Chapter 3
Seraphina
The hood lifts and cold metal digs into my temple.
I blink, my eyes getting accustomed to the bright artificial lights. I feel weird, groggy. My stomach churns, and I wonder if I’m going to be sick. The headache slicing through me doesn’t help. How the hell did I get here? Was I drugged?
The cold metal against me cuts through the fog. I dart my eyes around, trying to understand where I am, and what’s happened.
I’m sitting on an uncomfortable chair in a large room. A massive steel and glass desk is in front of me, and the place is almost entirely encased in steel-framed windows from which I can see the cloudless sky. It’s a penthouse office, probably in the business section in North Astley.
I shift slightly, and I hear the crackle of leather beneath me. At once the cold metal object presses harder into my temple, and in the vague reflection of the window, I realize it’s a gun. Being held by one of the Devils. Igor Fars.
Ice rushes through my veins, and I forget about the nausea and the headache.
I stare at the reflection again, trying to make out the other presence sitting on the couch behind me. Logan Colt. Another Devil.
What’s going on?
Even in the washed-out image in the window, I note the little quirk at the edge of his lips that reminds me of a class clown.
I’ve invariably had one in all my classes, and I’ve always done my best to avoid them.
I’d rather be ignored than made into the butt of their cruel jokes.
I wonder if Logan Colt was the clown of his class.
A second later, I don’t wonder anymore. He definitely was.
“Damien was right,” he chuckles. “She’s something, that’s for sure.”
I barely have time to register those words before he adds, “Too bad we have to kill her.”
I can’t help the whimper that rises in my throat. It’s crazy how life starts to look good when you’re staring at the end of it.
I’m not ready to die.
Igor Fars grunts and the gun shifts slightly as he eases his finger onto the trigger.
I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the shot, my heart beating loudly in my ears, my hands coated in a thick sheen of sweat.
I wonder if it hurts to get shot through the head.
I can’t decide if I’d rather it did. Somehow, it feels worse to just..
. go. Suddenly and completely, no warning.
One second you’re there, the next, nothing. Like you never existed at all.
Do I exist though? Did I ever? Is this, whatever it is I’m floating through, actual existence?
My thoughts are suddenly and violently interrupted by the loud bang of a door. I practically jump out of my chair at the sound. But surprise turns to fear when I hear the deep voice I’d recognize anywhere.
“I told you boys to wait for me.”
Fuck me. Damien Wells just walked in. If I’d had any doubts before, they’ve just evaporated. I’m in deep shit.
The deepest shit I’ve ever been in, and that’s saying something, as someone whose life up till now has pretty much been one long steaming pile of excrement.
He walks toward me, his dark, dangerous eyes glued to me. He reaches out a hand and I flinch, but my backward movement only serves to remind me of the cold metal against my skull. I’m trapped. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I never thought I’d be wishing myself back at Ben’s.
A moment later, I breathe slightly easier when the Devil CEO lets his fingers fall against my temple before dragging them slowly down the side of my face. Well, at least he didn’t punch me. But I know punches. I’m used to them. What the hell is this? What is he doing?
My nausea returns as he crouches to my level, his eyes still focused on mine. I can’t tell if he’s amused, annoyed, or furious.
“What have we got here?”
I blink up at him in confusion. My gaze meets his and I shudder, goosebumps pebbling along my arms.
Those eyes do something to me. They were enough to frighten me when I saw them on TV. But to be inches away from them... my skin grows ice-cold.
They’re unnatural. Everything about him is unnatural.
His face is too symmetrical, and his black hair makes a harsh, unforgiving contrast to his skin tone.
He’s tall and lean, but his bent arm forms creases in the fabric of his shirtsleeve that hint at the wall of muscle beneath.
Another shudder rips through me as I imagine that rock of a man crushing me.
I know he could do it. I know he could stomp out my life with one fist. He radiates power, and it makes me feel more insignificant than ever.
Like a motherfucking jellyfish.
But the worst is those eyes. Two pools of darkness that I find myself irresistibly drawn to. Black holes that attract everything to them, only to eat them alive.
And that’s what scares me.
I remember once when I was a little girl, I went to New York with Mama. It was the first and only time we left the state. Mama took me all the way up to the Empire State Building, and when I looked down on the tiny cars and the tiny people below, I nearly passed out.
Mama took me in her arms and held my quaking body to her. “Poor baby,” she said. “It’s normal to be scared of heights. But don’t worry, Seraphina. You won’t fall.”
I never did tell her the truth. I wasn’t scared I’d fall. I was scared I’d jump.
Now, he keeps his hand on my face, his eyes glinting, but doesn’t speak again right away.
As I get used to the sensation of his warm skin against mine, the terror fades just enough for me to get my shit together again.
I’ve never fallen apart before, not since I shook in Mama’s arms at the top of the Empire State Building, and I’m not planning to start now. I lash out, “Why did you take me?”
My voice comes out in the weird, awkward squeak that I despise, the words formed with difficulty. I’m not used to speaking. I think I must have said about twenty sentences since I was ten. This makes twenty-one.
His mouth quirks into a smirk. He studies me intently, more interested, it seems, in the sound of my voice than in the question I’ve asked.
Then he grips my chin and lifts up my head, examining me like I’m some animal he’s thinking of buying. I half expect him to open my mouth, check the sturdiness of my teeth.
Instead he lets go of me, and, forgetting for a moment the gun at my temple, I lift up a hand to massage my jaw. He squeezed hard.
I catch just a dangerous flash in his eyes before he turns away and cringe back, my heart thumping wildly. I can’t help the fear. I’m not used to it, I don’t know how to handle it. It cuts through a decade of numbness, a weird, uncomfortable feeling that squeezes my lungs.
Why are his eyes flashing like that? Is he angry I moved? Is he going to kill me now?
But his anger seems directed at someone else.
“What’s that bruise on her face?” he growls, and in the muted reflection in the window, I see Logan Colt shrug.
“She had it already. Vale’s men didn’t touch her.”
“According to Vale himself, I suppose,” says Damien, his voice full of distrust.
“He’s a Devil,” comments Logan.
Damien looks back in my direction, but his eyes aren’t on me now. He’s looking to the side, to the gun trained at my temple.
“Put that away. What do you think a skinny thing like her can possibly do?”
My fear dissolves as suddenly as it bubbled up inside me. Anger takes its place, choking my chest. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know what I’m capable of. The moment his back is turned, I’ll show him. I’ll show them all.
The cold steel against my head vanishes. I breathe easier for a moment, but then the headache comes surging back. I find myself almost missing the gun. At least it was cold.
My eyes scan the room, looking for something, anything, that can serve as a weapon. On the desk is a pad of paper, a gold pen set, and a sleek laptop. A stapler, too. I guess that’s my surest bet, but it’s not exactly ideal.
“Well, go on, Logan,” says Damien at last, standing near the window. “You’ve got her here, do your worst.”
My hands form hard fists. I stare at them in cold resolve, daring them to do their worst. Just let them try. I’ll show them.
I guess Damien is ordering them to kill me.
The minute Logan Colt stands up from the couch and heads toward me, I’ll lunge at the desk and grab the stapler.
I calculate I have at least one chance of making it.
The couch is about eight steps to my right.
Igor is closest to me, but he seems a little…
dense. Slow, at least. And Damien is now on the far side of the room, by the window.
I might just have a shot, since they seem to think I’m a quiet, weak girl.
I am quiet, but I’m certainly not weak. I’ll have the element of surprise on my side, and I’ll push that stapler into whoever’s arm tries to stop me.
Their momentary shock will give me just enough time to run through the door.
And then, I’ll try very hard to scream. Alert everyone to what’s happening. I assume I’m at Devil Tower, but I can’t believe all their employees know a girl has just been abducted. Devil is supposed to be a respectable company, not a gang of criminals.
I run the scenario through my head a few times, and each time it seems less likely to succeed. But I have to try. I may drift through life like a jellyfish, but I have a polar bear’s heart.
I notice Damien staring at me, and I suddenly realize I’m smiling. I turn away, but it’s too late. He’s noticed my expression, and he seems a bit puzzled.
I’m not smiling at the idea of running away, though.
Not even at the prospect of stapling one of their arms, though it is an enticing thought.
I always smile when I think of my spirit animals.
The jellyfish and the polar bear. Two creatures that everything opposes and yet that coexist peacefully on the cover of the old battered animal encyclopedia that is one of my few prized possessions.