Afterlife (Second Eden #1)

by Aaron Burdett

  Amber took a second to relax and stare at the ceiling. She needed a way out of this prison. She had to get back to Toby.

  It was in those quiet seconds that she heard the scratching on the door.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Chained Phantom

  Faye’s brass knuckles glimmered in the dim bulb’s light. Dino spit dust from the fiery blaze of his jaw. He smirked at her, right eye swollen shut from the beating.

  She came in for another hit, and his vision flashed as the metal smashed against his temple. He groaned, slapping his palms on the floor. “Damn. That one smarted.”

  “I’ve just gotten started,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting on it backward. She admired the knuckles with a tight smile. She glanced at the scarab hanging on the door, the relic used to keep his body from dissipating into fine mist. “The Deep certainly does provide. When I bought that one in the market, I knew one day I’d use it on you.”

  “Your little relic make you feel good? You think you’ve got some strength, just because you have a shiny little object that can let you hit me?”

  Faye laughed, lowering her brass-weighted hand. “Oh no, the relic doesn’t make me feel good. Beating the hell out of you makes me feel good, Dino Cardona. I’ve wanted to wipe that smug, self-entitled smile off of you for so very, very long.”

  He struggled to sit upright. While the scarab hung in the room, his curse lay dormant, and so she cuffed his hands behind him so she could wail on him for hours without fear of a punch back. She had played this brutal little game with him, day in, day out, since Amber fled the city.

  “Savor it while it lasts,” he said, “because I’m going to get you for what you did.”

  Faye sighed and stood, polishing the brass against her breast. “Such melodrama. The girl was nothing but trouble for me. Ever since you dragged her into my city, she’s thrown off the careful balance of my plan. The archduke’s dusted all but a fraction of my fools no thanks to his fervor in finding her. The Spider’s hatching some kind of plan—God knows how many innocents are going to get wrapped up in it—and she was using Amber to do it. I wanted to kill her, you know, but she pulled that stunt in Bentley’s warehouse. I suspect she’s in the Deep now, slowly going insane as the call pulls her in.”

  Dino held his tongue. He doubted Amber fled to the Deep. Why would she? She was smart. Faced with losing all her allies in Afterlife, she would flee to someplace familiar, and she would use a mirror to do it.

  “And then there’s you,” Faye said.

  He looked up and smiled. “And then there’s me.”

  Faye spun and kicked, the toe of her boot slamming into his stomach. Dino doubled over gasping as the pain flowered through his belly. She spat at his feet and cracked her knuckles. “You always thought you were smarter than me. It all started when you convinced Zoe to go with you instead of me. Ever since that day, you’ve thought you were the cat and I the mouse.”

  “Convinced?” Dino cackled, throwing his chin back. “Convinced! You’re twisted. There’s only one kind of fool in here, and I’m not talking about the type in the Errand. Zoe saw you for who you really were: a spoiled, conniving, entitled idiot on a wild goose chase to bring the past back when it should’ve stayed buried! You can hit me as many times as you want, Faye, but nothing’s going to change the fact that she chose me. Dust me. It won’t change things. I’ll always be the winner.”

  Faye’s eyes darkened in a glare of cold rage. She slammed her brass-capped fist into his face. The bridge of his nose cracked, and he collapsed onto his side in a torrent of pain.

  “Dust you?” Faye pouted at Dino like he was a puppy in a store window. “Why, Dino, I’m not going to dust you. It may come as a surprise, but you are still of some use to me.”

  She bent over and reached into his pocket. He blinked, his eyes unfocused in his spinning head. Her fingers found their mark, and out she yanked the key that would open the lockbox in her office. “I think I’d like this back now.”

  Dino’s stomach dropped. “No….”

  “Yes!” She giggled, dropping the key between her breasts. “You thought I didn’t notice that tramp of a waitress pickpocket me? Please, Dino, you insult me. I’ve had eyes on you since the first day you stepped foot in that sooty shithole they call the Deep Diamond. I know more about Melanie Alvarez than you ever will. Especially now.”

  Dino’s chest tightened. He lurched upright, shaking his head. “Leave her out of this! She’s done nothing to you. Her husband was a fool, Faye! He fought on your side. She had no idea what she was taking. It was a favor. Please, just don’t hurt her.”

  “Look at you, groveling like some pathetic soul begging for a few coins in Little Persia.” Faye squatted until their eyes met. “You never cared about Melanie. She was just another in an ever-growing line of women you screwed and screwed over. I’m the leader of the Fool’s Errand. You think I can let some casino trash violate me, steal from me and not pay a price? Be happy for Melanie. She’s with her husband now, dust on the wind.”

  “Faye, goddammit!” Dino pitched forward and smashed his head against her brow. She shrieked, stumbling backward.

  The rage swirling through his blood numbed his pain. He kicked back, sliding until he rested against the cold wall. “She had nothing to do with this. She wasn’t an enemy! You’re blind. Blinded by your hatred of me. Blinded by your hatred of the archduke. You don’t even want the Soul Assembly back in power, do you? You’d rather be the queen of fools than actually end your pathetic war. That’d mean giving up the little piece of power you actually have, and you’d never do that, would you?”

  Faye clutched her brow, the dark wave of her hair shadowing her face. For a moment, she sat quietly, her body trembling as she heaved one breath after another. “You’re trying to rile me up, trying to get me angry,” she eventually said, sucking in a breath. “It won’t work. I’m going to break you down and build you back up. I’m going to own you, Dino, and you’re going to know it. You’ll be my own hound. Like the archduke has his Bone Man, Faye will have her Dino, the Fool’s Hound.”

  “You can’t make me do anything,” he spat.

  Faye straightened. She pulled a lock of hair behind her ear and flashed a practiced smile. “Faye might not be able to do anything.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  Faye’s body shifted and twisted. The cold, carefully-manicured features Dino despised transformed into Amber, eyes wide as a doe and brimming with equal parts hope and fear. “But what about Amber? She seemed to be good at getting you to do what she wanted.”

  Dino’s heart twisted. He looked away, teeth a wall of rage grinding behind his lips. Her hand gripped his jaw and jerked it to her. Now, instead of Amber facing him, Zoe did. “Or maybe Zoe can talk some sense into you?”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Her lips were so soft. She even smelled like Zoe. After all those years, it was like she never left. Her breath washed down his skin, prickling the hairs on the back of his neck. “It’ll be just like old times, Dino. Just like old times.”

  Dino squeezed his eyes shut. A tear slipped out, sliding down his cheek as Zoe’s fist buried in his stomach.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Intruder in the Halls

  The handle twitched. Amber stared in horror as a force, a person, struggled with the door. The lock moved. It clicked.

  She thrashed in her bed, kicking and crying, but the bands around her wrists and ankles kept her chained securely to the bedframe.

  The handle swiveled. The door moved. A crack formed, widened, like a thin black wound opening up on a field of grey. She tensed, the beat of her heart a deafening roar in her ears. “You can’t have me! I’ll fight you! I swear to God I’ll fight you until I die!”

  Jason stumbled into the room, smashing his index finger against his lips. “Shut up, Amber! You trying to wake everybody up?”

  Amber struggled in her binds, squirming as far as she could from him. “This is a trick. You�
��re trying to get me to give up. I won’t!”

  He shut the door behind him and ran his fingers through the thick wave of his hair. “Can I have some of what they’ve been giving you?”

  She eyed him, but her struggling stilled somewhat. “Is it really you?”

  Jason spread his arms wide. “The one and only!”

  The tension knotted up inside her vanished, like a taut rubber band suddenly cut in half. She folded forward, half laughing, half sobbing. “Jason, I’ve missed you so much. You have no idea.”

  “I’m pissed, Amber! You ran off without telling me. Everybody thought you were dead. Everybody!” He sighed and smoothed his shirt. “You look like shit, by the way.”

  “I feel like it,” she said.

  He ran to Amber and wrapped his arms around her. They held each other for a long moment, neither needing or wanting to say a word.

  Jason eventually pulled back and smiled. “I mean that in the best possible way, by the way.”

  “God, I’ve missed you. Get me out of these freaking handcuffs. We’ve got to get out of here before somebody finds us.”

  Jason untied the bands around her wrists and went to work on her ankles. She rubbed her right wrist, closing her eyes and sighing. “They trapped me. They had some doctor drug me. They thought … They thought I’d try and hurt someone.”

  He slowed as he undid the last bind. “After what you did to Ryder in the equipment shed, Amber, can you blame them? The police came and interviewed me after you up and went poof. They told me about the pills, about the mess in the kitchen.” A pain look contorted his handsome features. “Just tell me—”

  “Jason, I would never try and kill myself, and I’d never try and hurt anyone else. I swear to God I would never do that to you. I wouldn’t even do that to Mom and Chris. I know what it feels like. What happened to Ryder—what I did to Ryder—that wasn’t me. It’s … It’s complicated, but it wasn’t me. If you give me the chance, if you forgive me, I’ll explain everything.”

  “I believe you.” He patted her leg and pulled her ankles from the bands. “And I’m sorry I freaked out on you in the shed. I saw how terrified you were after you, I don’t know, did your mutant superhero badassery, and I was all, ‘Damn, she’s going to fry me with her eye lasers.’ Or something like that. I freaked out too. I’m sorry. I should’ve chased you home instead of hiding.”

  “No, you’re fine.” She sucked in a breath. “We’re fine, right?” She rolled onto her ankles and put a hand on his shoulder. “Aren’t we?”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Of course we are. When I heard they had you locked up in here, I knew whatever they planned wasn’t good. Your mom’s kind of gone off the deep end with the whole thing. She thinks I had something to do with it. Wouldn’t even let me come see you. Can you believe it?”

  “About her? Yeah.”

  “When she told me I couldn’t see you, I knew something was up. So I decided to come see you for myself. Thank God I did too.”

  “I owe you for that.” She looked to the door and swallowed. “We’ve got to get out of here. Fast.”

  “Follow me,” he said.

  Jason grabbed her hand, and together they slipped into a dark hall. The flotsam of a hospital littered the corridor—cheap waiting chairs, empty IV stands, stretchers. They tiptoed across the linoleum. Two nurses chatted at the end of the hall. Jason pulled her into an empty room, and they waited for the conversation to die down.

  “They’ll walk off in a bit,” he whispered.

  They lingered there in the darkness, listening to a conversation about the new Italian place opening up off Maplewood. Part of Amber missed those conversations about nothing. She suddenly ached for the hallways of St. Luke’s, of days spent in the art studio with Jason, of hours spent listening to Mr. Engel prattle on. She even missed Tiffany and her friends, for some odd reason. It was a tantalizing shard of normalcy, this conversation between nurses, and it reminded her of everything Afterlife wasn’t.

  “This is taking too long,” Jason huffed.

  “Hold on. I might be able to help.”

  Amber gripped his shirt for support and closed her eyes. She could feel Eve inside her, watching, waiting, tempting her with the power of the curses. She reached inside her soul, tapping the power of her spirit, and when she did, she felt the slow, cold crawl of some other mind pulling down her own.

  “I … I can’t use them,” she murmured, the cold shock of the realization bringing her gaze to his.

  “What’re you talking about? Use what?”

  “Nothing. I just … nothing.” She frowned, glancing toward the door. “You hear them?”

  Jason leaned forward. He scrunched his nose and shook his head. “Sounds clear enough to me.”

  They slipped into the hall and padded toward the quiet desk. Jason and Amber slid to the corner and listened. No sounds came. The hospital wing was quiet, but it was more than just quiet. It was something deeper, the kind of heavy silence that was unnatural and dark.

  Before she could say anything, Jason squeezed her hand, and tugged her around the corner. Amber swallowed her scream when her eyes took in the scene before her. She grabbed his shirt and hauled him back before he could trip over the nurse’s body.

  “Oh my God!” Jason yelled. “The nurse … Oh God, Amber. Oh my God!”

  Amber barely registered the nurse. Her wild eyes locked on something farther down the hall. A dark silhouette stood beneath a flickering fluorescent light. Tall and thin, he wore a pressed black suit, black oxfords, and pale gloves. And while his back faced her, she knew him well enough to know he wore a pale mask shaped like a skull.

  Bone Man paused mid-stride. He held his thin blade tight beside him, its tip dripping crimson.

  Amber jerked Jason around. “Run,” she hissed.

  “But—”

  “Run!”

  As Bone Man pivoted on his heel, Amber and Jason lurched around the corner. Her head throbbed from the medication, and a chill sweat sprouted on her skin, but despite her leaden legs, she ran with the fury of an Olympian sprinting for the gold.

  They bolted through the dark corridor, crashing through a door at the end of the hall and sliding into an empty room. Amber spotted a chair, grabbed it, and shoved it underneath the door handle.

  “Amber, what’s going on?” Jason asked, pacing in a tight circle. “Those people were dead! And who was that guy in the mask? Did he—”

  “Watch the door, Jason! He’ll kill you if he gets in.”

  “But who—”

  A force slammed against the door. “Bone Man,” Amber said.

  Another crash against the wood sent her heartbeat racing, her arms trembling uncontrollably. She focused on the window, running for the pane. “Your car outside?”

  “Yeah. Jesus, what’s going on Amber?”

  “There’s no time!” She grabbed another chair and backed away from the window. Bone Man crashed against the splintering door. Amber took a deep breath and focused. Bone Man rammed the wood again, cracking its face.

  Amber bit her lip, hurling the chair with all her strength at the windowpane. It cracked the glass and clattered onto the floor. She cursed, picking up the chair and beating it against the window. “Help me! Hurry!”

  Jason appeared beside her, clutching a broomstick. He rammed it against the glass, and she followed with a blow by the chair. Bone Man smashed against the door yet again. His next hard hit would shatter it into pieces.

  The window finally exploded outward as the chair went barreling through it. Jason cleared the shards with his broomstick. Amber leaned out. Two floors below, the parking lot waited. An old pickup was parked just beneath the window. Amber took a deep breath, grabbing Jason’s hand.

  “We can’t jump,” he gasped. “That’s insane!”

  Amber pulled him toward the window. “If you don’t jump, he’ll kill you. Please, Jason, you have to trust me.”

  He looked at her and swallowed. “I trust you.”r />
  Amber clenched his wrist and pulled him to the window. Together, they leapt into the night, plummeting into the pickup’s bed. Pain shot up her shins from the impact, and the truck groaned and rocked from the weight thrown inside the bed.

  Jason scrambled from the truck first and helped her onto the pavement. They sprinted through the lot, his Mercedes appearing beneath a tall parking light. They reached the car and ripped the doors open. Jason and Amber dove inside, her friend fumbling in his pocket for the keys.

  Amber slammed her door shut and beat on the dash. “Start the car! Start the car!”

  “I’m trying! Shit!” Jason rammed the keys into the ignition. The car rumbled to life. He floored the gas, and the Mercedes screeched from the lot, leaving ribbons of black and pale smoke in its wake.

  Amber spun around as they fishtailed out of the hospital drive. Bone Man appeared beneath the fluorescent light, gripping his glimmering sword. He stepped into the darkness, and his thin form began a slow, steady sprint in their direction.

  “We have to call the police,” Jason said. “I know—”

  “No, the police won’t help. He’ll kill them too.”

  “What? You can’t be serious. There’s nothing else to do.”

  “Yes there is.” Amber took a deep breath. She turned to her friend, placing her hand on his knee. “Ms. Flannery’s house. There’s a mirror. We need to get to it.”

  “Mirror? Amber, you’re not making sense. None of this makes any sense.”

  “It won’t make sense until you see it for yourself. But, Jason, we have to do this. Take me to Ms. Flannery’s. It’s the only way to make sure no one else dies tonight.”

  “Okay, okay. We’re heading that way.”

  Amber glanced behind her. Shadows swallowed the dark street. Trees rustled with the chill evening wind. Somewhere in that black, Bone Man ran, his steady, unblinking gaze set on the car speeding into the distance.