EIGHTY-FIVE

Mason entered the house through the front doors that had been left wide open, carrying the woman limp over his shoulders, ready to drop her at the first sign of danger.

Mason needed to hurt people. It was his nature, simple as that. The need would ebb and swell. He knew his own moods, and if the woman couldn’t or wouldn’t lead him to Caitlyn, he still had her to give him temporary relief to quell the urge.

Lights were on in the house. Insects had swarmed through the open door from the night air, and moth shadows flickered behind lampshades.

There were photos on the wall at the entry, and Mason saw the face of the woman he was carrying.

Good. She lived here.

“Where is she?” Mason asked. “The bird girl.”

No answer. But the woman had shifted several times, and Mason knew she was conscious. She was on the shoulder above his good arm, so he was able to reach opposite with his recently healed arm, holding his knife. He pushed the tip into the skin just below one of her eyeballs.

She gasped.

“The bird girl,” Mason repeated. “Tell me. It’s you or her.”

It was going to get worse for this woman, Mason thought, swallowing down the beginnings of excitement, but no point in telling her.

“I’ll tell you,” the woman said. “She’s at the other end of the house. Down some stairs. In a hidden place in the basement. Please, please don’t hurt me.”

She used the exact tone of voice that Mason had learned to cherish. He decided he would wait until she had guided him as far as he needed, then Taser her into unconsciousness and leave her in a convenient heap for later use.

Halfway down a hallway, Mason heard a mewling sound behind him. From around the corner where he’d just dumped the woman’s body.

He shifted, hand on his Taser. Cautiously, he returned and peeked around the corner.

Then he blinked his good eye, hardly able to believe what he was seeing coming down the hallway. There were two of them. Some kind of naked, dark, hairy creatures with short legs, stump arms, and monstrous faces.

They were bent over the unconscious woman, making pitiful crying sounds.

Both straightened and turned their heads toward Mason. One balanced awkwardly as it tried to make its way toward Mason on half-formed feet.

What kind of zoo is this house? Mason wondered. A girl with wings. And these things?

Mason backed up to where the hallway opened into another room. If these monsters were going to attack, Mason wanted space to maneuver.

There was something strange about the way the closer of the monsters was focused on Mason. As if it was listening instead of watching.

Mason bumped into a table, and the extra sound turned the monster’s head sharply. One hand on the Taser, Mason felt behind him on the table. His fingers closed on a flower vase. He tossed it toward the monster.

It didn’t react. Not until the vase crashed, then the monster grunted and flinched.

How easy could this be? A blind and handless cripple thing.

Mason set his Taser on full charge, warily closed the distance between himself and the monster, and before it could react, Tasered it.

It didn’t utter a sound as it collapsed. The other one tried to charge, but the half-formed feet and its lack of visual context made it an easy target for a second Taser shot. It too fell.

For satisfaction, he slashed both deeply and repeatedly with his knife, making sure both were totally beyond ever getting up.

Mason left Jessica behind. He knew where Caitlyn was. In the basement.

Seconds later, as promised by the woman who lived in the house, he found the top of the stairs.

Caitlyn’s return to awareness was pain, bands of fire around her wrists and ankles.

She was blind and was bewildered by it. Until she remembered the hood that had been put over her head. Pulling the events together in her memory seemed as though she was assembling shards of glass by sweeping them into a pile with her bare hands.

It slowly came together. The vision of Charmaine’s cold, certain smile. The lashing out of rage. Her struggle against the gag around her mouth and the shackles that held her in place for what Charmaine had explained would happen. Then the unreasoning terror just after the hood had been placed over her head, taking away all rational thought.

She could not guess how much time had passed.

Now there was a residue of dread, like a taste in her mouth. Uneasiness that should have rationally been explained by circumstances but felt deeper and more instinctive.

And except for her own breathing beneath the hood—shallow and dry, hot against her face—there was silence.

She tried an experimental tug with her arms, exacerbating the band of fire against her wrist.

More of the shards of memory; how, in the first few seconds beneath the blindfold, she’d flailed in panic far out of proportion to any reaction she should have had to Charmaine’s threats.

This was the pain then. Where she’d cut her skin against the bonds in the horror and dread that screamed at her to flee in any way possible.

Silence.

This was frightening too. Not like before, in a way that defied reason and washed her away like a giant wave crashing her against rocks. Her fear now was based on understanding.

She couldn’t see. She was helplessly bound. And the silence told her she was alone.

Why? What had happened to Charmaine? to Dawkins? Had they left her here? Why? When would they return?

To call out, though, would be a sign of weakness. She was weak and would admit that to herself. Pride and anger—which outweighed her weakness—would not allow her to speak out into the silence.

She waited.

And listened, forcing herself beneath the hood to draw air in and out of her lungs so slowly that the sound of her breath did not fill her ears.

She heard her own pulse, faintly. She could imagine the flow of blood, constricted by a vein, pushing against her skin in the soft of her throat, like an animal struggling to escape.

Then came a scrape of footsteps. The first scrape might have been her imagination. But not the second or third.

She was no longer alone in the room.

Now she stopped breathing, her entire focus on the direction of sound. Totally motionless, it seemed like the pulse in her throat would give her away.

But that was ridiculous.

She could not see, but it didn’t mean she was hidden. She felt like a rabbit in a hawk’s dark shadow. But the instinct to freeze would not protect her. Whoever had just entered the room had total control of her destiny. She couldn’t even fight against a palm placed over her mouth and nose to suffocate her.

Then the slightest of touches, almost like a caress against the fabric of the hood.

She almost screamed into the gag, but drew upon her anger and rage. She would not give satisfaction to whoever it was above her, the person who had begun to peel back her mask.

The first of the room’s soft light reached her eyes.

She closed her eyes. Then commanded herself to face her fear. Whatever happened next, she would not give up her dignity.

The hood continued to peel back. After blinking a few times, she recognized the person above her. His appearance had been altered subtly. Cheeks padded. Eye color changed. Hair dyed.

“Told you,” Razor said, his skin now clear of tattoos. He was dressed in a way she hadn’t seen before. As an Influential. “Fast. Sharp. Dangerous.”

“Told you. Fast. Sharp. Dangerous.”

Mason chuckled softly as he took his first steps into the basement room with shattered glass on the floor. The reunion he’d just witnessed from the doorway was ever so touching, the words he’d just heard ever so ridiculous.

“Told you. Fast. Sharp. Dangerous.”

The kid, whoever he was, was about to learn who truly was fast, sharp, and dangerous.