7. SEVEN

SEVEN

" T eagan, you need to get up," my mom says, shaking me. "It's after five. You've barely left your room in days. Have you even showered?"

"I don't think so," I tell her. "I don't remember."

"You missed your appointment with Dr. Miller," she says.

"I was too tired."

And I don't want to open my eyes. I don't want to see someone in a gold mask watching me. But he's still around; I know that much. I feel it.

"Have you heard anything back on those jobs you applied for?"

"No. Nothing."

"I think you're right, Teagan," she says. "This isn't going to work. We need to do something else."

"Like what?"

"I talked to your Aunt Beth in North Carolina. She has an apartment over her garage that she rents out; she said she'd be willing to rent it to you once the current resident leaves in a few weeks. You could start over there, change your hair, change your name…"

"You've told me not to be myself, that I should be ashamed of my body, and now you're telling me I can't even have my name anymore?"

"I'm just saying it's an option—you should think about it. And I think you should get out more, so don't worry about the curfew. Your sister invited you to her bachelorette party this weekend, and that man sent you flowers. They're downstairs."

"What man?"

"Whatever man you've been seeing. There was no note. Does he have a name?"

I scoff. "No, he doesn't have a name. And that man would not send me flowers."

"Well, someone did," she says. "We have a dinner to get to, but please, Teagan. Get out of bed. Take a shower, go for a walk, or spend some time in the sun."

She opens the curtains and flips on the light, leaving the door open when she leaves the room.

"Fuck," I mutter.

And since I have to get out of bed to remedy that, I decide I might as well take a shower.

Afterward, I walk downstairs, make a cup of coffee, and force down a bagel with cream cheese. When I pass through the room again, they catch my eye—two dozen red tulips in a vase by the front door. That hole in my chest aches.

I set the cup down, pick a flower from the vase, and then close my eyes and run the soft petals over my lips.

I like you, Teagan. Let me be nice to you.

Why would he do this? Does he think this is fucking funny?

I take the entire thing out to the garage, toss it in the garbage, and then crawl back into bed. I don't know how long it is before I feel someone sink into the space beside me.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks.

"You wouldn't understand," I answer, keeping my back to him. "You're not really a person."

"Neither are you."

"That's not true. I feel things; I need things."

I feel his weight shifting on the bed before he lies down, pressing his body against my back. He wraps one arm around my front and rests the other under my head. Gloved fingers brush gently over my cheek before running through my hair. I squeeze my eyes shut, biting my lower lip to keep from crying.

"Is this what you think you need, Teagan?"

All I can manage is a nod. I stay like that for a few minutes before turning over and curling up into his chest. I wrap my arms around him, holding him tightly while his fingers run down my back.

"Almost," I whisper. "Close enough."

"You're a pretty girl, Teagan," he says. "But you make a better monster."

"I don't want to be a monster."

"We don't always get what we want," Bone Saw says. "But I got you something; I think you'll like it."

"I saw," I tell him. "I didn't like it."

"You haven't seen this yet."

He turns over, grabs a black box from the other side of the bed, and sets it between us. I hesitate before opening the lid, and when I do, there's a gold mask sitting on top of black clothes and shoes inside.

"There's a full moon tonight, Teagan. Do you want to play monsters?"

We're flying down a highway in the middle of nowhere, somewhere deep in San Bernardino County—the part of California where people don't really go except to get lost and where, at night like this, you can't tell which direction you're headed. There are no lights. There are no towns.

Or maybe we're in Nevada now. Who can tell?

"I don't understand why I need to do this," I say, struggling against the binding over my chest. "It hurts."

"It's better if people think there's a young boy under there than a woman. That's something they're used to seeing," he says. "It's safer for you—probably for them, too."

"It's restricting my breathing. I'm not sure that's safe."

"Put your mask on," he says.

"I'm not going to sit in a dark car with a mask on like a douchebag."

He scoffs. "We're almost there. Put it on."

"You're smiling. I can hear it." I pull the mask over my face and then pull the hood over my head. "I've heard you laugh, I've heard you smile…you're at least a little bit human under there."

"Not in the way you'd like me to be," he says.

"I don't like you at all."

"Yeah, you do. It's not your fault, though. No one ever taught you any better."

"You're wrong," I tell him, but he only shrugs.

I turn back toward the window, finally spotting light on a distant hill. We head straight toward it, turning off onto a dirt road, and end up at a massive, off-grid compound. A wrought iron gate with a watchtower opens just as Bone Saw pulls the car up. Then, we head up a long, winding driveway to the main structure.

"We're going around back," he says, pulling the car to a stop. I exit the vehicle and follow him around the back of the complex to a staircase leading to a single door on a subterranean level of the home. Another masked thing waits at the bottom.

"How am I going to get in?" I ask as we descend the staircase. "Won't someone question the plus one?"

"You were invited, Teagan," he says. "The people who are important wanted you here. That's the only way in."

The things don't speak to each other, but the one waiting by the door scans Bone Saw's retinas and then my own through the mask before opening the door.

More masked things walk around the open lower level of the structure. It's a dark, unfinished basement, barely lit with a few red lights on the walls. One corner of the room is filled with wooden crates; it looks like someone is counting or checking in whatever they are. On the other side of the room, there are two bodies, one male and one female, naked and hanging by their feet. They're attached to some mechanisms I've never seen before, but they seem to be…

"Are they draining them?" I ask.

"Yes. The blood has to come from somewhere, right? Do you have a problem with that? Your boyfriend used to bathe in it."

"I'm aware that I should have a problem with it," I tell him. "But no. I don't."

"Good girl," he says. "Just follow me, Teagan. Do what I do."

"Well, what are we doing?"

"Tonight…we watch. I want to show you some things."

I follow him up a staircase, and we linger in a doorway leading to a grand, open ballroom. It's similar to the one in the house I was taken to in Portland, but the decor here is modern and sleek, whereas the other was more old-world opulence. Just like at the other house, there's a marble slab with a reservoir beneath it near the front of the room, but there's no body on it. The room fills with wealthy individuals in suits and gowns, still trickling in from a door on the opposite side. Servers move through the crowd with drinks, blood, or a mix of the two—I can't be sure.

"What is this?" I ask. "Declan and Luca brought me to a party like this once."

"They did," he says. "But they were late. See that couple over there by the Monet?"

I think I spot the couple he's referring to. There's a woman, maybe a couple of years older than me, with short dark hair, full lips and hips. She's wearing a short, thin red dress that hugs every curve and no bra, her nipples hard visible points through the fabric. The man she's with is older, maybe forty-five or fifty, tall and thin with salt-and-pepper hair and square glasses. He looks familiar; I think he may have been in one of the photos the FBI showed me in Wyoming.

"The girl with the cake and her sugar daddy? Yeah, I see them."

"They need to go," he says. "You're going to help us kill them. Not tonight—tonight, you're just here to watch."

"Why?"

"They broke the rules."

"Which rules?"

"He took two phone calls from the FBI this week. They have something on him, which means he's likely planning to turn on The Order in an attempt to save himself. He should have known they'd find out—that they know everything the FBI has and what they're doing. But…that's the problem with people like this. And Declan De Rossi."

"What is?"

"Their fucking egos—always making them think they're bigger, smarter, and more powerful than they are."

"What about her? Why me?"

"Just watch, Teagan. Our job here is to watch or clean up messes. Don't ask any more questions."

A man wearing a suit and a gold mask moves to a podium at the front of the room, and from the side doors, more things like Bone Saw carry long bench seats into the room, lining them in front of the podium and that marble slab. Without instruction, the attendees begin filing into the pews. They all pull the same gold masks over their faces and the man at the front of the room begins to read from an old leatherbound book.

It's Latin. I don't know any Latin. My mind latches onto a few words I recognize in Spanish, like "blood" and "moon." Other than that, I have no fucking clue what's going on.

"What are they saying?" I whisper.

"It doesn't really matter," he says. "Declan told you about the blood, right? They're basically asserting their position and role in higher society, the power in the blood and death."

An elderly man moves to the front of the room, standing beside the podium while the other reads. A few seconds later, a woman from the crowd approaches him carrying a velvet cushion with a knife resting on top.

Bone Saw leans over me in the doorway, leaning in close to my ear, and says softly, "He's terminally ill, which means he's weak and worthless. When this happens to members of the organization, especially the higher-ups, the greatest thing they can do for their legacy is take their own life."

The old man grabs the knife from the pillow and holds it to his throat, and when the man reading from the book pauses, he drags it across his neck.

Those gathered in front of him begin chanting as soon as the knife pierces his skin.

He should have gone deeper, but it'll do the trick. Still, he stays conscious and on his feet for at least a full minute, choking on blood as it gushes from the wound, before dropping to the ground.

They stop once the body on the floor stills. Two masked men come out, roll him into a sheet, and carry him from the room while the crowd applauds.

"They won't drink his blood," Bone Saw says. "There's no power in it, but there was power in the sacrifice, and his descendants will be rewarded for it. That wouldn't be the case if he chose to die slowly at home."

"Does he go in a barrel, too?"

"No. His body will go home with his family, and they'll tell everyone he succumbed to his illness peacefully in his sleep. Keep watching…"

Once the applause dies down, the man at the podium continues reading, and after a few minutes, two more masked men drag a young girl down the aisle, kicking and crying as she struggles against their grip. When she finally looks up and sees the rows of people watching her through the same masks, she screams.

"No, please!" she shouts. "Please don't hurt me! Why are you doing this? Please don't do this! Please."

She loses her footing about halfway down the aisle, and, sobbing, she's dragged the rest of the way before they haul her onto that marble slab with the troughs, lying her flat on her back while holding her wrists and ankles. Without thinking about it, I latch onto Bone Saw's bicep. He quickly shrugs me off, then grabs me by my neck and jerks my body toward him, holding me with my back against his chest.

"I didn't mean to," I manage through my constricted airway. "I forgot."

I forgot what you were for a second.

He steps backward, moving so that we're partially obscured by the doorframe into the dark hallway, and slips his hand down the front of my pants and inside my underwear, his fingers finding my clit. "You're going to like this, little monster. You better not scream when you come—you're not supposed to be a desperate little whore here, and I'm sure more than a few people in that room would love to get their hands on something like you."

As he works my clit with his fingers, the man with the book drives the first blade into her throat. Then, the two holding her down step aside, and the masked guests approach the altar. She's gagging, choking on blood while they all drive knives into her body.

And I'm watching, wriggling my hips against the gloved fingers of the man who's barely human, feeling his hard cock against my ass while he circles my clit. My pussy is soaked, the tension inside me threatening to unravel.

I shouldn't be getting off to this. I'm more fucked than I thought.

"It's just like watching people fuck, isn't it?" he asks as they begin returning to their seats.

"Yes…" I moan quietly.

"It's okay that you like it—that it makes your little pussy wet." He picks up the pace, his fingers rubbing my wet clit hard and fast. I flex my thighs and grip the doorframe beside me to keep my knees from buckling. "Go ahead and come all over my fingers while you watch her die. I'll be picturing you just like that while I tear you apart with my cock later."

"Fuck…" I whimper softly. His hand tightens around my throat, cutting off my air supply and stifling my moans as my clit pulses and my legs threaten to collapse beneath me. I let my eyes fall closed, waves of pleasure rolling through me as the group begins to chant together—again, speaking Latin—and the blood drains from her body.

Her life force. Ripe for the taking.

She doesn't move, but it takes her minutes to die, and by the time they're finished chanting, blood drips from the troughs cut into that slab. They remove their masks and approach with golden chalices, filling them with warm, fresh blood and walking away with blood-stained lips and teeth, blood dripping from corners of their mouths and chins.

And once they've all finished, the pews are removed from the room, and they resume their cocktail party around the dead girl's body like it's any other Wednesday night.

"It's eerie," I say. Bone Saw wipes his wet, gloved fingers on the front of my pants.

"That's a good word for it, I guess," he says. "These are the kind of people who really rule the world—the ones who tell us all to behave, to be obedient and work hard, not to hurt each other, and that those kinds of things matter. They don't matter at all."

"Declan said the only thing that really matters is power, and they have so much of it that they've just gotten bored."

"He isn't wrong."

"Why do you do this then? Do they care about you? Is this your family?"

"No," he says. "I was raised for this, and I enjoy it. And there's no other life for me. I told you—monsters can't exist in suburbia." His phone vibrates in his pocket, and he pulls it out.

I didn't even know he had a phone. He answers but doesn't speak from the time he brings it to his ear to when he puts it back in his pocket.

"Clean up on aisle five," he says. "Follow me. Don't lower your gaze the way you did when you were here with the De Rossis. Look at them. And don't speak."

"If you're not allowed to talk, why do you talk to me?"

"It's not that we're not allowed to talk. We don't talk or use names because then we'd learn to tell each other apart. They'd learn to tell us apart, too. Both could be problematic on both sides."

I follow him through the room toward another staircase leading to the upper floor, looking at them all as I pass, trying to catch their eye. They won't let me—not even for a second. Their own eyes drop to the ground as I pass.

They're afraid of me.

These people with blood-stained teeth, who, moments ago, were stabbing a young girl to death on a marble slab, are afraid…of me. Of what I am.

And it feels good.

Once upstairs, we make our way down the hall, past closed doors with screaming and moaning coming from inside until we reach one left open.

A woman, cuffed to the bed and ball-gagged, lies dead and bloody atop the sheets. In one corner of the room, the man who led the ritual earlier berates an older, heavier naked man.

"This is the third one, Senator," he says. "I'm having a hard time believing this is unintentional."

"I got carried away, Lawrence," the man replies. "I guess I don't know my own strength."

"Well, know mine," the man called Lawrence says. He looks at Bone Saw and nods, who, in one smooth motion, pulls a knife from his pocket and flips it open.

All color drains from the man's face, who hadn't noticed they weren't alone in the room until now.

"No!" the man screams. "No, no, don't! You wouldn't!"

But he will and he does. Lawrence steps aside and Bone Saw crosses the room in three strides and then drags the blade across his neck. He goes deep enough—so deep I see the bone when he steps to the side and the man crumples to the floor, his eyes as wide as saucers. Blood sprays from the wound, almost like in a fucking Quentin Tarantino movie.

"We won't tolerate sloppiness and impetuousness in this organization any longer, Senator. Sorry you had to learn the hard way." I watch the light in his eyes go out as he collapses into a bloody heap of flesh on the floor. "I'll send some others to help you take care of these two," he says to Bone Saw. "It doesn't look like your friend is much for heavy lifting."