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She cocks her head to the side, scrutinising me in a way that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. She doesn’t answer. Instead, a slow smile pulls up her lips, contorting her face, twisting it into something else, intosomeoneelse. Her brown eyes turn green. Her body stretches and pulls into someone much taller, broader, until she becomes...
A man in a black mask.
The Masks, they’rehere.
My stomach bottoms out, sickness rolling through me. Stumbling, my eyes slam shut as I reach for the counter, but all I feel is air as I fall sideways. Gritting my teeth, I wait for the impact, my arms suddenly useless. Instead, I’m supported by the man whose eyes are green like crisp, frosted grass in winter.
Sharp, cold, unemotional.
He pushes against my shoulders, forcing me flat on my back as my surroundings morph, the kitchen cabinets melting just like the clock face in Salvador Dali’s painting, becoming a puddle of colour that turns murky, black. I blink back the fog, fighting the heaviness I feel in my limbs as a small white light floats above his head, helping me to see what truly is in front of me.
“You can’t escape us,” he says, his lips plump, surrounded by a dark stubble. The mask he wears covers the top half of his face, revealing his mouth and chin, giving me a glimpse of the man beneath. Drawing back, he moves away and my vision blurs, fading in and out.
“No!” I groan, understanding now that it wasn’t my aunt or uncle that I saw, but a mirage, something I’d conjured up between dream and reality to help me to cope with the trauma.
I’ve been drugged.
I was too late to run.
I’m already theirs.
“Yes,” the man counters, laughing now.
My uncle joins in with him. Only it isn’t my uncle’s face I see anymore but another black mask, two cool blue eyes staring back at me. “You’rehere,” I say, trying and failing to move my body. I can barely lift my head, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.
“If by here you mean in your home, I can tell you that we are a long way from there now.”
“Please,” I beg, uncertain of what I’m begging for, but unable to help myself. All thoughts of accepting my fate are replaced with the stark reality of my situation. I knew this day would come, yet now that it’s here I can’t help but feel afraid.
“She’s becoming more lucid,” the man, who’s no longer my uncle, states. His voice is thick and syrupy like molasses. “You’re stronger than you seem.”
One minute he’s sitting over me, the next kneeling by my side. My heart beats in my throat as I read his intention. “Don’t,” I warn, knowing I’m nothing but a lamb ready to be offered up for slaughter.
His glacier eyes glitter dangerously. “Is that a challenge?”
“We’re almost there, Konrad. Give her another dose. It will tide her over until we’re home.Thenyou can indulge,” another voice, different from the other two, says. There’s a melodious note to his voice, and a foreign edge, making it difficult to place his accent. I can only hear him. He’s nearby, but not close enough for me to see.
“Stay away from me!” I grind out, panic sliding like acid through my veins. But the man I now know as Konrad ignores me, and reaches for something tucked inside his jacket pocket. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what he’s reaching for, and what he intends to do,again.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that,Zero,” he says, leaning closer.
Zero? He says that as though it’s my name. Maybe I misheard, maybe this is all part of the strange in-between place I’m in right now, my mind conjuring up realities to help me to cope with this living nightmare.
“You don’t like your new name? I thought it was apt,” he says, noting the confusion in my eyes and choosing to add insult to injury. He pulls his hand back from his pocket, deciding that he’d rather torture me with words than knock me out again.
“My name is Christy, my sister isGrim. Do you know who you’re fucking with?” I ask, pouring as much strength into my trembling voice as possible. I’ve never, not once, used my sister’s name to warn people off me. I’ve always fought my own battles, never claiming power from a family line, until now. With his hand cupping my cheek and the pad of his thumb brushing over my bottom lip, he slowly lowers his face towards mine.
“We know exactly who your sister is. Unfortunately for you, we also know how much you mean to her. She hid you well. Just not well enough.”
“She’llkillyou all,” I say, knowing it to be true, my heart breaking because of it. She has enough blood on her hands. Too much. She pretends like that doesn’t matter to her, but Iknowit does.
“She’lldietrying,” he counters, saying out loud what I’ve known all along. It’s why I never told her about my visions after that first time. I knew how Kate would react. What she’d try to do. What she’llstilltry to do. The second she finds out I’m gone, she’ll drop everything to hunt these men down.
“No! Leave her out of this. I won’t fight you. I’ll do what you want.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you come willingly or not. You were always going to be ours the moment she ordered Beast to kill our father over that girl,” a detached voice, belonging to the third Mask I’ve yet to be introduced to, says.
“What girl? Why would Beast kill your father?” My questions tumble out of my mouth in a stream of badly strung-together sounds as I try to look behind me.
