The Haunting (21 page)

“Four, three.”

She wasn’t going to make it, I realized.

The hope drained out of me as I reached my free hand back to her, beckoning her forward.

“Two.”

“No!” was all I heard from in front of me. It sounded like Cody.

“One.” Damien’s smooth calm voice rippled fear down my spine.

I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to look.

What I didn’t expect was to be pushed.

He released my wrist so quickly I hardly had time to react. One swat into my shoulder and I was slammed down onto the table.

My shoulder blades hit first, taking the brunt of the impact. The claw marks in my back were a dull ache compared to the shot of adrenaline that pumped anew.

The room spun unnaturally fast. I tried to focus, but the ceiling swayed before my eyes.

The shouts rose in alarm, and I could see a blur of motion out of the corner of my eye.

Turning my head, I saw the cleaver raised. I choked on my own scream, unable to let it loose, when I felt a weight fall on top of me.

Whatever scream I had saved up knocked right out of my chest.

I realized in that instant that it was a person on top of me.

The last thing I remembered before passing out was the warm blood hitting my face.

Groggily, I realized I could hear my name being called over and over. It was a hum at first, barely acknowledgeable. Then progressively, it grew louder, more insistent.

I’m needed elsewhere, I thought. As much as I would like to stay in this cushy dreamworld, I wasn’t allowed. Something was pulling me out of it, an urgency I knew I should recognize.

I tried to open my eyes and failed. They felt as if they’d been sealed with glue, and it took some effort to peel them apart, my vision creating blurry, fat images in front of me.

“Fuller, come on. Wake up.”

Fatigue started to chip away slowly, though the temptation to close my eyes and fall back to sleep was so very inviting.

Phoebe sat over me, her face swollen with tears. I blinked at her for several seconds, my mind reeling with memories and overwhelming emotions. Phoebe was sad because…

Turning my head, fearing the dizziness that never came, I saw Claire curled up in the corner of the warehouse we were in.

Concrete floor cooled my back, numbing it. Overly large fans overhead produced a monotonous hum. The light was dim, but I could make out an oversized aluminum door. To the right, Joel stood, arms crossed, broad back turned to me. Claire was speaking with him softly, her eyes on me.

Cardboard boxes were stacked against the wall to my left. I had moved my head around, no dizziness so far.

Unsticking my tongue from my teeth, I asked, “Where’s Cody?”

Phoebe looked away, fresh tears streaking her face. Phoebe never cries.

The memory of someone falling on top of me and the warm liquid hitting my face flashed so fast and violent that I held still. Willing the image away only encouraged it.

It couldn’t be real,
I thought. Tentatively touching my face, I felt the sticky and crusted substance. I pulled my fingers back to see dark red flakes.

“I tried to get most of it off.” Phoebe sniffed.

I rubbed my cheek with the heel of my hand, and the horror gripped tighter until I choked on the words. “Did Cody…?”

“He jumped on top of you,” Phoebe whispered, “just as Gretchen struck down. I thought he killed you both.”

“Gretchen?” I asked. “I thought Damien held me.”

“He did.” Phoebe rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands hard. “But Gretchen grabbed it from him and…it all happened so fast, Fuller. She was on the table and then there was all this…all this blood. She looked pissed too.”

Claire sniffled, and I realized in her curled fetal position, she was crying, hiding her face in her arms.

I rubbed at my cheek furiously. It started to hurt, but I didn’t care. It was Cody’s blood!

“Is he still alive?” I asked, my entire body vibrating.

For the first time, Joel spoke, his voice gruff. He still didn’t turn around. “He’s dead.”

Would Damien have killed me? Or was he saving me from Gretchen?

“I passed out?” I asked, though the answer was obvious. I glanced down at myself for cuts or some gaping wound I couldn’t feel.

“Yeah,” Phoebe muttered. “I tried to get to Cody, but everything went pitch dark after that.”

Staring down at my pajamas, I sat up quickly, too quickly.

My shirt stuck to me like a second skin. Sweat and crimson stained the majority of it except for some space on my side and shoulders. I wanted to panic. I strived to squash the rising agitation and the squeal I felt at the back of my throat.

The blood splattered up my throat and face. It had mostly dried, and I rubbed at it as if to rub my own skin off.

“When it was light again, we were brought here,” Joel grumbled.

“Are you sure he’s dead?” I asked, wobbling to my feet.

Joel glanced at me over his shoulder, his eyes red but tearless. “What do you think?”

I held my shirt away from my body with my fingertips, repulsed. “Maybe this isn’t real,” I tried to reason. This couldn’t be Cody’s blood all over me. It couldn’t be.

Cody Lewis couldn’t be dead.

I gritted my teeth together, the shock wearing off enough for me to feel the rage beneath.

Phoebe wiped her face with her hands and stood. She started to pace but didn’t limp or hobble awkwardly. She seemed back to some sort of normal, though the red veins of poison tattooed her calf.

If they had just given me up, Cody would be alive,
I thought bitterly. A small voice argued, but Robin, Aidan and Read could be dead—if they weren’t already. “She is going to pay for this,” I growled. Of course I didn’t know how, but my rage told me that I wanted Gretchen to pay. I could imagine a thousand ways for her to suffer, and it would never be enough.

“Oh yeah? How?” Joel demanded. He had finally turned around to face Phoebe and me. Claire stayed still, sobbing into her arms and knees.

I glared at him. “I don’t know, but she will.”

“I saw how exhausted you were after the Ona,” Joel said. “You even passed out. Damien barely worked a sweat just creating the room, summoning that thing, and turning all the lights out. Gretchen’s probably exactly the same. What makes you think you can take on all those Reapers?” Joel spread his arms wide to the warehouse.

I glared at him but said nothing. He and I both knew that he was right.

Metal shelving cornered us near the wall. Only one little space was there to allow us through. One way out, one way for whatever was out there to get in.

“Are you feeling better?” I asked Phoebe, changing the subject. I didn’t want to talk about Damien or Gretchen, and I didn’t want to think about Cody. He could still be alive. Maybe there was still hope for him.

Phoebe nodded gently. “I don’t feel like before,” she noted.” This is almost worse, though.”

I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t want to stain her clothes. I wanted to take the stained shirt off, but running around shirtless wasn’t a decent plan either.

Luckily, I didn’t feel as sluggish. The sleep must have helped a little. “How long was I out?”

“Felt like a few minutes,” Phoebe said.

“Felt like a few
hours
,” Joel growled. “We were in the dark for a long time.”

Phoebe didn’t argue and shrugged. “Could have been,” she admitted and took my hand.

I squeezed her fingers, comforted by them. It spoke volumes over any apology or anything she could say.

I looked around us uncertainly. Maybe Damien was trying to steal my friends, one by one, dwindling the pile until only one person was left to sacrifice me in exchange for freedom. I glanced at Joel.

“We need weapons,” I said, clearing my throat. I wasn’t going to cry. Cody was alive still, this blood was fake, and the memory was tainted. Damien didn’t let anyone get near Cody to see if he was okay. I nodded affirmatively, mostly to myself.
Cody isn’t dead
, I thought stubbornly.

No one questioned my statement. All of us except Claire scrounged through the boxes on the high metal shelves—at least for as high as we could reach—and through what was in the corners.

Most were brimming with styrofoam stuffing, shredded newspapers, and in a few cases rocks. I passed out the palm-sized stones to the group. It seemed to be the best we could do until we found something better. I could only imagine some of the good weapons we could get our hands on in a warehouse.
Maybe a pipe. So I could bash Gretchen’s brain in
. The thought gave me some pleasure.

As I stepped toward the opening leading out of our nook, I heard Phoebe hiss, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Out there.” I pointed, glancing over my shoulder.

Joel helped Claire to her feet. Her wet face was scarlet, and her sleeve was drenched in tears. She stared at the shelves sightlessly.

I felt my heart tug for her. We couldn’t tell her, not yet. No one would believe me. I’d have to prove it to them.

Straightening my shoulder, I jutted my jaw out. “Did Gretchen leave the ring?” I asked, eyes shifting between faces.

They shook their heads.

Joel rolled his eyes along the floor scrupulously. “Not in here, anyway.”

“Then that means it’s out there.” I pointed outside of our area again.

“You’re calm after all this,” Phoebe said to me. It wasn’t an accusation, more of an observation.

I wasn’t sure how I could respond to that. I wasn’t calm. Every nerve twanged. I wanted to scream, shout, pull my hair, curse, hurt something. I didn’t want to be here, but at the same time, I knew I could make a difference here. Neive said I could use my powers, focus them. Popping it like a balloon didn’t work at all, but direct contact did.

I looked down at my palms automatically. The circles were a dull pink and didn’t pain me anymore.

Phoebe followed my gaze but said nothing.

“You coming?” I asked, curling up my hands.

Joel’s eyes narrowed, and he didn’t move.

“I don’t think Cody’s dead,” I blurted, to curb their suspicions.

“I saw him,” Phoebe swallowed the rest of what she was going to say. Unfortunately, Joel was not nearly as shy.

“That cleaver went in so deep I thought it got you too.”

I swallowed against a dry throat. “What if it was fake? Like the fake-Read?”

All three of them stared at me doubtfully.

Frowning, I turned my back to them. I didn’t want to have to explain myself. They wouldn’t understand.

Phoebe came close behind me, then Joel and Claire.

Rows upon rows of shelving reached as high as the ceiling.

Overhead lights flickered, sometimes fading all together. The fan’s hum overhead muffled our footsteps completely against the concrete floors. No dust left our footprints either; in fact, the entire warehouse was dust-free.

I tried to dry out my shirt by pinching the center and waving it away from my stomach. I hoped the air would help it lose its revolting tackiness.

Claire’s gruff voice spoke up from behind me. “Where are we going?”

Someone had to always ask that.

No one answered, and she didn’t seem eager to repeat it. Following close to Joel, she held a cloth Joel found in one of the boxes to the side of her face.

“Phoebe?”

The voice came from above.

Phoebe and I nearly ran into the shelving as we moved away from the voice, looking up.

Joel had raised his stone to throw. At least we still all had them—as feeble as a weapon as they may be.

Read Wallace.

“Oh crap,” Phoebe whispered.

“Read?” I asked softly, hoping he could hear.

“Took you guys long enough,” Read said, his dark hair falling past his face as he leaned over the edge. He was at least four rows up; each row took up maybe five feet of vertical space.

Joel snorted.

“Get down here,” Phoebe hissed.

Read’s face contorted in fear. “I can’t.”

I asked, “Why not?”

“My arm. I can’t climb down with one arm.”

“What happened?” Phoebe interrupted, horrified.

“That thing bit me.” Read leaned forward further so we could see him clutching his arm to his chest.

“What if that’s not him?” Claire whispered in a high-pitched squeal.

Phoebe glanced at her. “What if it is?”

Claire’s full lips pinched, looking like fat prunes.

“How can we get him down?” I asked. “Joel, could you carry him?”

Joel frowned, inspecting the structure. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

At least he was being realistic and not allowing his pride to interfere. Unfortunately, Phoebe didn’t see it that way. “Of course you can. Don’t be a wuss.”

This straightened Joel’s back as he glared at her. “Why don’t you?”

“I was poisoned, remember?”

“You’re fine now,” he said.

“Yeah, now. What about in ten seconds? It’s not exactly well-timed.”

I remembered I hadn’t told her about her being my protector. I would later, not now.

Claire peered between the boxes at our back. “Don’t warehouses have that big machine with tongs?”

Joel sighed patiently. “A forklift?”

“Whatever.” She sniffed. “Why don’t we look for something like that?”

Phoebe raised her eyebrows as if she were ready to say something mean when Joel interrupted. “We could, but what about Read? We were tricked once before.”

“Then let’s ask him a question,” I suggested. “Something only our Read would know.”

“Damien knows everything,” Phoebe said, unimpressed.

“Took him an entire Challenge to figure out who I was,” I said. “I don’t think he knows everything.”

Claire shrugged, her mind working as her eyes twitched from side to side. “He’s lasted this long. Someone ask him something personal.” She wiped the drying tears from her face, her body rigid but growing in confidence.

Joel smirked. “Do you know how to drive a forklift?”

“Of course not,” she said. “But how hard could it be to figure out?”

“Read,” I called up. “You have to tell us something no one else knows.”

“What?” he asked.

“So we know it’s you.”

“Uh.” His eyes flickered to Phoebe.

Phoebe frowned and said huskily, “Go ahead.”

Joel raised an eyebrow, darting a glance in her direction.

“Phoebe and I slept together.”

I looked to Phoebe, then back to Read.

Read appeared shocked. “You knew about that?”

Phoebe blushed and cracked her knuckles. “It was…awkward.”

“You fucked,” Joel said, sounding bored. “Just say it.”

Phoebe glared at Joel but said to me, “And after, it was just…it was nothing.”

I looked up at Read to see him looking elsewhere, chewing on the insides of his cheek.

“So we quit seeing each other.” Phoebe frowned and glanced at me uneasily. “I think it was because of another girlfriend of his that I walked in on while they…” She breathed out heavily, as if it weren’t even worth the effort to explain.