“Aaaava,” Ben’s voice called from outside. Lightning flashed followed shortly by a loud crack of thunder. This time instead of the skull, Ben’s face was in the window. His eyes were wide and black instead of the blue they used to be. His mouth was stretched in an ugly grimace. The light went out.
“It’s Ben,” Makwa growled from my mouth.
“No, shit Sherlock,” Brandon snapped.
“No,” Makwa said in strained patience. “Ben is the creature. He was never human. He fooled me.”
“Makwa? What is he?” I asked.
“No fucking idea. He’s not like Brandon though.” Thunder clapped and I jerked in shock expecting to see Ben’s face again. When the lightning came the window was empty, only the trees surrounding the house in view.
There was a crack of breaking glass and then the flash as the gas grenade filled the room with the pungent smell of rotten eggs. I coughed. Caspian and Brandon were coughing too. Pollux was the only one completely fine, looking around at us in shock as we all suddenly collapsed to the floor on our hands and knees. My eyes watered and I gripped my throat, trying to stretch out the shirt’s collar as if it was the fabric strangling me.
My vision dimmed and swayed and a moment later I felt the impact of my body falling into the carpet. Brittle shag scratched at my cheek as I felt myself losing consciousness.
“Ava,” Makwa snapped in shock. I felt him pierce my mind and drag it back out from the depths of sleep.
The bedroom’s door flew open, smacking the wall behind it. I cracked my eyes open. Caspian and Brandon were passed out on the floor, faces completely slack, bodies unmoving. Pollux pulled his gun out in a snap and aimed it directly between Ben’s eyes.
“The Mothman of West Virginia. The creature from another world,” Ben said. Pollux flicked the safety off the modern gun and gripped the gun tighter, his finger began to squeeze the trigger.
“I know what you are,” Ben said quickly. “I know where you came from. I even know about that door in the woods. The one with no building. The one you walked through, finding yourself here,” Ben said, his arms going wide. Pollux tilted his head. It was too hard to keep watching, my gaze dragged down his duster to his worn boots until finally, they closed. Makwa tried to keep me awake, fighting against the knockout gas.
“Did you really think you were the only one who got lost?” Ben asked Pollux. My consciousness went fully under but was once again dragged back up. Makwa was valiantly fighting a losing battle to keep me awake.
“She can open a doorway again. She can get us home,” Ben said. “Wouldn’t you like that?” Ben asked. I wasn’t sure what happened after that but I could have sworn I heard gunshots before everything went dark.
* * *
Everything swayed,the earth spinning before I’d even opened my eyes. The air was thin and cool. I sucked it into my lungs and realized my fingers felt numb. I heard nothing but the steady pace of multiple shoes on wet earth.
“Wake up!” Snapped in my head, Makwa’s demand. My eyes flew open. I saw dark trees overhead and felt cold metal around my wrists. I thrashed. My memory came back in fragments, the stench, the gunshots. The sound of fighting, seeing Caspian and Brandon on the floor. Another memory flashed in my head, the girl at the concert, the gunshot, the screams, her wide eyes, her body slapping the stage and sliding to the floor. Everything began swirling in my head, a brief history of all the violence I'd witnessed in the past until I screamed, kicking and punching at whoever held me.
I was swiftly and unceremoniously dropped. I met the ground roughly, a twig biting into my hip. I flung my head back gasping, looking around at the small collection of people that still survived. Ben loomed above me, a scarf wrapped around half his head. It appeared to be covering a large wound on the right side of his face.
I pushed off the ground, my fingers and feet digging into the dirt, trying to break away even if it was futile. Ben reached down and snatched my hair, pulling it until I screamed.
“Are they dead?” I gasped.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ben responded. I looked into his one visible eye. “You won’t be seeing them again either way.” He let go of my hair and gripped my arm, pulling me back up. They all started walking again, dragging me along. When I refused to walk, Ben dug his grip into my hair and pulled me like that until I brought my feet beneath me and stumbled along with them.
“What do you want with me!” I screamed, my voice echoing in the dark, silent woods, causing the others to shudder in displeasure from the loud sound. His remaining followers flipped their eyes to him. There were only three—Victoria and two men.
“He’s lying to you,” I said quickly. “He’s not human.” The two men looked at me with furrowed brows but Victoria didn’t react at all. I was beginning to think she knew the truth the whole time. That Ben had told her his secret and together they’d fooled a group of humans into helping them with their plans.
“We’re here,” Ben suddenly said.Herewas very familiar. It was the clearing in front of the cave. I wasn’t sure how I could be back here again so quickly. He tossed me in the center of them, the shackles biting into my wrists.
“And this time, no interruptions, and no waiting,” Ben said, grabbing the book from his bag and pulling it out. I opened my mouth to tell his followers he was a liar, that they wouldn’t get what they wanted but words were already flying from Ben’s mouth. The sound was alien, archaic, and grating. Makwa squirmed in so much pain inside me that I fell to my knees and cried out.
“Ava,” Makwa ground out in my head. “I thought it might end this way.”
“Stop,” I said. I didn’t like him talking like that… as if he were about to die.
“That’s why the splinter couldn’t stay because if I were ever to be gone…”
“You risked me wanting to exorcise you so that I’d be okay?” Ben's words grew louder and I bent in half with pain. The scent of burning sage was everywhere while his words wrapped around me, trying to seep into my skin.
“I’d accepted that cave a long time ago. I liked it even. True, I wanted my freedom but it wasn’t just that. It was you. It was always you.”
