Nothing.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“I’m coming for you, baby,”I tell her.
Still nothing.
Immediately, I push the bodyguard out of my way. He lets out a sound of protest and grabs my shoulder to stop me. As Malik warned him before, it is a horrible decision on his part. Blinded by the fear of not getting to Ava in time, I send my fist flying in an uppercut. His eyes bulge out of his head in surprise, and before he can make a sound, his body is sent backward into the air, slams into the side of a parked SUV, and his head smashes the passenger window. He instantly blacks out, falling in a heap on the asphalt, blood pooling beneath him. Malik swears loudly, jogs to get to the bodyguard, and crouches next to his unconscious body to check for a pulse. I don’t stay around to find out if I killed him or not. I need to find Ava.
Ripping open the door, I start running, turning right toward the stairs leading to the backstage room. In my desperation, I almost miss her vanilla and caramel scent. With how strong it is, I can tell she’s been here only minutes before. I turn on my heel and follow it back into the club, pass the back door I entered through, and make a beeline to the bathrooms on the underground floor.
A horrible feeling churns in my gut as I barrel into the women’s bathroom and take in the blood smeared on the dented tiles in front of me. I don’t have to get close to know it’s Ava’s. I can smell it from here. What I assume is her phone is smashed to pieces on the floor, and I catch something in the corner of my eye. It’s a message scribbled in Ava’s blood on the mirror.
‘Eye for an eye. Heart for a heart. How does it feel to know I have her?’
My knees buckle under me, and the blistering fear that I willfind Ava in the same state as Josh seeps into every crack and crevice of my chest until I choke on it.
33
Ava
Temples throbbing fiercely, I try to pry my eyes open, but the only movement I manage is that of fluttering eyelids. The sensation throws me back to the day I woke up in Logan’s basement. There’s something different now, though. I still smell wood and pine sap, but it’s overpowered by a repulsing odor carving a path down my throat. As if someone decided to make a soup of burned hair, coagulated blood, and melted plastic with a healthy dose of soured meat on top. It’s so foul, I have to swallow down the urge to projectile vomit.
C’mon, Ava, open your damn eyes! When I finally do, I realize I am tied up in another cabin. And this time, instead of hanging from the ceiling, heavy, fiery chains pin me to a wooden chair as the skin on my wrists and ankles sizzles under them.
It’s me…the sickening smell is coming from me.
I struggle against the restraints, and my own strangled scream obliterates every coherent thought. The pain is so intense I feel like I might black out again. Taking a few deep breaths in and out, I let my eyes wander over the room I’m in, trying to distract myself from the blinding pain. The windows are all boarded shut, and a thick layer of grime covers the floor and wooden walls. The only pieces of furniture are the chair I’m tied to and a big old dusty bookshelf on my left, pushed against the wall and lined with huge jars and lit candles. The jars all look the same, filled with some sort of liquid, and something is floating inside them.
¡Mierda!Is that? Are those…are those organs? No, not just organs…they’re all hearts.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Tearing my eyes from the gruesome picture before me, I look down. There’s a weird drawing under my chair on the floorboards, a red circle filled with intricate symbols, and I’m sitting right in the middle of it.
The sound of shoes slapping against the creaking floor reaches my ears before a woman enters. She’s wearing a long, dark blue dress under a black cloak—the same cloak I saw in the woods when Tony was torn to pieces. She must be the witch.
“Ah, you’re finally awake,” she says. The first thing I notice about her are the inky black tendrils covering every available surface of skin as though her veinsare filled with tar-like blood. Even her face is full of them. The strange veins seem to be shifting and moving under her skin with a mind of their own. She’s holding an ancient copper bowl with symbols etched on it, and she saunters toward me, her white as-snow hair flowing at her back.
“What do you want from me?” I manage to grit out in a scratchy voice.
She pins me with a sinister smile. It’s unsettling how wrong it looks on her face. And you know that saying, “Eyes are the mirror of the soul”? Well, hers are…empty. Said soulless eyes lock with mine. “Just your blood…for now. Then your heart, of course.” She lifts the sleeve of my mesh turtleneck roughly and takes out a knife from the holster hanging from the belt at her waist. The sharp blade slashes through the skin of my forearm, right over a fresh cut that’s oozing blood.
Muttering a sharp curse, I struggle against the chains holding me to the chair, but the intense pain explodes through my nerve endings again as the metal burns through another layer of my skin. I still immediately, taking jagged breaths through a clenched jaw. A bead of sweat gets stuck in my eyelashes, and I blink it away.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The chains are made out of pure silver.” Shadows obscure half of her face, and the other is illuminated by the flickering candles. She places the bowl under my arm to catch the blood flowing from the deep gash in rivulets, painting the inside of the bowl red.
My nostrils flare. “Why are you doing this? Why kill so many innocent people?”
She shrugs nonchalantly with a bored expression. “It’s nothing personal. I just needed their hearts for a spell.”
My eyes widen in shock. “All that for a spell?”
She smiles like a cat. “No, not just any spell. A demon summoning one.”
“Why would you want to summon a demon?” I sputter.
No, seriously, why would anyone want that?
