Chapter 18
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
My vision is fuzzy, but it’s so dark down here it’s hard to see what’s in front of me anyway. I’m not alone, and though she’s behind me, I know the pitiful coughing is coming from Gemma.
I pull on the ropes that are bound around my wrists.
I’m sitting in a wooden chair with my hands tied to its arms. Loose knots hold my ankles against the legs of the chair.
The entire thing is attached to stakes deep in the ground, preventing me from moving the chair, but I’m not worried about getting out this time.
“Ace?” Gemma croaks. “No. There’s no way.” Her voice is hoarse and the stab of pain hits me hard in the chest again as I remember how sick she is.
“Yeah. It’s me. I’m going to get you out of here. Again.”
“I’m not imagining this? You’re really here?”
“Yes. Seems saving your ass from psychos is a regular thing, huh?”
The cot creaks under her weight as she tries to get up. Metal chains drag over the hard-packed dirt floor, and she coughs again.
“I’m confused.”
“You probably have a high fever. It causes confusion. Sit down. We’ll be out of here soon.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Burn through these ropes like I did the last time.”
“No!” she cries. “Don’t you smell that?”
“It smells like a lot of things down here.”
“Kerosene.”
Her word is like a knife in my gut. Fuck. She’s right. I turn my head down, inhaling deep.
“They know about your powers,” she whispers. “I…I told them.”
“What?”
“Not like that,” she starts, needing to take a minute to catch her breath. She can hardly breathe. She probably has pneumonia, and without medical attention she could take a turn for the worse in no time. “I was bragging about you.”
“And you got locked in a dungeon for it.”
“I’m in a root cellar,” she deadpans. “They think I’m possessed.”
“Ahh, that’s what all the devil talk was about.”
“They’ve been trying to do exorcisms on me. I think they’re going to do the same to you…which is why they put kerosene on the ropes.”
I’m not sure if I want to know the details of what an exorcism entails just yet. “They want me to burn the place down?”
“No. They want to make a deal and think threatening your body will get the demon inside you to talk.”
“What?”
“They want to make a deal with the devil to save their farm. They’re starving me…doing these exorcisms and pouring holy water on me every day trying to make the demon desperate enough to make a deal.”
That’s a twist I didn’t see coming.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. I told them you’d save me, that you’d get me out just like you did before. But they wanted you all along. You can create fire…like the devil. They’re insane and I’m so sorry, Ace.” Gemma starts to cry, but her sobs turn into coughs. She sounds awful.
“Gemma, stop,” I say sternly. “I’m not mad at you.”
“You should be! I’ve thought about it a lot since I’ve been down here. I’m an awful person. I believed Marissa because I wanted to be included. Do you know who does that? Terrible, shitty people.”
“No. People do that. All kinds. I believed you were my friend when you weren’t because I wanted you to be.”
Shit, that came out wrong.
“My point is,” I say after she coughs again.
“We ignore truths when we’re desperate, and having friends…
feeling like we’re part of a family…we’re all desperate for that.
” I tug on the ropes, blood pressure rising.
I’m not one hundred percent sure I can control the fire.
The kerosene drips a trail from the chair to the stairs of the root cellar.
I could light this whole place up without meaning to, killing myself and Gemma.
“How long have you been down here?” I ask.
“Since I left the hospital. I thought it’d be nice coming back here for a while to recover…you know, take a break from it all. But only for a week. No one knows I’m here, Ace. They’ve kept me hidden away this whole time.”
I yank my foot against the ropes. “They’re fucking crazy. No better than the fucker who tied us up last time.”
“They don’t want to kill me,” she says dryly. “Just get the devil to do them a favor.”
“That’s not any better. They’re killing you in the process. You sound like shit.”
“I feel like shit.” She moves to the edge of her bed and I can only see the outline of her frail body through the dark. “They could be shunned if the others found out about this. I left…I shouldn’t be here.”
“Oh, right. I’ve heard about the whole shunning thing. That’s rough.”
“It is. They won’t let me out until they think I’ve been saved. And the same for you.”
“My disappearance won’t go unnoticed.”
“Right. You’re a cop.”
I’m a cop on vacation, so not showing up at the office tomorrow won’t raise a red flag. But once the sun sets and my guys wake up, they’ll know something is up when I don’t come home. They can sense when I’m in danger, though I’ve never been this far from them before.
“Do you see my purse?” I ask Gemma, madly twisting around. The chair is bolted to the floor and isn’t budging.
“No. They know enough not to leave your phone around, though. Probably tossed it in a field a few miles from here.”
“Fuckers. I just upgraded to the new iPhone—that’s not the point.” I squeeze my eyes closed.
Don’t panic…it won’t do any good. The guys will be able to sense my fear. They know when I’m in danger. They’ll be here. I know it.
I have hours before the sun sets. Squeezing my eyes closed, I think of Jacques’s face, trying to get him the message in case I can’t later. Though I don’t let myself think about it. I’ll get us out of here, one way or another.
“I have to say, waking up tied up is not as kinky as I thought it’d be.”
Gemma laughs. “I missed you, Ace. As much as I know I don’t deserve you in my life, I missed you a lot.”
“Everyone deserves a second chance.”
“You really think so?”
“No, actually I don’t. Some people cross a line and there’s no coming back.” I turn my head, looking at her. “But you didn’t cross the line. Marissa did. But not you,” I reiterate, needing to say it again to help myself believe it.
I want to forgive her. I want to believe she acted only out of desperation. I know how much it hurts to lose your family at a young age, to grow up with people who are only taking care of you out of necessity.
To be unwanted.
To not fit in anywhere.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…
She has nothing to lose right now. No reason to trick me or lead me on. She’s not lying.
“How did you find me?” she asks, taking a blanket off her bed and pulling it over her shoulders.
“Lyra told me she thought your aunt and uncle were in the area. I came up and asked around.”
“But why did you drive up?” she asks slowly, almost afraid of what she’s going to hear.
“Because of a dream.” I blink, vision going fuzzy again.
I’m getting a headache trying to squint and see anything in the dark.
I close my eyes. “But first I went and talked with a medium—on an unrelated subject. He told me a woman in an old-fashioned dress was in pain and wanted to get a hold of me, and he saw another woman in similar garments holding a lantern. I thought he was talking about someone else. And then I had the dream, and I knew it was you.”
Gemma doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Someone else? Who else would want to get a hold of you that would fit that description? And why did you talk to a medium? Are you still trying to summon your parents?”
A small smile pulls up the corner of my lips. I did kind of miss all of her questions. “The woman who fits that description…it’s a long story. And I’m not trying to. I did.”
“You’re joking.”
“No. Well, I think I summoned her. It looked like her. Talked like her. Smelled like her. But who knows for sure.”
“Wait. You summoned your mom and talked to her? Like you had a real conversation.”
“Yeah. She remembered things from the night she died that I couldn’t. We—I—think it was really her.”
“That’s incredible. And you did this on your own?”
I swallow, still struggling with trusting her. It’s not like she can go running to Marissa now. Besides, Marissa knows I’m the witch she was looking for and ran away with her tail tucked between her legs.
“Yes.”
“That’s incredible, Ace.”
“Right?” I tug on the ropes again. “I can’t burn my way out of this, but I’ll get us out. I promise. I’ve lived through enough to know I’m not dying in the root cellar of some house in Amish Country. No offense.”
“None taken. The lifestyle isn’t for me—I wasn’t born into it—but I have nothing against it. And really, everyone else here is kind. Like they should be.”
“Who was Amish, your mom or your dad?” I ask, figuring we have time to talk about our pasts. It’s not like we’re going anywhere.
“My mom. She got to leave when she was a teenager and met my dad. They fell in love but she came back and didn’t see him again for over a year.
He never forgot about her and went to every single Amish bakery in the area looking for her.
She said he gained twenty pounds from all the cookies and pies he bought while looking for her. ”
I can hear the smile in her voice as she talks about her parents.
“She left with him and started a new life. Went to college and everything. And then they died and it was either live with my aunt and uncle or go into foster care. I should have chosen foster care.”
“The past shapes us.”
“You believe that? Really? You?”
“I’ll admit I’m a cynic, but yeah. I do.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t go back and change things, but the domino effect can’t be denied.
If my parents hadn’t been murdered, I wouldn’t have become a cop.
And I…” I trail off, not sure how the rest would have panned out.
Would my great aunt still have left me the house?
Having my mom around wouldn’t change who I am. No matter what, I would have ended up in that house and woken the guys.
“Do they come down here?” I ask.
“Three times a day at least. They bring me food now.”
“Now? They didn’t before at all?”