His free hand rested on my face, fingers tangled in my hair as the kiss deepened. I turned my body to his. One of his legs moved to rest between mine—the weight of his thigh sending my nerve-endings into overdrive. His hand slid from my face to my shoulder, down my arm—his thumb brushing the side of my chest for the briefest of moments on its descent. Chills cascaded over my body and a quiet moan escaped my throat. Slowly, his fingers made their way to my waist, resting there while his lips and tongue created magic.
I pushed closer to him—wanting as much contact between us as possible. His hand slipped beneath the hem of my shirt, grazing the tender skin just above the waist of my low-rise jeans. Tendrils of electrified heat flowed from his hand outward across my entire body like a ripple in a pool of water. My breath caught as his fingers moved ever so slowly up my side.
His hand slid to my back and pressed me to him, his leg wrapped around both of mine and he turned onto his back, pulling me with him. I felt every contour of his body as I lay atop him. I pulled my lips from his, breathless, and stared into his deep brown eyes while I caught my breath—very aware of his hand touching the bare skin of my back.
Johnathan frowned. Before he could say anything, I tangled my hands in his hair and smashed my lips to his again. He growled and brought his other hand to rest on the small of my back, half on the waist of my pants, half touching the bare skin above it. My breath came in short, rapid bursts and my heart beat accelerated.
Something fell into my hair. I ignored it as Johnathan’s grip tightened and pulled our bodies closer together. The skin on my back tingled and my body flooded with warmth. I felt a few more things drop onto me, too caught up in the blissful trance of Johnathan to register much of anything else. Something brushed along the exposed skin of my hand still tangled in Johnathan’s hair. Then my arm. Then my face. I stiffened and pulled away from our kiss.
I screamed and rolled off of Johnathan, jumping to my feet. I continued to scream as I jumped around and shook my arms and hands furiously, trying to dislodge the dozens of spiders that crawled on me. Johnathan sprang up and started brushing the various sized demon-spawn off me, even though there were just as many crawling on him.
I shook uncontrollably and tears fell from my eyes. Johnathan grabbed a hold of my upper arms and tried to meet my wild gaze. “Paige! They’re all off. I got them all off of you. You need to make sure there aren’t any more on me.”
I breathed so fast I became light-headed. I shuddered and tried to slow down my breathing. I nodded, too freaked out to speak. He turned a slow circle in front of me. I brushed the remaining spiders off of him with quick swipes of the back of my hand and stomped the hideous creatures when they hit the ground.
He hugged me to him. “We need to get out of here. There are more of them coming out of the rocks.”
I looked around and fear sprang up into my chest, tightening around it like a vise. There were hundreds of spiders of all sizes erupting from crevasses in the rock walls and from the dirt beneath our feet.
I closed my eyes and portalled back to the house, drawing Johnathan along with me.
We landed in the front yard. My entire body shook and I felt like there were millions of hairy little legs crawling all over me. Johnathan led me into the house where the others were gathered, Alec and Seth having arrived just minutes before us.
Joe stood as we entered, worry creasing his brow. “What happened?”
“Spiders.” My voice shook and a violent shudder ripped through my muscles.
Halli’s face turned white as Johnathan explained what had happened.
“What do you think it means, Joe? I mean, shouldn’t spiders be hibernating or something this time of year?” Johnathan’s arm wrapped tight around my waist.
“Yeah.” Joe paced. “Yeah, they should. Where were you, exactly?”
“Arches, in the slot canyons,” Johnathan answered. “Why? What are you thinking?”
Joe stopped pacing and looked at us each in turn. “Spiders have long been drawn to darkness—”
“By darkness you mean evil, huh?” Halli whispered.
Joe nodded. “The darkness grows.”
he wind picked up over the next three days, blowing in red dust from the surrounding area. The town was engulfed in a dome of swirling, red haze. Everyone stayed indoors, away from the stinging dirt, forceful wind, and bitter cold. Everyone, that is, except us.
We practiced in the yard, and out by the boulder cave, right in the middle of the maelstrom. Part of the time we were enclosed in the safety of one of Seth’s huge shields, but Joe made us practice in the elements, too. We needed to be prepared to fight no matter what the environment surrounding us was doing.
The skin on my face looked like it had been sand-blasted—because it had been.
“Women pay good money to have that done,” Mariah reminded me as she sat on Alec’s lap in our living room. “It’s called ‘microdermabrasion’.”
She’d spent every moment she could with Alec. We all watched her closely—ever since the face-stomping, Demon-slaying Mariah had shown up and then disappeared in a flash, we were all a little leery of her. Except for Alec. He just soaked up the attention she flourished on him.
“Yeah, well, it feels like my skin has been peeled down to the last layer.” I slathered lotion on my face, then handed the bottle to Halli.
While we spent Thursday night going over our plan again, fine tuning it before the Gathering the next day, I leaned over and whispered to Johnathan. “Should we be discussing this in front of Mariah?”
Johnathan gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. “I’m tired of talking about this,” he said out loud. “We all know the plan. Let’s go get some dessert or something.”
“I was kinda thinking about going to visit my mom,” Alec said. “I want to see her one more time before the big showdown, you know… just in case something happens.”
The pouty face Mariah made was super annoying. “Can’t you go tomorrow, Sweet-cheeks?”
He kissed her pouty lips. “No, visiting hours are only from seven to nine. And, I’ll be a little busy tomorrow night.”
“Can I at least come with you this time?” She ran a hand over his chest.
Alarm flashed across his face—it was a good thing Mariah was looking down at her hand on his chest, attempting to be coy. By the time she looked back up, he’d recovered his composure. “I’m afraid they won’t let you in, ‘riah. Only Paige and I have clearance to see her.”
A look of intense anger spread across her face. She narrowed her eyes, and through clenched teeth she started to say something, but Alec quickly added, “Maybe after this thing tomorrow, I can get clearance for you to visit.” He infused his smile with his special charm.
The tight lines of her face softened and her eyes dilated. “Okay, Al. That’ll be fine.”
“Why did that make you so mad?” I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. Mariah’s behavior was becoming increasingly strange.
She lifted her trance-like eyes to mine and tried to smile, only able to accomplish a sort of grimace. “He just seems to spend an awful lot of time with you, Paige. Don’t ya think, Johnny?” Her lazy gaze shifted to Johnathan. “But, I’m not mad.”
Johnathan shook his head. “Paige is level-headed and smart. Alec needs her to counteract his hyperactive stupidity.”
“Hey!”
“Just kidding, Alice. You aren’t hyperactive.”
Alec shook his head and sighed as he peered around the lump of female flesh sitting on his lap, meeting my gaze. “Anyway. You up for a quick visit to the asylum for the criminally insane, Paige?”
“Sure,” I looked at Johnathan. “We can go get dessert when we get back.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it.
Alec walked Mariah out to her car; he was out there long enough to have walked her halfway back into town.
“I don’t think we should talk about our plans around her,” Halli whi
spered.
I nodded. “Yeah, I agree.”
Joe looked from Halli to me with narrowed eyes. “Okay, well, she won’t be here in the morning. We’ll go over it one last time then.”
The front door opened and then slammed shut, not in an angry way, but in a let’s get this show on the road way. Alec pranced into the room. “You ready, Paige? It’s almost seven.”
“Yeah.” I stood and walked to stand beside him. We portalled to the usual spot in the middle of a little group of pine trees close to the parking lot of the hospital.
Heather was at her desk as expected—she’d been sure to give Alec a copy of her work schedule the last time we’d seen her. The security check-in went well, for once. Both of us used the new muting spell Joe had taught us, so the brand new metal detector didn’t self-combust again.
We sat on the floor with Natalie in a quiet corner of the common room, far enough away from the staff and other patients that we could talk quietly without being heard.
Alec held onto his mom’s hands and looked into her eyes. “Mom, how’ve you been? I’ve been worried about you since the”—he searched the room for anyone close enough to hear—“The incident,” he whispered.
Natalie’s face paled a little and her lips twitched into a thin smile. “Fine. I’ve been fine, Alec. They moved me to a new room. Dr. Atkinson said you visited when I was… well… drugged up. I don’t remember, but, thank you.” Her smile softened and became more real.
“Do you like your new room?” I asked.
Her eyes flicked to me and then down at her hands. “Yes, it’s fine. They all look the same in here. It’s farther from the showers, but it’s quieter.”
“Mom, what if I could get you out of here?” I’d had a feeling Alec had been thinking about doing that. I leaned forward to hear what her answer would be.
Shaking her head, she pulled her hands from Alec’s light grasp and covered her mouth. “No, no, no,” she murmured, eyes wide and suddenly brimming with tears. Her answer was not at all what I expected.
“Why not? I could find you a really nice place. I’d find someone to take care of you. You’d be safe.”
“No.” She touched his face. “No, Alec. I can’t leave. I’m dangerous. I would hurt someone. I see things. I see things. They have medicine here. No. I have to stay.”
“But, Mom, I could make sure you have your medicine. The things you see are real and I could protect you from them.” He looked to me for help, but I didn’t know what to say.
“Not everything is real… my mind is broken. It’s broken. I need to be here.”
“Paige, tell her I could make her safe.” His eyes pleaded with me.
I took a long breath before speaking. “Alec, I don’t know what’s best for her. I know you hate seeing her in here, but they take good care of her. She… she feels safe here.” I touched Natalie’s arm to calm her.
“Paige,” Alec’s voice rose. “I can keep her safe.”
“Can you, Alec? Think about it. Where will we be? Do you know where we’ll be next week, or next month, or next year? What if, heaven forbid, something happens to you? What we do is dangerous and unpredictable. What would happen to your mom if you took her out of here and then disappeared?”
He stared silently at the floor.
“And,” I said, quieter than before. “The things we fight against—what if they go after her… use her against you? I know she isn’t completely safe in here—”
“No shit, Paige. Remember last week?”
I chose to ignore his poor choice of words. He was frustrated. I got that. “But, she’s safer here than out in the open. They have heavy security here. You can talk with Dr. Atkinson and impress upon her how important it is that they take her ‘hallucinations’ seriously and keep those she sees as monsters away from her and everyone else.”
Alec didn’t speak. He breathed in rapid short breaths and fought to hold back tears. Natalie touched his face again. “Alec. Thank you for the offer. Maybe someday I’ll feel better enough to leave with you. But, not yet… not yet. I want… I need to stay here.” Her eyes glazed over. “I can’t hurt anyone else. I can’t be the cause of the screaming again. The mom… she screamed so loud… it was horrible. It hurt my ears. And, here,” she placed her hand over her heart. “It hurt here. But I still did it. I had to get rid of it. It was a monster.”
The defeated look on Alec’s face nearly crushed me. He looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Okay. You win. Stay here… for now. But if it becomes dangerous for you here, I will come and get you. I just found you. I’m not losing you again.” His voice broke on the last word.
Natalie visibly relaxed. “Okay, then, my monster killers. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
We stayed and talked until the night nurse kicked us out and ushered Natalie off to her room for her night meds and bedtime.
Heather just happened to be starting her break as we made our way out to the front lobby. “Can I walk you out, Alec?”
“Sure. We don’t have much time, but I’ll spend as much as I can with you.” He put his arm around her waist as she came through the security door to where we stood. Her pouty face reminded me of Mariah’s, only a little less annoying.
“I’ve missed you,” Heather said as we stepped outside.
“Ahh, that’s sweet,” Alec said. “I’ve missed seeing you, too. I’m sorry we’re in a hurry tonight. Maybe I can come up here when you have a day off and we can spend the whole day together.”
The smile on her face showed every tooth in her mouth. She snaked her arm under his and wrapped both of her arms around his waist. “That would be awesome! How about Saturday? I’m off Saturday.”
He stopped walking and pulled her closer. “Maybe, I have kind of a big project I have to get done, so I’ll have to see how things go for me on Friday.”
Her smile turned into a frown. I turned and took a few steps away when I saw her eyes well up with tears. Alec’s appeal to women was really disgusting.
“Oh, now, don’t do that,” I heard him say. I walked further away when I heard kissing sounds.
After about five minutes of the wind whipping my hair around my raw face, hair sticking to it from where I’d slathered on the lotion earlier, I’d had enough. I turned around and saw they were still locked in each other’s embrace, lips glued together. I rolled my eyes and yelled, “Alec, we really need to be going.”
Besides wanting to get out of the wind, I wanted to get back to Johnathan so we could annoy the others with our kissing as much as Alec was annoying me.
I thought for a minute that I would have to go peel Heather off him—she was more than reluctant to let go of him–but he was finally able to untangle himself from her grasp, only after promising to meet her at a restaurant in Provo on Saturday.
I wished with all my might he’d be able to keep that date—not for Heather’s sake, but for all of us. I hoped we’d survive the Gathering.
riday morning, we awoke to an eerie calm. The ravishing wind of the last several days had stopped sometime during the night and a thin layer of snow covered the ground. We ate cold cereal for breakfast, and I don’t know about the others, but I had to force each bite down. My stomach was not in the mood to accept much of anything, not even Cocoa Pebbles.
We gathered in the living room, and in hushed, almost reverent tones, went over the plan for the last time. Planning is good. Knowing the plan inside and out is better.
The official start of the execution of our plan wasn’t set to begin until 9:00 p.m.
I felt a strong impulse to stay close to the others. They must have felt the same, because no one even tried to go off by themselves. Together, we walked into town to try to get rid of some pre-battle jitters and to pass the time more quickly. The main street of Moab matched the stillness of the air—there were no other pedestrians and very little traffic on the street, unusual for early afternoon.
We stopped at a small used bookstore, but didn’t even make it past the
threshold before the stooped and wrinkled owner waved us away. “Sorry folks. Somethin’s not feelin’ right about this day. I’m closin’ shop early and goin’ home.”
“Not a bad idea,” Joe said. “Keep safe.”
The old man nodded, stepped outside, and used his key to lock the door. I looked back at him as we turned to walk away. He gazed up into the cloudless sky. I heard him mutter, “Calm before the storm.”
Back out on the sidewalk of the Main Street, we stopped to decide what to do next. A small red car going in the opposite direction screeched as the driver slammed on the brakes and flipped around, coming to a skidding stop next to us. The driver’s side door flung open and Mariah exited and flew around the front of the car to stand in front of Alec, leaving the door wide open and the car running on the side of the road.
“Alec!” She was out of breath. “I was just going up to your house.”
Alec took a step back. “Why?”
“I needed to see you.” She closed the space between them, flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest.
The look on Alec’s face was one of surprise as he embraced her uncertainly. “Mariah, calm down. Tell me what’s going on.” When she didn’t answer he grabbed her upper arms and pushed her away so he could look into her eyes. “What is going on?”
The thoughts kept circling in my mind that this girl who had seemed so normal a couple of weeks ago, was now as unstable as a three-legged chair—and, she knew much of our plan for that night.
“Oh, Alec. I’m scared for you. Please don’t go tonight, please. Just stay with me. I’ll… I’ll make it worth your while, I promise. I’ll do anything you want… anything. I can send my roommates away for the entire night… or they could stay… with us… if you wanted. Please, Alec, just don’t go to the Gathering tonight, please!”
Five: Out of the Pit (Five #2) Page 26
