5. Abducted
“Are you done?” Metice rubbed his ear and shot me a look like I’d have to pay his doctor bill for the broken ear drum. “You need to stop pinching yourself, unless that’s some kind of kink you haven’t shared with me yet.”
“Am I done? Are you serious?” I screamed. “I’m in hell. I’m in hell. I’m actually in motherfucking hell!”
How could he ask me such a stupid question? My heart pounded in my chest, and what felt like a severe tension headache wrapped around my brain as I tried to process what was happening. If I were thinking straight, I would have been sucking on my inhaler in between borderline hyperventilating.
“I think you ruptured something.” Metice shook his head and tapped his ear like he was tuning an instrument. “I may be deaf in one ear. Say something quick.” He plugged his left ear and leaned in with his right.
“I don’t give a fuck about your damn hearing! You actually brought me to hell!” I started swinging, slapping the demon upside the head, neck, and shoulders. “Are you out of your fucking mind? Take me home. Take me home!”
Metice dodged my next two swings, but I kept aiming for him. It only added fuel to my rage when he spoke without effort, despite my attacks.
“I told you exactly what I would do if you kept getting into trouble. I’m many things, but I’m not a liar. Yes, you are in the hellscape.” He caught my wild swing before I made contact with his face. “If you hit me again, I will chain you to the wall. Again, I am a lot of things, but I speak the truth.”
“Why? Why would you ever think bringing me to the place where demons actually live was the best way to keep me safe from the demons who are after me?” That was when the second wave of panic hit me. I backed away from him and scanned the room like I was running from the cops. “They can probably tell I’m here now, sense my presence. Can they smell me? Oh shit, what if they heard my scream?”
“Right, because all of hell heard that.” He laughed in my face, like I wasn’t having a total mental breakdown. “Yes, it was loud, but not that damn loud. Don’t be so dramatic. I just need time to figure this out without having to pop to Earth every five minutes to save you. Now, if I let you go, do you promise not to swing on me again?”
“I’m not promising a damn thing.” I narrowed my eyes. “I’m also not one to tell lies.”
“Right.” He dropped my hand and turned his back to me. I swear, it was like an invitation to try him.
Before I could decide if I wanted to test the limits, he turned back around and handed me a pen and paper.
“What is this for?” I stared at the items in his hand, not taking them.
“It’s for you to make a list of whatever you need from your place. I’ll go retrieve whatever you ask for.” He pushed the items at me again. “I’m trying to be accommodating.”
“I don’t want you going through my stuff.” I slapped away the offered pen and paper.
“Fine, you can make do with what I have here.” He shrugged. “I doubt I have all the frilly stuff you humans use for cleaning, but the lava rocks make for a good exfoliant.”
I looked around and realized he was right. There was no way he had what I needed, and I had no idea how long he planned to keep me there. The home was carved into what looked like a cavern but had odd touches of modern amenities. There was an actual door and windows that looked out onto a strange landscape.
We were high in the air and overlooking a small lake. Metice apparently liked isolation. To the left, I could see tall rock formations, six of them. They looked like pillars created from stone, but I could tell they were a part of the earth, carved by time, not by man. In the distance, there were thick clouds dancing across a reddish sky. To the right were hills covered in trees with red mossy tops. I could see nothing on the ground beneath the canopy.
Inside, the furniture kept the same aesthetic as outside. Dark red and brown leather covered everything. Every tabletop looked to be made from the same stone as the pillars, even the floor. I imagined he cut a hole in the side of the seventh pillar and made it his home. He even had what looked like a kitchen, and I hoped like hell that one of the other doors led to a functioning bathroom. I had no idea what it would be like to wash my ass with lava rocks, but I didn’t want to find out.
“Fine.” I held out my hand. “Give me the damn paper. I can’t believe this is happening. Maybe I really am losing my mind.”
After finishing the quick list of things I could remember needing to survive, I handed it over to him.
“Do you really need all this?” he grunted after reading the paper, which had items spilling over to the back side of the page.
“Do you want to hear me complaining the entire time I’m here?” I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed at him. “If not, I suggest you bring back everything on the list.”
“Infuriating,” he muttered before the energy in the room tensed with power, and then, Metice disappeared from sight.
“You’re the infuriating one!” I yelled at the empty room. “Damn asshole! Acting like I asked to be here.”
I stood there like a moron, waiting for him to return. I don’t know why, but I thought he would pop right back in, arms full of the things I requested. Apparently, he didn’t have those kinds of powers. After a few moments, I gave up and decided the best way to pass the time was to invade his privacy.
How could I not? I was standing in a bachelor pad in the middle of hell! Yes, I was still freaking out, heart racing and struggling to breathe, but I had to distract myself from that. It was the best way to handle it. First, I took in the bigger picture. The dark walls were curved, smooth, and looked like they were covered in tar. I pressed my hand to it, expecting the slick surface to be sticky, but it wasn’t. It was cool to the touch and even sent a shiver up my arm into my shoulder. Maybe that was by design. Cool walls to keep the heat from hell out.
Surprisingly, his furniture was soft and covered in what felt like the finest imported leathers. I didn’t think a demon would care about stuff like that. Candles were used to light the space, which I assumed meant there was no electricity in hell. How unfortunate. There were a few doors that led to other rooms, plus one that looked like it was made of a heavy metal I assumed was an exit. I was not about to be going through that one.
The first door I opened turned out to be his bedroom. The space was massive, simple in decoration. A large bed sat in the center. Candlelight lit the space just as it had in the other room, and along the walls were books stacked nearly to the ceilings. I couldn’t help myself; I had to find out what books this demon liked to read. I was impressed. As I went through the collection, I found a ton of titles, some familiar but most not. There were ones so ancient, they looked like they would fall apart if I breathed too hard near them, and others had alien texts on the covers. I wondered how vast the universe was and how many worlds Metice had been to. Clearly, he wasn’t just a pest for single women on Earth.
“There is no way I’m actually in hell.” I plopped down on the large bed. His library was interesting, but not that damned interesting. I was in hell, captured and taken there by a demon who was now going through my things to bring me a list of supplies. How was this my life? “Whoever is writing my story has a funny sense of humor.” I dropped the book I’d been holding onto the bed.
Just then, the bag hanging around my chest vibrated, and I damn near jumped out of my skin. “Shit!” I screamed before realizing the sensation came from the bag I’d managed to keep with me during the fight with the mutated grannies, not a demon coming to drag me deeper into the pits of hell. I fumbled with the zipper to open the bag and pulled it out. I gagged as I saw the message on the screen.
Booty Juice:
I had fun. When can I see you again?
“How about never!” I fussed. “Be glad I didn’t bill your ass! Wait, how the hell do I have service down here?” I stared at the phone and then tapped the screen, hoping whatever sliver of service I had was enough to get a call out.
At first, nothing happened, but then it connected, and my heart raced. The phone rang several times, and I almost gave up hope, but after the fourth ring, the screen lit up, and my friend’s face appeared. Keri looked like she was just waking up. Her bonnet hung off the side of her head, as if she was fighting her own demons in her sleep.
“Girl, do you know what time it is?” Keri coughed to clear her throat.
“Keri, I need your help,” I whispered, because as far as I knew, the walls had ears and a mouth to report everything I said to Metice.
“What’s wrong?” Keri leaned in. “Where the hell are you?”
“I-” I thought about what I needed to say. Keri already thought I was out of my damn mind. How would she accept the news that I was in hell? “You have to keep an open mind and understand that I am not losing it.”
“That’s a comforting lead in.” Keri struggled to turn on the light by her bed, which illuminated her pissed off expression even more.
“Hold on.” I thought it was best to show her better than tell her. I left his bedroom and walked out to the open room with the massive window that overlooked the underworld. Thinking this was the best way to prove my point, I turned the camera to the window and waited for Keri to respond.
“And I’m looking at what, exactly?” she asked.
I turned the screen back on myself and sighed. “I’m in hell.”
“Cool. Can I go back to sleep?” Keri rolled her eyes.
“What?” My heart dropped. She doesn’t believe me. Great. “I just told you I’m in hell!”
“What did you find, some AI generated filter or something? Is this for that game you were talking about creating at one point? Looks pretty impressive.” Keri yawned, a sign she was done with the conversation. “I’m happy for you, but couldn’t you have waited until the sun was up to tell me?”
“Sun? What?” It hadn’t been that long since demon boy kidnapped me. It was barely the afternoon when it happened. How could it be that late? “Look, Keri, I know that this sounds insane, but I’m telling you. I’m in hell!”
“I love you. I do, Rayna, but this is too far.” Keri sighed. I knew what she was thinking. It was a part of the reason I was in therapy. “What do you need to bring you out of this, because I’m seriously worried about you.”
“I’m not lying,” I pleaded with her to believe me.
“Look, I gotta go. My alarm is going to sound off in a couple hours, and I really need sleep before dealing with those horrible people I call coworkers. Please call your therapist. I’m worried about you.”
“Keri-” I wanted to beg her to believe what I was saying, but the call ended. I thought of calling someone else, but the air tensed with a now familiar feeling. He was coming back. I hurried, turned the phone off, hid it in my bag, and sat awkwardly on the large chair by the window.
A moment later, Metice appeared in front of me, holding four bags and staring at me like he wanted to wrap his hands around my throat and end it all. The bags fell to the floor with a thud, and I had to stop myself from laughing in his face.
“Did you really need all of this…stuff?” He pointed to the bags. “How long do you plan on being here?”
“I don’t know, you tell me.” I leaned forward and narrowed my eyes at him. “Unless you’re ready to take me back home, I need every single item on that list.”
“Including the half-finished crochet project?” He lifted the bag that had my yarn falling out of it.
“I finally have some time on my hands.” I shrugged. “Who knows, maybe I’ll get inspired to finish it. And you don’t have electricity here, so I need something to do while I wait for whatever you think you need to do while I’m here.”
“Of course,” he grunted.
“This isn’t right. You can’t just kidnap someone.” I rolled my eyes. I expected him to give in and tell me I could go home or at least argue a little more. “I have responsibilities, a job, people who rely on me for things. Am I supposed to sit here and allow my life to fall apart while you do whatever it is you need to do?”
“I don’t care what you do. You have plenty of stuff here.” He moved the bags from the floor to the sofa beside me. “I even brought your laptop, though there is no internet connection in hell. I got one of those portable batteries for you. Its solar charging, so you can keep it powered up by sitting it next to the window.”
“There’s a sun in hell? I mean, I know there’s light out there, I just assumed in the underworld, you didn’t have a regular solar system.” I looked out the window, and for the first time, I processed that there was a source of light in the sky and a warmth carried by that light.
“Please stop trying to compare my world to the various lores you humans have created. This isn’t the hell you think it is. It’s more like another planet far away from Earth. We have our own sun. We even have our own power supplies, though they aren’t compatible with your devices. It should work perfectly fine.”
“Perfect, I can draft emails that will never be sent.” I rolled my eyes.
“The appropriate response is thank you.” He waited.
“There are rules against these kinds of things. Snatching someone up and refusing to let them go home isn’t okay.” I wasn’t about to thank him for a damn thing. So what, he brought me a battery pack—he still had me there against my will.
“Do you honestly think I care at all about your human laws?” Metice stepped back from me and looked me up and down like he was assessing my soul. “I thought you were smarter than that.”
“What am I supposed to do here? You want to investigate, fine, but what do you expect me to do? Just sit in this cave hidden away?”
“That’s exactly what I expect.” He pointed to the bags full of items. “Work on your crafts, write in your journal. Hell, work on that screenplay you never finished. Do whatever you need to keep you from annoying me while we figure this out.”
“How the hell do you know about my screenplay? Did you go through my things?” I grabbed my laptop and pulled it to my chest, as if that would erase the knowledge from his head.
“Isn’t that what you sent me there to do? I can’t help it if I can read.” He finally sat on the chair across from me. “Honestly, it started off pretty good. That’s what took me so long. Started reading and lost track of time.”
“That is a violation of my privacy!” I shouted. “How could you do that?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about your fascination with alien porn.” Metice snorted, and his horns grew.
“It is not alien porn!” I defended my work about a woman whose blind date turned out to be an alien.
“Sure.” He leaned back, and his shoulders shook with laughter. “Now I know why you were so quick to fuck me when we first met: working out scenes for your story. I wonder what your dreams are really like.”
“Shut up.” My face actually warmed with embarrassment. “This isn’t right.” I felt like I would cry—the embarrassment, the fear, the lasting denial. It became too much. “I shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have taken me from my home.”
“Yes. You’ve said that already.” His laughter stopped, and he straightened, voice turning serious. “Are you always so repetitive? If so, it’s going to make this a lot more difficult to get through.”
“Do you honestly expect me to sit here and say nothing?” I asked. “What would you do in my position? What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t care what you do, just as long as you don’t leave this room. You have everything you asked for. Hell, read a book.” He pointed to his bedroom. “I have plenty, though some of them you won’t be able to understand. Whatever you do, make the best of it. I can’t keep popping to Earth to help you when I have things to do here. Until I find a solution, this is the best option.” He stood from the chair and looked over his shoulder at the door. “Speaking of which, I have to leave now. Stay put.”
“Where the hell would I go?” I asked as he turned and walked away ,leaving me sitting with the pile of my belongings. “It’s not as if I can poof my way out of this place like you can.”
For the first hour, I worked on my crochet project. After several attempts at solving the riddle of the hood I wanted to attach to the top of the crop shirt, I unraveled most of it and tossed it back into the bag. And of course, boredom led me right back to snooping. Hell, he’d gone through my stuff, even read my damn writing. He had lost all rights to privacy in my book.
This time, I opened a different door and was so damned thrilled to find what resembled a bathroom. There was no working toilet, but there was a large stone tub. How he filled that tub I didn’t know, because there wasn’t a faucet in sight.
“Does he wash his ass at all?” I frowned then tried to erase that thought, because if he didn’t, I’d probably get some sort of secondary skin disorder after the nasty, sweaty sex we had together. It would be just like me to trade the booty juice jerk for a dirty demon who didn’t understand what soap was.
Too disgusted by my own imagined skin disease, I gave up on trying to figure out how anything in the room worked. Stepping back into the main room, I intended to go through my things and organize them as much as I could, but there was a knock at the door. The same door Metice used to leave his home. The door he told me not to go out of.
“Oh, now you want to have some damn manners?” I joked as I opened the door, expecting it to be the brooding demon showing his odd sense of humor. It wasn’t him. I choked on my words the moment the door opened, and I saw who was waiting on the other side. “Oh, shit.”
I stood there, face to boobs with a demoness who stood at least a foot taller than me. I couldn’t help myself. My eyes scanned the long legs, muscular torso, plump breasts, and bright green skin up to the angular face with large eyes and full lips set in a tight grimace as she realized I wasn’t who she was expecting either.
Delayed common sense kicked in, and I pushed the door closed, but the green giant stopped me. Her hand, fixed with sharp black claws, grabbed the edge of the door and pushed it back at me. I stumbled back, avoiding falling, and watched as the unannounced visitor entered Metice’s home.
“Look what we have here. Is Metice bringing his hunts back home?” A deep, sultry voice crossed her lips as she spoke. “And he’s not even sharing. How unlike him.”
“Hunts?” I choked. Was that what I was? Had he hunted me? Was he going to kill me? I snapped myself back to focus. Now was not the time to go on a paranoid search for answers to questions that didn’t matter.
She inhaled the air like she could use it to tell her a story and then frowned. Apparently, she didn’t like what she learned.
“Who are you?” Large orange eyes narrowed as the demon examined me the way I had her just moments before. “Why are you here?”
“Excuse me?” I might have been scared shitless, but it felt like I was being accused of something.
“Where is Metice?” She changed her question.
“As if I would know that.” I shrugged. “He dropped me here then left.”
“Well, aren’t you annoying?” She crossed the room. “I could kill you in an instant. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, but I’m already in hell, so how much worse could things get?” I took a half step back.
“You smell,” she sniffed me again, “interesting.”
“That new natural deodorant,” I couldn’t help my mouth even in the face of danger. “I swear, they say it’s long lasting, but that’s a lie.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Metice asked from behind the woman, and my asshole unclenched. If he was there, it meant she wouldn’t hurt me, and I didn’t have to worry about shitting my pants.
“I dropped by to see a friend.” She turned her back to me to face him. “Heard you’ve been having some trouble. I’m starting to understand why.”
“Someone reporting my business to you?”
“You’re a popular guy. A lot of people are paying attention, and rumors fly fast down here. Regardless, that’s not important.” She pointed over her shoulder at me. “What is this doing here Metice? A live human… you know that is against the rules.”
“And you know I don’t give a fuck about rules.” Metice glanced around the woman, and his eyes locked onto me. “Just like I know you don’t give a fuck about me being in trouble. Leave.”
“Ah.” She walked over to him placing her hand on his jaw. Metice backed away like her touch burned his flesh, and her lips twisted into a scowl as she snapped, “Don’t you miss me, even a little?”
“I miss the silence when you weren’t here.” He stepped aside and pointed to the door. “Get out.”
“Fine.” She sucked her teeth and tossed an annoyed look over her shoulder at me. “But I’ll be back.”
“Don’t bother.” Metice sounded like he was holding back so much rage. This woman had a physical effect on him. He balled his fist at his side, and the veins stood along his arm. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“You be careful with this one. Trouble follows wherever he goes.” the nameless demoness spoke to me but kept her eyes on him. “You might just end your fragile human life earlier than expected.”
I wish I’d said something back to her, but I didn’t. My mind was spinning with thoughts of my future, this demon, and the potential of losing my life. I stood there like a deer in headlights as she left. When the door shut and the latch clicked, my brain snapped out of its paralysis.
“Ex-girlfriend?” I asked when Metice neglected to address the elephant in the room.
“What?” Though he was looking right at me, his mind was clearly somewhere else. He snapped into focus.
“The way she looked at you. The touch on your face.” I mimed the affectionate action. “I’d say that’s an ex. She didn’t look happy to see me here either.”
“You’re not entirely wrong,” he confirmed my theory.
“Didn’t think I was.” I looked at his empty hands and frowned. “You didn’t bring me anything to eat?”
“Excuse me?” he muttered, and we were back to him being annoyed not by the unannounced visitor but by the human he kidnapped.
“I’ve been sitting in your dungeon for hours and you’re not even going to feed me?” I wasn’t really that hungry, but I had to change the topic. I didn’t care about what issues he had with his ex. I didn’t want to know any details that didn’t concern me getting my ass back to Earth.
“I-” He stammered. Whoever that was, she’d really did a number on him.
“Right, you’re selfish.” I threw my hands up and returned to the sofa. “Kidnap me then starve me while you run around hell. Thanks.”
“If you want something to eat, just ask,” he snapped back. “It’s really not that complicated.”
“Why should I have to ask for you to consider my needs?” I had him. I could see it in his eyes. The spell was broken, and the sassy demon boy was back.
“I’m sorry, are you my wife now?” He scoffed and sat across from me. “What’s happening here?”
“Just practicing.” I shrugged.
“For what?” he asked.
“We’re soulmates, right? That’s what you said. Meaning we’ll be stuck together forever.” I carved my lips into a scheming grin. “How do you think it’s going to be? You and me, together for an eternity. I wonder if I’ll get some of your immortality. Do you think I could live here forever with you at my beck and call?”
“Not if I can help it.” He looked like he was going to be sick at the thought.
“Well, until you figure out how to fix this, I’m going to need you to be anticipating my needs.” I laid back on the sofa, stretching my arms above my head. “And right now, this human needs to eat.”
“No wonder you were trying to use magic to make a man for yourself.” He pointed at me. “No real one in his right mind would deal with you.”
“If I pretend to be upset by that, will you find me some food?” I stuck my tongue out at him.
“I’ll get you food when you ask for it. Nicely.” He sat forward. “I’ll wait.”
“Excuse me?” I rolled my eyes at him. “Ask nicely?”
“I didn’t cause all this. You did.” He narrowed his eyes, and I swear the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention. “If you want to eat, you’ll politely ask me to supply you with a meal like a good girl.”
“You’re out of your mind.” I rolled my eyes. Had I read that line in a book, I would have been swooning, but in reality, it made me want to pop him in his thick forehead.
“Maybe, but I’m not the one who will starve to death,” he doubled down. “In fact, I can go months without eating a thing, one of the perks of my particular brand of demon. I’ve never watched a human die from starvation. If I keep you here, I can use this as an observation for my notes. I wonder how long that would take. Time moves slower here than it does in your world.”
“Fine.” I gave up, because I could no longer tell if he was joking. Would he seriously watch me starve to death as if I was some sort of science experiment?
“Fine?” While my smile faded, his grew with a seductive tilt. “Are you going to be a good girl, Rayna?”
I could feel my face warming when he said my name. Okay, so maybe that dominance thing wasn’t just hot in the books. Maybe, in real life, it had a little weight to it.
“Can you pop your demon ass to Earth and bring me back a burger?” My question was rude as hell, but it had to be. I couldn’t be too sweet with my request. Regardless of the power he clearly held over me, I would never make it that easy.
“Is that the nicest you can ask that question?” He leaned back and narrowed his gaze at me. “I think you can do better than that.”
“I’m pretty sure humans start to stink when they’re starving to death. Foul breath, flatulence, and diarrhea.” I rubbed my hand along the supple surface of my seat. “I can’t imagine that would do well for your soft leathers. I mean, this is a comfortable spot to decay.”
“That is disgusting.” He frowned.
“I know, right? But hey, at least you’ll be able to satisfy your curiosity, right?” If Metice wants to play with me, he better learn quickly that I’m skilled in mind games. You don’t grow up with fifteen boy cousins and not come out of it with a few lessons in how to twist a man’s mind.
“Fine.” Metice stood from his seat. “I’ll get you some damn food.”
He rolled his shoulders, and the atmosphere tensed. I doubted I would ever get used to that feeling. And then, the demon disappeared.
“And fries!” I called out, knowing he wouldn’t likely hear me. “Damnit, I hope he doesn’t forget the fries.”