Damien raised the cleaver. “I sure hope you have more than that, Joel,” he chided.
Claire made a soft squealing sound, her chin lowered as she watched the cleaver instead of Joel.
“It was before I met her, come on. She won’t care,” Joel argued, his eyes guarded.
“Then tell her,” Damien urged through his teeth, his impatience obvious.
Joel didn’t look at the table. In fact, everything was interesting except for the table. “She was pregnant when she was murdered—”
“Sacrificed,” Gretchen corrected smugly from behind Damien.
His eyes narrow, Joel continued quickly as Damien set the razor-edge of the cleaver against Claire’s shin bone. He didn’t add pressure, but Claire held her breath.
“…it was mine.”
Claire glanced up from the cleaver. “Yours? The baby?” she asked numbly. “But you said…”
“I know what I said. It was an accident. She died. I didn’t think that it was important.”
“Not important?” Claire flushed, stunned, then repeated with added venom, “Not important?”
“No,” Joel began to argue, “it was none of your business.”
“I told you everything,” Claire snapped, fury evident in her eyes. “You said…” For a moment, she seemed to remember the rest of us staring. Lowering her voice as if this would make a difference, she said, “That you couldn’t have kids.”
Phoebe’s shoulders shook in silent laughter before she chuckled. “Oh, that’s friggin’ priceless.”
Rolling his eyes, Joel growled something under his breath while Claire called him a few choice names from the table. It seemed she’d forgotten the cleaver.
I glanced between the quarreling couple and raised my hands. “He’s trying to tear us apart. Our whole group. Don’t let him.” I tried hard not to glare at Phoebe to stop laughing. This wasn’t the time to be silly.
Phoebe lowered her hand and snorted. “Haven’t you ever heard of STDs?” she asked Joel. “How many shots does it take for a girl to believe that, dumbass?”
He didn’t to notice the jab. Instead, he motioned Claire to be quiet.
Claire didn’t seem as willing to back down, but with one quick glance at Damien, she settled back.
“Phoebe,” Damien said, cutting the cruel giggles short.
The tall blonde rubbed her nose hard. Her gaze burned a hole in the carpet, but she held a shadow of a smile.
Please take this seriously, I thought pleadingly.
Damien started to speak when Phoebe interrupted in a bark, making it sound more like an order. “Truth, you know I’d pick it first.” Then Phoebe looked up, a fire in her eye that put me on edge. Gretchen stepped forward, her eager gaze soaking Phoebe up.
“I think you should tell us about your death,” he said, eyes glimmering.
She stared at him for a long moment. This wasn’t what she expected. Only Joel, Phoebe, and I knew about her being technically dead. This wasn’t really a secret, except…
“What the hell?” Cody snapped.
Phoebe raised a hand to stop him. “There isn’t anything to tell—”
“Don’t.” Damien’s black eyes shifted to the cleaver. He started to rock it back and forth against Claire’s shin bone, just above the wrap we’d used for the gunshot graze.
Claire gasped the moment she and the rest of us saw the blood stain her jeans. The cleaver was so sharp it had eased through her jeans each time Damien moved it.
I started to think through it. If she lost a foot, would we lose her or was there a way to save her? I thought of heat, but where would we find it to close it up? She’d pass out from that pain. The conclusion was obvious. She’d bleed out, and it would be his fault.
Low and threatening, Damien continued. “Don’t finish that lie. I do think I made the Rules clear. I’m not giving you another warning. Tell them everything that happened after you were taken in the first hallway of the first Challenge. Every detail.”
Claire whimpered, her teary eyes jerking to Phoebe.
“I thought you said she couldn’t feel her legs,” I said quickly, the words jumbling together in my haste.
“She can’t,” Damien said simply, “but she’s not blind.”
Phoebe glanced at me before saying, “I didn’t die in the first Challenge. I remember everything.”
Now, even I was curious. Cody leaned forward, unbelieving. “You can’t be dead. You’re right here.”
“I was tied to some coral by these sea-things.” Phoebe avoided our eyes. “They were like mermaids, I guess, but ugly and more varied. Like instead of tails, some had tentacles. The coral stabbed me when they tied me, and my blood attracted…things.”
She licked her lips and stared at the floor, the shadowed smile gone.
“You could breathe the whole time?” I asked.
Phoebe nodded. “The whole time. Like it wasn’t water at all, it just felt like it.”
“Then, whatever came, it looked like a shark and one of these creepy fish with the light over its head. It ate all of them, and I made it to the surface to find Read.”
I thought of the pain she must have gone through and realized I was twisting my shirt up in sweaty palms. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
Phoebe took a deep breath and shook her head. “Read and I had to go into a beach house, something to do with his new girlfriend.”
I glanced at my friends to see they were equally riveted by Phoebe’s confession, except Phoebe, whose eyes remained on the floor.
“We…” She cleared her throat and said as fast as she could, “We had sex, and then the house caught fire. I saved the asshole and,” she threw up her hands with a shrug, “I burned. He couldn’t get me out. It wasn’t his fault. I’m pretty sure it was the real Read. Then I remember floating in the Demon’s Grave. I saw everyone from there. I saw Nora and Aidan when they lost Robin, fought Jordan, and faced the zombies.”
I twisted my shirt harder.
“Then I felt Nora…” Phoebe took a deep breath and waved her hands as if to pluck the words from air, “…bring me back. I didn’t know it was her exactly until the witches showed me.” She breathed out with a whoosh and stuffed her hands into her pockets.
That was what she “knew”?!
“I hadn’t realized,” I said, trying to sound calm.
“What do you mean?” Joel asked. “What did you feel?”
“It was an energy. For the longest time, I was numb, just floating and losing track of time. Then I felt life again. I’d forgotten what it’d felt like until it was there,” Phoebe said. “But it all makes sense now.” She motioned to Joel. “I watched her bring you back too, when you were unconscious in the treehouse. Your pulse was shallow, Joel. I was pretty sure you were dying.”
“You never said that,” I protested.
“We were trying to be quiet, remember?” Phoebe snapped as if I’d interrupted something important.
“How?” Cody asked. “How did you bring them back?”
I glanced from face to face, wondering how much to reveal. “But he wasn’t dead,” I said, pointing to Joel. “Was he?”
“No, but she was,” Damien said casually.
Cody said something inaudible and gripped his temples in both hands.
“I don’t know what happened, exactly,” I said desperately. “I mean, I kind of do but…”
“Is this because of that Neophuck stuff you two were talking about?” Phoebe pointed between Damien and me.
There it was. She separated us into groups. I saw it plainly the way Joel and Cody tightened to Phoebe and left a gap between them and me.
I didn’t want to get into that too. The last thing I needed was for Damien to start spreading scabrous details of my bloodline.
“Nora.” Damien’s voice floated over me, unwelcome. “Your turn.”
“Truth,” I said softly. At first I thought I might have spoken it too quietly, but Damien didn’t have any problems picking it up.
I already knew the question he was going to ask me. He wanted to let all my friends know that I was different, that I could have some minuscule sway over the Grave. I had a feeling he would try to make me sound like I had more influence then I actually did.
“Tell us all what happened when you were alone with Aidan today.”
Taken back, I tried to recalculate my brain to fit the question. I had been so prepared for anything else. I’d mentally rehearsed every angle until this. Damien picked relationship truths. Ways to make us uncomfortable. Why not reveal hard truths?
Damien dared me with a smile and lifted the cleaver, revealing the gash.
Untying my tongue, I countered, “You mean you?” There, I said it. Out in the open, no beating around the bush. I didn’t think Claire would be so lucky if I stalled.
Phoebe croaked. “Huh?”
Joel rubbed his hands down his face. His fingertips pulled down his bottom eyelid, revealing veins. “I fucking knew it.”
I expected Damien to smile, but he apparently didn’t find it humorous.
“What happened?” Cody asked, uneasily.
Speaking fast, I tried to stop the cleaver from descending. “I basically found Aidan and I—we kissed. When I opened my eyes, it was him.” I watched Damien’s hardened expression. “But,” I glanced at the cleaver, “I knew it was him before that.”
The cleaver lowered, and I breathed a little easier.
There was a long pause around me before Joel snapped, “Oh, I get it.”
“No,” I snapped, “you don’t. Hell, he pretended to be Read too, but that I didn’t know.”
“Actually, you did,” Phoebe corrected—or maybe it was accused.
“Through a guess,” I said.
Joel, who always had a way of pointing out the worst, said, “So you made out with Read too. That’s much better.”
“No, I didn’t.” I felt my hands ball up into fists.
“Do you like Read?” Phoebe asked, sounding quiet.
I stared at her, horrified. “No, I never thought about him like that.”
“That’s a lie,” Damien spoke up.
“Shut up,” I snapped, turning to Phoebe pleadingly. “I may have had a crush on him once, but that was a long time ago. It was school-girl and nothing serious.”
“Still,” Joel said, “you made out with that guy.” He thrust a thumb in Damien’s direction.
“Shut up, Joel,” Phoebe growled. “We all make mistakes.”
I stiffened. Was it a mistake?
The fact that the question gave me pause made me feel worse. I gave my head a shake and cleared my throat. “Who’s next?”
Quirking a brow and watching me, Damien asked, “Truth for you as well, Cody?”
Cody just nodded, forcing Damien to turn away from me.
I could relax at last and noticed Gretchen grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
We should have picked Dare first, I realized, and gotten them over with.
“Tell them what you saw in the cauldron,” Damien said flatly.
Cody cleared his throat and blushed immediately. “Robin cheated on me.”
Damien stepped away from Claire. There was no need to threaten on this one.
“Whoa!” Phoebe gapped. “What?!”
Cody and Robin weren’t always the perfect couple (who are?), but they had always claimed loyalty to one another. I once watched Robin turn down a guy she used to have a huge crush on in high school. Cody wasn’t even there, and she didn’t know I was watching—at least that’s what I thought. Maybe she did know.
Cody nodded, unashamed. “With Cooper.”
“Holy crap.” Phoebe grimaced.
Joel and Claire were the only two unimpressed or surprised.
“You knew?!” Phoebe accused Joel.
He shrugged. “Yeah,” he said, as if we had just asked him if he were human.
“When was this?” I asked, trying to form the question delicately.
His eyes filled with an embarrassed pain, but he didn’t let much of it seep into his voice or posture. I remembered the dazed look on his face when he had stepped away from the cauldron. I remembered how he wouldn’t let anyone touch him or talk to him. I felt terrible even though it wasn’t my fault.
“I don’t know. Maybe a few weeks ago, er…before the weekend, when I was out of town? That’s the only time I can think of that we weren’t together.”
Phoebe and I glanced at Joel for confirmation.
He shrugged. “I wasn’t in the bedroom cheering them on. How the hell should I know?”
Phoebe grit her teeth. “When did you know, Joel?”
He shrugged again.
“Was it still going on when we came to the weekend?” Cody asked. He didn’t look at Joel but at Claire for the answer.
Her eyebrows furrowed worriedly, but with Damien backed away, she seemed to relax. “Yes,” she squeaked.
That first day I found the note, Dismal is the Demon’s Grave, Phoebe had commented that Robin had argued with someone.
We were all tensed up. Despite the questions, we had managed to make each other uncomfortable.
Claire continued as if she might be able to lessen the pain by explaining. “She called him up before she disappeared. Said she didn’t want to anymore. I was there when Cooper got the call.”
“Just before the weekend?” I asked.
Claire nodded grimly. “They were…” she struggled to find the right word, “…seeing each other for more than a few weeks, though.” Her eyes darted to Damien, but he stayed a few feet away.
Joel glanced at Claire warningly.
She didn’t pay attention. “More like months. She thought Cody cheated on her.”
“What?” Cody finally snapped. “So instead of talking to me about it, she just goes out and sleeps with another guy?”
Claire flinched at Cody’s volume. I think we all did. “I don’t know what she was thinking. It’s just what she told me.”
Cody stalked towards Joel. “You knew this whole time and didn’t say anything.” He towered over Joel, his narrow face red and heated.
“It wasn’t my place,” Joel pointed out. “Cooper’s business, not ours.”
Interrupting the spat, Damien’s smooth voice left the anger hanging in the air. “This is very entertaining, but shall we move on to the dares?”
Cody turned away from Joel, disgusted. Perhaps Cody remembered their last tussle, which, coincidentally enough, had been over the same girl.
“What about Claire?” Phoebe asked.
“She’s my leverage,” Damien answered. “She’s omitted from the game.”
Claire looked relieved, though I wouldn’t be. If any of us screwed up, it was her leg. Her relief was short lived when Damien stepped back up to the table, cleaver flipping casually in his hand.
“Joel, I think you should go next,” Damien suggested.
Joel scowled but said nothing.
As if from thin air, Damien produced a pocketknife. He tossed it lightly to Joel, who caught it, careful not to catch the blade.
Joel stared at the bone-handled pocketknife in his palm.
“Don’t think of attacking me,” Damien said.
From the way Joel jolted and looked up in surprise, I could tell it was exactly what he was thinking.
“I’m faster than you,” Damien assured him and motioned to Claire. “Come to the other side of the table.”
We all stiffened as Joel strode slowly toward the wooden kitchen table opposite of Damien with Claire in the middle. She glanced between them worriedly.
I didn’t blame her.
Damien clasped Claire’s arm and pulled her across the surface of the table, closer to him and further from Joel. He set the cleaver down by her leg.
It was a bold move, but I wouldn’t be concerned about Claire making a grab for it either. She was far too frightened and stiff, and she also wasn’t idiotic enough to test her reflexes against a demon.
In that moment, I re
alized I was thinking like Damien. I glanced at Cody and Phoebe as if they could read my mind, but their focus was on the three ahead of us.
Turning back, I saw Damien press his palm to the side of Claire’s face and press her temple into his shoulder, muffling her ears.
Joel’s face tightened, a definitive vein arching up the side of his neck.
Damien was smug as he raised his other hand to trail a finger from the top of her cheekbone down the side of her face. “Joel, I dare you to cut her from here, to here.” He indicated nearly two inches of length down the side of her face.
“No,” Joel and I protested in unison.
Claire whimpered, her eyes squeezing shut as she lay limply against Damien’s broad shoulder.
The corner of Damien’s mouth twitched. “Yes, that’s the dare.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why make him hurt her?”
Damien’s fingers drummed against the side of Claire’s face, making her torso flinch.
“This girl,” Damien said, “is very important to him.”
Claire didn’t respond, her clenched eyes squeezing out more tears.
“So you’re punishing her because of that?” I asked, uncertain.
Damien ignored me and looked to Joel.
Joel glanced at the cleaver then to the pocketknife in his fist.
“Don’t be stupid,” Phoebe warned. “He didn’t say you had to make a deep cut, just do it fast and light.”
Claire’s eyes flew open. She started to sit up straight, but Damien’s hand stopped her cold. She gasped in a breath, holding it as she stared at us, hope drifting from her eyes.
Joel glared at Phoebe briefly. “I don’t want to slice up my girlfriend,” he snapped.
Damien released Claire and picked up the cleaver.
Joel had little time to react. He reached over and grabbed Claire’s arm. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” he yelled.
Claire gaped at Joel, though she didn’t protest. She knew the alternative. Claire squeezed her eyes shut when Joel cupped her jaw in his left hand. He held tight, squishing her cheeks towards her rosebud lips.
I didn’t want to see, yet I couldn’t turn away.
Cody, Phoebe, and I stood rigid to the side as Joel raised the blade of the small knife to her skin.
As he pressed the blade down onto her skin, I heard Claire stifle a cry, her nostrils flaring.
The Haunting Page 18
