“You take this camp counselor thing seriously, don’t you?” This whole situation was so ridiculous that I couldn’t help trying to make a joke of it.
“You bet.” She flashed me a smile and hurried over to her table on the other side of the room.
Marco had his eye on us the entire time, and he continued to watch me once Suzanne walked away. If I tried to make a run for it, he’d be on me in a second. Plus, where would I go? Any door that led out of here was locked.
I also couldn’t ignore the gnawing hunger in my stomach. It had been forever since I’d last eaten, and I was starting to feel light-headed because of it. That always happened to me when I hadn’t eaten in a few hours. My mom used to joke that I was impossible to be around when I was hangry. I never refuted it, since I knew she was right.
“You might as well sit down,” one of my tablemates—a girl who looked a few years younger than me—said. Her hair was dyed black, although she had blonde roots growing out at the top. “Better to do it yourself than have one of the demons force you.”
I didn’t disagree with her, so I pulled out the chair and took a seat. Marco’s stance relaxed slightly when I did. He still watched me, but he was one of those people who managed to watch everyone in the room while still making you feel like he was only looking at you.
I turned away from him and focused on my tablemates instead. “I’m Raven.” I looked at the teen girl when I introduced myself, since she’d said something to me first.
“Jessica,” she said, and the others quickly followed suit in telling me their names. Craig, Valerie, Harry, and Pam.
I repeated their names in my mind a few times so I wouldn’t forget.
If I was going to arm myself with information, I needed to befriend as many people as possible so I could learn that information. This seemed like a good place to start.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, flashing them my best we’re just out to eat and not imprisoned by demons smile.
Luckily, they were quick to open up to me. Other than myself, Pam had been here the shortest—only for two weeks. Harry was the oldest of us all, and he’d been here for nearly three months.
I couldn’t imagine being down here that long. How was he not going stir-crazy?
“If only my wife could see me now.” He patted his stomach and chuckled. “She always wanted me to get rid of my beer belly. Three months of exercise and this tasteless food has certainly done that for me.”
He had a slight beer belly, but nothing so extreme that I would have noticed if he hadn’t said anything.
“They let you exercise?” I asked.
“More like make.” Jessica rolled her eyes, waving her fork around in the air as she spoke. “I always hated gym at school. If only my classmates could see me now. Now I could be a track star.”
“You almost make it sound like the demons care about our health,” I said as I cut into the chicken. I took a bite, and discovered it tasted as bland as it looked.
I supposed it would have been too much to ask the demons to bring some salt and pepper to the table.
“They do,” Pam said. “That’s the only way to get to the next location. Get fit and healthy enough, and they’ll send you on your way.”
“From the looks of you, you’re practically there already,” Craig said. “It shouldn’t take you long to strengthen up and move on.”
I wrapped an arm around my stomach. Something about this felt wrong. But I needed to keep asking questions. It was the only way to learn more.
“Do any of you know where the next location is?” I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask, even though Suzanne had told me not to.
“Nope,” Valerie said. “But it’s better than here.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because that’s what they tell us.” She looked nervously off to the side, where one of the demons stood guard.
The demons were totally listening to our conversation. But they must not have cared, because they did nothing to silence us.
Which meant this was what they wanted us to think.
Which instantly made me suspect it wasn’t true.
“You believe them?” I lowered my voice, even though the demons could still listen in with their supernatural hearing.
“I want to get out of here.” She scooped a pile of rice onto her fork, her eyes hard. “If getting fit and becoming a member of the clean plate club is the way to do it, then that’s what I’ll do.” She shoved all the rice into her mouth, as if to accentuate her point.
“They really make you eat everything on your plate?” I cut up some of the chicken and mixed it in with the rice, hoping that would make it taste better. It did, but only slightly.
“Yep,” Jessica said. “We’re not allowed to leave the dining hall until everyone’s plate is clean. Bunker rules.”
“Bunker rules?” I raised an eyebrow. “Or demon rules?”
“Doctor rules, technically.” Pam glanced over at a middle-aged, bald man sitting at a table by himself. He was hunched over as he ate, completely focused on his food. It was like he was pretending the rest of us didn’t exist. “That’s him,” she said. “You’ll meet him tomorrow for your first examination. He calculates what size portions we all get, and we have to eat every bite of it at every meal. No exceptions.”
“What if someone has an allergy?” I asked. “Or if they’re vegan?”
Of course, I was thinking about my mom when I asked that last question. She wouldn’t eat an animal product even if someone tried to shove it down her throat.
“Allergies are worked around,” Harry said. “Not vegans.” He paused and smiled, like he was remembering something. “It’s funny you asked, because we used to have a vegan here. She made a big fuss about the meat at dinner the first night. But by the end of the meal she’d eaten every last bite of her chicken, just like the rest of us. It was for the best, if you ask me. Humans are supposed to eat meat. We don’t have these sharp teeth for nothing.” He opened his mouth and pointed at his incisors, as if I was unaware of what human teeth looked like.
“You would hate my mom,” I said as I picked around at my food. A few bites of this bland meal had been enough to curb my hunger. It was going to take a lot of will power to force myself to finish it all. “She hasn’t had a bite of animal product since she was twelve.”
“Just like Skylar.” Valerie shook her head in clear disapproval. “But that changed once she got here. There’s nothing like threats from a demon to get you to do something you never imagined you’d do.”
“What?” I dropped my fork and stared at Valerie, cold shock running through my body.
“The demons get to everyone.” She skittishly glanced around at the ones in the room. “They out number us, out power us—”
“I know that,” I cut her off. “But the vegan who was here. Skylar.” I could barely say her name without a lump forming in my throat.
“What about her?” Valerie picked up what was left of her chicken and gnawed at the bone. She looked more interested in it than in talking to me.
“You knew her?” It took all my control to stop myself from knocking that bone out of Valerie’s hands so she’d pay attention to me.
“She’s moved onto the next location.” She shrugged, putting down the bone and starting on her veggies. “What’s it to you?”
“It’s everything to me,” I said. “Because Skylar Danvers is my mother.”
9
Raven
Valerie finally looked up at me, her eyes wide. “How did I not see it immediately?” she said, mystified. “The hair, the eyes, the nose. You’re a splitting image of her.”
My heart beat with excitement, and my stomach dropped with dread.
This was huge. It was a lead about where Azazel had brought my mom after taking her from our apartment.
But it also meant that my mom had been here, in this depressing prison bunker. And if she’d been taken to the next location…
I hop
ed my instinct was wrong, and that the next location wasn’t worse than this place.
If people were brought to the next location once they were deemed fit and healthy enough, I wasn’t surprised my mom had already been taken there. Along with being vegan, she was also a fitness nut.
A strong body creates a strong mind and soul, she’d always said.
I’d never listened, which I’d regretted once I’d started training with Noah and Sage. Their training sessions beat me into a red, huffing, sweaty mess.
“Did you know her?” I asked Valerie.
“I did.” She nodded. “We all did. She had the same number as you. Thirty-three. She had every meal with us while she was here.”
“Not that she was here for long,” Harry added. “She was moved to the next location a few days ago.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, frozen in place. I’d missed my mom by a few days. I couldn’t believe my bad luck.
Maybe I should have been comforted by the fact that my mom had recently been in the same place I was sitting now. But I felt more alone than ever.
It felt like the universe, the gods, the angels, or whatever was out there was stacked against me. How was I supposed to come out victorious with so many odds not in my favor?
I had no idea. All I knew was that my mom was in the next location.
Which meant I needed to get there.
But if the next location was anything like this—or if it was worse—what chance did my mom and I have of getting out? I wanted to save her, not get trapped with her.
To do that, I needed a plan.
I wasn’t sure what plan that was yet. But I’d figure it out. I just needed to keep doing my research. Keep trying to figure out where the next location was, and learn as much as I could about the others trapped in this bunker with me.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep me from going crazy. Hopefully.
“Your mom was great,” Jessica said softly. “She said her gift was reading the tarot. She didn’t have any tarot cards here, but she did palm readings for all of us for fun.”
“Were her readings accurate?” I asked, leaning forward slightly. I loved hearing about my mom. It made me feel close to her, even though she wasn’t here with me now.
“They were positive and hopeful.” Jessica shrugged. “But she wasn’t telling us what she really saw.”
“How do you know?”
“I can tell when people are lying,” she said simply, finishing off the final piece of asparagus from her plate. “It’s my gift.”
I nodded, making a mental note to never lie to Jessica. Not like I was the type of person to go around lying to people. But still. It was good to know.
“You all know what your gifts are?” I asked, looking around at the four others at the table.
They did, and they went around the circle answering my question.
Harry had perfect aim with weapons. He was a champion gun shooter, apparently one of the best in the country.
Pam wasn’t sure what hers was, but she thought it was a natural sense of time. She didn’t need a watch. She just instinctively always knew what time it was.
Craig could drink all the alcohol he wanted without getting drunk. This had deemed him the title of “beer pong king” in his fraternity. Pills had no effect on him, either. I asked if witch potion affected him, but he’d never tried it, so he didn’t know.
Valerie could sense ghosts. Hers creeped me out the most. It was no wonder she had a sour look on her face all the time. I would, if I were constantly aware of ghosts, too.
As they each told me their gifts, I mentally cataloged which ones might be useful in getting out of here.
“Jessica.” I looked back at her, since hers interested me the most. “Have you been able to tell if the demons are lying about the next location?”
She glanced around nervously, and then focused back on me. “They’re not lying about its existence,” she said, tapping her fingers against the top of the table. “The next location is definitely somewhere they bring us after we’re given clearance by the doctor.”
“Is it a good place or a bad place?” I asked.
“They won’t say.” She shrugged. “They knew about my gift when they brought me here, so they’ve been very careful about what they say around me.”
I couldn’t help but suspect that this was a bad sign. If the next location was better than this, surely they’d say it to Jessica so she could verify they were telling the truth.
Now I feared for my mom’s safety more than ever.
But I had to keep reminding myself about what Rosella had said when Noah and I had spoken with her on the Pier. I could save my mom by going to Avalon and completing the Angel Trials.
Since I wasn’t at Avalon yet, that meant my mom was alive. And worrying about her wasn’t doing me any good right now. I needed to stay focused. I was already learning a lot about the others in this bunker with me. I needed to keep doing what I was doing.
“What about you?” I asked, turning to Harry. “Has your gift been… useful here?” I didn’t want to speak too loudly, knowing the demons were listening.
Sure enough, when I glanced at Marco, his eyes were trained at our table.
“Nope.” Harry speared a vegetable with his fork. “I’ll tell you more later.”
Code that he didn’t want to talk about it when the demons were hovering over us.
I nodded in understanding and moved onto Valerie. Her gift with ghosts freaked me out, but there were certainly ways it might be useful.
Her haunted eyes focused on her nearly empty plate. At least now I understood why she looked so haunted.
“How does your gift work?” I asked softly. Given how traumatized she looked, I didn’t want to intrude. But at the same time, I did, since intruding could help get us out of here. “Can you actually talk to ghosts?”
“No.” Her eyes were wide and sharp as she looked at me. Freaky. “I can sense them. Whenever there’s one near, chills run through my body. Like this.” She held up her arm, and sure enough, goosebumps ran across her flesh.
“A ghost is here now?” I set my fork down and looked around. I’d never believed in ghosts, but now that Valerie was claiming they were real…
It was seriously creepy. I had an instinctual disdain toward things I couldn’t see or hear, and I was not thrilled with the possibility that ghosts could be anywhere at anytime.
“Two of them,” she said. “They stay in this bunker with us. Like all ghosts, they’re angry. It’s why they haven’t passed on to the Beyond.”
“How do you know this if you can’t talk to them?” I asked.
“I can sense their feelings,” she said. “I hate it. When I got here, I asked if the demons or the doctor knew how to get rid of our gifts. They don’t. I’ll be stuck sensing angry ghosts until the day I die.”
I didn’t know what to say—sorry hardly seemed like enough. “I can’t imagine what that must be like,” I eventually said, even though it wasn’t totally the truth. Because I could imagine what it would be like. It would be awful. And I was glad I’d never know.
Jessica gave me a knowing look. She knew I was lying.
“What’s your gift?” Pam—the one who could sense time—asked me. Her accent made it obvious she was from the Deep South. “We told you ours. It’s only fair you tell us yours.”
“I don’t know.” I lowered my eyes, using my fork to play with the food remaining on my plate.
“You can’t not know,” Valerie said. “We’re different from regular people. We’ve known it our whole lives. All of us.”
“I’m literally the world’s biggest skeptic,” I told her. “I didn’t even believe my mom could truly read tarot until I was thrown into the supernatural world earlier this month. I thought it was a hoax. Now the demons say I’m gifted but…” I trailed, shrugging in defeat. “I have no idea what my gift might be.”
The four others at the table all looked to Jessica. Clearly, they were chec
king to see if they should believe me or not.
“She’s telling the truth,” Jessica confirmed.
I gave her a grateful smile. I had a feeling her gift would come in handy.
“Does everyone here know what their gift is?” I asked, looking around the cafeteria. There were seven tables of six, so forty-two of us in all.
“Most of them have known forever,” Harry said, and I looked back at him, focusing on forcing down the bland boiled chicken as he spoke. “Not me. I mean, I always knew I had a talent with guns—with any item I could throw, really. But I figured it was a natural skill. Something I was good at and worked hard to perfect. I never thought there was anything supernatural involved. Finding out kinda took my pride away about what I can do, to be honest.”
“No one should ever be too proud,” Pam said. “But it’s still something you can do, gifted to you by God himself. There’s no need to be ashamed about that.”
“I guess.” He shrugged. “But once I get out of here, I don’t imagine competing will be much fun anymore. Knowing my aim is some kind of supernatural ‘gift’ doesn’t make it seem fair.”
“Be grateful you have something useful.” Valerie pursed her lips, staring him down. “And that you’re not stuck sensing angry ghosts. Trust me when I say it isn’t pleasant.”
That shut him up, since it was a good point. We were all silent for a few seconds afterward.
“Now, about your gift,” Pam broke the silence. She clasped her hands in front of her empty plate—she was one fast eater—and focused on me. “I bet you know deep down what it is, even if you don’t think you do yet.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I honestly have no idea what it is.”
“Well, do you mind if we ask you some questions?” she asked, all southern sweetness. If she were from LA, I would have thought she was being fake. But she seemed too genuine to even think about being fake. “I bet we’ll be able to figure out by lights out tonight. Well, this morning. Ten AM, to be exact. They keep us on a nocturnal schedule down here.”
The Angel Trials- The Complete Series Page 50
