it outside and into the car. “I can’t think of any places that he would go to besides here. Nolan talked to their parents and they haven’t heard from Graham, nor have they seen him since they drove up there a few months ago.”
I’m trying not to panic, just focusing on breathing. I pull out my phone and call Penny.
“Maya! Did you find him? People are looking all over campus.” She yells into my ear.
“No, I was calling to ask when you saw him last. Do you have any classes with him?”
“Not since last week.” I thank her and hang up. We drive around to both clubs and the twins go in and check all of the floors.
“Not here. Should we check out that warehouse by Killian’s?” I start to feel sick to my stomach.
Mark just stares out the window. “Might as well.” Ross drives us to the warehouse district, and I don’t see any wards or hear anything in any of the buildings. We just sit in silence after walking around each building.
“Did anyone check his dorm room? Or even his room at the estate? He left home on Sunday night with Collins and Nolan… I can’t believe this is happening, where would he go?” I run a million different scenarios through my head. I’m too pregnant for this shit. I want to blow something up. My phone starts ringing, and I see that it’s Collins calling.
“Hey. We checked all over campus. Ross said his car is still at the estate. Anyone here that he usually spends time with hasn’t seen him since classes on Friday. When we arrived on Sunday he went straight to his dorm. Nothing is out of place. His bags aren’t here, the bed is made… We’re going to keep looking. I love you.” I don’t have it in me to answer him. I just hang up the phone and run my shaking fingers through my tangled hair.
The rest of the night, we don’t see or hear anything. I’m sitting in bed petting Lola and just staring out the window into the inky, black night. I eventually fall asleep, but my dreams are filled with death, blood, and gore. Not that it’s any different from any other night, but tonight, it’s Graham featuring my demented dreams, dying over and over again and there’s nothing we can do to save him.
Two days pass and no one hears a word. Collins and Nolan are still on campus doing searches all around the grounds and sending guards into the neighboring towns. My phone starts ringing for the third time in a row with an unknown number and I am about to throw my phone at the wall until I see it’s a text message this time. Every time they call, I answer, and there’s no one fucking there.
When I open up my phone, my heart stops. It’s a picture of Graham strung up against a wall with chains wrapped around his wrists, neck, and twining around his legs. His bright red hair is greasy and unkempt, his clothing is ripping apart, and his eyes are closed. His head is lolled to the side and he has bruising all up and down his arms, face, and neck. I start screaming for Mark to come into the living room where I’m sitting and just continue staring at the image.
“What the fuck?” Mark grabs my phone and zooms in and out of the photo to see if we recognize the place. “I’m forwarding this to everyone. Get in the car, we’re going to meet Ross and Troy at the club, and we will go from there once we hear back.” I grab my phone back from him and zoom in and out like he did. It looks like he’s in an empty pink room. The carpet is worn down where his feet are, there’s water and food all over the floor around him, and the walls are scuffed up and have indents, probably from where he’s slammed his elbows back. He better still fucking be alive.
Ross calls my phone while I’m still staring at Graham’s face and running my finger over it again and again. “Hello?”
“Stay the fuck home, Maya. I know where they are. Put Markus on the phone.” Before I can even retort or call him out on his shit, he immediately growls at me. “Not now, Maya. Stay the fuck home and put Mark on the phone.” I hand it over to Mark but put it on speaker. “As soon as I saw the image, I called the treatment facility where we dropped off Amelie. She checked herself out on Saturday night and they didn’t fucking tell me. They’re at our old house. That’s her fucking room they’re in. How did she even get on the fucking campus to get to Graham?”
Ignoring the rest of the call, I sneak out of the room and grab my keys. I make it out to my car and start speeding through the streets towards the Strom house. I’ll probably get there right when the twins do, but I was not just going to sit on my fucking ass at home while that cunt hurts Graham.
I slam on the brakes and slam my door closed as soon as I park, and I blast open the front door. Amelie looks like a fucking mess. Her brown hair is almost black from not washing it for what looks like weeks, her clothes are falling off of her skeleton-like frame, and her pupils are blown wide with whatever the fuck she’s pumping into her veins. Her feet are bare as she pads down the hall towards me humming under her breath.
“I caught one! You think you can take my brothers from me? Keep Markus to yourself? Then have Nolan, Carter, AND Graham? What the fuck have you been doing to them? To force them to live with you and get you pregnant? I have given everything I have to Graham and he still wants you. You’re fucking disgusting!” I just stand there staring at her waiting for her little tantrum to end.
“I played nice. Figured you would do better in treatments. I told the twins to not cut you out of their lives, and you just keep on swinging, coming back for more. I’m. Fucking. Done.” I bind her wrists and ankles with my magic and blast her into the wall across the living room. “You are fucking sick, Amelie. What did you do to Graham? WHAT DID YOU DO?!” I’m walking over to her and kick her in the stomach as hard as I can without falling over.
“I. Told. You. Everything I had! I found a man that focused on spell and rune removal. I gave him love and truth potions. He just kept blabbing on about you and how he loves you. Fucking pathetic.” She spits at my feet and just laughs and laughs. Before I fucking kill her, I kick her in the head to knock her out and go looking for Graham. I levitate him up higher so that his arms aren’t pulling out of his sockets and work on removing the chains. As I’m laying him down on the carpet, I hear a car pull up and s
everal men yelling my name.
Ignoring them, I check Graham over and find that his pupils are both blown out and his breathing is really shallow. I start to scream and storm back over to Amelie and find Ross and Troy standing next to her prone form looking furious.
“Can you look around for her burner phone? I want to go through it to see what else she’s been up to. Call everyone else and get a healer here ASAP.” I am two seconds away from murdering that bitch, and depending on what is on her phone, I just might. I sit down and place Graham’s head on my lap and rock him. Troy comes in and hands me a small, black flip phone. I nod at him and scroll through. There are only three numbers in the recent call log. Mine, Graham’s, and another that looks to be based somewhere in the U.S. I press call and it just beeps over and over in my ear. There are only two text messages on the phone, the photo she sent to me, and another from the phone number that’s disconnected saying “Don’t fail this time, Amelie. We are watching you.” I memorize the number and break apart the phone into pieces and throw it against the wall. That fucking bitch.
Ross comes into the room and takes a seat next to me. “I’m so sorry, Maya. We thought the house was empty. Brant was supposed to come over here next week to start updating the house and we thought Amelie was sobering up in the treatment center. This can’t be all drug related.” I just nod at him.
Taking a deep breath, I rattle off the phone number I memorized and explain to him what I saw. He walks over to the pieces of the phone I destroyed and finds the chip.
“I’ll take this to work with me to see what I can find. Let’s wait for everyone to get here and come up with a plan.”
I glare at him. “The only plan we have is to fucking kill that bitch.” He gives me a grim smile and leaves me alone in the room with Graham. Mark arrives before Collins and Nolan and sits mutely behind me and leans me back against him. He gives me a kiss on the head, and we sit in silence. Collins, Nolan, and Beatrice arrive, and she has me lay him down so she can check him over.
“I’m going to heal his superficial and internal wounds. He needs fluids to flush out whatever she injected into him.” She points to his arms and she heals up the infected injection sites. “I’ll start up the IV and we will move him to your estate. How does that sound?” I nod and let her get to work. I go back into the living room and sit down in a chair to stare down the cunt on the floor. She has started to groan and trying to move her head around squinting up at me.
“Who have you been talking to?”
She just glares at me and rolls onto her back. “I’m not telling you shit.”
I laugh at her. “You start talking, or I start stabbing.” I leave her to stew on that and walk over to Mark in the pink room and grab his switch blade from his back pocket. I squat down next to Amelie’s head when I make it back to her. “I’ll count to five. Every five seconds that you don’t give me the answers I want, I will cut you.” I open up the blade and put it in front of her face. “One. Two. Thr-.”
“Fuck! You crazy bitch! Fuck you!” She thrashes around and tries to move away from me.
“Three. Four. Five.” I make a shallow cut on her forearm from elbow to wrist. I watch the blood drip and start counting again. She’s sobbing and yelling, and I make another cut on her upper arm. “I can do this all day, Amelie. I have nothing better to do while the healer is patching up my man that you almost killed. Let’s get to it.” I count a few more times, add some more slices. “Such a sad, pretty face. The next cuts will be on your cheeks.” I count and she starts screaming for Ross and Troy to help her. “Ah ah ah. No one is helping you here. I just can’t kill you yet.” I slice down the right side of her cheek and she screams one more time.
“Okay. Okay! I’ll talk, I’ll talk.” She cries out. I sit and wait, and she takes shallow breaths. “One of the council members that was asking me questions about you. He said that he’s been following you for years. Said that when they went to our parent’s house in Seattle, you attacked him with dark magic and tried to kill the council and that my parents got hit in your blast.” She starts sobbing harder. “You killed them! You killed my parents and then try to take Ross and Troy from me! He called and told me that if I can’t get you alone and take you to him, then he will kill them! He keeps me supplied with my drugs and gave me what I needed for Graham. He wanted to lure you out and he was supposed to fucking be here!” She starts muttering and mumbling to herself.
“Mmm. Too bad you didn’t just ask about what happened to OUR parents, sad, little Amelie. You would have lived a good, long life. Now you’ll be the bait, and hopefully die in the process. You’ve gone too far.” I heat up the knife with a little fire from my fingertips, and make another slash on her other cheek. I start to smell burning flesh and pull away the knife. “You will tell me this man’s name, then you’re going to call him and tell him you have me. Do you understand?” She shakes her head and hiccups a sob.
“I tried calling him several times since Monday night, and his phone is off. I don’t know his name!” I take a deep breath, slowly stand up, and kick her on the side of the head again to knock her back out. I walk into the pink room and see that Beatrice is ready to move Graham.
“He’s okay for now. Just needs healing potions and fluids for the next few days. I drew some blood to take with me to the infirmary. Let’s get him home and comfortable.” I nod and walk out to my car and get into the passenger seat. A few minutes later Mark gets in and we drive off after Beatrice and Graham are settled in the back seat.
“Did you hear everything with Amelie?” I ask Mark.
He nods and looks at me for a few seconds. “I did. You’re not doing shit, Maya. You’re going to stay home, take care of Graham, and relax. You weren’t even supposed to go to the house today and you put yourself in danger! All alone! What if the council was there?”
“Well, they weren’t.” I look out the window and we don’t talk for the rest of the drive. Beatrice walks behind Mark while he levitates Graham to the master bedroom. We place him on my bed, and I strip him of his clothes so I can wash him and redress him. I levitate him up while Maggie changes the bedding. She gives me a quick hug before she leaves and I lay down and fall asleep, wrapped up around Graham. I hear Beatrice talking while she give him fluids, potions, and medications, but I can’t keep my eyes open.
I wake up to Mark changing out Graham’s IV fluids and injecting a healing potion into the port. I roll over and look at his face, and see that his color is coming back, thank fuck. “What did the guys end up doing with Amelie?”
“They brought her here. She’s locked up in the gun range in the gym.” He finishes up with the medications and picks me up. “Want to take a bath?” I nod and he gets me into the bath and washes my hair. “I’m still pissed at you. I can’t believe you went there alone. With no phone.” I nod at him and close my eyes. “Ross and Troy went to their PI office to look into what they could about the councilman and that phone number. They should be back soon.” I close my eyes and tried to relax until everyone is back home so we can start planning.
Chapter 9
Mark
________
It’s been two days since we found Graham and he’s looking a lot better. Beatrice is coming back tonight to check him over and to pull him out of the healing sleep she placed him in if she thinks he’s ready. Amelie is still in the gun range. Ross and Troy are dealing with her, trying to see if she knows anything else. They’ve tried explaining to her what really happened three years ago with our parents, but she won’t hear it. Beatrice gave them tinctures to help with the withdrawals, but aside from helping that, nothing is stopping the vitriol from spewing out of Amelie’s mouth as soon as someone walks in there.
She truly believes that Maya is a demon. I wish they could have met a year ago so Amelie could have seen how psycho Maya could really be. Her cuts all over her arms and face aren’t healing due to all of her incessant picking and scratching at them. I find Maya in the magic room stocking up the cl
oset with several different kinds of potions she’s working on. She still thinks she’s coming with us when we try to bait the councilman. I walk in and kiss her head. “What are you working on?”
“Mostly smoke bombs, invisibility spells for us to keep on hand, and a couple firebombs. Why?”
“Is there anything I can help with?”
She looks up at me through her thick, long lashes. “No, I need to stay busy.” I nod and leave her to it. Collins and Nolan are finishing up their day at the campus and will be home for the weekend starting tonight. At this rate, I wonder if they should just quit their jobs so we could move onto Maya’s secluded island. Taking a deep breath, I make my way into the master bedroom and check over Graham’s IV lines and switch out the fluids when they get too low. I squeeze his shoulder on my way out and head to the library in some silence for a few hours.
Beatrice arrives several hours later with Collins and Nolan and they all head over to Graham. She checks him over and nods her head. “He looks great. I’m going to try to wake him up. Everyone stand back.” She moves her glowing hands over his body from head to toe and he rolls over and groans loudly.
“Fuck!” He panics and sits up as fast as he can before collapsing back down. He opens his wide eyes and quickly looks from face to face. “What the fuck happened?” Maya sits down next to him on the bed and grabs his left hand.
“Amelie somehow lured you out and she took you to their old house.” She pauses to take a deep breath. “She had you chained up to the wall, pumping you full of shit… What do you remember?”
He closes his eyes. “We got back to campus and I received a phone call from a weird number. When I answered, it was a man saying he knew where you were, and if I didn’t come with him, he was going to do to you what they tried to do with Troy.” Pausing to blink his eyes a few times. “I don’t remember much after that. He threw me in the car after hitting me with a paralyzing spell and we drove for what felt like hours. I remember hearing a woman’s voice, and someone hitting me, but that’s it.”
