15. Creepy Mabel

Chapter 15

The thick dark thinks it can hold me.

I'll kill it too.

I thrash and twist, screaming against the muffling blanket of nothingness between me and my body. It's pinning me down, keeping me from reaching my Hydes and killing the ones who hurt them. I'll feed it back to itself in bloody pieces if it doesn't stop soon.

The darkness gets scared. Retreats and grows thin because it knows I'll be victorious.

Nothing gets between me and my Hydes.

I snarl again, determined to make it fade entirely.

My voice comes out as a grumbly groan, but it's enough. The darkness does what I want and goes away.

But it leaves pain behind.

My eyes burn when I open them. My limbs ache like someone stomped on every joint and bone. I snarl again, and even though my throat scratches like it's full of thorns and stones, the sound is clearer.

The pain recedes a bit. Good. It should be scared of me too.

I blink and scan my surroundings, my rage growing. Bars. I'm surrounded by a circle of metal bars. They're thicker than my wrist and they go into the concrete ground like they've been impaled there. Over my head, they bend inward until they meet in the middle.

A cage. Big enough to hold a dragon and with stains on the concrete like blood that didn't wash fully away.

I push to my feet, snarling so fiercely it sounds like a scream.

Something clanks on my wrist. I look down.

I'm dressed again. I shouldn't be. The other was naked when those evil people attacked us. Red cotton covers me now, pants and a V-neck shirt like an outfit I've seen on nurses, but in the color of blood. I don't mind that last part, but I'm furious someone dared to touch us.

And they gave us jewelry too. A thick bracelet hangs on my left wrist. It's at least two inches wide, made of nearly solid metal but with a groove in its side like someone carved a chunk out of it all the way around. A thinner band of metal rests in the groove, gold while the rest of the metal is silver, and when I move, it glints weirdly like the silver portions are covered in an oil slick.

I wrap my fingers around it and tug, but nothing happens. The metal feels funny, though. All buzzy against my hand like a live wire, but I don't know why.

My eyes go to the room beyond the cage again. Everything is still. My Hydes aren't here. I can't hear them either, not my Beastly or my Ghastly or…

Memory flashes behind my eyes. My Puck. They shot my Puck.

A screech escapes me, my body trembling with rage. My gaze rakes the room, searching for any sign of where my Hydes have gone, but there's nothing. Past the bars, the concrete floor goes down several steps on all sides and then continues until it reaches a ring of haphazardly placed chairs, like ones for an audience, except no one put them all away when that audience was gone.

Gritting my teeth against the way my body aches, I turn a tight circle. I can't even tell where the gate on the cage is located, but the room beyond it has a door past the chairs. It's made of dark wood, ornate and polished, and there's a keypad beside it with a little red light glowing on top. Above the door, a gallery with more misplaced chairs stretches across that side of the room, as if providing more places for the audience to sit. Besides the abandoned chairs, I can't see much past the short wooden wall and brass railing on top of it.

My eyes narrow. The other is asleep as always, but I remember her sneaky friends telling her about places like this. This is a place where traders bring their captives. A place where they put them on display and sell them to the highest bidder, like those rich people in that movie where the scientists made dinosaurs come back again.

In that movie, all the rich people got eaten.

I like this plan.

Grinning, I stalk toward the bars. I can flicker between them. No stupid cage is going to hold me. And when I find the ones who took me, who shot my Puck…

I blink out of sight and dart between the bars.

Or try to.

Electricity surges through me like I've stepped into a lightning bolt. I crash back to the concrete, screaming with pain while my body spasms from the residual shocks.

Slow clapping sounds push past the ringing in my ears. I pry my eyes open as the pain dulls.

A man walks toward me, the door swinging shut behind him. I get a glimpse of a long hallway with more doors and golden lights, and then it's gone, leaving only me and him and a cage that bites.

"We know about your little power, Hyde," the man says, smiling. Ordinarily, I'd appreciate that the expression looks like a shark, except this shark is between me and my Hydes and obviously knew about the cage that could hurt me.

I can kill sharks too.

Pushing to my feet again, I fight the way my body wants to wobble as I glare down at him. He's wearing a black suit and a pale-brown shirt with a dark tie that has little gold symbols on it that match the keychain of the man I killed days ago. His hair is gray and his skin has that pale look white businessmen get from spending too much time in the office, but he still moves easily, like part of that time in the office is at the company gym.

He stops a few yards shy of the cage, tapping something briefly on his phone and then lifting the device so its underside is pointed at me. A click sounds like a camera shutter, and then he tucks the phone away. "Photos," he says calmly. "For the marketing material."

I'll pick every one of his muscles apart.

"The accessory we've given you will suppress any other powers you might have." He nods toward the bracelet. "We can get to the details on whatever those might be later. The buyers will surely want to know, plus it could raise our opening price. But in the meantime, let's get the preliminaries out of the way." His brow rises while he regards me. "Can you speak?"

I'll make him eat his own liver.

The man waits and then sighs like my silence is disappointing but doesn't really matter either way. "I suppose you're wondering how we found you. Suffice it to say you subhumans really aren't nearly as clever as you think you are. We tracked you after you killed one of our members a few days back, but several of our crew got a little ahead of themselves and burned your house down before we could acquire you. We could have lost you then, but thankfully, your security detail featured a few individuals we've had on our radar for a while, not that they or whatever agency they work for knows that. Once we spotted them, it wasn't difficult to conclude a target of value was likely nearby. Imagine our satisfaction when that turned out to be you and your unusual companions."

He scoffs to himself as if something is ironically amusing. "Companions. Is that the word you would use? Or are those three creatures your ‘mates'? Such a disgusting term—at least as you subhumans use it. But then, you're all barely better than wild animals who can speak, so I suppose it makes sense you would find appeal in such a word."

I quiver, my rage surging higher. "Hurt my friends. This is how you end."

His brow rises. "You rhyme. How adorable."

"Ate your buddy," I warn. "Eat you happily."

"Well, now that's a sloppier rhyme, don't you think? Buddy. Happily." He shrugs. "No matter. The buyers will love that little trick. Perhaps they'll want you as entertainment for their guests. Like a poet. Edgar Allan Poe in a cage." Chuckling to himself, he takes out his phone again, tapping it briefly like he's typing in notes.

Agonized screams rise in the distance. My eyes snap from the man to the door.

My Hydes. Someone is hurting them.

Rage floods me, and I lunge toward the bars, stopping just shy of the metal. Electricity tingles on my skin in savage little bites that warn of more if I come any closer.

Sighing, the man casts a brief glance toward the sound and then returns his attention to me. "I'm afraid not all your mates are as suitable for sale in their current state as you are. But the market for Hyde organs is… well, lucrative, considering how rare it is to capture one of you, let alone four."

Lightning bites at me as I flinch forward, my fingers curling and my nails digging into my palms. This close to the bars, I can see the dead twisting around him, swirling through the air. Their forms are faint, though. More like a heat mirage than the misty shapes I normally see.

My gaze drops to the buzzy bracelet. It would suppress me, he said. Stop what I can do.

I can't flicker. I can't reach the one who needs to die. I can barely see the dead—and just seeing them is useless anyway.

But when those other dead gave my Puck and Huck nightmares…

I tremble. I don't command the dead. I see and hear them, that's all. But when I needed to protect my Hyde and Jekyll from the ghosts tormenting them, that changed.

Except… the other was the one who was awake when that happened, not me.

In my head, the other stirs as if hearing my thought, and I freeze, shocked. She's always asleep when I'm awake. She wants it that way. It protects her from what I do to make the world safe, because if she's awake, she tries to stop me. What I do scares her.

But now she's waking. She's still scared, but she doesn't want to sleep, not anymore.

Not when someone is hurting our men.

Pink energy tangles inside me, like a blush on the night sky that promises sunrise.

More cries rise in the distance. Howls that make me want to fling myself at the bars, pain and electricity be damned.

I can't lose my Beastly or my Ghastly or my Puck. I just found them, and we need each other. I need them. I was so alone before. The other and I both were, even if she never wanted to think about it. And once we found our Jekylls and our Hydes, that changed.

The pink glow of sunrise spreads in my veins. The other's reassurance comes with it, like the comforting thoughts she sends when I'm frightened. Because she loves me and protects me too, even if I make her scared sometimes.

"Would you care to tell me your name?" the man asks idly, like my Hydes aren't shrieking in the distance. "Or should I just make one up for you?"

Her comfort turns to resolve. We won't lose them now.

We're going to fight.

Quivers of determination make my hair shake like a stringy black curtain. Make my hand curl into a fist around the bracelet too. The metal is cold against my skin, a chilly bite on the edge of pain that grows stronger with the glow of the other's power spreading through me.

Baring my teeth, I lift my eyes to where the man in the suit stands. He's looking at his phone again.

I growl.

He glances up, a calmly curious expression on his face. "Poe-lina?" He shakes his head at himself. "No, that's too Thumbelina and you don't look enough like a fairy to make that sell. Emily, perhaps. Like Emily Dickinson. You do have that tragically gothic aesthetic going. Perhaps if we put you in a white nightgown. Buyers might find the allusion amusing."

"Creepy."

His brow twitches up. "Your name is ‘Creepy'?" He scoffs like I've said something ridiculous.

My fingers close tighter around the bracelet, and my muscles strain as I pull on it. "They call me Creepy Mabel. Maybe you think that's not so nice. But you just hurt my mates, you ass, so now it's time to end your life."

He regards me indulgently. "You're hardly in a position, Creepy, to threaten?—"

"Kill him," I hiss at the dead.

The heat shimmers pause in their swirling, and then every one of them quivers strangely in the air. I can barely see the vaguest hints of their presence, yet I know—just know—they've turned to look at me.

My grip strains harder on the bracelet and my body trembles with fury as I reach for every scrap of power I can still feel in my veins past the bracelet's suppressing force.

My eyes never leave the dead.

Chuckling, the man continues in his indulgent tone. "What did you say?"

So many dead. So many innocent lives destroyed. He's nothing but one among countless other predators in the world, but in this moment, that doesn't matter.

He's the only one in this room.

"The buyers won't tolerate obstinance," the man says, "so you'll answer when I speak. What did you?—"

"Kill him!"

Confusion flickers in his amused expression. He starts to look around theatrically.

But the dead are hungry for their revenge.

The heat shimmers begin to swirl again, spiraling around him even though he can't see them at all. But then far-off screams whisper through the room, like distant sounds carried on a wind.

The man's amused expression melts into confusion and then true alarm.

He taps something quickly on his phone and then aims the device at me like it's a weapon.

The bracelet suddenly flares hot on my wrist like the metal is on fire.

I shriek, collapsing to the ground and clawing at it, but I can't break it away. "Kill him!"

Faster and faster, the dead swirl. Their screams grow louder like a freight train racing toward us.

The man lurches as one of the heat shimmers slashes at him. The sleeve of his suit jacket shreds like claws have torn through it, and blood seeps into the edges of the torn fabric.

Victorious cries join the screams of the dead. The pain surging through me fades as the man's device goes flying from his grasp. Again, he lurches as bloody scratches suddenly slice across his cheek. His forehead. His arm. His neck.

Eyes wide, he stares at me as he retreats toward the door.

I push back to my feet. "Don't let him go," I growl.

The dead descend on him as one. He screams as his suit shreds and his blood splatters. Wildly, he thrashes under the assault of things he can't see.

I grin.

In only moments, nothing remains of him that hasn't been sliced or torn. The heat shimmers rise from his mangled corpse, but they don't drift upward into light like they always have.

They float toward me.

I tense, taking a step back warily. What's this? I helped free them. Are they going to come after me too?

They reach the bars and hover beyond the cage. I wait, not sure what to think. Is the biting electricity holding them back? Do I have the nasty trader to thank for why they're not attacking me?

The heat shimmers pass through the gaps between the bars, and suddenly, they're not heat shimmers anymore. Like people stepping from behind a curtain, they transform as they pass the bars, not becoming swirls of mist but instead ghostly figures, their bodies foggy white and partially see-through.

I resist the urge to snarl at them, if only because they're making me worried. There's a woman with long hair and pointed ears in a flowing dress. Another in overalls with short hair and wide, large eyes. Several men in everything from jeans and t-shirts to construction worker clothes.

And children.

I tremble at the sight of the little ones, wishing I could bring that evil man back and kill him all over again just because they're here.

One of the children steps forward. She's wearing a little sundress with flowers that stirs in a breeze I can't feel. Her eyes are huge, even bigger than mine, and they shine like bottomless pools. But her heart-shaped face is kind as she smiles up at me. "Thank you for freeing us."

Reaching out, she wraps her hand around the bracelet.

The metal clicks and falls open, dropping to the ground.

She glances back and one of the older guys in overalls puts a hand to the bars.

A gate swings open.

My heart pounds, but I stop myself from rushing out to save my men right now. I don't know what the dead want.

I can't risk offending them and ending up like that horrible man.

Turning back to me, the girl's smile falls, and her shining eyes turn to pools of worry mingled with hope. "There are others. Can you free them too?"

Inside me, the other stirs at the words. She hasn't gone back to sleep even now, and she's not hiding from this anymore.

No, she wants to help. She wants to do what the little girl asks.

Together.

I smile. We are the vengeance and the hope.

We are the ones to whom the dead souls turn.

I hum to myself as I head for the exit. We have work to do.