Torture (Terraway Book 3) Read online

  Bev threw things out. Bev apologized.

  It made no sense.

  We rounded the corner of takeout boxes filled with cockroaches, maggots and viscous slime, giving Ezra a full view of his bride to be in all her glory. “No!” Bev screeched in agony, her worst fear realized. Her wail almost brought tears to my eyes, but I’d promised myself long ago that I would never again cry in front of Bev. “No! You can’t be here! Go away! Get out! This isn’t me! It’s not me!” Her pain tore at what was left of my heart.

  Ezra was lost until she verbally pushed him away. Then he found his purpose, directing his fiery gaze at her disheveled state. “I told you I loved you. A little mess doesn’t change that.” He barreled toward us, and before I could warn him to be careful of the floor that wasn’t all that solid in parts, he scooped Bev up in his arms, carrying her like a bride over the threshold, and out of my walking nightmare.

  36

  Bruce Campbell Isn’t Real

  I didn’t know what to do, think or feel. All I knew was that Ezra sped Bev to the emergency room, with Ollie driving us right behind him. The check-in was quick, the doctor less frazzled than we all were, and they started treating her foot and the shock she seemed to be steeped in.

  Bev wailed semi-coherently the same story over and over – that she woke up one morning a few days ago and discovered all the wrong she’d done with her life. It would’ve been any cast-aside child’s dream come true, only I couldn’t feel anything. I was numb, my arms banded around my stomach as Von and I waited in the hallway. Ezra and Ollie stayed with her through the doctor’s examination while Mason made himself useful as a Duwende, pulling the stress from Ollie, Bev and Ezra when necessary so they could focus on the matter at hand.

  “Okay, you have to stop rocking like that. It’s demented, darling.” Von rubbed my back, but the pulling he did was only a fraction of what I needed.

  I hadn’t realized I was rocking back and forth, but the second he mentioned it, I saw the depths of my twisted gut. “She said she was sorry to me,” I muttered quietly, as if uttering the words too loud would make the faulty floor beneath them drop out and expose the lie in the apology. “Bev doesn’t apologize.”

  “She looked pretty turned about. Not how I remember her at dinner when they got engaged.”

  “I’ve never seen her like this. And why did she look scared? It was like she didn’t know how any of the stuff got there. I’m worried, Von. Seriously. Every piece of crap in that trailer was her life. She beat me something awful on my fifth birthday because she brought home a dollhouse, and I started playing with it. I thought she’d brought it home for me.” I blinked twice, not seeing anything except that awful day. I could still feel my little heart pounding as I ran through the trailer, trying to escape her while Ollie and Allie were at work. I shouted apologies and begged for her to stop, but I’d broken Bev’s rule – don’t touch her special things.

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  I stared at Von, confused. “When have I ever exaggerated?”

  “Fair point. But there’s got to be more to the story than that.”

  “Sure. She bought herself a dollhouse on my birthday, and got me nothing. We’re not allowed to touch Bev’s special things, and I touched the dollhouse, thinking she’d gotten it for me. I didn’t realize she was taunting me at the time, but I learned. My fifth birthday was the first time I tasted my own blood in my mouth. That’s the whole story. Never an apology or even a flicker of regret.”

  Von’s hand stilled on my back. “I wish you were exaggerating.”

  I swallowed, and because only Von was there to hear it, I confessed the crux of my dysfunction. “I was never Bev’s special thing.”

  Von didn’t say anything at first. He simply laced his fingers through mine and brought me closer to his side, kissing my temple. Then quietly, he whispered, “You’re my special thing. My very own glittering treasure.” He squeezed my fingers and chuckled. “Yeah, that was dorky.”

  “I like dorky.”

  The hollow, scared look in Bev’s eyes haunted me. It was like she was an entirely different person who woke up and discovered she’d been walking around in a foreign body. My skin was itchy all over, so I scratched my stomach and my arms with long rakes over my skin. I moved slowly enough that I hoped Von didn’t see. I couldn’t force the universe to make sense. Even after all the half-horse, half-fish, half-vampire, half-wolf people I’d met, Bev’s whole new personality scared me the most.

  My gut tugged in the direction of a man being wheeled past us by a nurse. “Let’s get some work done. I need a distraction.”

  “Really? You sure? Mason isn’t here.”

  “Mariang only has Danny, and they hold up just fine. You up for it?” It didn’t really matter if he was; I couldn’t sit and wait anymore.

  “I guess so. You’re sure, love? I mean, maybe we should wait on your mum to see what’s what.”

  “Look, the only logical explanation is alien inhabitation, and I just can’t handle one more bit of magic right now. Let’s do some reaping. See how far that gets us.”

  “Alright, but just one or two, yeah? I don’t want you wiped out before our trek.”

  Something about this grated on my nerves, but I couldn’t get a proper read on my emotions to know if I was overreacting or not. It was sweet that he cared, but it felt like paternal scolding, and I hadn’t needed a father since birth. I walked toward the man in the wheelchair, noticing his yellowed skin that sagged unnaturally in parts. My fingers brushed against his, and I felt his tired soul leap into me, sending out an electric chill I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to.

  Von jogged to catch up, surprised I was already on the hunt. His arm snaked around my waist, pulling the soul from me. He pressed his chest to my spine, warming me from the inside and the outside. His lips parted and attached to the nape of my neck. I shivered as he exhaled hot air right where I needed to feel it. His biceps flexed, holding me tight as his black “You Thought You Knew” t-shirt stretched across his taut muscles. “Slow down, Mrs. Brady. I didn’t realize you were already going.”

  “I need to not feel this. Bev’s face? I don’t know what to do with that. Maybe the cold will numb it.” Though Von felt like the best warm blanket in the world, I squirmed out of his grip. I was too comfortable, which made it too easy to break down. I couldn’t have that. “Not now. It’s too much,” I explained of the distance I was determined to put between us. I didn’t look back at his confusion, but let my gut pull me forward. We were in the ER, so there was no shortage of reapable bodies.

  I walked toward a man with a loud hacking cough that had a rattling wet rasp when he breathed in. He was in his mid-fifties, and would never know what the swinging sixties might feel like. I didn’t even bother with a preamble. I just walked straight up to him in the waiting room and clasped him on the shoulder, not even offering a kind smile to get him through his last day on earth.

  Von reaped the soul by looping his arm around my shoulder as if we were old pals, which I guess we kind of were. That day I felt like a sinking ship, though, and didn’t want anyone to go down with me. “Okay, that’s two. That’s enough for today. You’re still on the mend, darling.”

  “I told you, I’m fine.” I cast him a look that told him I was in no mood. “And if you could not call me ‘darling’ in public, I’d appreciate it.” I’d already said as much in the grocery store, but whatever.

  “You have to put a dollar in the jar,” he reminded me of our game in which I lived in denial, and he refused to let me. I friggin’ hated that game.

  “Bill me.” I stalked off toward the entrance, where an elderly woman was being wheeled in by what I assumed was her daughter. They had on hand-knitted cardigans in two different colors and their hair was up in matching buns. I don’t know why the sight made me unbearably sad, but I was in no mood to be patient while the melancholy of a life filled with motherly love I would never know passed by me. I skipped over the gloom and went stra
ight to pissed. It was the wrong moment for Von to hold my hand. I shook off his grip and glared at him. Before I could stop myself, I spewed venom meant for my childhood in his direction. “Would you give me some space? Jeez! You’re not my boyfriend!”

  Von reared back, the initial slap of hurt confusing him. Then a wash of anger slid over his features, turning him from my favorite flirty pal to a man I didn’t recognize. “Oh, really? How sad. I was just begging for the job. And make no mistake, you are the job.”

  I knew I’d crossed the line, but Von was dancing clear over it. “Shut up, Von. You’re just being a jag because I was short with you. I get it. I shouldn’t have snapped like that.”

  “I love that you think I have nothing better to do than follow you about, like I’m your groupie.” He donned a girly voice and clapped his hands together with sarcastic glee. “October Grace, what shall we do today? Oh, you want to work till you drop again? How fun! It doesn’t affect me at all. In fact, I’m so slit-my-wrists in love with you that I don’t mind that I’m starving. Looking at your pretty face is enough to sustain me.” He narrowed his eyes and threw his hands in the air. “Think about Mason and me for a change! Don’t just go off reaping, thinking it’s only you who’s affected.”

  I took a breath, knowing I’d been the one who set us on this downward path. I held up my hands in surrender. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I was being a jerk. It’s barely noon, and it’s already been a long day.”

  “I’m so glad you set me straight that I’m not your boyfriend. I think I’ll have a good old cry tonight on my pillow about the virgin queen who turned me down.” He cried dramatically into his palms. “October Grace doesn’t want to be my girlfriend! What’ll my mates on the playground say?” He pulled out his half-smoked cigar and unwrapped it, lighting the thing smack in the middle of the ER.

  “You’re being a brat. Do you even need me here for this part, or can you scrounge up your own audience? I said I was sorry.”

  “The only thing I need you for is a good pair to look at before I go to sleep.” His eyes flicked down to my breasts, and for all his bravado, I could see the regret behind it all as he dove into the muck headfirst.

  I held his gaze when it sheepishly climbed back up to my face. I tried to build up a steel wall against the hurt he was trying to deflect onto me. “That’s how it is? This is who you really are? You’re the perv who’s in it for my boobs? I must say, well done fooling me. Really had me going there.”

  “Give me an hour in the sack, and I’ll show you everything you need to know about me, baby.” He took a puff and blew the smoke in my face, ignoring the nurse who scolded him and told him to take his cigar outside. “You let Mason use you easy enough. It’s time I won the coin toss. For no other reason than curiosity, of course. I’ve never actually been with a real, live virgin before. Most virgins are like, seventeen. You get to be their queen at the ripe old age of twenty-two.”

  The sting cut me worse than a scalpel, slicing through the tender parts I’d trusted Von with. I knew he regretted it; I could see remorse stinging his features. I didn’t know why he was lashing out so cruelly. I tilted my head up at him, my arms banding around my stomach. My words were quiet, not wanting a public scene through one of the top ten worst conversations of the year. “You never really loved me, did you?” I needed it confirmed. I needed him to tell me that I was young and foolish. That I’d trusted in rainbows when I shouldn’t have. I needed him to tell me that the Brady Bunch wasn’t real, and neither were we.

  I needed to know he wasn’t Bruce Campbell, and that Santa Claus didn’t exist.

  Von responded coolly by exhaling a puff of smoke in my face. “I’m not your boyfriend.”

  “And I guess I’m not your special thing. I was short with you one time, and this is what I get for it.” A rock sunk in my gut as Von made his way on the list of people I vowed to never cry in front of again. “You’re not Bruce Campbell.” I wasn’t mad at him; I was disappointed in myself for falling for it all. “You’re not Mr. Brady.”

  “I’m not your boyfriend,” Von repeated, as if the very idea was laughable.

  “Tell me I’m a kid.” I wanted to hear him say that’s all I’d ever been. I stared at my shoes and waited for the gavel to fall.

  “You’re just a kid. Katrina, on the other hand, she’s all woman. Nothing childish about her.” He blew smoke in my face, but I refused to cough or wave it away. I inhaled the stink, letting it chase away the childish delusions I’d entertained that Von had ever loved me, and that I’d finally been somebody’s treasure.

  I don’t know how I’d been so had by Von. Maybe it was his British accent that made everything sound more beautiful than it actually was. Maybe it was the flirty way he gave me little nicknames. I felt sick to my stomach, and like I was the butt of a joke when I’d been thinking I was precious to someone wonderful. Turns out, I wasn’t precious at all, and Von wasn’t wonderful. I wasn’t Von’s special thing. He could throw me away at the first sign of me being a little bit broken on a bad day. “Okay, Von. I’m going to go get some air. I’ll try to stay out of your space.”

  I forgot about the old lady on the brink of death and marched out of the ER, leaving Bev with Ezra, and just plain leaving Von. I was shaking with regret and self-loathing, and wished my Omen abilities gave me some sort of lightning bolt powers that could zap at will. On second thought, perhaps that wasn’t the best superpower for me at the moment.

  There had to be a bus stop along the main road, so I made my way up toward the grass and over-trimmed shrubs that framed the forty-five mile an hour street. I could’ve called Ollie, but something about calling one guy to save me from another guy felt off to me. There was too much building up inside of me. Too much wear and tear to shake it all off unscathed. I wanted to go home where I felt safe, but that would be the first place they’d look for me. I wanted actual space. A whole continent of it.

  Maybe even a whole world of it.

  I slid my phone out of my pocket and dialed up Danny, putting on a cheery voice that didn’t match my heartbroken features. “Hey, Danny. Could you put Finn on the phone? He left something at my house.”

  I was leaving the mess right where it was. I wouldn’t try to fix what was clearly meant to be broken. I was getting out, and Finn was the one who didn’t give a rip about me. He’d let me risk my life to get the job done, and I was in a mood to be reckless.

  37

  October Grace, Out

  “Tell me again why we can’t wait for Ezra, or at the very least, your Reapers?”

  I huffed, already frustrated it had taken Finn so long to figure out how to use the bus system to get to me. An hour had passed after I’d hightailed it to the parking lot and stolen my rock and my pack from Ezra’s trunk. The sagrado backpack was fitted tight to me to ensure no one ganked it. “Do you want the job done or not? I thought you cared about getting the stone to Terraway.”

  “I do, but I don’t want to be known for kidnapping the only useful Omen. You can see how Ezra might not look the other way on that.”

  “Since when are you afraid of Ezra?”

  Finn raised an eyebrow at my urgency. He fingered his green silk scarf that wrapped around the neck of his collared gray dress shirt. “Fear of war is a healthy one, kendi.”

  “Then let’s do this and come back before we get caught.”

  “It’s a three-day trek to the central city of Silo, and you’re not used to our climate.”

  “All I need is that baga root that helps me breathe. Can you get that right quick when we get down there?”

  “I can. But why? Why not wait for everyone? Kabayo at least will want to be there to guide us.”

  “No time. Let’s just do this.”

  Finn tsked, shaking his head to scold me. “My, my. Such deception. I knew I liked you.”

  “I’m jumping for joy on the inside. Take me down there quick. I don’t want the others to find us.”

  “Alright. If you insist. I admit,
I never thought you’d ask me to run away with you.”

  I crossed my arms over my stomach, scratching at my skin and wishing for the whole thing to be over so I could escape the world that had taken over my life. “Just do it, dude.”

  The corner of Finn’s mouth curved upward, and I began to doubt the awesomeness of my grand escape plan. “Yes, milady.” He reached out and placed his hands on my shoulders, closing his eyes as he murmured a string of nonsense syllables.

  It was too late for regret. There wasn’t time to turn back. I closed my eyes and let myself vanish from the earth, hoping Terraway would be kind enough to let me hide in its depths for a while.

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  Tempt

  Enjoy a free preview from Tempt

  book four in the Terraway series

  1

  Big, Scary Man

  I was grateful when Finn let companionable silence fall between us to replace our bickering. When I looked back in the direction we’d come, I couldn’t even see the circle we’d entered in on anymore. Everything was brown, brown and more brown, so landmarks that stood out were hard to come by. The famine had struck Silo in the usual way, scorching the buhay shoots so there was precious little for the inhabitants to eat. It also hit them in the form of a drought, drying up most of their rivers and leaving the landscape dull, dusty and bare.

  The suns were setting, and we’d put a fair amount of distance between us and the entrance to Silo. With my backpack stuffed with half a dozen baga roots Finn had unearthed not two minutes after he’d ported us to Terraway, I was ready to get a piece of the sagrado stone to its rightful place. If we dropped a portion of the rock into the well in the main city, the suns wouldn’t burn so hot, and nature would have a chance to right itself again.