a merry-go-round with chipped red and yellow paint turned slowly. A boy laughed. I wiped the ash out of my eyes and moved closer to the fence.
“Finn!” the voice squealed. “Push me higher!”
A young boy stood on the other side of the fence, the right side of his face charred. Embers glowed through the hollow hole in his cheek, exposing a row of little white teeth. On the good side of his face, one bright-green eye peered back at me.
“Henry?” I whispered. My little brother shouldn’t be here. Couldn’t be.
“You’re going to burn, Finn,” he said. The embers sparked a flame at the bottom of his blue button-down shirt and sped their way up the right side of Henry’s chest, but he didn’t cry. He watched me until the orange flames swallowed him.
“Henry!” I gripped the barbed fence, but strong hands pulled me back.
“What are you doing?” Easton spun me around to face him. I swallowed and looked past him at the two souls we’d reaped looking at me like I’d lost my mind. “Who’s Henry?”
“My brother. He…” I glanced over my shoulder, but nothing was there anymore. Only rock and ash and the sound of a girl screaming like her guts were being ripped out.
“They’re using your memories,” Easton let me go. “Suck it up and get back to work.”
All of this and we weren’t even inside the gates of Hell. I blinked up at the sky, trying to shake away the image of Henry burning as I trudged back to the souls.
“Let’s go,” Easton said. The flaming gates swung open and I barreled through into the darkness.
Heat seared my skin. Memories burned the inside of my skull. I blinked away the drop of sweat that trickled down into my eye.
Wait.
Touching my fingers to my forehead, I stopped. I was sweating. “How…?”
“Once you cross through the gates, you’re flesh. It doesn’t matter what you are. Alive. Dead.
Something else. They want you to be able to feel the pain.”
“I-I don’t understand,” I stammered. “This…it’s impossible.”
“Don’t say that,” Easton said. “They’ll just take it as a challenge.”
He jerked his chin to motion for me to follow, so I did, letting the flames at my back drive me forward. It was dark in the cave and things hissed and growled from the corners.
We came to another set of smaller gates and Easton rapped his scythe on the bars. “Special delivery!”
When the soul beside him started to cry, Easton rolled his eyes. “Seriously, man? Did you honestly think a drug dealer and a rapist would end up anywhere else? You really should consider the occupational hazards that go along with a career before you commit yourself.”
Easton brushed the ash off his jacket like he was talking about the guy’s 401(k). I didn’t know how he could be so calm in a place like this.
Out of the corner of my eye, a girl with soft blond hair bled into my vision. I gritted my teeth and turned my head. Emma stared back at me with empty pits for eyes. Black spider-webbed veins popped up from her pale white skin.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered. “You still love me, don’t you, Finn?”
A sick feeling churned in my stomach.
“You did this to me,” she sobbed. “Look at me. Look at me!”
The gates creaked and swung open. Two hooded figures stepped out and sized up the souls in tow.
Long, curved, dark claws poked out of their draping sleeves. Red eyes glowed from the empty black spaces where faces should have been.
Easton shoved his soul at one of them and nodded for me to do the same. I couldn’t shove him like that. Instead, I patted him on the back and gave him a gentle push. He squeezed his eyes shut and said, “Shit…just tell me when it’s all over.”
The demon under the cloak laughed and clutched him around the throat. “That’s the best part.
Chapter 16
Emma I stopped pacing to check the clock for the hundredth time. Checked the lock on the door. Made sure there was nothing in my room that could possibly impale or crush me at a moment’s notice. Where the hell was Finn? He said he was here to protect me, but I hadn’t seen him since the kitchen incident this morning. Cash was still giving me space, so I’d spent the whole day alone. Terrified. How was I supposed to deal with knowing some evil soul wanted to hurt me? What if he didn’t show up in time when something happened again?
He may have promised Dad he’d keep me safe, but Finn couldn’t be around 24-7. I couldn’t just sit around waiting to be a victim now that I knew what was going on. I had to figure out how to protect myself. But how was I supposed to fight something I couldn’t see coming?
I grabbed my laptop. There had to be a way to fight this on my own. Or at the very least, a way to help protect myself until help arrived. I didn’t really know where to start, so I Googled
It said you could do things like hang horseshoes above your doors and burn candles. I shook my head. Yeah, I’m sure Mom would go for me hanging horseshoes all over our house. I read on about psychic mediums and exorcists. These might have been one of the better options, but Mom would have me committed for sure if she found out I had someone over trying to cleanse our home of unwanted spirits. There had to be something. I scrolled down and stopped.
That one seemed easy enough. Something we kept in the kitchen and it wouldn’t get me committed.
Most of the rest seemed flat-out ridiculous. But really, what didn’t at this point? I clicked on another site, reading incantation chants and prayers, saving them to study later. A few were short enough to memorize on the spot, so I did. Cash would have said this was stupid. Mom would have said it was crazy. But it was all I had. It was all I knew how to do.
Cash poked his head through my window and I slammed my laptop shut. “Is your mom in bed yet?”
Relief washed over me as I glanced at the clock again. It was after nine and she was still on her date. I wondered if she was going to come home at all. I pushed the thought of her with anybody who wasn’t Dad out of my head, nodded, and waved him in.
“Good.” He grinned, tossed a duffel bag through my window, and crawled in after it.
I stared at the bag. “What happened?”
He plopped down onto my bed and dug a DVD out. “Nothing.”
“An overnight bag doesn’t mean
He shrugged and fiddled with the DVD case. “Captain Asshat lost a case. I don’t feel like dealing with his crap tonight. That’s all.”
That was all he needed to say. It was all he’d needed to say for the last eleven years. By this point, my room belonged to Cash almost as much as it belonged to me. I sighed and slid his bag under my bed so Mom wouldn’t see it if she came in.
“You’re not taking my good pillow again.” I yanked my pillow out from under Cash’s head and loaded the DVD player. With everything that had happened the night before, I didn’t think I’d be able to watch most of it, but it was still nice to have the distraction and Cash right where I needed him. I lay down next to him and stuffed my pillow behind my head.
The movie started and cheesy cop lines and eighties hair lit up the screen, but I couldn’t concentrate on it.
