Inside the Fire

by Heather Glidewell

  To be honest this didn’t shock me. Adam always came across as the good boy that could do no wrong. I spent a lot of time with him, the worst the boy did was curse. Even then it was here and there and mostly just because I did not have a filter.

  I glared at Adam.

  "Of course she can use the bathroom." I pointed towards the door and Nadine danced off with a big smile on her ruby red lips. I looked back at Adam. "You need to be nice, us girls have bladders the size of acorns don't you know."

  He threw his head back and laughed at me.

  ****

  We got to the club at six thirty just as the first band was setting up on stage. We procured a table towards the front and ordered drinks. Nothing alcoholic, just a few sodas, the waitress was paying more attention to Wesley than to any of us and I was instantly annoyed.

  He didn’t seem to notice though, which I find shocking. The waitress was drop dead gorgeous but yet his eyes never left my face as he made his drink order.

  The band hit the stage at seven; their scream-o style was rough but sounded alright. That is if you enjoy music that is depressing and makes you want to cut your wrists.

  It got hot quickly, with all the bodies in the club pressed close to the stage the temperature increased considerably in a short time. I had to get some air, it was stifling in there and my choice of attire. I was dressed perfect for the weather outside though it was a bit much in the club.

  "I'm going to step out and get some air." I said leaning over and pressing my lips to Wesley's ear. He looked at me a second and his face changed to one of concern.

  "You want me to go with you?" He mouthed at me.

  I shook my head no and got up from the table making my way towards the front door. The bouncer gave me a smile as I showed him the backs of my hands and the two black X's, depicting that I was a minor. He nodded and let me go out the door.

  The wind hit me hard, but it felt wonderful. I stood outside for a moment sucking in the cold air watching people enter the club. After about ten minutes I figured I was cool enough to go back to my table.

  So I turned to go. A shiver suddenly ran up my spine and I shot back around. I could smell sulfur in the air which seemed a little odd. I saw nothing though, shrugged and began walking towards the door again. That's when the hand clasped around my mouth and the other around my waist.

  "Hey there Princess, we need to talk." The voice was male extremely evil and cold. Before I could pull the fire to my hands the world went dark.

  ****

  I came to in an alleyway behind the club my hands were bound above my head, tied securely to something sturdy. My skirt had been torn at the thighs and there was dried blood on my knees. I tried to focus on the alley but I couldn't make out much, other than it was dark and the closest light was a good hundred yards away. It was cold and I could feel the gooseflesh forming over my exposed flesh.

  I could hear the music inside the club pumping, the fans screaming and singing along. I struggled but couldn't get my hands loose. I willed the fire to burn but nothing came. I tried for the icy prickle and got the same answer. My own powers were defying me, I was stuck. Fear enveloped me, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  I saw movement to my right in the shadows and I snapped my head in the direction of the silhouette. Suddenly I heard an evil laugh, and a boy appeared, short spikey black hair and eyes as black as night. He was pale, over six feet, around 170 his appearance did not frighten me but the evil in his eyes sent me in a panic. This was the boy I had seen in the park with Wesley the night of our first date.

  I had also seen that look before in the eyes of my father the day he had told me his little secret. I remember the fear that radiated through me then and it was intensified now. I struggled again, willed my power as hard as I could but the fear in me kept the tingle from forming. He bent down over me and smiled cruelly his eyes locked on mine.

  “So my beautiful Princess, you are a hard one to find.” His lips curled in a vicious smile. “I have been searching for eighteen years for you, not sure how you eluded me for so long. What shocks me even more is that we met before. Remember when I told you that you would see me again?”

  He ripped the fabric at my throat and I screamed. He flinched, but it didn’t stop him from slowly tearing the seam down the front of my dress.

  "So you are the little progeny of Damien Weathers?" The top of my dress was now split down to the top of my bra. I looked at him through tears.

  How did he know my father?

  "You see." He hiked my skirt up to my hips grabbing my right leg. "Your Daddy took my life, over a stupid girl. And the funny thing is he actually thought that Hell could hold me." He snickered as if he had told the greatest joke ever.

  "What?" I managed to get out my voice cracking.

  "I'm going to send a little message to your father. Funny enough the same message will be sent to your boyfriend." He said softly before his fist collided with my face.

  The pain that radiated through made my body putty for a moment. I started fighting, screaming, kicking my feet, trying to yank my hands from the binding. I could feel my wrists ripping blood running down my arm. His fist came down hard several more times before I heard a click and felt the barrel of a gun under my chin.

  "You can fight me all day and I will not tire, you can scream all night and nobody will hear. However if you don't shut the fuck up right now I will put a bullet to your head." He was angry.

  My dress was in tatters, my hair matted to my head my face stung and I could feel the blood pouring from my nose and mouth. I willed the power to come one more time. When I got nothing I willed for death to take me instead.

  I prayed for my mother and cursed my father. This Hell I was living was not supposed to part of any path laid out before me. This fear was not something that I was accustomed to feeling and what happened next would give me nightmares for the rest of my life.

  It was the most painful experience I had ever encountered. I closed my eyes, and I cried. The gun cocked at my throat did not budge. For an hour I was locked in horror, fear and agony filled my body. The final string of my innocence ripped from my body.

  The tears kept streaming down my face and all I could wish for was for my life to just end. Why had God not just taken me when he had the chance? Was this some sick joke that he was playing on me allowing this being to do as he wished to me?

  Was this punishment for taking away Wesley’s innocence?

  "Tell your father he has such a pretty little princess." He whispered in my ear. He pulled the gun away from my face, and his fist collided with my jaw again then with my ribs. However the final blow to the head is what did me in and I went out cold.

  ****

  “Dawn!” The voice was frantic. “Dawn, oh my God.” The voice was pulling me back to consciousness.

  I heard a set of footsteps running towards me. I felt my arms go limp as they were freed from their bindings. I slowly opened my eyes and saw Adam untying the ropes from my bloody wrists.

  “Adam.” I choked my body hurt so bad it stung to breathe.

  “Don’t speak, you are pretty battered,” He looked down at my legs and I saw tears in his eyes as he picked me up.

  I winced in pain as my body folded to his. I heard a short scream and felt another set of hands on my waist. They were throwing a jacket over my chest.

  “Nadine get Wesley, we need to get her to the hospital.” He demanded. I could hear her running off.

  Adam carried me to the car and laid me down in the back seat, he adjusted the jacket to cover my exposed body.

  “What the Hell is going on Adam?” I heard Wesley’s voice frantic. He hadn’t seen me yet.

  “Your girlfriend goes missing for almost the whole show and you didn’t stop to think once that something had happened to her? You just stand there and talk to that girl the whole time she is missing!” Adam was pissed.

 
; Nadine had opened the other door and was adjusting my head to lay on her lap as she looked at me tears streaming down her face.

  What other girl was he talking about?

  “She said she was going out to get some air. I asked if she wanted me to go with her.” Adam was blocking me so Wesley couldn’t see.

  “Yeah well take a look at what that fresh air did to her!” He screamed at Wesley moving out of the way, our eyes met and he crumbled. “Now get in the damn car we have to get her to the ER.” Adam adjusted my legs and shut the door before he stormed around the back end of the vehicle and got in the driver’s seat.

  Wesley hesitated for a moment just staring at me before he got in the passenger seat and we were off.

  I don’t remember much of the trip to the hospital I spent most of it in and out of consciousness. My body hurt from the top of my head to the tips of my toes and a sick queasy feeling was buried in the pit of my stomach. I felt like I was on fire, and honestly I wouldn’t be shocked if I was. My powers had failed me, when I needed them most, they just fizzled out.

  “What were you thinking?” Adam was demanding.

  “I was thinking she had gone out for some air.” Wesley said quietly.

  “For two hours?” Adam sound beyond pissed.

  “I didn’t realize it had been that long.”

  “You didn’t what? Good lord Wesley the band changed twice in that time period. That should have been a huge indicator of the amount of time she was missing.” Adam growled.

  I heard the angry mumbling in the front seats but all I could do was stare up at Nadine and into those perfect green eyes and let her rock me to blissful sleep.

  ****

  "Eighteen year old female. Name is Dawn Cordelia Weathers. Brought into ER by friends after finding her near dead in an alley way. Possible sexual assault." Why was I hearing all of this? It didn't seem like I was moving.

  I was floating, and these voices kept passing on information between one another. I was lifted and dropped onto a softer mattress. I felt hands on me but none of them were familiar. Blasts of images kept hitting my mind.

  Deep breath Dawn. It will all be over soon.

  BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

  “Her heart rate is stable.” There was a flash of violet eyes followed by darkness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Holiday

  I was in a tunnel, it was dark at both ends and I had no clue which direction I was supposed to go. I could hear Wesley calling for me from one end but the acoustics were messing with me so bad I wasn’t sure what end he was calling to me from.

  Then he appeared, the dark demon from the alley, looking just as sinister as he had before. He glared down at me hatefully and then smiled this toothy grin before pushing me against the walls of the tunnel his hand secured over my mouth.

  “I will always come for you Princess," he said bitterly. “I will be the one you give your soul too.”

  I relived that horrible moment over and over again until a white light appeared and pulled me from Hell itself.

  ****

  “Dawn,” my mother’s voice was sweet as I opened my eyes.

  I had been crying, obviously, by the look on her face. I was in the hospital now. My wrists were bound and soar, my ribs wrapped and aching, IV’s were pouring into my body and all I felt was complete pain. I looked around; it was only my mother in the room.

  “Oh, goodness honey.” She was crying as well, her hands twined with mine and she just bawled.

  “Where’s Wesley?” I asked softly.

  “I sent him home, he wouldn’t come in. I think Adam was about to kill him anyway. You’ve been out for a few days.” My mother looked sad as she touched my face. “Who did this to you?” she whispered as if someone would hear us. I looked at her and closed my eyes.

  “I’m sure you have your ways of finding out,” I said softly just as I felt her hand on the top of my head.

  I relived what I could remember, every last dirty detail. Her hand was shaking I knew she wanted to pull away. I could hear her sobbing. When the memory was over I opened my eyes and my mother’s hands clasped my face.

  “He needs to know. He needs to know that monster found a way to escape Hell.” I knew she meant my father. I looked at her and nodded.

  I knew this was one thing that I had to tell him, no matter how much I didn’t want to. It was time to make the dreaded phone call.

  “Not here, after you talk to the police, when I get you home.” I nodded again, and she smiled sadly down at me. “I love you Dawny.”

  My talk with the police was way too long. They had so many questions that I had to answer. Physical description, what clothes he was wearing, what he had said to me, was I sure it was a gun he had at my throat?

  I answered everything as honestly as I could. I couldn’t just come out and tell them that he had escaped from Hell, and that he had come after me to send a horrible message to my father and my boyfriend.

  When they left I was allowed to rest again. My mother didn’t leave my side as the doctors did their tests and took their samples, stating that they would send all of it off to a lab to be looked over.

  Once everything was said and done my mother convinced the doctor to let me go home. It had been well over twenty four hours. Even though my nose was broken, I had two broken ribs, and bruises the size of baseballs all over my body they had bent to my mother. I had a feeling she used some of her Heavenly influence to get me out of there.

  ****

  Wesley was sitting in his car outside when my mother pulled into the drive. She helped me into bed and he sat beside me just staring at me like he didn’t know me. He looked guilty and smell slightly of whiskey, his eyes bloodshot, and his expression sad. He looked like he had taken an emotional beating after everything that had happened.

  “This is all my fault.” He said softly, fighting the urge to touch me.

  “No, it’s not. It’s mine. I shouldn’t have gone outside in the dark by myself.” I tried to smile but my lips just wouldn’t curve.

  I didn’t blame him for what happened. He was at no fault for my being attacked outside the club that night. I did have to make a choice though. Do I tell him that it was the dark haired boy from the park? Do I also tell him that this message was for him?

  “I’m not going to ask what happened. I’m sure you have relived it enough today as it is.” I winced as pain shot through my body.

  “Thank you.” I whimpered squeezing my eyes shut to stop the tears from falling.

  “Wesley?” My mother called from the other room. “Can you come here?” He gave me one last look and got up to leave the room.

  I heard a muffled conversation in the kitchen but I didn’t care what they were talking about all I wanted to do was sleep. After a few minutes Wesley came back into my room and sat back down on the bed again.

  “Your mom is going to run into town and get you some things to make you more comfortable. She asked if I would stay and keep you company while she’s gone.”

  I patted the bed next to me indicating that I wanted him to lie down. He hesitated then lay down on his side propping his head on his hand and softly touching my face.

  “Ok.” I whispered feeling my eyes get heavy.

  The medication the doctor had given me before leaving the hospital was already lulling me to sleep. I took one last look at my other half. “I love you.” I choked.

  “I love you too.” I felt something cold and wet hit my cheek as his lips touched my forehead.

  When I woke up Wesley was not in the bed with me anymore, I struggled into a sitting position and looked around my dark room he was nowhere in sight.

  The house was quiet. I reached for my phone and winced as pain spread through my rib cage. My index finger sparked, and I cursed, of course now everything seemed to be functioning normally.

  It was 3am, I grumbled as my bladder protested. I got up and penguin
walked into the bathroom, moving slowly as each step sent sharp pains through my body. Nobody was in the house I could sense it. I suddenly felt fear send prickles up my spin. I sniffed the air but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  It hurt even worse to use the bathroom, I felt like my insides were going to come out. Never had a cried over relieving my objecting bladder.

  “Dawn?” I jumped at my mother’s voice.

  “Yeah.” My voice cracked, my heart was pounding, and I had somehow caught the toilet paper on fire.

  I put out the flames and pulled myself up and shuffled out of the bathroom and into my mother’s warm hug.

  “I talked to your father.” She said putting her cheek to my forehead. “I told him I could take care of it.” She whispered softly. “I got permission if I need to do it.” She sighed. “Where’s Wesley? I asked him to stay with you.”

  “I don’t know I woke up, and he was gone. I assumed that you had come home, and he left.” I said softly willing the pain to cease.

  “His car isn’t here.” She said pulling away from me. “I’m sure he’s fine, he has to deal with what happened in his own way.” She looked at my face and helped me back to my room.

  I laid down as she put the covers over me. “I will stay with you tonight.” She promised taking my hand in hers.

  She started to sing a sad song in Italian, one she used to sing when I was a child. I always loved my mother’s voice; it had a healing power making everything seem as if it would be alright. I closed my eyes and in an instant was back asleep.

  ****

  I don’t know what time she fell asleep, but she had perched herself next to me her head resting against the wall her chest rising and falling as she breathed. It was light outside now. I had managed the last few hours of sleep to be dreamless so I felt a bit more rested after the constant nightmares in the hospital. My mother moved and ran her fingers through my hair.

  “Merry Christmas, my Dawny.” She said softly.

  I smiled at her and welcomed the soft warm hug she gave me before sliding out of bed. I reached over and painfully grabbed my phone I had a missed message from Wesley’s dad.