He met me expertly as I passed between the Yukon and the blue truck next to it. He had me by the shoulders and twisted me around as if I were a rag doll, easily getting me into a headlock. My purse and cell phone went flying. The sound of them hitting the pavement stuck in my memory.
I began to realize that I was acting rather foolishly, charging a man with a gun. He was obviously not worried about being seen, and not worried about ninety-eight pounds of me, kick-boxing lessons and all, taking him down.
His arm was an iron band around my neck. I took hold of it and dead-weighted, throwing him off balance for a split second. I pulled his arm forward as hard as I could. I didn’t think it would work, but shockingly, he flew over my shoulder and slammed into the blue truck, upside down, and hit the ground hard.
I stood there like an idiot. He was instantly on his feet and back at me. He charged me, shoving me against the Yukon with so much force that it knocked the wind out of me. He spun me, getting behind me again, taking me down, his knee in my back and his arm around my neck. The noose was tightening, my windpipe was cut off, and blood rushed to my head. He had me in the very sleeper hold that my dad had tried to teach me a few years back. If done correctly, I would be unconscious in less than four seconds.
CHAPTER VI
I KNOW WHAT YOU are.
The words reverberated through unconscious randomness inside of me. I had heard stories of comatose people having dreams, sometimes hearing what their loved ones were saying but being unable to respond. That, to me, was hell assuredly: to be trapped and screaming, “Hey, I’m alive. Don’t give up on me.”
“I know what you are,” came the words again, voiced vaguely, the tone probably resembling my dad, but mixed with every memory I ever had, and somehow, not Dad at all. Was someone speaking them? And if so, who?
There was a fight, a gun. But those things were wrapped in cotton, insulated against the touch of my awareness, shifty. Every time I tried to come to rest on something concrete, it would vanish in smoke. Everything I had known to be real was a distant, abstract world, and I was not a part of it anymore. I feared at any moment I would wake up, caged again in the dark, in a broken world, kept by my demonic jailer—and that was a nightmare I did not want to be having, not again. Certainly not for real.
My dreams turned hazy and soft. Michael was sitting in his truck and I was sliding close to him, looking out over the city lights from Table Rock, high up in the foothills, where other young lovers were parked in darkened cars. We sat in silence because there was nothing to say. The city lights twinkled below, becoming his beautiful blue eyes into which I poured myself like water. If perfection could be defined, this was it.
“I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE, AIREL.”
I gasped. I was aware of cold metal straps around my wrists. The voice boomed off the empty canyon walls of my mind one last time, dissipating into nothingness. I realized that my eyes were open, trying to focus, to register what I was seeing.
I knew that the metal straps were real; I felt them against the skin of my wrists, cold and harsh. I was seated in a reclined position, strapped down to a hard chair, and when I tried to move my feet, I realized they were bound.
I started to panic; I was defenseless. My eyes were swimming and reaching for the wall. I wanted desperately to know where I was, but knew I would regret knowing.
Inches from my face, I felt something warm, something that tasted sweet. I turned toward it, begging my eyes to focus. Slowly, taking shape in front of me in the dark, were the important details. A car. I was inside a car. I could see the shape of the open door to my right and the yellow light of a street lamp filtering in. I heard breathing to my left and knew it was Michael. It sounded just like him, like the way he spoke, the tone of his voice.
My eyes went wide, filled with the horror of blankness, grasping desperately for sight. I knew I was in the black Yukon, strapped to some chair for crazies that kept them from hurting themselves. That left one possibility. The man with the gun was standing over me, probably gloating over his fresh catch. But that wasn’t even half of it.
My eyes began to focus on two dark orbs set into the shape of a face. They were black, the surrounding skin fair, pale, stony. Crowning his head, I saw blond hair and heard him whisper to me, “I know what you are, Airel.”
I gasped, deeply and jaggedly, like my first time through a haunted house when I was eight—completely terrified.
The killer. The theater. The stalker. The note in the mailbox. My weird dreams. I struggled frantically against the restraints, my breath ragged, throat dry, pulling myself away from him as much as I could, completely crazed.
“If you keep quiet, I will not gag you. It is your decision.” His voice was firm and could have commanded tens of thousands. Impossibly, it calmed me, if only a little bit. “If you insist on defying me, I will gag you as well as drug you. Do you understand?” In his voice was thick and pliable kindness that did not make any sense to me.
My response to his commanding voice surprised me. “I’ll be quiet, but if you touch me I will kill you—do you understand that?” I couldn’t believe my own words as they came from my lips. He didn’t look shocked or even amused at my threat. In fact, he looked like he believed me, even though it was preposterous.
“Trust me.” He said it simply, and within his words was the implicit understanding that he was as good as his word. Even more than that, I understood that he thought he had a reason for doing what he was doing and that he really did believe I would try to kill him.
He turned and closed the door with a final thump. He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, which was unbelievably quiet.
I looked at the blacked-out windows, seeing only my reflection. I turned to look out the front window, but the killer pressed a switch and a partition slid upward, separating us from him. I was surrounded by darkness, by the soft sounds Michael made as he dreamed. It was then that I resigned myself to the obvious: I had to go along for the ride. The safety I felt before vanished like a vapor in a high wind. I wondered why I had awakened so fast when Michael was obviously out cold. I must have pulled the dart out pretty quickly.
We drove for a long time, a few hours, which gave me plenty of time to worry about my parents, my best friend Kim, my life, my dreams, prom, homecoming, my trusty little Civic, the paper that was due next week. Most of it was becoming completely worthless except my family and Kim. I alternated between tears of desperation and unbridled anger as my host, my stalker, drove tirelessly on.
I could feel the road winding, rising and falling, and I figured we were north of town in the mountains. Eventually I could tell we turned onto a dirt road. After a brief section of very bumpy terrain and steep inclines, we came to a stop. The Yukon still felt like it was moving, and my head was swimming. The silence was deafening.
I had tried a few times to wriggle free, but found that it was pointless. He was a professional, judging by everything I had seen so far. I figured, even if I were able to free myself, it was pointless to make a break for it. What would I do, fight off a professional hit man, carry Michael on my back, and go—where? Up a creek? That’s about the size of it.
The driver’s side door opened—Michael’s side. There, bathed in moonlight, the killer looked at me, expressionless. He began to free Michael from the restraints, checking his pulse. “He will be fine. Just a headache in the morning, that is all.”
I was taken aback by his gentleness. Why would he care if the two people he had kidnapped had a headache in the morning? Was this guy nuts? Was he just one of those creeps who thought he loved his victims, a tear running down his face as he killed them?
He slung Michael over his shoulder as if he weighed no more than a sack of feathers and then turned and walked away. He was gone for quite a while. I took the time to look through the open door, out into thick woods.
Trees and ferns filled the landscape in shades of moonlit gray, the chilly mountain air refreshing and reviving me. I allowed myself
to relax, taking it all in, trying not to think of werewolves or anything else otherworldly. I tried not to be anxious about the open door and the fact that I was strapped defenselessly to a chair. I tried not to think about what predators might be stalking the deep woods after midnight and how I might smell to them.
Without any warning, my door opened. I jumped in my restraints, jerking ungracefully. The blond man, unknown to me but awkwardly familiar because of all the times I had seen him, unhooked my restraints. I was free. I looked at him dumbly. He backed away, allowing me to climb down out of the SUV by myself.
He looked at me with curiosity and then turned, expecting me to follow him. I did, not because I wanted to, but because as I looked around, I saw there was nowhere to run. No lights from nearby cabins or anything else that might offer a glimmer of hope, so I followed my captor.
We came to a space in the forest. Not really a clearing, just a small space in the undergrowth, barely noticeable and carpeted in pine needles. In the center of it, as if discarded by some inconsiderate squatter, lay a wooden door with an old brass knob. It was out of place, but its rot and its peeling paint blended it with the colors and textures of the forest floor.
My captor stopped by the door, turned to face me, and squatted down, his hand resting on the doorknob. With a light snick, the doorknob released from the catch and opened upward on silent hinges, standing wide open. Below, as if leading down into a storm cellar, were stone steps lit from within. I could not see the end. The forest around us appeared surreal, lit by this spray of light in ghastly exaggerations of color and shadow.
He moved aside, gesturing for me to go first. I knew I was going to die if I walked through that door. There was no debate about it in my mind. She was remarkably silent, probably having abandoned me, I could only assume.
The man with black eyes and blond hair was going to kill me down there, and my body would never be found.
CHAPTER VII
I DESCENDED THE STEPS carefully, leading the killer on. What is this place, somebody’s grave? I thought sometimes that he had left me, he was so quiet. Even the sound of my footsteps made at least a small noise, but his didn’t make any.
The light ahead swelled and brightened as we neared it. I saw that it was an honest-to-God torch, flame and all. It hung in a bracket in the wall by a doorway, and was covered with an intricate web of engravings twisting up the handle. I paused at the door and looked back at him. He didn’t offer me any clues as to what I should do.
I felt the need to reach out and open the door. I didn’t have much choice anyway—cold-blooded killer behind me, strange door before me. I guess I’ll be taking the door.
It hit me that I didn’t feel afraid in that moment. I couldn’t explain it, but he didn’t scare me as much as he should have. It was as if he liked me, but in a weird “uncle” sort of way. The door swung in smoothly, and beyond … it was not what I expected to see. All I could think about was Michael; where was he? Was he hurt?
“Where is Michael?” My voice sounded much louder than I intended.
“Safe.”
“Where is he?” I said even more forcefully.
He did not respond—only moved forward into a large, circular room with smooth, gleaming stone floors. It was much larger than a football field. And far from looking like some subterranean lair, it was clean and airy. I couldn’t tell how the space was lit, but I could tell it wasn’t the same kind of light you’d get from electric bulbs. The ceiling was domed, supported by a few well-placed columns of marble. It was like the state Capitol or something.
I guess he’s not going to tell me anything.
At one end was a wall of windows standing well over thirty-feet tall, through which shone the ethereal moon. The windows were framed by spidery-thin metal and strange-looking glass, reminding me of a massive old church. I didn’t think there was a straight line in any of it—it was all curves and complex symmetry.
The killer followed me in as I stared in shock. I turned to look back up the dark tunnel. How in the world does this place even exist?
I felt like I should thank him and hand him my coat, as if I were a guest. But he had hurt Michael; he had snatched both of us and brought us here against our will. The thought of my parents looking for me, by now having the police involved, made my blood boil. I wanted to smack him right across the face and rattle his black eyes right out of his skull. “Do you know what they will do to you when they catch you? I will testify against you. I’ll even make up lies if it will put you away for the rest of your life.” But as my words echoed back to me, I could feel my own desperation and how pathetic it was. I was at his mercy. I could tell that She was not one-hundred percent on my side, either.
He smiled with his eyes at my tirade, hiding the slightest grin on his face. “I hate to sound arrogant or vain, but I will never be caught—it is not possible.” With a gentle turn of finality, he ambled over to the wall of windows, his hands behind his back, stopping there to gaze through them. I followed him meekly, lost and exasperated.
I gasped when I saw what he was looking at. Though we were underground, we were looking out at a view that could only be seen from a mountaintop. Below, basking in cool moonlight, was a valley of trees crowding around a meadow. A stream babbled through it, winding its way to the other end. There, a mountain range scratched its way to the heavens, protecting the hidden valley.
I could imagine wildflowers filling the valley in summer, but fall in the mountains was like winter in the valley. I doubted there could be flowers there—but then again—those things I had been taking for granted were turning out to be unreliable.
To my left, I heard the roar of water. Most of the windows on that side, I noticed, were obscured by mist from a cascading waterfall that must have found its source farther up above us. It reminded me of our family trip to Multnomah one summer: the long hike to the top, the dizzying view from where the stream bed released its charge into the atmosphere. I wondered how I would remember that particular wrinkle if this was really a dream.
The killer said, “I selected this site to build my house many years ago. I thought living under a waterfall would be beautiful.” He looked like he was taking a nostalgic turn.
“Sometimes in the mornings I sit here, watching the sunrise come over the mountains … and as it hits the water, it makes millions of rainbows all across this room.” He looked at me. I felt unexpectedly bold and wanted to ask his name, for some reason, but I didn’t. Like a father beholding his beloved daughter, he said, “I want you to know. In time, you will thank me for doing this.”
He paused. As he continued, I could feel my anger begin to boil. “I do not expect you to understand now, but one day you will love me as much as I love you.”
My jaw was scraping the floor. “Are you—freaking—kidding me?” I couldn’t believe what he had just said. He was crazy. “You’re a sick man.” I started to back away from him and the windows. I turned my back to him, hoping to provoke him. I wished he would just get it over with, whatever he had planned. I’d rather be dead than waste any more of my life in his presence. The way he looked at me made my skin crawl.
Noiselessly, he strode by me at a brisk pace, leading me out of the ballroom. I followed, because what else could I do? I was starting to become aware of my exhaustion—it had been a long night—and what else was there? Would I curl up on the cold stone floor like a dog? That wasn’t an option.
I figured I’d take my chances with whatever creepy “hospitality” he had to offer me. If there was one thing I had theorized about people, it was that they used each other, whether they meant to or not. Whatever his use for me, I made a guess that I could barter his interest for something a little more practical—like somewhere to lie down and die, for instance. At least for the night.
I looked around for any sign of Michael. I worried that my captor might have been lying about not harming him.
We passed through a set of double doors that led through a large kitchen. There
were no appliances; nothing modern. There was a wood-fired brick oven in one corner, and wooden tables that were crowded with earthenware bowls full of fresh produce of every kind.
Ornate cabinets lined the stone walls. Some of the cabinets stood like furniture, and I imagined that they were stuffed to the gills with all kinds of things I had never seen. I’m betting that there ain’t a bag o’ chips to be found in this place. No fridge or microwave that I could see, either. I’m so screwed.
I took mental notes of the layout of the place so that when I tried my escape, I could remember which way to go. We passed through the kitchen, down a wide hallway, and up a flight of thickly carpeted stairs. He stopped at a pretty standard-looking door. The difference was this one was secured with a thick steel bolt mounted to the outside with a latch the size of my fist.
“This is your room,” he said.
“My cell, you mean.”
He ignored me. “Michael is in that room, next door. I warn you, there is no possibility of escape. Any attempt will result in punishment. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said in a flat tone, ripping an imaginary hole through him with my eyes. I was so furious my hands were trembling. I opened and closed my fists to try to control it. I wanted to see Michael, to hold him and to make sure he was okay. Why was this man doing this to us?
He slid the bolt and flipped the latch open. The door opened with a slight nudge and I walked in. Before I could turn to face him, the door shut with a solid thud, the aftershock the metallic sound of the latch being driven home. All was quiet. I had been planning on giving him the lecture of his life. I guessed that wasn’t going to work out.
All at once the whole night overwhelmed me. I ran to the king-size bed, fell facedown, and cried. I wept so hard that my body ached. I was just trying to crawl through to the bottom of my misery, heaving in spasms of wretchedness until I was completely dry. My head felt bloated and achy.
The Airel Saga Box Set: Young Adult Paranormal Romance Page 16
