ARC: Crushed (2 page)

Chapter 3

I beat the guy – Arnold? Nah, doesn’t suit him – into the house. We stand over the quietly sleeping Colton, not two feet away.

“Follow my lead,” I mouth and he grins back. Then the Hunger creeps back to the fore, taking over, swallowing any smiles, crunching my good humor between its jagged teeth.

Colton lets out a soft snore. Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty. My foot snaps out and kicks the recliner over, dumping the slob onto the carpet.

“Gaah,” he grunts, disoriented, and struggles from under the recliner. He rolls onto his back, blinking blearily. He doesn’t notice us at first, standing as still as statues, and it’s not until he’s shoving himself to his feet that he becomes aware he’s no longer alone. He gasps, falling back on his butt, and blinks.

“Who the hell are you?” he demands when blinking hasn’t erased us.

I don’t look directly at him, but continue to stare at the space above his head. “Play with us,” I sing-song.

“What the hell?” He stumbles to his feet and squints at the clock. 2.12am.

“Play with us,” I repeat, and this time Raynold? (nah, that’s not it, either), clever lad, joins me.

“Play with us.” The guy uses the same childish pitch, the same sing-song intonation. From the corner of my eye I see that he, too, stands perfectly still as he chants our creepy chorus.

Colton’s gaze shifts from me to the boy and back again. His fear blossoms like a flower, dumping its spicy scent into the air. I can’t stop my mouth from dropping open to better pull it across my tongue. Colton suspects we’re not just children, that we are, in fact, the terrifying things that go bump in the night. But, no, that’s wrong. Not things that
bump
. Bumps are clumsy and inelegant. They are sounds made by creatures not at home in the darkness. I don’t bump. I crunch in the night. I crack; I splatter; I splash. But I never, ever bump.

Colton’s spicy scent says he knows it.

And yet, he tries to bluster through. “Get the hell out of my house.” He lifts a shaking arm to point at the door, but doesn’t come any closer. He puffs his chest. “Get out of my house! Or–”

I fly forward before the words can leave his mouth and the shock of my speed sends him stumbling. “Or what, Colton?” At the sound of his name his eyes bulge. His mouth opens and closes noiselessly. “Or
what
?” I growl.

He can’t form a word; terror has closed his throat. Finally, “Who are you?” he whispers.

A smirk curls my lips, and Colton’s eyes drop to watch it. “Is that really what you need to know?”

He shakes his head slowly, thoughts flying behind his eyes. “
What
are you?” he amends.

What are we? Monsters? Half-monsters? I think I’m a good guy (I try), but the boy has never pretended to be anything but wicked. Somehow I don’t think Colton means our scientific name, which is good since I don’t know it. There probably isn’t one. Science makes more sense without us in the equation. “Your worst nightmare” is too cliché.

I settle on the simplest truth: a terrible, terrible smile. I know I do it right when all the blood leaves his face.

“Wha–” he swallows. “What do you want from me?”

I keep the not-smile smeared across my face. “Play with us, Colton.” It’s almost a coo.

“What?”

“Play with us.” I walk my fingers up his heaving chest until I reach his face, then I pinch his nose, like he’s a child. “Play with us and we’ll let you go.”

“P-p-p,” he stutters. Sweat pours from his forehead. “Play with you?”

I cock my head to the guy – Raleigh? Isn’t that a place? He has followed and stands a few feet to my left. “By George, I think he’s got it.” Did I say “George” like it was a question?

The boy in question struggles not to smile – at me or at Colton, I’m not sure.

I turn back to quivering Colton. “Yes, Colton.” I release him and take a half step back. “How about tag?”

“Tag?”

Must he repeat everything? I shake my head. “We’re not playing copy-cat.”

The idiot opens his mouth, but a raised brow makes him shut it.

The next line is the important one. I lock eyes with him and all humorous exasperation fades away. Annabel’s memories are nothing to laugh at. There’s a hardness to my voice when I say, “Touch me, and you can leave.”

I watch his face, but he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t make the connection. Before I’m done, he will. He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it. Without the slightest warning, he whips his arm toward my face, throwing his whole body into it. Clever, clever monster. I backbend and actually stagger a little to get out of the way.

We have a live one, ladies and gents!

Excellent.

Colton’s whiff tosses him off balance, but he quickly recovers and hurls himself at me. I dance out of reach with a laugh. The half-demon boy laughs with me, and I realize I’m being selfish. I point at him. “Or him!” I shout. “Touch me or him and you can leave!”

Colton spins and launches himself at the guy just as I give Colton a shove from behind. He goes flying, face first, toward the boy. At the very last second, the boy sidesteps smoothly. Colton hits the ground with a
whump
, and slides across the carpet on his bulging belly before hitting the wall.

Blood perfumes the air, just a little, from his carpet burns. The smell makes me gasp, and I have to fight down the beast. I’m not ready for the game to end. The Hunger burbles and laughs, receding a tiny bit. It can be very sporting.

Colton lumbers to his feet. He rallies and, with a war cry, comes for me again. The half-demon boy snakes out a foot, and again Colton goes flying. With the added speed from his fall, Colton almost gets me, but I kick away from the wall and dive back toward the main part of the room. I prepare to tuck and roll, but the boy swoops down, catching me about the waist and pulling me to him with a delighted laugh. We’re smashed chest-to-chest and in his terrible and beautiful face I see wild excitement and delight and Hunger and wonder and
fun
. I can’t help but laugh with him.

Colton comes barrelling at us – ah, right, we’re in the middle of something – and the boy swings me out of the way. Our game becomes a dance. If we’d choreographed it, we couldn’t cooperate more smoothly. He spins me, I toss him. The cheeky lad even manages to fit in a full-on Hollywood dip.

Colton’s movements
become more frantic and he flailing and screaming like a madman. Then, with a wild yell, Colton throws the last of what he has at me, just as my partner shoves him between his shoulder blades. I dodge and Colton slams into the wall, a cut opening on his head. The scent of his blood sends the Hunger screaming through my veins and I’m not alone – my wicked companion’s nostrils flare. He grins at me and I grin at him, two Cheshire smiles brilliant in the dim and dingy living room, and I know in that moment we are thinking the exact same thing.

It hits me like a lightning bolt. “Armand,” I say, and his grin stretches wider, a new light in his eye. We stand transfixed, caught in a shared moment, caught in each other, the air scented with the blood of a dying man.

The thud of Colton’s knees hitting the carpet pulls my attention back to him. He faces away from us, his hands and head resting against the wall as he pants. The Hunger surges and pulses; it cares not for friendships. A smear of red runs down the wall from where Colton’s forehead pressed against it, a brilliant, beautiful streak of color against beige. I let Colton have this break, this moment to collect himself. Our little game is reaching its climactic conclusion. When Colton gets back up, the gloves come off.

The claws come out.

The minute passes. For me, it happens slowly, but for Colton I suspect it speeds by, fleeing like it wants to be gone from this reality as much as he does. Then I say it. Softly, sweetly. As genuinely as Annabel said it to him all those months ago. “Play with me.”

Colton jerks. I hope it’s in recognition.

“Please,” he gasps out. “Why–” he begins a question, but he’s sobbing too hard to finish it so reverts back to, “please.” He slumps down further, until he’s face-down in the carpet.

“I will let you go, if you just touch me.” I say, my voice hard. Then I pull another line from Annabel’s memory. “Just touch me real quick, and you can leave.”

Colton, on his knees, stills at my words, then wails into the carpet.

Does he recognize it?

He mumbles something I can’t make out, something mangled by his sobs. I take a step closer. He gasps gibberish into the shag.

“What did you say?” I ask, creeping closer.

Again he keens wild words I can’t make out. I hear “murder”. I smile and dive forward, flipping him by the shoulder. He lets out a wild triumphant laugh and grabs my arm.

“I’m touching you!” He screams, his eyes rolling, wild with happiness. “I win.” I hear Armand chuckle. It
was
rather clever.

I don’t let Colton go, but rather keep holding him, waiting for him to calm down, waiting for him to notice the pitying look on my face. It’s not real, of course. My pity is rare enough; it’s not to be wasted on the Coltons of the world. But I want him to guess what I’m about to say, before I say it.

He does. Oh, he does. His laughter chokes to a halt and horror replaces happiness. His eyes widen and tear up, his mouth falls open, and his head jerks back and forth in a tiny little “no”. He stares at my mouth, begging my lips with his eyes not to make the shapes he knows are coming. They do anyway.

“Too bad it doesn’t matter,” I say, almost gently.

He shakes his head. “But… but, you said I could leave if I touched you!” His voice raises an octave and he clutches at my arm, his hands smearing sweat and blood. “I’m touching you! I’m touching you!” he screams.

I smile and sway my head smoothly, weaving it like a snake as I stare him down. “Doesn’t that sound at all familiar?” I drop my voice low and husky. “Just touch me and you can leave…”

His hands become rigid on my forearm and his breath comes in little gasps. “No.” But he’s not disagreeing with me. His eyes tell me he knows, and that he knows I know. He’s disagreeing with the situation. He’s saying “no” to the fact that this can happen, “no” to my knowledge, “no” to his imminent demise.

There’s really only one thing I can say to that. “Oh, yes. You said that to sweet little Annabel, didn’t you?” My voice becomes lyrical, a hymn to the dying.

“I–”

“Didn’t you, Colton?” I nod as I say it, moving in as I do, threatening him with my nearness until he nods along. “But you didn’t, did you? You didn’t let her go.” Now I shake my head until he shakes his with me.

He trembles and tears and blood and snot run down his face in a gooey mess. It doesn’t matter if his tears are for himself or for Annabel. Any pity for her has come far too late. He made her a mere memory so he could have a filthy memory of his own. And I’m stuck with that memory as well, courtesy of Annabel. But I don’t fault her. I would want revenge as well.

She will have it.

Any pretence of quiet sweetness is gone, and I let him see the full range of my fury. “Did you?” I roar.

He can’t form a response, but shakes his head wildly, as if his sudden honesty can save him. I lock eyes with him and the moment gets longer and longer, and I just let it hang there, suspended. Finally he can take it no longer. “Please,” he manages, a bare whisper.

I reach up slowly and stroke his face as he screams in terror, and I hear a chorus of other screams in my head. Annabel’s and the Hunger’s. It’s time.

I pull back my arm. Slowly, so slowly, so Colton can watch its progress. My palm is open, but my fingers are curved, so it will be my metallic, razor-sharp nails that hit him first.

I shake my head. “Sorry, Colton,” I say, but I’m not. “Karma, not unlike myself, is a bitch.”

But before I can swing, a force slams into my side and I go flying.

Chapter 4

Fucking demon.
What the hell was I thinking, trusting that boy?

I hit the wall with enough force to break through the plasterboard. I yank myself out of it, but pull too hard and stumble a little. I twist, snarling, to attack.

But it’s not Armand. Turns out, I’m no longer the only bitch in the room. Typical Jo, I hear her before I see her. “
What the hell, Meda?
”

“Jo?” Her arrival is shock enough, but her appearance is even more dumbfounding. Under her leather motorcycle jacket, she wears only a night-shirt that barely reaches mid-thigh. Her twisted and knotted leg, bare but for its metal leg brace, sticks out below. Her battered backpack hangs from her shoulder and her hair is an unmitigated disaster – even more violent than her expression, if you can believe it. She must have left the instant she realized I was gone, which, given that we’re some distance from the school – must not have been long after I snuck out.

“What. The. Hell. Meda!” she repeats. Her tone says she’s not done wanting to hit me. I flinch, then rally. A prisoner owes her jailor no apologies for trying to escape.

“How’d you find me?” I ask.

“That’s all you can say?” She sputters, nodding around the disaster of the room, the trembling and blood-soaked Colton cowering in the corner.

He picks his face up from the floor. “Thank you,” he sobs.

“Shut up, Colton,” I order, and he whimpers. “Yes, how?”

“The Beacon Map, you idiot.”

Huh, I am an idiot. The Beacon Map is a skull that displays a map on its surface kinda like Google Earth on an iPad. Beacons, people marked by God as good for mankind, show up on it like little lights. As it’s the Crusaders’ mission to protect Beacons from demons, the map is a handy tool to let them know where to find them.

Us. To find
us
, now. Somehow I got tagged. It doesn’t mean I’m good, just that I may possibly
do
something really good. An important distinction, and one I hear a lot around Templar HQ, believe me.

The Crusaders are protective of the map. The demons got a hold of it like a hundred years or so ago and slaughtered dozens of Beacons, starting the hemoclysm – the bloodiest period in world history: world wars, mass genocide, concentration camps, atomic bombs, and the like. So when I couldn’t find it in the underground vault with the other artifacts (I checked – I’m not that dumb), I assumed it’d been relocated – away from where I could get my wicked little claws on it.

But obviously they must have hidden it. Trust my obnoxiously clever best friend to figure that out – and find it.

“And if I found you that way, that means anyone could have.” Fury makes her voice shake and her hand grips the strap of her backpack. “Do you know what would happen if the Crusaders notice you’ve gone? Do you?” It ends on a squeaky scream that makes me concerned for her – and my – health.

“Gee, let me think – they wouldn’t trust me? Oh wait…” I say. “Or maybe they’d send me to bed without my supper?”

She blanches, just slightly, at that. She’s had a front row seat to the agony the Crusader’s restricted diet has put me through.

“Or maybe, just maybe, they’d accuse me of betraying them?” Again, a near daily occurrence at Chateau Shithole.

“Well, haven’t you?” she snaps. “You snuck out to murder someone!” She jabs a finger in Colton’s direction and he wails.

“Shut up, Colton!” I snarl, and his cry shrivels to a whimper.

And still, Jo lectures. “The Crusaders will bring you someone soon. You’re–”

“–supposed to accept my meals trussed up and delivered unconscious? I have news for you, I’m not the Crusaders’ pet tiger.”

“It works doesn’t it?” she bites back. “But no, you have to have it your way. You can’t even try to get along.”

I can only sputter for a full twenty seconds. “Haven’t
tried
? I haven’t ripped the face from a single one of those preachy, sanctimonious little pricks. They’re the ones who aren’t trying.”

“Oh yeah? What about Isaiah–”

“Isaiah had it coming.” So maybe I
almost
ripped the face off one measly sanctimonious little prick. But only just almost – and that was weeks ago. “He’s out to get me.”

“Isaiah’s a jerk–”

“What do you know? Something we can still agree on!”

“–but he isn’t ‘out to get you’.” She makes obnoxious little quotation marks with her hands.

It was good while it lasted.

“Did it occur to you when you planned this little adventure, that there are demons who really
are
after you? Like maybe a whole bloody-damn army of them? You could have delivered yourself right to them with this stupid stunt.”

Speaking of which – crap – Armand. My eyes skitter until I spot him stashed in a coat closet. The door’s open about three inches so I can see him, but it blocks Jo’s view. He puts a finger to his lips in the universal “shhhhh” motion, then winks.

The wink takes me right back to five minutes ago. The dance, the fun.

The blood.

I shiver and he smiles impishly. I can’t help but appreciate his warmth in the face of Jo’s frigid disapproval.

“Meda, are you even listening to me?” Jo’s acerbic tone snaps me back to the present. Thank God Armand had the foresight to hide. I can’t imagine how Jo would react to finding me hanging around with another half-demon. Probably drag me back for execution herself.

While I was searching for Armand, Colton took advantage of my distraction to crawl toward Jo. He reaches out a trembling hand, but stops short of touching her boot. “Bless you, miss!” he sobs. “Bless you.”

She curls her lip as she regards him. “Come on, Meda, let’s go.”

“Go?”

“Back to school before they notice we’re missing.” She says it slowly as if to a dense toddler.

I reply in kind. “I’m not going anywhere till I’m finished.”

Colton wails again, but this time I’m too busy facing off with Jo.

“You
are
finished. So far, you’ve only just snuck out, but if the Crusaders find out you murdered some guy…” she trails off, shaking her head like she doesn’t want to think about it.

The Hunger roars and howls. It burns along my nerve endings screaming that it won’t be denied. I shake my head. “You know what he did, Jo. He deserves it.”

Her eyes narrow. “I don’t care about him, only about you. The Crusaders will feed you soon, they have to. One more week, maybe two. You don’t need him.” The “him” in question squeals in terror at the mention of “feeding”.

But I do need him. His soul, his blood, his death. The freedom he represents. Well, maybe not so much that
he
represents – I can’t think of anyone less “free” than him at this moment. Rather, the freedom his
death
represents. I need what it says to the Crusaders, even if they never get the message. I am what I am and I am not ashamed.

“Meda,” Jo’s voice has softened, and I hear her take a step towards me. I take a step back. In the state I’m in, it’s better if there’s some space between us. I drag my eyes away from Colton and notice that she has uncrossed her arms and is fiddling with her necklace – a cheap metal half-heart long-since turned green. On her face is a very un-Jo-like expression.

“Please, Meda. Just let him go.” She’s not begging – she’s still Jo after all – but she sounds… plaintive. A tone she uses so rarely, I can remember exactly the last time I heard it—the night we watched the movie. The night I wished there was something I could do to relieve some of the strain that seems to be ripping her apart, the stress that made her actually admit she wished she were
normal
. My hand goes to the other half of the necklace, hanging from my own throat.

Here I am, not a week later, having reduced her to the Jo equivalent of begging.

I close my eyes and take a breath.

I force the Hunger down a little, pulling it back, inch by inch. The red drains from the world.

“Bless you, miss!” Colton grovels, still on his knees. “Bless you!”

This time Jo handles it. “Shut
up
, Colton.”

He whimpers, and I try to block the Hunger’s roaring response to the sound. Sweat breaks on my forehead.

I take another breath. One more week, I tell myself. Two at most. I stretch my neck first left, than right, popping it. You can wait.

I can wait.

But when I open my eyes, it’s no longer Jo I see in front of me. Between us is another girl, a little girl whose life was brutally ended. Her dollish face is rigid. She’s stricken, too shocked, too horrified to cry, though the tears shine in her eyes. She shakes her head, like she can’t believe what’s happening. “No,” she mouths. She looks at Colton, who’s pulling himself from his knees, sensing the sudden improvement in his fortune. She turns back to me. “No,” she mouths again, then “no, no, no,” frantically.

I open my mouth. To what? Apologize? What good would that do?

“Meda?” Jo senses something is happening, though she can’t see ghosts.

“Meda?” the little ghost girl mouths.

“It’s
her
isn’t it?” Jo asks. I don’t have to say yes. “Just ignore her. It’s not your job to–”

A tear wells over Anabel’s lower lid and rolls down her cheek. It’s fat, swollen with broken promises.

Hell. “Sorry, Jo.” I exhale. The Hunger snaps back to attention. “He’s got to die.”

Colton screams.

“Damn you, Meda. He does not!” All pleading is gone and she’s back to pissed. “I won’t let you!”

“You can’t stop me,” I snarl. And she can’t. We train together regularly because she and Chi are the only people I’m trusted not to kill. She’s good, real good, mostly because she knows how I think.

But no one’s that good.

“The Crusaders could stop you,” she threatens. “I should call them and let them deal with you!” She throws her hands in the air. “Dammit Meda, don’t do this.”

But it’s decided. I couldn’t call the Hunger back a second time if I wanted to, and I definitely don’t want to. “You can leave, or watch.” Then, stupidly, I suggest, “Or you can help.” My eyes slide to Armand’s hiding place.

She doesn’t try to hide her disgust.

“Then get out, Jo. Because it’s happening.”

“Meda–”

“Get. Out,” I snarl.

Jo’s clenches her jaw to hold back a scream of pure frustrated fury. When she speaks, her voice is still thick with it. “Damn you, Meda.”

Colton breaks for the hallway and I dive for him. I catch him by the heel and he slams into the floor. As I drag him back he starts screaming, high, girlish wails that echo around the room and fill my blood with pulsing excitement.

And yet, over it all, I still hear Jo’s final, soft “damn you” before the front door closes with a click.