Authors: Marissa Farrar
A
moan of pain escaped my lips—pain from the herbs they’d forced me to swallow, and pain from learning Riley wanted me dead.
“I’ll take her back to my trailer until tonight,” said Riley. “I can keep an eye on her there.”
But Bulldog laughed. “I don’t think so.”
Riley frowned. “After everything I’ve done, don’t you trust me?”
“Oh sure, I trust you, but I don’t trust that thing in your pants. I know what it’s like to be your age, when everything revolves around whether you’re going to get lucky or not.”
“I’m not like that.” Riley scowled.
He snorted. “’Course you’re not. She’s coming back with me.”
Bulldog released his hold around my neck, lowering the knife so he held it loosely at my waist. If I was at my normal strength, I could easily have grabbed the wrist holding the knife, and twisted the weapon from his grip, probably snapping a bone or two at the same time. But I wasn’t up to my normal strength. I’d never felt so weak in my life.
With his free hand, he grabbed both of my slender wrists. His big hand easily circled both wrists, crushing the bones together. Though painful, it was nothing compared to the fire still raging within me. I felt as though every internal organ was burning, and soon smoke would start pouring from every orifice, until I crumbled into a small pile of ash and blew away in the wind.
Bulldog started to drag me back toward the carnival and the group of trailers gathered at the rear. The deconstruction of the midway was still underway, most of the carnies completely unaware of what was happening in the fields behind them. The sounds of metal clanging, engines thrumming, men shouting instruction to one another filled the night air.
Riley chased after us. “If you want this to work, I’ll have to conduct some of the same rituals on her instead of Brooke.”
“I still want the other girl,” Bulldog replied.
“But you don’t need her. This one will give you so much more.”
“So you say, but if it doesn’t work, I want backup. Besides, we’ve already done so much work on the blonde, no point in wasting it. I’ve been looking forward to seeing her peachy skin bleed.”
We stopped outside of a large trailer. This one was brand new and at least four times the size of Riley’s home. Bulldog entered first, dragging me up the steps behind him. My feet caught on the metal slats, my ankles banging painfully against them.
The interior was gaudily decorated, with the couch in black leather, and a glass and chrome table. A lion-skin rug spread out on the floor, the lion’s mouth open in a permanent growl, its black eyes glassy. I imagined Bulldog’s bedcovers would be something animal print, probably with black sheets below. I shook the thought from my head. I really didn’t want to be thinking anything about The Bull’s bed right now.
He slung me down to the floor. I landed with my face only inches away from the lion’s. I felt sorry for him. Here we were, both predators, both reduced to lying on some scumbag’s floor.
But at least I was still alive.
Bulldog turned to Mitch and Russ. “Go and get the other girl. We won’t have long until the planets are aligned. We need to be ready.”
Mitch nodded and disappeared out the way we’d come in.
I groaned and started to push myself to sitting. Riley dropped down at my side, his hand on my arm as though to help me up, but I shook him off. “Don’t touch me!”
“Icy,” he said, almost begging. His eyes flicked to where Bulldog stared down at us both. He dropped my arm and moved away.
“Don’t you have preparations to make?” The Bull said, his eyes like stone as he stared in Riley’s direction.
Riley ducked his head. “Sure, Bulldog. I’m on it.”
He disappeared into another part of the trailer, only giving me a fleeting glance as he did so.
The Bull stood over me, a hulking mountain with me in its shadow. For a moment, I thought he was going to kick me. I wished vehemently for my strength to return, but the twigs or roots, or whatever they’d force fed me still burned in my stomach, and I barely thought myself capable of lifting my own head off the floor. As soon as the stuff wore off, I swore Bulldog Mackenzie would meet the same end as Jordy. My anger was like a red cloud, encompassing my entire being, and I gritted my teeth. I would make him pay for this. He would see who he was dealing with, and I’d make him regret it.
“I can’t believe a tiny little thing like you could take out someone like Jordy.” I could hear laughter in his voice, as if this whole thing was no more than another game, a real life ride in his carnival.
“Size isn’t everything,” I managed to spit.
“Clearly Jordy didn’t know that, huh?” The look he gave me made me think he even had a tiny bit of appreciation for the murder I’d committed. Not that he’d appreciated one of his own being killed, more that he admired anyone capable of taking a life.
I coughed, the herbs in my gut burning up my throat like acid. “Jordy was asking for it.”
My attention was drawn beyond Bulldog as Riley came back into the main part of the trailer. He held a number of items in his hands, but I struggled to make out what they were from the floor—a bowl, and a number of candles, along with a few other items.
My traitorous heart still swelled at the sight of him.
I didn’t want to hate him; I cared about him too much to bring myself to hate him. But right now, I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him so hard his brain rattled in his head, and yell in his face to ask him what the hell he was doing.
He set his items down on a table, and positioned himself with his back to me, blocking my view. Damn him if he couldn’t even look at me!
A knock came at the door.
The Bull turned at the sound. “What?” he barked.
The door cracked open and a tall, skinny woman, a slash of red lipstick across her mouth, most of which had bled into the lines around her lips, stepped into the space. “Hey, Bull. Hunter needs you over at his commission.”
Bulldog’s eyes narrowed. “Can’t he deal with it? I’m kinda busy here.”
“No, sorry, he can’t. It’s an emergency.” The woman’s eyes flicked to me, and I wondered if she knew exactly why I was there. “We don’t want another accident happening.”
Bulldog sighed. “Fine. Russ, you’re in charge here. No one leaves my trailer, and no one except Mitch and the other girl gets in. Got it?”
He nodded. “Got it, Bull.”
Bulldog pointed at Riley. “And you behave yourself. I’ve got eyes on you.”
“Jesus, Bull. What have I ever done against you?”
The Bull’s eyes flicked briefly to me. Riley might have betrayed me, but The Bull was sharp enough to have picked up on the fact there was something between me and Riley. Or at least there had been.
“You’ve got preparations to get on with, haven’t you?” he said to Riley.
Riley pressed his lips together and nodded, still not looking at me.
“Don’t worry, Boss,” said Russ. “I’ve got backup.” He tapped his hip, just below his jacket. I noticed Riley tense. Was the other guy implying he was armed? It wouldn’t surprise me if he was.
Bulldog threw me a frown, clearly not wanting to leave me alone, and then slammed from the trailer. The atmosphere changed as soon as he was gone, and not in a good way. The guard on me had effectively fallen to one person, and I could tell he took his role seriously. I didn’t want to contemplate the idea that he had an itchy trigger finger.
Russ took up position on the couch, his arms resting on his knees. He leaned forward, brows drawn together as he stared at me. I scowled back.
I wanted to get a glimpse at what Riley was doing. I needed to shift my position slightly, so I was side on to Riley, instead of lying with him with his back to me.
Wanting an excuse to move, I started to fake a coughing fit, which quickly turned into a real one due to the acid burning up my throat and being breathed back in again, hitting my lungs. Though weak, I rolled across the lion skin rug, to come to rest with my back against an arm chair which matched the huge, black leather couch.
Russ reached out and nudged me with his foot, hard enough to hurt. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I couldn’t answer, just continued to cough, my lungs burning, tears streaming from my eyes, clear snot from my nose.
“Jesus, Russ,” Riley exclaimed, glancing over to me, his eyes wide with concern. “Leave her alone.”
“You never saw what the little bitch did to Jordy,” Russ snapped. “She needs to pay.” His hand moved to his hip, and Riley froze, one hand out held.
I managed to get a hold on my cough and propped my back against the chair, trying to shrink myself into the leather and vanish.
“Hey, it’s all right, Russ,” Riley said in a calm tone. “She’s going to get what’s coming, don’t you worry. But you know The Bull’s got plans for her. You wouldn’t want to go messing those up now, would you?”
At the mention of Bulldog, Russ’s hand dropped from his hip. “Fine,” he spat. “Though Bull would have killed her out on the field if you hadn’t interfered.”
“Yeah, well I’m just trying to do what’s best for all of us.” His gaze flicked over to me, and I tried to read what was in its blue depth. “Anyway,” he continued. “I’ve got work to do now, so I need some quiet to concentrate. Got it?”
Russ gave a sniff of disdain. “Fine. I’ve gotta take a piss anyway.”
He turned his back and headed deeper into the trailer, to find, I assumed, the bathroom.
Riley turned back to the table and collected his things together, and then approached me. I watched him with wariness, unsure of what was going to happen next. He held five small pillar candles, which he placed around me, not seeming to care that the chair I leaned against was also surrounded.
“They’re for the points of the elements,” he told me, as he got to work lighting them with a lighter he removed from his pocket. As he set fire to each wick, he spoke their name. “Earth, Fire, Water, Spirit, and finally, my element, Air.” As he lit the fifth candle, the wick burst into flame higher than any of the others, scorching into the air.
“What the hell are you?” I said. “Some kind of witch?” I sought my mind for the male equivalent. “Or a warlock?”
He shook his head. “I’m an Elemental. I have powers, but my main power is that I can control the air.”
I opened my mouth to say, ‘Like Flynn,’ but promptly shut it again. There was a chance Riley didn’t know about Flynn, and that could be used to my advantage.
I thought back to all of the weather anomalies I’d experienced since getting to Sage Springs. From first entering the town when the wind had suddenly dropped, allowing my escape from my car, to the way a gust must have burst the window open in my bedroom. I’d seen him that first day, I realized. He’d been standing in the field, watching the events of the fallen power line. I’d even caught the scent of him—leather and motorcycle oil—on the air. Had he controlled the air enough to allow me to run from the car?
“It’s how I always knew when you were in trouble. A small part of me, you could call it my soul, I guess, is able to travel on the wind, to see and sense things happening somewhere else when my body is right here. Ever since I first laid eyes on you, a part of me has been following you.”
“Following me? Do you know how creepy that sounds?”
I guessed in the big scheme of things, it didn’t matter, but I hated the thought of being watched.
He shrugged. “I was worried you’d get yourself into trouble, and I wasn’t too far wrong.”
“Seems to me all my trouble started around you.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled out a small, clear bag of white powder.
“Are you going to drug me now?” I challenged.
He gave a sad smile and tipped the powder into a bowl. “No, this is white ash. Its use is powerful in communing with the other side, and other worlds.” He bent his head over the bowl and muttered a few words I didn’t understand. Then he held his hand above it and circled his index finger clockwise and then counter-clockwise. As he did so, the powder began to move, just the slightest vibration at first, and then more, until finally the ash rose into the air in a spiral. I was mesmerized, the spectacle almost beautiful, especially with Riley being the one in control.
But then he snapped his fingers together, and moved his hand away, and the ash dropped back into the bowl. Riley lowered his head again, and spat into the ash, and stirred it around with his finger, creating a paste.
He dipped his finger into the paste and brought it to my skin. I flinched.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Really? That’s not what Bulldog thinks.”
He began to trace lines over my skin. I hated to admit it, but his touch still sent a trickle of desire running through me. Goosebumps appeared where his finger dragged across my flesh. He started at my hand, creating swirls, dips, lines and circles. As if writing. He moved from my hands, up to my arms. As soon as the white paste was applied to my skin, it vanished. I realized he was drawing the runes I’d seen on Brooke.