by C. R. Jane
"Get up," he growled at me.
My eyes flew open immediately. I was still alive, and although who knew what else he had in store for me, I figured that obeying him for now was probably the wisest thing to do.
I dragged myself off the floor, intensely aware of my splitting headache and the ribs that he probably cracked. If I still had my powers, I would've healed within just a few minutes.
As I was, I'd have to endure the pain for at least a day before any of my healing abilities would kick in.
It was all still worth it.
"I think you're going to regret what you did," he told me, his voice now eerily calm. He shook his head scornfully. "I know you don't care right now, but you will."
I highly doubted it.
“What are you going to do to me?” I finally asked after he just continued to stare at me maliciously.
His face broke out into a smile that was sinister looking, covering me in goosebumps. I knew that look would haunt my nights for a very long time. If I lived that long.
"I'm going to show you just how appealing being mine would have been. By the time you're done with what I have planned for you, you're going to be fucking begging me to take you back."
He grinned again, his smile wolfish like he was relishing the very thought of what he had in store for me.
A knock on the door sounded just then, and Alden, another of Julian's lackeys, appeared.
"The car's here," he said stiffly with a small bow.
"Excellent," he said, striding towards the door. He stopped at the doorway when I hadn't moved. "Come along," he said as though he was simply asking me to follow him for tea, instead of something no doubt ghastly and life-threatening.
My hesitation only made him happier. "I don't think you want to see what will happen if I have to force you to come with me." He sneered as he spoke calmly.
And despite my best efforts, a chill went down my spine. And all I could do was follow him.
We walked down the hall and out the door, where Julian's customary black town car was waiting. The drive was silent once we climbed inside, only making me more nervous.
To my surprise, we pulled up to the gate of his estate. After passing through the black, wrought iron gates, we drove for another ten minutes before we pulled into the circle drive in front of his manor.
I went to the open door, but he put his icy hand on my arm. "Stay here," he ordered before getting out of the car and walking inside.
For a second, I was tempted to get out of the car and try and make a run for it. But I would be no match for how skilled Julian and his coven were at hunting.
And I didn't want to find out what Julian would do to me then.
A few minutes passed, and he appeared again, holding a nondescript black box. I didn’t dare ask him what was in the box.
But it was a strange thing because as we started driving again, all I could think about was the box. It felt as though the contents of it were casting a spell on me with an urge to tear open the lid and take whatever was inside. The sensation only intensified the longer we drive.
I sensed Julian's triumphant eyes on me, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the box long enough to see why he looked that way.
Finally, after I had to literally put my hands under my legs to keep myself from reaching out to take the box away from Julian, he laughed.
"It's really an interesting thing, Selena," he said amusedly. "Your power seems to call to you the same way that it calls to everyone else."
It took me a second, but then I gasped in horror. I bit down on my lip to make sure that I kept the frustrated scream welling up inside of me from coming out.
I knew what lay in that box. It was the very essence of me. The gold orb that he stole out of me.
My power. He’d taken it away like a thief in the night. Now, I wasn’t sure how to feel… A number of emotions rattled inside me. Most of all was fury, and I wanted Julian to hurt so much more.
"Why did you bring that with us?" I asked shakily. I watched, like a junkie who needed her fix, as he stroked the top of the box, watching me as I struggled.
"It's a gift for your new home. You know how I am about housewarming presents. I never visit someone empty-handed," he explained with a smirk.
"My new home?" I murmured, and he laughed at the fear in my voice.
Bastard.
"Now, I can't say any more...I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise," he said, and for the first time today, I wanted to cry.
Someday, I was going to make sure that I never felt this helpless again. I swore it.
The silence was deafening for the rest of the drive. At least thirty minutes passed before we pulled up in front of what looked like an abandoned office park. The building looked like it was set to be condemned any day, with cracks running throughout the aged, red brick walls, broken windows, and graffiti all over. A portion of the roof appeared to have fallen in as well.
It was a dump.
Julian stepped out, seemingly unperturbed about where we'd driven to. When I hesitated to follow him out, he threw open the door and grabbed my arm in a vice grip. He moved swiftly, like he couldn't wait to get to our destination. And he brought the box with him. My box.
I was nervous at this point, but also curious about where the hell we were. This seemed like the last place that someone like Julian would be hanging out, but the vampires were secretive, so what did I know?
Julian didn't hesitate, opening the doors and walking through as he dragged me behind.
To my surprise, we entered a modern office space complete with an attractive secretary sitting behind a front desk area.
What kind of magic was this? And what was in this office that was so important it had to be hidden like this?
The blonde stood up behind her desk as we approached like she was expecting us.
"Good morning, Mr. Morganstern," she said politely, sending him a simpering smile. "Ready for the trip?"
What trip was she talking about? I stiffened in Julian's grip, and he just clenched his arm tighter in response. I was definitely going to have a bruise after this.
"Ready as ever," Julian said flirtatiously, and I shifted uncomfortably, drawing an amused glance from him.
The receptionist, or secretary-—whatever she was—walked out from behind her desk, and I gasped a little to see that she appeared to be floating instead of walking. Although I could sense when someone was a paranormal, I actually interacted with them very little over the course of my life, at Julian's insistence. He was very controlling of his workers, or would-be workers, and so my only experience with other species came when the vampires held galas and the sirens not of age were sent to help with the catering of the event.
Whatever this woman was, I hadn't experienced her kind before. Which explained why I kept staring at her.
Evidently this was the wrong thing to do, because when she caught my stare, her entire countenance transformed in front of me in a flash. Instead of the beautiful blonde, what looked like a decaying corpse briefly flickered into view with what appeared to be worms where hair should be. Just a moment passed, and then the image disappeared and the blonde reappeared.
I took a step back despite Julian's grip, shock and quite frankly a bit of fear coursing through me over whatever just happened.
Julian laughed darkly. "They're going to think you were raised in a barn," he said silkily. "Banshees hate being stared at."
Banshees. Well, now I really wanted to get out of here. Banshees were demons you heard stories about around the campfire. Known for their deadly shrieks, they weren't something you wanted to run into and had actually been hunted in the past, dwindling their numbers. What was one of them doing here of all places?
"Sorry," I muttered, intentionally looking at the floor so that I didn't run the risk of offending her again. Julian just laughed louder, making me want to punch him.
I didn't keep my head down long as we began to walk down a dark, unlit hallway that seemed never
-ending. The hallway somehow seemed to get darker as we moved farther down. The darkness brought with it a foreboding, suffocating feeling. My strength started failing me as we walked, muscles sore and exhausted. Julian was half dragging me by the time a tall door came into view.
There weren't any signs on the door denoting what lay behind it, but as the stark feelings intensified, I knew without a doubt that I did not want to see what was behind that door.
A sense of hopelessness washed over me, and even though I knew it was the byproduct of whatever dark magic was at play, I couldn't stop the tears from flowing down my cheeks. I put my free hand over my mouth as I tried to stifle the sobs that were threatening to come out.
Julian, for his part, somehow looked completely at ease, like the magic wasn't affecting him at all. How could that be?
The banshee opened the door, and that terrible feeling I had...well, it only intensified.
Because all of a sudden, I knew exactly what my punishment was, and Julian was right...I probably would be crawling back to him on my knees after this, if I even made it out alive.
Somehow, the doorway had led us to the place where I was sure that all bad dreams were born...Nightmare Penitentiary.
It was a place that had to be seen to fully grasp the horror it held. The door that we had walked through slammed shut behind us, and it was like we were standing in another world. Apparently that was what she had meant when she had asked if we were "ready for the trip," because we had left behind the sunshine of Chicago and instead were standing in a barren, grey landscape that looked like it had never seen the sun. The sky was a hazy, dark blue color, stained with clouds that resembled the sky right before a tornado struck. There were swirling, grey mists dancing around us, making it hard to see.
But you couldn't miss the black, wrought iron gates in front of us, the top of which was so sharp that it would impale anyone who tried to climb over them. There was barbed wire on top of the gate. Every couple of seconds, it sparked with something that I knew would hurt much worse than electricity. A simple metal nameplate on the fence announced where we were, but it was the feeling of terror that enveloped me as soon as I saw the gates that made it impossible not to know where we were.
Nightmare Penitentiary didn't have just one appearance. From the stories that I had heard ever since I was little, it had its own form of dark magic that allowed it to appear as whatever would be most terrifying to each individual inmate. It was the same with the cells inside. Since every magical creature was different, the cells were different in order to best contain its occupant. The dark, heavy, depressing feeling that I was still experiencing was something tailored just for me. As was the mausoleum feel of the outside of the prison.
I could say quite honestly that this terror I was feeling, I had never experienced anything like it.
And Julian knew it too.
The reason that he hadn't appeared to be suffering any ill effects was that he really hadn't been.
The gates creaked open in front of me, and it was all I could do not to bolt. Well that, and the fact that Julian was still holding onto me with a grip so strong that it felt like my bones were being crushed. The air felt heavy and thick around me, like right before the clouds broke in a thunderstorm. I was also sweating, but I didn't know how much of that was because of nerves.
"Julian, Nightmare Penitentiary?" I asked, struggling to keep the anger out of my voice. "Not sleeping with you shouldn't be the cause for going to a place where the worst criminals of the paranormal world are sent."
He just laughed bitterly. "I guarantee that there's nothing you could have done against your master that would've been worse," he told me. And then he began to drag me through the gates. At this point, I wasn't proud of it, but I began to struggle to get away. There was no way that I would survive in a place like this, especially without the full strength of my powers. The only thing a siren had in her arsenal after the vampires took their power was the ability to attract others to them. And the last thing I wanted was for a bunch of murderers and traitors to be attracted to me.
When I didn't stop struggling, Julian suddenly shook me so hard that my head snapped back. "Listen, little girl," he hissed. "I'm giving you a chance to be reconditioned. If you refuse this, then the only other option is for me to kill you. Is that what you want?"
Tears slid unbidden down my face. For a second, I actually debated it. Because the stories that I'd heard of this place...well, I didn't think I would be getting out of here alive anyway.
"I hate you," I spat at him.
He just smiled maliciously. "I'm well aware of that. But I think you'll be singing a different tune after a year in this place."
"A year?" I gasped, horrified. I had heard of murderers getting a month in here just because their experience was so wretched that they were cured for the rest of their lives, and justice had been satisfied.
Julian smiled again, just daring me to say something else.
He looked at his watch and sighed. "I have a meeting in thirty minutes that I can't be late for. So if you're done with your temper tantrum, we need to proceed,” he said coolly.
I didn't answer him, but I'm sure that defeat was written all over my face.
Julian pulled me through the foreboding courtyard that separated the barbed wire gates from the main entrance of the prison. Now that we were in here, I could see that there were at least six guards dressed in all dark navy blue situated around the area. I couldn't tell what kind of creatures they were, because their crisp uniforms consisted of hoods that covered half their face. But the same heavy, cloying energy rippled over my skin, and I didn't have the strength or desire to look at them closer. I'm sure that the guards and I would be getting up close and personal over the next year.
From what I'd been told, the guards were put through a special program, essentially robbing them of compassion or any soul at all, making them incapable of being bribed or reasoned with as what occurred in most human prisons.
Of course, all the knowledge that I had came from rumors that I overheard at Julian's dinner parties, so I couldn't be sure of their accuracy. However, it was like you could feel the hatred emanating from the guards, like they already hated me on principle. I shivered, eliciting another smirk from Julian. I loathed him for enjoying this so much.
The front doors of the prison were just as menacing as the rest of the place. At least twelve feet tall and of solid black metal. The same sparks emanated all over it as it had on the front gates and the barbed wire.
A cloaked guard appeared next to us so suddenly and silently that I jumped in surprise. He held up his hand in front of the door, and it slid open with a screech like they hadn't been used in a long time.
I began to shake even more, because I couldn't see what was past the doors. Pitch black swallowed everything in sight. And one thing that I had always been scared of was darkness. Obviously, Nightmare Penitentiary was still working its magic on me, because Julian strode through the doors, still pulling me behind him, like the room was completely lit up.
I clung to Julian as we walked, even though the act made me want to vomit. The bastard chuckled and started humming, like we were at Disneyland or something. Like the hallway we had passed through to get to Nightmare Penitentiary, the air seemed to grow thicker and thicker as we walked, until the pressure felt so great that I was sure my head was going to pop.
I moaned in distress, and my body went limp as the pressure intensified. But Julian didn’t let up. He just hummed and dragged me alongside him like a serial killer who’d just caught his victim.
The pressure increased until the pain was so bad that I thought I was going to die. And then, it suddenly evaporated.
A burst of cool air hit me the moment we stepped into a bright room. I squinted from the harshness of the light after the black void we’d just traveled through. The air carried a faint trace of cigarette smoke.
After a short pause, I slowly blinked rapidly so that my eyes could adjust. When my e
yes finally recovered, I gaped at my surroundings, sure I had traveled somewhere far away from the halls of Nightmare Penitentiary.
I was standing in what almost resembled a giant library. I had once been inside the human’s Library of Congress, and even that paled in comparison with the grandeur of this room.
The walls were covered in dark, walnut bookshelves, rows and rows of them lined every inch of the walls, stretching high above me...so high that there was a whole other level above me.
While some of the bookcases held books, most of them held an assortment of items that were no doubt of the magical variety. It seems like whoever's office we had just walked into had a little bit of a hoarding problem. There was a whole bookcase devoted to fairies. And when I say devoted to fairies, I mean that there were shelves of little fairies that had been captured in glass cases. Whatever was in that glass must've been crazy strong, since everyone knew that fairies were fucking powerful. They were also assholes, confirmed by the fact that at least five of them flipped me off when I happened to glance at them.
That was fairies for you.
Another row of shelves held bottles of various liquids, all different colors, and all glowing. One of them was even changing colors every few seconds. Interesting.
My observation of whatever collector’s room I'd been taken to disappeared when I thought I saw a pair of eyes staring at me from the shadow in the corner. I gave a quick inhale of breath, but when I blinked, whatever I'd seen was gone. I moved slightly closer to Julian, remembering the age old adage that the enemy you knew was better than the enemy you didn't. Who knew what the shadows held at Nightmare Penitentiary.
I blinked again, and there was suddenly a man standing behind the enormous dark wood desk that took up a large part of the middle of the room. As I looked at him, the edges of him seemed to slip in and out of focus, like black wisps of smoke… or shadows coming off of him. But no sooner had I experienced that thought than he came into complete focus, a wide grin on his too handsome face.
"Julian," he said in a voice that reminded me of a velvety night sky. He looked at us both, appraising me with a tilt of his head. I was trying to think of who he reminded me of. Besides the fact that he was scary as fuck, he definitely looked like someone I had seen before.
