18
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
My vision is fuzzy, but it’s so dark down here it’s hard to see what’s in front of me anyway. I’m not alone, and though she’s behind me, I know the pitiful coughing is coming from Gemma.
I pull on the ropes that are bound around my wrists. I’m sitting in a wooden chair with my hands tied to its arms. Loose knots hold my ankles against the legs of the chair. The entire thing is attached to stakes deep in the ground, preventing me from moving the chair, but I’m not worried about getting out this time.
“Ace?” Gemma croaks. “No. There’s no way.” Her voice is hoarse and the stab of pain hits me hard in the chest again as I remember how sick she is.
“Yeah. It’s me. I’m going to get you out of here. Again.”
“I’m not imagining this? You’re really here?”
“Yes. Seems saving your ass from psychos is a regular thing, huh?”
The cot creaks under her weight as she tries to get up. Metal chains drag over the hard-packed dirt floor, and she coughs again.
“I’m confused.”
“You probably have a high fever. It causes confusion. Sit down. We’ll be out of here soon.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Burn through these ropes like I did the last time.”
“No!” she cries. “Don’t you smell that?”
“It smells like a lot of things down here.”
“Kerosene.”
Her word is like a knife in my gut. Fuck. She’s right. I turn my head down, inhaling deep.
“They know about your powers,” she whispers. “I…I told them.”
“What?”
“Not like that,” she starts, needing to take a minute to catch her breath. She can hardly breathe. She probably has pneumonia, and without medical attention she could take a turn for the worse in no time. “I was bragging about you.”
“And you got locked in a dungeon for it.”
“I’m in a root cellar,” she deadpans. “They think I’m possessed.”
“Ahh, that’s what all the devil talk was about.”
“They’ve been trying to do exorcisms on me. I think they’re going to do the same to you…which is why they put kerosene on the ropes.”
I’m not sure if I want to know the details of what an exorcism entails just yet. “They want me to burn the place down?”
“No. They want to make a deal and think threatening your body will get the demon inside you to talk.”
“What?”
“They want to make a deal with the devil to save their farm. They’re starving me…doing these exorcisms and pouring holy water on me every day trying to make the demon desperate enough to make a deal.”
That’s a twist I didn’t see coming.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. I told them you’d save me, that you’d get me out just like you did before. But they wanted you all along. You can create fire…like the devil. They’re insane and I’m so sorry, Ace.” Gemma starts to cry, but her sobs turn into coughs. She sounds awful.
