Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Riley
When we reach the Door, Story is still unconscious and his heartbeat and breathing remain erratic. I notice that Mickey seems almost… fascinated by him for some reason, and Mickey is generally fascinated by little other than a good place to sleep.
“What’s so interesting about him?” I ask.
Mickey glances over at me before he gives me an unwanted high five. I’m unsure why until I feel his necromancy invade my body, and when I look over at Story, I get a bizarre feeling from him.
“Is he…”
“Dead?” Mickey finishes. “You wouldn’t think. I mean, his heartbeat is going crazy, but boy does he feel rather… deceased.”
“What are we betting that this is a trap?” I ask while I stare down at the peculiar teenager.
“Well… we are a pretty lucky group,” Torin says. “Luck is drawn to us. It rushes to us… caresses us gently… and sometimes roughly.”
My eyebrow literally couldn’t arch any higher. “Yes. Luck… my old friend.”
Torin beams at me.
I clap my hands. “Okay, let’s head through. Mickey… you’re going to have to leave Tommy and Joy here.”
“I will miss you,” Mickey cries as he cups Tommy’s face.
“I won’t forget the way you tuck me in bed at night.
Or the way you lay my clothes out for me in the morning.
Or how you bring my toothbrush to me when I’m too tired to stand at the sink.
You are the best man I’ve ever brought back to life. Willing to do anything and—”
“Tommy, you ready to hit up the casino?” Joy asks.
“I am. And then my daughter is going to Facetime me at ten,” he says while Mickey whines and watches them go.
They’re not as distraught as Mickey is about any of this.
But before they get too far, Tommy looks back.
“Be safe. I will have your bed fluffed and ice cream waiting for you when you return.”
“Tommy, you’re the best,” Mickey calls as I shake my head and push Mickey toward the Door. “Joy?”
“I can’t hear you,” she says.
“Joy, I want you to also make me feel warm fuzzies.”
Joy just flips Mickey off who flips her off back. Both seem very pleased by this exchange.
“Let’s get this over with,” I mutter.
And with that, we step through the Door together.
The moment we do, the Door shudders and seems to collapse in on itself. I’m immediately thrown forward a second before I hear someone say, “Finally,” and pain spikes through my head when something collides with it.
I stagger and crash to the ground as darkness invades me.
When I open my eyes, I see Torin frantically looking around as he damn near tosses Story into Mickey’s arms. Mickey struggles to hold the teen who is taller than him and hurriedly eases him onto the ground as I discover that I can’t hear anything.
Why can’t I hear him? Instead, I’m stuck with this bizarre experience where I can see him speaking, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I’m worried that my hearing was the next to go, but I didn’t use any magic when I passed through the Door, did I?
Torin lunges forward and grabs Kit as I see his surprisingly distraught face.
“Torin, I can’t hear for some reason,” I say right before I feel something on me.
But Torin is in front of me and…
“What the fuck are you going on about?” a man asks.
“Don’t interact with him. We’ll see what Onyx wants to do with him,” a woman says. I feel them pulling me to my feet, but Kit isn’t looking at me, and Torin isn’t engaging with me.
And that’s when I finally realize that it’s not that I can’t hear Torin… it’s that I’m not with them. How the hell did we get separated?
My head throbs while I’m dragged and then something suddenly knocks into my knees and I stumble forward. When I attempt to jerk my arms up to catch myself, I find that my hands are handcuffed behind my back. Unable to catch myself, I fall forward, slamming into something.
“How hard did you hit him?” the woman asks.
“I didn’t hit him that hard. I just wanted to disorient him. I didn’t know who the fuck was invading our realm.”
I decide that maybe now would be a good time to speak up. “I’m not here to do any harm. I heard you had a monster invading your lands, and I came to share with you that we had one that we drove out. I’m here to help you.”
They briefly fall quiet before I feel someone shoving me… evidently my talk didn’t work well. “Onyx will deal with him,” the woman says. “We don’t know who he is. He could be working with them.”
“I guess we’ll just toss him in a holding cell.”
“Aren’t they all full after the last attack?”
The man replies, “Yeah, I’ll just put him in with someone. It should be fine.”
I really wish I had a say in this, but it becomes quite clear that they have determined I’m sketchy.
I’m pushed forward and scramble a bit as I feel a cushioned seat to my left.
I decide I’m in some kind of vehicle, especially when it begins to move.
My stomach tightens as I grasp how absolutely fucked I am without Kit or Torin.
Hell, I’d even take Mickey at this point, despite the likelihood that he’d sleep through the abduction.
Since I’m still connected to Kit’s eyes, I watch while Kit looks at the Door that appears to have been broken. Did these people do it when they took me? Is that what messed up the whole thing and sent me through the Door but left the others back in my world?
Torin is frantically repairing the Door, but I’ve already been dragged far away from it by this point. I wish I could communicate with them through Kit, but the only connection Kit and I have like that is her knowing which way I want to look. And she won’t even know that from this far away.
I decide to try speaking up again. “I promise I mean no harm. I came to help. I can explain to you everything I know about the horsemen and why we need to stop them.”
No one responds to me while the vehicle continues to move at a slow pace. When it finally stops, I’m dragged from it and pulled forward. It’s hard knowing where to step, and they obviously don’t realize I’m blind as I stagger after them.
The man says, “You will stand here as you are examined for magic. Would you like to confess right now if you have magic? We assure you, it’ll go easier for you.”
I hesitate as I realize that I have no idea how they’re going to check my magic. What should I do when they find out that I have it? Will they brand me, cutting me from my magic like they did to Story? Will I be able to reverse it?
Hell, maybe it’ll be the only thing that can save me.
“Put your feet on the Xs and stand still,” the woman orders.
I have no idea where the Xs are, so I just stand still until someone gives me a push. Stumbling, I must end up too far ahead of them because I get pushed back.
“Are you trying to test me?” a man who hadn’t spoken before barks.
I debate telling them I’m blind. It could make them go easier on me, more willing to listen to me and see me as less of a threat… but I hate the idea of telling them because what if they use it against me? I weigh my options, but at this point, I’m not sure I really have many options.
With a deep breath, I toss it out, hoping it’ll help me. “I’m very sorry, but I’m blind and I can’t see where the spots are. Could someone place my feet where they need to go?” I request, trying to sound and act naive and harmless.
“You’re blind?” the woman asks. I can hear her in front of me, but I can’t quite tell what she’s doing until I feel her hand touch my face.
Startled, I jerk back as she goes, “Huh…” and then I feel her hands on my legs while she puts me where she wants me.
I anxiously stand here and try to think about what I should do, but my thoughts are cut short when a machine starts to whirl next to me.
“What is that?” I ask.
“It detects whether you have magic,” she says.
My mind spins, wondering if I need to just try booking it out of here… but I honestly don’t think I could. I have absolutely no idea which direction to go or where the Door is, since I’d been unconscious for part of the journey.
But the instant they feel my magic… who knows what they’ll do to me. Story didn’t paint a pretty picture of this place.
The machine begins to beep aggressively, making me feel like whatever it saw, it wasn’t happy about.
The first man suggests, “Let’s brand him and move him to a cell until Onyx decides his fate—”
“Wait,” a new woman says, her voice gentle and soothing. I can hear her footsteps as she moves toward me a second before I feel the chain that holds my pendant and the hourglass pulled free as she takes them from me.
I freeze, not having expected her to take two extremely valuable things from me. Two things that I need to have.
“Try him again.”
“Yes, of course,” the man says, and when the machine whirls this time, no beeps come from it.
“The magic was in his necklace?” the first woman asks.
“Must have been. How peculiar. Put him away for now, and I will meet with him in a minute,” the new woman says.
“Of course, Onyx,” she replies, and I’m dragged off while my mind races. How the hell can I get both things back from her without revealing much? They despise magic, so if I insist on having them, she’ll likely think something is up, but without them—
“I need those,” I blurt out, my longing for the hourglass too severe.
“No one needs magic,” Onyx says.
“I do. A horrible magic user cursed my body, and even though I detest magic as much as the rest of you, I was told those items were the only things that could keep me alive.”
She simply says, “I see,” and with that, I’m pulled away.
I’m shoved forward and then hear something metal slam shut behind me.
Disoriented, I stand for a moment before switching to Kit’s vision.
Without the pendant, I can still use the magic that allows me to see through her eyes, but if there is ever a disruption in my magic, I need the pendant to reconnect us.
It looks like Torin has the Door fixed, and I get to watch while they push through it. I want to scream at them to turn around, to get away before someone takes them too, but I can’t communicate with them through Kit.