“Let me go!” I beg, way more terrified about the train than I am about them actually being able to summon a demon. These assholes have been bullying me all semester, but they’ve never taken it this far before. “Please! This isn’t funny anymore. Quit fucking around and let me go!”
But Alonzo’s already pouring salt on the tracks, casting me in a ritual circle, and Jake’s pulling a spellbook and some kind of athame out of his backpack.
Candlelight glints off the curved blade. It’s about six inches long, the metal etched with shadow mage symbols.
Stolen from his parents, most likely. Kids our age aren’t allowed to have ritual tools like that—not even shadow mages, who basically run the magical world around here.
“Time to spill a little blood for the demons, boys.” He grins at me, and I can tell from the sick gleam in his eyes he’s not talking abouttheirblood.
He’s talking about mine.
“Don’t,” I say. It’s barely a whisper, my lips trembling.
“Do.” His smile drops away, the insanity in his eyes chilling me to the core. “Showtime.”
He kneels beside me, the other boys crowding in to join him. I don’t know who’s pinching me, who’s spitting on me, who’s laughing—they’re all around me now, all a blur.
I try to close my eyes, but Metal fists my hair. “No sleeping on the job, Wicked. We need you conscious and alert for this.”
“Fuck you,” I hiss.
He smashes my face into the muck between the tracks, then yanks my head up again to meet his eyes. “No thanks, whore. Now hold still.”
“I offer this blood,” Jake calls out, his voice firm and commanding as it echoes through the tunnel, “in service to the demons from whence it spawned.”
The blade touches my back, a brief shock of ice-cold metal, and then…
No…
The first cut is like fire, the blade tearing through my flesh, blood trickling hot down my side. The second is even worse, deep and slow and murderous.
Everything inside me trembles. I puke until there’s nothing left in my stomach but bile.
And then I scream.
I scream through all of it.
Through the laughter and rough hands and taunts.
Through all the cuts that come after, a mad flurry of slashes and stabs and hot blood spilling onto the tracks.
“Wicked Westlyn,” Jake whispers. “We all know you’re a wicked little whore. Now, everyone else will know, too.”
“Wicked Westlyn,” the others join in, their cruel chants becoming the soundtrack of my torture.
The pain is endless. Stars dance before my eyes. My heart feels like it’s going to explode.
And all the while, the boys keep chanting, alternating between “Wicked Westlyn” and some botched demonic summoning spell.
The tunnel spins in the darkness. I can’t feel my arms or legs.
I can barely remember my own name.
Suddenly the chanting stops and Alonzo goes, “Dude, I gotta take a leak.”
“Be my guest,” Jake says, and they all get to their feet and step away from me.
I blow out a deep breath, grateful for the momentary reprieve from that vicious blade and Metal’s cruel hands in my hair.
