Chapter 24
Lydia
Rain splatters against the roof of the cabin.
It’s been raining all afternoon, and my friends are becoming stir crazy.
I’ve finished my book and chastised myself for not listening to my intuition to bring more.
Now I’m sitting on a cliffhanger and don’t know what happens next in the series.
I knew I should have brought those other two books.
My friends have dug out an old Monopoly game they found stored away in one of the cabin’s cupboards.
It’s missing some pieces, so I choose to sit out, my mind too abuzz with my newfound information from last night.
My body is also sore as hell after getting fucked so hard by Maverick and Hendricks.
Not that I’m complaining, but would it kill this place to carry some ice packs?
Plus, I’m worried that something has happened to Jack.
I know they said he mostly keeps to himself, but I don’t think he would stay away.
Not from me. I was dying to ask him about his life and his monster form now that I knew the truth.
It’s so wild to me that here I am sitting with my friends, but they’re completely oblivious that this scare camp they’ve brought us to is crawling with real monsters.
I’ve thought about telling them, but I don’t fancy being carted off to a psych ward.
There are some things you can tell people and even though it’s the truth, they won’t believe you until they experience it for themselves.
When I got back from the woods last night, I quickly showered off all the grime and crawled into bed, passing out as soon as my head hit the pillow. My friends were all asleep when I got there and I wondered what they all had been up to while I was away.
“Straight to jail!” I hear Faye yell out while Audrey groans, moving her deformed cat piece to the jail on the board.
What I do notice though is the subtle shift between McKenzie and Iris. They’re getting along again, and more than that, they keep looking over at each other with small smiles. It makes me ridiculously happy to see them working their differences out. I just know they’ll end up together eventually.
The sun has dipped down in the sky and the dreary day has quickly morphed into dusk.
There’s still a sliver of sunlight in the sky, but the appearance of night has me excited, wondering if I’ll get to see Maverick and Hendricks.
And hopefully Jack as well. Those three monsters have a hold on me, and I can’t wait to spend more time with them.
They make me feel things I’ve never felt before.
It has me wondering if it could be something more than just a lust-filled fling.
I don’t know how we could make it work, though, since my life is back in Holland and they’re here.
I’m not going to focus on the logistics of it now.
Instead, I want to enjoy what time I do have here with them.
I hear a scream from my friends and then see Stephanie shooting up from her seated position on the floor with almost puppet like movements, accidentally knocking over the game board.
“What the fuck, Steph?” Faye asks, going to pick up the tossed pieces.
But Stephanie doesn’t answer. She stares blankly ahead, her eyes unfocused and wide. Her neck bends and arms move jerkily as she takes three laborious steps forward, knocking straight into Iris and McKenzie.
She looks like she’s possessed.
Fuck.
I think she’s possessed.
She takes another step, then another, her neck craning until she’s staring right at me.
“They need you outside, Lydia,” she says in a voice that’s hers, but not. Like she’s a disembodied version of herself.
“You can stop fucking around now, Steph.” Audrey says, trying to pull at her arm. Stephanie whips around and smack Audrey so hard it causes her to fall back. Audrey lands on her ass and looks up in disbelief at our friend.
“I don’t think she’s fucking around,” I say, scrambling out of bed in my sleep shorts, crop top, and bare feet.
She blocks my path, so I try to stall her.
“Who’s waiting for me outside?” I ask as my friends stare, looking absolutely terrified.
I try to gesture at them to get the hell out of here, but they’re frozen in true horror at what’s become of our friend.
They know her as well as I do, and Stephanie would never act like this.
“They’re all waiting, Lydia,” she says again. And then she lunges for me, arms outstretched and mouth wide in a scream. I barely have enough room to dodge her, but she misses me by a hair, allowing for me to run past her.
That’s when my friends seem to rouse themselves enough to follow.
The rain is coming down hard outside, but I don’t care.
I rush for the front door, only to find Stephanie grabbing for my ankle and tripping me up.
I go down hard, knees banging into the wood floor.
My bones ache and I try to kick her off me.
But all of a sudden, Audrey comes in from the right, with that same dangerously vacant expression on her face.
“Oh, fuck! I’m out of here!” Faye screams, dashing past and pushing her way out the door.
Iris and McKenzie try to pull me up, but Audrey launches herself at them. She claws at them and scratches up McKenzie’s arms.
“What the fuck!” Iris yells, trying to grab Audrey’s arms, only to get smacked hard in the stomach.
I finally manage to kick off Stephanie’s grasp, but not without severe scratches to my leg.
She clawed me hard enough that I’m bleeding.
Limping, I struggle to drag myself out the open front door.
But when I get to the front porch, I see Faye being held by a woman with long silver hair and a sneer curled on her thin black stained lips.
“Lydia! There you are darling. So nice to meet you. I hear good things about you. My name is Melinda,” she says with a mocking bow.
“What do you want?” I ask wanting to cut through whatever villain bullshit she’s trying to pull here.
There are several women surrounding her, two of which I notice two of which are holding scraps of fabric.
No, not fabric.
The fucking poppets we made, only I never completed mine. But Audrey and Stephanie did.
I realize that those women are using the poppets to control my friends and a blazing rage boils in my stomach.
I’ve always been the kind of person that doesn’t care too much if you mess with me. But mess with my friends and I become a whole problem.
Night is creeping in quickly, which means Maverick and Hendricks can help stop whatever this Melinda person is planning. I just have to keep her busy until then. Or maybe Jack is out in the woods and can come help.
I deduce she must be a witch of some sort if she’s using poppets, and plan to tread carefully. I don’t know what she’s capable of.
“I want you to come with me. And you will, won’t you? Because you wouldn’t want any harm to befall your friend here. Though, I don’t know how good of a friend she is seeing as she ran out leaving you all behind like she did.”
Faye’s shaking and crying in the witch’s grasp. Melinda has long coffin-shaped nails that are digging into Faye’s arms.
“And what do you plan to do to her if I don’t come?” I ask.
“Oh, that’s easy. I’ll just kill her.”
My veins turn to ice, and I see Faye mouth the word please at me between staggered inhales.
“And if I come with you, you’ll leave my friends alone?”
“For now,” she says.
I’m out of options and don’t know what else to do. I don’t possess magic, or brute strength, or a secret monster form. I have no idea where the three guys are that I met over this last week have gotten to and I’m drastically outnumbered.
“Let her go and I’ll come with you,” I say, taking a step forward off the porch and into the rain.
“Wonderful. I do love when they come willingly. It makes it so much easier. Though, I can’t promise you’ll enjoy this next bit much.” She lets Faye go and I see her blur of red hair speed past me and back into the cabin.
I descend down the stairs, feeling the wet wood beneath my bare feet. My clothes are already soaked through, and a chill works its way to my bones.
I leave behind my friends and follow Melinda and her hoard of witches into the woods with dread coiled deep in my gut.
They take me to a clearing that has some sort of large circle etched into the muddy ground. And while the rain is still coming down, there are several torches that are set up around the circle, still ablaze even with the downpour.
Magic, I realize, must be why they’re not going out.
“Here. Drink this,” Melinda instructs, handing me a goblet of liquid that looks positively rancid. It’s chunky, and gray, and teaming with bubbles. “Now, now. We made a deal. I don’t hurt your friends, but you have to come with me and do what I say.”
“I never agreed to do what you say,” I tell her.
She gives me a smile that doesn’t meet her dark, dead eyes. Her face is one that looks like her skin has been rolled out and stretched over the bones of her face one too many times. It’s tight and unnatural. Her flesh is so pale that it’s almost translucent.
“Drink the fucking liquid, Lydia. Or I’ll send in my witches to slit your friend’s throats, understand?”
I look down into the cup and try to steady myself.
Whatever she has planned can’t be good. There are no other scare actors around, but the sun has fully set.
There’s a gnawing in my gut that tells me if my guys were alright then they’d already be here.
I’m on my own, and I don’t have a choice. For my friends, I’ll take the hit.
I raise the cup to my lips and swallow down every last drop of the chalk-like substance. With a wheeze the cup drops from my hands and rolls on the ground. Melinda stops it with her pointed black boot and watches with pure glee on her ghastly face as I sway and cough.
“We’re going to have you lay down now, in the center of this circle here, and you’ll feel much better soon.
And by much better, I mean you won’t be feeling anything at all,” she says with a smile.
My legs wobble and I collapse. She sighs and snaps her fingers at her lackeys.
They drag my body by the wrists and place me into position.
My vision begins to black out around the edges, but I feel a hot prick of something digging into the flesh of my wrists.
I turn my head to look at what’s happening, and I see Melinda bent over, knife in hand, slicing my wrist wide open.
Blood comes seeping out of me and my vision falters even further.
My breathing becomes shallow, but I can hear a chant start up.
I can’t understand the words, but it sounds pretty.
My lashes flutter closed, and I see Melinda come in and out of focus. Her wretched face is the last thing I see before everything goes dark.