by Marie Hall
The Latin grunted, his face contorted and flushed red. Hands smushed her cheeks, forcing her teeth into her tongue. Hot tears squeezed out the corners of her eyes. Madness raged inside her. If she could only scream. If she could only make a sound, she'd kill them all.
Someone shoved a needle into her hip. The long metal scraped against her hipbone.
No! No! Somebody help me. Please, but the words never left her lips.
Whimpering, losing consciousness with each breath she punched at him. But it was useless, within moments she'd completely passed out.
She came to, who knew how much later. Her eight by eight cell they called the room was dark. Always was when she was being punished. She was strapped to a gurney with a gag in her mouth.
Her parents had abandoned her years ago. Guess they didn't like having a daughter with a dirty little secret that couldn't be swept under the rug. She was...different.
One morning she’d woken up and wasn't the same. Her mother was the state senator. Bad for business.
At first it'd been innocent. Singing in the bath and finding dead fish floating face up in her fish bowl the next morning. She'd kept it hidden from them as long as she could. But they'd found out. In the beginning her dad had been cool. Telling her mom all she had to do was not sing and everything would be fine.
And it was.
At first.
But then she started having night terrors. Dreams of wars and blood and violence on a massive scale. She'd wake up screaming, killing all their pets. Even then her parents had tried to conceal the matter. Taking her to specialists to discover what was happening to their daughter, to try and figure out if there was a way to stop it. The doctor had suggested complete removal of her vocal chords.
In her one and only act of love, her mother had forbidden such a debilitating surgery. Instead they'd crafted a harness she wore at night while sleeping. It had helped. They'd thought they'd successfully discovered a way to null whatever it was that was happening to their daughter. Until the night it all went to hell.
Someone hadn't strapped it on right. She was only five. Barely knew what was happening to her. Only that it was important she talk low. That she never ever sing. And that that harness stayed locked.
That night was the start of the crazy storms. It had scared her. Then the dreams started, as they always did. Blood. Bodies strewn out, horror still reflected in sightless eyes.
She should never have come to her. They all knew to stay away. But her nanny had loved her—the only one in the entire house who did. She'd come to comfort. To hold. Instead she'd died. They'd found her half in and half out of Sable’s room, crumpled in a heap with crusted blood oozing from her ears and nose.
The next morning her parents had sent her packing to Fairfield Inn. Twelve years had passed, without a call, a word, or even a letter. She'd been abandoned.
Forever.
“What’s your name, girl?” The voice was deep, rich with gravel and made her shiver.
Shocked, she gasped and stared at a blurry shape of black shadow slowly pulling away from the deep darkness in the corner of her room. Where had he come from?
Her heart banged against her ribcage at the movement. The figure coalesced into a prism of colors she hadn't seen in years. He wore a pine green hoodie sweater, light blue jeans and pumpkin orange sneakers. His face was still covered, he held out his hands toward her in a posture of submission.
She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. She felt like a mouse caught in a raptor’s glare.
Then he was on her and she stopped thinking about anything but survival. She bucked hard, causing the metal bed frame to shudder. Sable silently cursed the straps holding her wrists and ankles down. His hands reached for the gag. Her tongue tried valiantly to move the ball out of the way, but it wouldn't budge. With a deft flick of his wrist he unlatched it and threw it out of her mouth. The drool was everywhere. It would have been gross, except that she didn’t care and hoped it got on him.
He didn’t move. Only continued to stare, as if expecting her to do or say something to him.
The standoff made her more and more wary, her nostrils flared and she studied him with narrowed eyes. He pulled his hands back, holding them up again. His fingers were long and tapered, the nails smooth and healthy looking. Not broken and bloody like hers were. Slowly so that she could follow his movements, he pulled his hood back.
His hair was thick and black and cut short but with a hint of curl to it. His eyes were a blue that reminded her of the deep sea with long sooty lashes and his skin was the color of warm copper, his jaw dusted with the hint of a beard. He looked her age, but his eyes… she’d always been told eyes were the window to the soul and something about his weren’t young at all and the way he was looking at her, the intense gleam in their cobalt depths, it made her shiver.
Sable was still strapped down and she knew her only defense was her voice. But something forced her to pause. Some inner warning that demanded her impetuous nature wait, not to mention that her breathing was all sorts of choppy and weird. Her skin was definitely flushed, she felt the heat pooling in her cheeks.
What exactly was happening to her?
She coughed; trying to clear a throat that felt like a watermelon had taken up permanent residence inside. “Who? Who are you?” she wheezed, fear turned her words angry and sharp.
“I am nothing, if you are nothing.” The deep voice moved across her flesh like a heated whisper, making her break out in goose bumps.
What exactly did that mean? And though she was curious as hell, she bit her tongue because she’d never been the kind to jump to immediate conclusions without hearing the story first.
“I’ve looked through every room. The feather led me here. This is the last room. You must be her. What is your name?”
She should demand he answer her first, but she found herself responding. "Sable Ray."
A part of her worried that she wasn’t panicking over the idea that there was a stranger in her room. Who might want to harm her. What was wrong with her? She should be terrified, but his voice, it was so soothing. Scratchy, deep and barrel chested, oddly...familiar.
“What is the color of a raindrop?”
She frowned at the penetrating, searching gaze he had on her. Whatever the answer was, it was important to him. His hands clenched into balls and his jaw flexed as he waited.
The buzz of a fly caught her attention, she watched as it circled around his head once, twice, a third time, before he finally swatted it away. Blinking, she realized she’d gone into a daze.
Blue, of course, but as she envisioned the drop it wasn’t blue she saw. “Red,” was what she said and for the life of her she had no idea why. It just spilled out, from someplace deep inside.
He heaved a deep sigh and hung his head for a brief moment with a small smile. “Thank God, I found you. I was beginning to think you’d lied to me, that the feather—”
Scrunching her forehead she realized he was acting more crazy than her.
“You know what,” he flicked his wrist, “never mind. We need to leave."
"Who are you?" she wheezed.
He winced and she ground her jaw. She didn't want his sympathy.
"I'm Hunter Gray and your life's in danger."
She would have laughed if she could have. "Somebody's not been taking his meds."
"I'm serious." He narrowed his eyes. "I'm gonna help you escape. There's a shockwave getting ready to rip through this place, it is going to open up a sink hole and this will be gone," he glanced at his watch, "in about two hours."
She rolled her eyes. Just another crazy. How had he gotten into her room? "If what you're saying is true, then I hope it burns."
"You always were a pain in my ass," he said it gently and with a long suffering sigh.
"What are you doing?" she asked as his fingers fumbled on her restraints. He slipped one off and she slapped his hand. "Listen, man, I'm the wrong person to mess with."
His actions made n
o sense. She didn’t know what to do and he wasn’t giving her any time to think anything through.
He took off the other one quicker than she could track his movements. So fast in fact at one point she could have sworn he’d blurred, which was ridiculous and made her wonder what they’d injected her with.
Sitting up, her legs were still strapped, but even though her wrists and ankles were rubbed raw and the blood rushing back into her limbs made them ache, it was good not to be on her back. Every muscle screamed in protest as she joined him to slip off the straps on her ankles. When she was finally free he stepped back and she jumped down, almost falling on her butt. The world shifted for a split second and she gripped the rail of the bed until the worst of the vertigo passed.
He was still staring at her, like he knew her. Like he was expecting her to know him. She frowned, beginning to feel the unease she hadn’t been moments ago.
Finally trusting herself not to fall, she let go of the bed as she rubbed her wrists. Jaw throbbing, gums seeping thick fluid, she licked her teeth. Pain was nothing new, it was just another part of her life and one she’d grown used to. She touched her throat, wondering if she had it in her for one good scream should he try anything.
"You're coming with me." His tone brooked no argument.
She scoffed, planting her hands on her hips. "I don’t know who you are, or who you think I am, but I’m not going anywhere with you."
Her words were weak, but she shoved as much bravado into them as she could. She was really not sure about her ability to scream, not after the beating her pipes had taken and without her lungs, she had no way to defend herself. But she would try.
If anything he seemed more determined than ever. His square jaw set in a hard line. "We don't have time for this." He yanked on her wrist and something inside her snapped.
She was tired of being pushed around, of being told what would and wouldn’t happen. No more. She opened her mouth, inhaling deep and praying there was still something left.
"I knew it would be a challenge getting you first." He sighed. "Listen, do what you’ve got to do. You can't hurt me. But can you please hurry, because this place is coming down like a house of cards and I don't want to be anywhere near here when it does."
She swallowed the yell and stepped away from him. He was crazy, one hundred and ten percent certifiably nucking futs. What was he talking about? How had he slipped past the guards outside to get into her room? Where was the security when she needed it? Thoughts she hadn’t wondered before now slammed into her.
Who was this guy?
Hunter glanced over his shoulder and she heard what had caught his attention. The sound of jangling keys. A guard was making the rounds. Finally.
She smiled. "I could get you in a ton of trouble."
His shoulders drooped, he seemed tired. Now that she was really looking, his eyes were slightly sunken in and rimmed in black. Like he hadn't slept in years. She could relate.
"Give me ten seconds to convince you. If I don't, I'm gone. Deal?"
He was pleading. Why? He acted like he knew her. She didn't actually sense him as a threat. But who was he? She'd have recognized him around. He was too normal not to. He didn't belong here.
The keys grew louder.
"You get five," she muttered.
He nodded and stepped in close to her. She smelled him, a mix of soap and sewage water, it made her wrinkle her nose.
"I'm from the future. I came back to get you. To save you, so you can save us."
His words rang with the conviction of his beliefs. But she knew, just because you believed it, didn't also mean you weren't nuts.
"Seriously?” After years of listening to crazy, it shouldn’t surprise her. But it had, and that made her sad. Because looking at him, he looked so sane. So… normal. Clenching her jaw, she held up a hand determined to ignore the small part of her that’d entertained the hope that he had come to save her. “That's what you say to convince me? Your five’s up." She ran to her door, banging on it and trying to yell, but her throat was too damaged to do more than squeak. Didn't matter though, she heard the stomp of feet as the guard rushed to her cell.
"For once, Sable. Just for once I'd love for you to believe me."
Hunter grabbed her from behind, his arm wrapped around her neck and he pulled her into him. "I promise this will all make sense soon."
His touch sent an immediate thrill through her. Not because of how he held her, she’d been held down in here many times, pinned up against a hard body. But it was the way he held her. Like he wanted to keep her, like he was almost… protecting her.
It was a stupid emotion, one that made her angry, because she didn’t want to be dependent on anyone else to make her happy or make her hope. And as she thought all this it suddenly seemed to her as if time were literally slowing down. The steps outside her cell felt plodding, not anxious to get at her, or to discover what the source of the chaos was. Her skin tingled with a prickle of awareness, something powerful and strange quickened through the air around them.
Turning to gaze back at him, brows lowered in confusion, that’s when she noticed a knife. A long handled one gripped tight in his hand. It took only a second for her brain to process the brilliance of the blade, the odd markings along the hilt and then he was plunging it deep into her side, just below her rib cage.
It happened so fast that at first she thought she’d imagined it. There was no pain, just a blank empty stare in her eyes. And where time had been slow before, it suddenly all rushed to catch up to where it should have been and when that happened fire blazed across her middle. She gasped, sputtering with disbelief at ripping throb that flared bright hot.
"Don't worry, Sable. You're not alone anymore. I've got you," he crooned in her ear and then stabbed her one final time, straight through her heart.
Chapter 4: Visions
The bird flapped its broad powerful wings, coasting gracefully on an air current. Its black beady eyes searched the charred hills below. The air stank of blood, of violence and dark magic.
Ahead a gray spiral of smoke loomed, like a dancing cobra. Half torn bodies were splayed out like macabre mannequins. Bits of blood and offal scattered about. It squawked a lament, a cry for her people, for their suffering.
A flash of scarlet caught her eye. She tucked her crimson wings tight to her body and dropped to the ground with the speed of a falling meteor. The moment her talons touched terra firma she shifted, morphed into her alter form. A beautiful woman with hair the color of darkest night and eyes the lavender gray of twilight.
Her bare feet brushed aside limbs like they were nothing more than stripped tree bark. The face as beautiful in death as it had been in life. Full red lips parted as if ready to utter greeting. His eyes were closed, but open they were the pure white of freshly fallen snow. He’d never been a kind man, except with her. He'd loved her and she him.
"You did well, flaming one." The voice was dark and sinister and as cold as the northern ice lands.
She knelt beside the body she'd loved more than any other.
Dragden gripped her shoulder, his strong fingers bruising her collarbone. But she didn't care. She felt numb inside. Dead already.
He threw a bag at her feet, the jangling ring of coin money sounded as it landed. "Thank you." His tone was mocking, cruel.
“What is that?” she snarled.
“You betrayed them all,” he could barely contain his snicker, “I only felt thirty silver coins apropos. Don’t you agree?”
She refused to peel her gaze from her lover; to look at the blood money would be a blade to her heart. "He wasn't supposed to get hurt," she whispered. "He wasn't part of the deal."
He snorted. "Who knew he'd grow a conscious in the end. Casualties of war."
She touched his face, the skin cold and rigid. From the corner of her eye she saw the dark stain that spread along his torso. She was a warrior. A fighter. Not a healer. But for him, she'd break her vow. She tipped her head over his fac
e; her hair fell around them like a curtain. A lone silver tear formed in the corner of her eye, tracking a ghostly trail down her cheek.
The phoenix kiss. A part of her essence. Her soul. To divide herself this way would have dark consequences. But she couldn't—wouldn't live without him.
The tear dripped onto his lips. She bit the inside of her cheek, willing the magic to work. Willing his soul to come back to her. She grabbed his hand, pulling it to her chest.
"Don't leave me alone. You promised. Forever."
Behind her, Dragden laughed. "You promised, forever. Oh how sickeningly sweet. A deals a deal, bird,” his words were cruel and cold.
It should have worked by now. A phoenix kiss was true, the magic deep and pure. Her hands trembled.
"Should I leave you here with the dead? Because, I should probably mention, he's not coming back. I made sure of it."
Finally she looked at him, at the cruelly beautiful face, maniacal and twisted with evil, but utterly and wretchedly perfect. The devil was real. He stood in front of her with lifted peaked brows.
"Too bad you split your soul like that,” he cringed and grabbed his heart, “that’s got to hurt.” He snorted with laughter. “I’ll be seeing you. Soon.” The way he said it made her break out in an immediate wash of cold chills. With a smirk he swirled into black shadow and vanished.
She looked around, saw many faces she knew. Memories of times past, good ones and bad, ran like a reel through her head. The lure had been too tempting. Her desires too deep. She'd thought she'd known herself. Had felt so superior that she was right.
"What have I done?" she whispered again, heart so heavy she felt it might implode. "I'm sorry."
She kissed his dark brow and then shot back into the sky. She flew high. Then higher still. Until she reached an atmosphere devoid of oxygen and still she pushed. Her muscles strained, her vision darkened with spots of black. At the stratosphere she felt the burn and gave herself up to the black death. She burst in a crimson shower of radiant amber flame.
