Chapter 34 Aston
Aston
Somehow, I eventually manage to find my way out of the maze from hell.
While that makeshift path proved useless, it did lead me closer to where I could actually hear signs of life—music, chatter, the slamming of car doors.
Following the sounds as best I could, somehow, I find myself right where I started the night, in the parking lot of the Crowley-Whitmore Coal Company.
The twinkling lights of the carnival welcoming me back.
So overcome with relief that I wouldn’t die all alone surrounded by nothing but smelly corn and dirt and still trying to process what the fuckity fuck happened back there, it doesn’t immediately register that trouble’s a brewin’.
Or rather, it’s already been brewed, and here I am, just waltzing in as tea-time commences.
A breeze blows through, tossing my hair about. In my pocket, there’s a sudden series of vibrations—incoming messages.
Oh shit, what time is it? Freezing in place, I tuck my mask under my arm and dig out my phone. When I see it’s only 9:58, I breathe a sigh of relief. Cutting it a little close…but we made it, that’s all that matters.
It’s only then I notice the number of missed calls and messages I have at the bottom, and my stomach plummets with dread. I must’ve not had service for a while.
Frowning, I pull up the calls first, seeing Eden rang me three times, and Tillie double that.
I’m about to check my messages, when a ragged sob-scream pierces the air. Snapping my head up, I frown when I spot the flashing red and blue lights.
“That’s not good,” I whisper, slowly approaching where everyone seems to be gathered at the entrance. There’s an ambulance. A firetruck, even though there doesn’t seem to be anything on fire. And cop cars. Three of them.
Scores of bodies gather around the entrance and various vendors in groups.
My first thought is: Did the mine collapse?
It takes two full sweeps of my surroundings before I spot Tillie and Walt near one of the police cruisers, chatting it up with two officers. Tillie is visibly distraught as she puts her phone to her ear, and my blood turns cold when it hits me.
Eden.
Where is he?
He called me and I didn’t answer…
I’m vaguely aware of my phone vibrating with an incoming call, but when a glance just shows it’s Tillie, I ignore it. Approaching her instead.
They’re going to kill me. Or send me back. I told them we’d stick together, and he met with some creep from the internet, and now he’s probably dead in a ditch and it’s all my—
I make it about halfway when—
“There he is!”
My steps slow to a stop as slowly all eyes turn toward me.
“Aston!” Tillie says, rushing over, and gripping me by the shoulders. Her wide, frazzled gaze searches all over my face, brow furrowing. “What happened to you? Where were you? What—”
“Eden,” I finally manage to get out, darting paranoid looks around me as people stare and whisper and give me a wide berth. “Is he okay? Where is he? Is—”
Hands cup my neck. “Are those…bruises?”
Blinking down at Tillie, I say more forcefully, “Eden.”
She darts her furrowed gaze between mine with an emotion I can’t place. “He’s right over there, Aston.”
I follow where she points, and the relief of seeing him alive and well is so overwhelming, I don’t immediately realize something’s amiss about him. Not until he must sense me staring and turns around. An icepack held up to his eye.
“What happened?” I mutter stiffly at the same time Tillie asks, “Aston…where were you?” Either she didn’t hear my question, or she’s ignoring it for the moment.
Swallowing around a bundle of nerves, I step back and wave a hand. “Oh, you know. Just went for a stroll. Needed some fresh air. Mines and me don’t really agree with each other.”
She closes her eyes, like she’s resigning herself to something. “Oh, Aston,” she says in a disappointed voice.
I stiffen. “Look, I’m sorry I left him. What hap—”
“Are you Aston Saint James?”
With a frown, I turn halfway toward the approaching officer, and say, “Depends…”
Tillie sniffs and backs a few steps away from me. “Just do as they say, okay? We’ll get this figured out. I know you didn’t—”
“Ma’am,” a different officer says, a warning clear as day in his voice. Walt sidles up next to his wife, and puts his arm around her, with a softly murmured, “Til.”
Our eyes meet over her head, and I don’t know what I was expecting to find, but disappointment wasn’t it. With a shake of his head, he looks down at his wife and leans down to whisper something for her ears only.
“Son, were you at any point down in the mines tonight?”
Looking at the officer, I narrow my eyes slightly. Is he serious? “Well, yeah. Isn’t that the point of tonight?”
He doesn’t look amused by my tone. He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, a commotion draws everyone’s attention over to where EMTs are wheeling someone on a stretcher.
No, I realize a moment later as the lump on the stretcher comes fully into view. It’s not someone…not anymore, not really. It’s a body. A dead body. And whoever it was, is covered from head to toe by a white, red-stained sheet.
Cries fill the night, and I find myself searching the crowd, awareness prickling the back of my neck as I take in their glares and wary, fearful looks—all aimed at me—before doubling back and settling on a familiar looking vampire.
The one from the mine car I rode down with.
Her face is flushed and streaked with tears as she says something to the officer talking to her. Nodding, she lifts her finger and points. Right at me.
Or rather, what’s in my hand.
The mask.
“What happened?”
Ignoring me, the officer next to me says, “Were you in the Chamber of Mirrors by chance?”
I blink. “Y-yeah.” Wasn’t everyone at some point?
“Can anyone account for your whereabouts for the last hour?”
I open my mouth, but quickly snap it shut when over his shoulder, a good distance away, stands Vale, watching me. His face is pulled taut, the tension visible even from here, his gaze dark and radiating something I can’t name.
It feels a lot like a warning.
One I can’t ignore.
I mean, how could I? Aside from the obvious, the dude looks like Satan himself right now. Between the small horns protruding from his forehead, the shadowy contour sharpening his stony features, and the black contacts swallowing up the whites of his eyes…
If I didn’t have more important matters to attend to, I’d be a puddle in the dirt.
To think that’s what was under the mask as he fucked me…
Wetting my lips, I drop my gaze to the ground and give the officer a small shake of my head.
With a sigh, he grabs my shoulder and roughly steers me toward the cruiser. “We’re going to need you to come downtown to answer some questions.”
“Am I under arrest?” I say blankly. In the background, I can vaguely hear Tillie arguing with someone. Saying something about my rights.
A beat passes. The hand gripping my shoulder tightens. “No…but I strongly suggest cooperating, so we don’t have to do that here and traumatize your peers any more than they already are.”
At that, I make a face, but quickly recover before he spots it.
Someone opens the door to the back of the police car, and with a palm to my head, I’m forced to duck so I don’t hit my head as I climb into the back.
My chest squeezes, making it suddenly hard to breathe as the scent of stale cigarettes and grimy leather wash over me, taking me back to a time where I’d found myself in a similar situation.
Only I was cuffed.
And covered in blood.
Just before the door closes, I hear my name called out. Snapping my head up, I meet Tillie’s wide eyes a handful of feet away. Her hands are clasped at her mouth.
I shrug and give her a small, shaky smile as if to say, What can you do?
She has to know it was only a matter of time before this happened. Whether or not I did whatever led to someone getting wheeled out of the mines in a body bag makes no difference. As always, my reputation proceeds me.
And trouble always finds me.
The door slams shut, and I flinch.
Moments later, two officers get settled up front. I’m dimly aware of the beeps and static of a radio as one of them rattles off numbers. The engine roars to life, and I’m told to buckle up.
I do as I’m told with numb fingers, ignoring the way they tremble.
As we pull out of the lot, I look out the window with a rock wedged in my throat that won’t go away, no matter how many times I swallow.
Through the glass and mottled red and blue lights breaking up the shadows, my gaze catches on Vale’s. It’s as if time slows down, and in the back of my head I hear screaming.
His.
Mine.
The officer asks me a question, but I can’t hear it over the whooshing roar in my head as memories of the past flicker forth, making it feel as if I’m underwater.
What did I do?
What did I do?
My breath hitches sharply, and I can feel myself slipping. The world slanting.
Vale’s gone….
He’s gone, he’s gone.
He’s letting me go…
The headlights sweep over the crowd, the vendors, the dark abandoned structures of the mine. We’re just about to turn on the main road, when in a perfectly timed sweep of light, something catches my eye.
No, not something. Someone.
And it’s so unexpected…so absurd, seeing him here…that it’s enough to snap me out of my daze, replacing it with a swift rush of not only confusion, but anger.
What the actual fuck is he even doing here?
Why isn’t he at Ashwood?
If the bleached white hair tumbling over his forehead didn’t give him away, the tattoos covering his neck would have.
My lip curls on a snarl, as I bite out the name of the last person I ever expected to see again.
My archnemesis.
“Judas.”