I couldn’t stand the thought of BJ suffering because of me.
I felt like a rabbit walking into a den of wolves. I stepped through the open door into the dimly lit hallway. The floor bowed under my weight. I paused to allow my eyes to adjust to the change in light and to gather the strength I needed.
The hallway was short, two closed doors on the right and two on the left. One was open. Kids had crudely spray-painted the walls with various colors and shapes. I sucked in a scorching breath, the stale scent, dank and musty, and the faint, but most disturbing scent of rotted flesh.
A smashed light globe hung from the wood-lined ceiling above, glass fragments lay in scattered pieces on the floor. No shards were big enough to use as a weapon. Boot prints carved a trail through the thick coat of dust. Three sets to be exact. There was something familiar about one of the shapes, the rectangle pattern engraved in the dust like etchings on a headstone. I don’t need to replay the moment in the forest by the satanic carvings, but if I did, I could slide them over each other like fingerprint matches on a computer screen.
The kitten’s image flashed like blades in my head. Its throat cut so deep, its head hung on by its fur.
A slow creeping shaft of stone-cold horror crawled down my spine.
“In here.” The voice wasn’t gruff or menacing, but smooth and perfectly calm, and female. It traveled out into the hall from the second door on the left.
Against every natural instinct, I stepped around the glass. My pulse whooshed through my head. The creak of a floorboard sent my heart flapping. But I was willing to crawl over hot coals if it meant a chance of saving BJ, I stepped inside.
The room was poorly lit, the only lighting came from a small window covered by a tattered, dirty, sheer curtain. The room was small and devoid of furniture, with the exception of an old, small, wooden table. There was a black cloth covering something which sat on top.
BJ was tied to an old chair, his feet and hands bound, his mouth gagged with a large, white cloth, eyes wide, terrified. He tried to talk, but only a muffled sound came out. He shook his head.
Our eyes met, a lump choked my throat, I tore my eyes away. I couldn’t crack, not now. I needed to be strong. I squeezed my hands, damp with sweat, so tight my nails carved mosaics into my skin.
Two women flanked BJ’s chair. One I recognised as the Walking Dead girl who’d tried to steal from the bookstore. The other stepped forward. She was older, blonde, maybe late fifties, but her skin was smooth and wrinkle free. Her eyes were the color of blue ice. Red lipstick bled unpleasantly into the cracks in her lips. She was dressed in a black robe, black slacks, and black shoes poked out from under the gown. If I’d passed her in the street, aside from the way she was dressed, I would have thought nothing sinister about her.
“Hello, Amelia, it’s nice to finally meet you.” Her voice was gold swathed in poison.
I found myself thinking of Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein, all normal looking people. And all psychopathic killers.
The missing faces on the café wall, the kitten, the dog, were we to be some kind of weird sacrifice?
“What do you want?” I asked, amazed at the strength in my voice.
The girl pulled back the black cloth, a swirl of dust hovered in the air like a mass of mosquitoes. My eyes landed on knives. Four of them. They were short in length, perhaps only a few inches long, with thin blades and thick, stump-like handles. Cheese knives. Not designed to kill, not immediately anyway, designed for pain and a slow death.
The fear crept forward, snaking silently though my veins, freezing my head and heart, numbing everything and threatening to overwhelm me. My heart drummed a sacrificial chant. Beside the knives there was a thick, brown, hardcover book. Maybe it was a psychopaths guide to torture.
I glared at the older woman. “I’m here, I came as you asked, now let BJ go.” I tried to keep my voice strong, but I heard the pleading in my tone.
The woman clenched her fingers in front of her. “Not yet, Amelia. Dahlia tells me you refuse to acknowledge what you are.”
I didn’t understand immediately. I couldn’t think around the fear in my mind.Dahlia!It dawned like a punch to the chest.
“What? That’s because I’m not what she thinks I am.” I threw my hands. “Dahlia is crazy.”
She took a few smooth steps towards me, held her hands out, palms skyward as if calling forth divine guidance. “My dear, do you not feel it?”
Fear mingled with frustration made my words come out like blades, “What exactly am I supposed to feel?”
She inclined her head to the table. Goth girl picked one up, a smirk on her lips.
BJ’s eyes darted from the older lady, to the girl, to the knife. The blade rose in the air like a silver spider’s fang. BJ’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates.
I registered what was about to happen. I cried out as she slammed the knife up to its hilt into BJ’s leg.
SLAP.
The sound hammered my ears as the blade tore through his jeans and through the meaty flesh of his thigh. BJ jerked wildly and let out a muffled cry. Tears flooded his eyes. Blood began to seep, like a slow flooding riverbank. The denim turned a lurid shade of red.
I roared, the sound came out more like a wild animal than a human, paying no heed to Ethan’s advice about attacking without warning.
