Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (11 page)

I shoved his arm off my shoulder, then turned to face him. “What do you think is going to happen if you show up with me? If something goes down–”

“When,” he interrupted, green eyes blazing.

“–then I can’t protect you.”

I skipped over what I was really trying to say: that if Warrick got into another fight with Drake, it would be to the death. Warrick had fought him before and barely walked away. If he was losing his fight, I wouldn’t be able to help him. I would only be able to watch him die.

“I’ve never been the one who needed protecting,” he shot back.

I almost wanted to slap him. I might have, if Dro hadn’t intervened.

“He’s right, Constance. This is too dangerous for you to do alone. I know you don’t want to risk any of us, but it isn’t fair to ask us that for you. We’ve always been stronger together. So you can face Mateo and Drake on your own at first, but we aren’t staying behind.”

And that was that.

Even though I wanted to keep arguing, even though I wanted to dive across the table and make a mad dash for the door, it wasn’t going to happen. Warrick would yank me back into my seat, and even if I could escape him, Dro would be on my heels before I hit the door. I looked at Max and Sephiel for help, but their expressions told me I wasn’t going to find allies there, either.

“It is not wise for you to engage these enemies alone,” Sephiel told me.

I glanced at Max, who held his hands up in defense.

“Hey, even if I wasn’t a psychic, I’d say this is a bad idea,” Max confessed.

Damn it. These people are going to get me killed. Or I’m going to get them killed.

But they weren’t giving me a choice.

“Fine,” I grumped, tightening my arms across my chest. I would keep the cranky act up for as long as I could.

If I didn’t, I would end up thinking about what it would mean if something went wrong. Given what we were taking a risk for, there was too much to lose if we failed.

Chapter 10

The group wanted to ease my crankiness, so we decided the best remedy was to find some food. I wasn’t going to complain, since I was starving, but it also gave me an excuse to walk and think. I had more on my mind than I cared to admit. Stalking ahead of the group on my own wasn’t really helping matters, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk.

I looked back and forth, trying to get a sense of the place I used to call home. We were clinging to the sidewalk, drawing up our hoodies and shirt collars to move attention away from us. We hadn’t seen any demons yet, and their lack of presence was making me uneasy. Demons used to find us the way wolves found a bleeding animal. It was just a matter of time, and before you knew it, your insides were leaking on your outsides.

But all I could see were boarded up windows covered in graffiti and sharply curved demonic symbols, broken glass and trash skittering along the cracked gravel. The buildings had taken on an ominous red glow from the fires set in oil drums, their heavy red lights flickering through the alleys. Over our heads, smoke hung like a storm cloud that refused to rain. Every breath tasted dirty, like my throat was being coated with smoke and sand.

The streets weren’t empty. Lying in the middle of the street on my left were three men. I thought they were passed out, until I saw the dried pool of crimson underneath them. A few blocks down, a man was slumped half in, half out of a shop window. His head hung over the windowsill, thin streaks of blood tracing down the brick wall. Over my head, I could hear a woman screaming past an illuminated apartment window. I couldn’t tell if it was a scream of earth-shattering pleasure, or soul-crushing pain. I stopped and listened to it, staring at the apartment window and feeling torn about running to find out what was happening.

“Constance?” I heard Warrick’s voice, felt him stand beside me.

The scream came again, and I made up my mind. My hand went to my belt and curled around my hatchet. I marched toward the apartment–

A new scream pierced my ears and my heart, only to be cut off a split second later, after a fountain of blood exploded across the glass window. I halted in my tracks, staring at the bloodstain and feeling my heart squeeze. A man stalked into sight, slightly obscured by the bloodstains. His hand swiped along the blood, removing it from the window. He licked the gore from his fingers, his eyes finding me. He smiled and raised his other hand, displaying a crimson-coated knife. He waggled his fingers around the blade, and kept licking the blood off his hand.

Warrick gripped my elbow and drew me away. I struggled at first, wanting to storm the apartment and cut that devious fucking smile off his face, but a glance at Warrick stopped me. His eyes were grim and shadowed, haunted. He shook his head slowly, and I understood.

There was no way we could save everyone. The whole city was drowning in violence, and it wasn’t going to change unless we shut the Hell Gate. That was just the way it was.

Didn’t mean I had to like it.

I pried my arm free of Warrick’s grip and kept walking. More screams carried through the darkened alleys and burned out buildings, and I couldn’t get them out of my head. It took all my will to remain in control and walk away.

But walking the streets I used to be so familiar with, I got the uneasy feeling that I wasn’t as in control as I wanted to be. It wouldn’t be the first time I had been helpless in the face of overwhelming obstacles...

They threw us in lockup without telling us what we’d been arrested for. We were kept in separate cells but at least we were across from each other.

Dro was sitting on the bench in her cell with her head in her hands. She was obviously ashamed and embarrassed for both of us. I was on the bench as well with my legs pulled up to my chest and my elbows on my knees. I was pissed that this was taking so long, that no one was telling us shit, and that they’d taken my father’s hatchet. That was what infuriated me the most. They were holding the last reminder of my dead parents. I wanted it back.

We were stuck there for hours before the cops finally came back. Two men with biceps the size of cantaloupes marched in with them. Dro lifted her head from her hands. I brought my feet off the bench and set them on the concrete floor so I could stand.

The cops were the same ones who had arrested us, and they harshly clashed with the two men behind them. The new guys were dressed in black jeans, black shirts, heavy boots, and leather jackets. My eyes went down to the black gloves on their hands. Instinct told me they were armed with guns and knives. I looked at their faces as I walked closer to the bars. They were both Hispanic, like me. One of the men had a face that reminded me of a pug, all squashed in and flat with beady dark eyes. A black teardrop was tattooed under the corner of his left eye, as if this guy was crying on the inside all the time. Yeah, right.

The second man was even bigger. He was a head taller than his friend and almost twice as wide, and Teardrop wasn’t a small guy. The Monster Man had thick black hair tied in a ponytail at the nape of his neck and bushy eyebrows. His lips were curled in an ugly scowl. He seemed to really hate me, though I wasn’t sure why. Both of them seemed familiar, and I couldn’t understand that, either.

“These are the two you want?” the male cop asked.

Teardrop nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. Monster Man clenched his fists so tightly I thought he was going to crack his leather gloves open at the knuckles.

“Tell your brother at the border that he’ll get his share,” Teardrop said.

Fuck fuck fuck
. I should have known there was a reason that the other border guard was looking at me so much. He must have recognized me and called the cops, and those cops called these guys. My stomach dropped. I watched both men, even though I was trapped behind the bars and unable to get close to them.

“You got the keys?” Teardrop asked. His Mexican accent was thick and he sounded like he’d been smoking for thirty years.

The male cop fumbled around his belt, unhooking a ring of silver keys. Teardrop held out his hand, but the cop didn’t give up the keys just yet.

“You got our money?”

Teardrop stared blankly. “He does,” the man replied, jerking his thumb at Monster Man.

The big thug reached into his jacket, and pulled out a gun. With no hesitation, he raised the weapon and fired a bullet into the cop’s throat.

The silencer on the end of the pistol muffled the blast, but only just. Dro’s scream echoed off the walls as blood sprayed between our cells. The female cop shrieked and slapped her waist, looking for her gun. The Monster Man turned his gun to the right and fired another muffled round. The female cop’s head snapped back as blood, brain and bone exploded out of the back of her skull.

I waited for more cops to come running. Silencers made it harder to hear a gunshot, but couldn’t drown out the sound completely.

No one came in.

Teardrop stalked toward my cell. He stared like he could intimidate me. I’d stared down worse assholes than him, seen the faces of monsters. I flicked my eyes to the dead cops. A twinge of pity went through my heart. Yeah, they’d arrested us and been bribed, but that didn’t mean they deserved to die.

Teardrop took a step forward and smiled at me. It was a horrible, yellow smile that promised pain.

“Don’t worry. They were the only ones in the station
.
By the time the next pigs come in, you’ll be well on your way home,
puta
.”

My chest tightened and my gut flipped. Without even needing to see their tattoos, I knew who these men were.

Teardrop smiled when he saw the realization hit me. I wanted to punch every tooth down that smug bastard’s throat, but those damn bars were in my way. Not to mention that Monster Man was looming behind his friend, looking even larger than before. I scanned his face, trying to figure out why he was so familiar.

“I don’t think you ever met Enrique,” Teardrop said casually, like he was talking about the seven day forecast and not a coldblooded murderer. “But maybe you remember his brother. Hernandez.”

Oh,
fuck.

Hernandez, Emilio and Mateo’s most trusted and loyal bodyguard. The man I stabbed to help Dro escape the hacienda.

Yeah. I remembered him, all right. He’d never been a friend so I didn’t know he had a brother, but Enrique was almost a twin of his sibling.

Enrique was also triple my size and catatonic with fury. I was in serious trouble.

“We’re supposed to bring you back in one piece,” Teardrop droned on. “You and your sister. But we’ll hurt you if we have to.” He tilted his head to make his beady eyes more intense. “And Enrique really, really wants to hurt you.”

I kept my movements slow and controlled. I needed a plan, needed it fast. ‘One piece’ was a pretty broad term for the Blood Thorns. It could mean whole, but shot, stabbed, beaten, strangled, burned, drowned, or worse.

We couldn’t go back. Dro would be given up to the witch who made a deal with Mateo. My old flame would torture me to the point of death, revive me, then do it over and over again until I shattered. Until I suffered in every way he could imagine, begged for mercy at his feet, and was reduced to something worse than death.

Mateo’s father had taught him well.

Teardrop took the keys from the body of the dead cop. He opened the lock on my door, but didn’t pull it open.

“Get her out,” Teardrop said to Enrique. “I’ll get the other one.”

The huge thug blocked my view of my sister. I had to crane my neck to see him properly. I backed away from the door as Enrique yanked it open. I heard the other cell opening and Dro crying my name. I didn’t answer her, still trying to figure out the massive Enrique problem. I had fought big men before, but never one looking for revenge. Big men looking for revenge were always the most dangerous.

His swing at my head was so heavy I could practically hear the air splitting. I ducked the punch, grateful I was smaller and quicker. If I could get out of the cell and lock the guy in, that would be one problem solved. I drove my fist into Enrique’s ribs. He jerked, but didn’t even let out a grunt.
If
turned into the key word.

Enrique grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me away from him. His fist pounded into my stomach. It hurt so bad I thought I was going to throw up my lungs. They burned, working hard to regain the oxygen they’d lost. I was just recovering when Enrique punched me in the cheek.

Stars burst behind my eyes and the world went black for a half a second. His fist might as well have been a sledgehammer. I pitched to the side, trying to right myself before I collapsed. Another blow struck me in the middle, crushing the air out of me. I stumbled back again, his hand clamping on my hair. He twisted it in his fist, and I grimaced. He pulled and pulled until I thought he was going to scalp me. Dro was shouting my name. I heard a loud crack that could only be from a slap, followed by Teardrop yelling at her to shut the fuck up.

Before I could see what was happening, Enrique slugged me in the jaw. My teeth dug into my lip and I tasted blood. When my head twisted under Enrique’s grip, I could feel a small clump of my hair wrench out of my head. He finally released me and locked his hands around my throat. He shoved me toward the back of the cell. My heels skidded along the stone floor, desperate to find traction. Enrique slammed me into the bars on the left side of the cell, a sharp pain cracking through my head.

He used both hands to squeeze the air out of my lungs. I wheezed and gasped as my lungs tightened, an invisible noose of agony coiling around them and constricting until I thought they would cave inward.

Enrique lifted me until my feet were off the ground. I got one good look at the hatred on his face before he slammed my head into the bars again. I gasped as much as I could when I felt the spike of pain and something warm matting my hair.

My body felt like lead and I couldn’t breathe. I was awake enough to kick pathetically, barely even brushing his shins. He pinned my throat with one enormous hand, then used the other one to beat the life out of me. His blows didn’t have a single point in mind. After what I had done to his brother, he wanted
everything in me to hurt. He couldn’t kill me, couldn’t chop me to pieces, but anything else was fair game.