Without his fighting spirit, Brandon had a gentle, relaxed face with long eyelashes and round eyes. His pink lips that I had kissed looked sapped of color now. A morbid statue floating in the water.
I screamed but only a rasp came out no matter how much I pushed my voice up through my throat.
Black began to line my vision, swirling in like slick oil. It kept growing until I couldn’t see the men wading into the water coming for me. Until Mothman in the sky blinked out. Black took over my entire vision, blinding me.
“Wake up!” Yelled in my head, an intrusive demanding voice. My heavy eyelids twitched while I struggled to lift them open. Panic still edged my brain, my heart giving abbreviated, hard thumps in my chest. I knew I was in trouble, I knew something was wrong. I scrambled to get up, clutching the silk crimson sheets of the bed I was laid on.
Drugged, we’d been drugged. Ben had drugged us.
“Where’s Brandon?” I asked, tasting copper on my dry tongue. I was in a dark room on a four-poster bed. Dark paint peeked out from behind a million things hung up on the walls. Gothic art, shelves with filled jars, skeletons, shadow boxes with pinned insects. My eyes ghosted over a shadow box filled with a single, oversized moth. Its colorings unsettled me because it looked like Mothman, all black and gray with large red dots on the bottom of its wings. Its antennae were thickly furred. “Fae Tinea - Partial” was inscribed in golden calligraphy beneath it.
“Brandon isn’t here,” Makwa said. I heard his voice echo off the raised ceiling and realized it had come from my mouth. He’d talked from my own lips.
“Where am I?” I asked, quickly skittering off the bed and grabbing at my clothes. I was wearing a black dress with an empire waist. The thick fabric fell in pleats all the way to the floor, brushing my toes. The top was cut low, my cleavage and the swell of my breasts on display. The fabric seemed to be both black and red, the light altering which color showed.
I stood, looking around the room, cataloging everything. I wasn’t going to crumble to the ground crying and I wasn’t going to sit around waiting for someone else to come save me. Not now, not anymore.
“They took Brandon away and brought you here. Two women clothed you,” he stated. I reached up to the crown of my head, realizing there was something there. My fingers touched what felt like a crown of twigs and I pulled my hand away, pushing off the thought of being touched, even innocently, while I wasn’t awake. It put me on edge to know how defenseless I’d been. How defenseless they had made me. It made me feel raw, unable to protect myself.
“Calm down,” Makwa demanded. I took a big slow breath and let it back out just as slowly, moving towards the door. He was right, I needed to move on. My bare feet smoothed over worn wood planks. I couldn’t help but eye the oddities on every inch of the walls. The room felt alive with all its strange decor.
I slid past a drawing of what looked like Baphomet with plump breasts and striking ribs. Its goat head had vibrant golden eyes with rectangular pupils staring straight at me. With a shake of my head, I stopped gawking.
When I reached for the doorknob and twisted it open, I felt both relief and suspicion when it wasn’t locked. A tiny foyer with claustrophobic walls led to the door outside. It wasn’t locked either. I turned to look behind me, back at the room I’d come from. It had a presence about it that felt almost conscious. There was a sensation of being watched that I didn’t like. Quickly, I flew down the steps and into the grass. My toes touched cool earth, the night was fully upon us, a red moon stained the sky.
Deep beats echoed. It was the sound of a big drum being rhythmically played in the distance. The noise came from the woods so I moved that way, following the sound. Voices began to rise in a hum. I stopped in place, my toes in the grass. My eyes swept around the empty camp. All the cabins were dark and no one was around. I was alone with the sound of bugs and the rumbling of the people and music in the distance. I could see the flickering of firelight radiating up from the trees in the forest. They weren’t far.
Dread filled me and my instincts were on edge, goosebumps popping over my skin. I didn’t want to go towards the fire and singing but the idea of running made me feel sick to my stomach. Caspian, Pollux, and now Brandon were gone. Whatever was going on was bad. Really bad.
Who was Ben and what did he want from me? More importantly, what had he done with the guys? I stood in place, trying to logically conclude the best action to take. My emotions were little skittering bugs though, scampering around each other and making it hard to think with logic.
The truth was, I had no idea what Ben had done with the guys. They could be hurt. Leaving now might take away the opportunity to save them before something even more horrible happened. With that in mind, there really wasn’t much choice. I had to find them while no one was watching me. I’d see what was going on at least, then I could run for help once I understood the situation.
“Where would you run to get help, little Ava?” Anger reared up in me as I felt my lips move to make his words, his voice sliding from my mouth. He was stronger now, more in control.
“Stop it,” I hissed.
“Don’t like it? I like it,” Makwa said in entertainment. “And it's not me that's stronger. It’s you losing your will to fight me. I said it before, Ava. You hold the power.” For the first time I truly considered his words as truth. Did I hold the power? Could I control ghosts in some way? Whenever I’d seen my mother possessed it went nothing like this. They took over her completely and she was completely at their whims. Makwa had only been able to skirt the edges of my mind, coming and going randomly, and beggingmeto let him have some control.
“Anyway, we’re being watched. There are people around, making sure you go where you are supposed to… sogo,” Makwa said. My feet were already moving me forward. I wasn’t sure which steps were mine and which were his. I wasn’t sure who I was, who he was, and where we ended. Our minds had been an ice cream swirl but now it melted together into one big mess as the possession headed towards its culmination.
It was then I knew he would take over eventually. That I couldn’t keep fighting him down and saying no. It was a stressor on my mind. It had been confusing and straining my sanity ever since I let Makwa inside me. It was either go insane trying to fight him or let this happen. Let him have some room inside me and share control.
I was terrified of that. Not only to lose control but because Makwa wasn’t sane. His insanity sometimes bled into my mind like a sour coating on sweet candy.
We moved forward together, towards what awaited us. Encroaching dread made my fingers shake.
“We’ll get your men,” Makwa promised me, feeling my concerns.
“But what if they are already—” I swallowed the words. What if they were dead?
“One thing at a time,” he responded, sounding annoyed. Despite it coming from my mouth, Makwa sounded the same as he did in my head—a raspy, male voice.
The sound of the crowd grew, their chant never harmonizing. Through the trees I saw there were a hundred torches, burning away. People stood around in robes. Their heads were covered in animal skulls tied on with leather straps. The thick scent of fresh leaves and living branches burning tickled my throat, making it hard to hold in a cough.
Everyone was facing a raised wooden platform.
A gasp came from my mouth. Makwa slammed my hand into my face tightly, holding in my noise. Caspian and Pollux were sitting on the wooden platform, sitting on thrones made of branches and twigs, their bodies wrapped tightly with rope. Caspian was in human form and struggled against the restraints but couldn’t break free.
