First Impression (A Shadow Maven Paranormal) (13 page)

Because I find it easier to concentrate while music plays, I snap my ear buds into my phone and start my study playlist. After about an hour of studying in relative silence, I notice that Ben and I are on about the same page of work. We study at similar speed. He’s writing furiously in his notebook. I’ve been in my own little world. Matt has his head on his arms, looking like he might be asleep.

A half an hour later, I stand and stretch, putting my ear buds aside. Ben stops writing midsentence and looks up at me thoughtfully. I shrug and grab my bag. “I need to go to the ladies' room.”

He pushes his chair back and begins to stand.

I put my hand out to him in a stop gesture. “I think I can handle this myself.”

Ben looks around the room and says, “But the building’s nearly empty. I’m not so sure it’s safe.”

My hands slap my hips. “Seriously? It’s just down the hall. I’ll be fine.”

Matt sits up and yawns. “Actually, I need to go to the little boy’s room myself. I’ll go with you.”

I throw my hands up in exasperation. “Fine.”

Ben sits back down slowly, his eyes darting between us both. He nods and settles back into writing his outline.

Matt walks me down the hallway. “So how much more studying do you think you’ll need to do?”

I shrug. “I usually stay until the library closes.”

“Wonderful.” His shoulders droop as he pushes the door to the Men’s room.

I laugh and push the door of the next room over and head into the white-tiled bathroom. I pull my pony tail out because the tension is giving me a headache and run a quick brush through my hair. My phone beeps, and I swap it for my hairbrush. I read the screen. Mrs. Brown.

Tasha is awake, thank God! Call her tomorrow when you get a chance.

You got it! Thank God!
I text back, a smile spreading across my face.

I push out into the hallway backwards, replacing my phone into my bag. I run into something solid. “Sorry Matt, I—”

Before I can turn around or even finish what I am saying, a handkerchief with a sickly-sweet smelling chemical is placed over my face. I kick and struggle, trying to hold my breath, dropping my messenger bag and all its contents on the floor. My muffled screams are barely registering. I’m lifted off my feet and dragged around the corner before my lungs are emptied, and I’m forced to take a breath. A curtain of night falls heavily over my eyes, and no amount of struggling will keep my unconsciousness at bay.

I groan, and my shoulder
drops. One wrist pulls on the other, and my skin sears. My eyes snap open. My wrists are bound together behind my back. Only a trickle of light passes through the curtain of my hair. Before I can stop myself, I panic. I pull my legs, but they are bound to the upright wooden chair I sit on.

Mold, rot, and a musty, earthy odor assaults my nose, but there’s something else underneath it—the copper scent of blood? Am I in a cave? Underground? I whip my head up and look around. A single, naked light bulb in the low ceiling casts the room in pale light and long shadows. The walls are compacted earth. Shelves line the sides and are full of rusty old industrial-sized can goods, but there are no windows. A root cellar? Where on earth am I? The packed dirt of the floor under me is a shade darker than the surrounding clay.

Sobbing comes from behind me and to the right but the area of the sound is cast in shadow. I struggle to turn. A deep, male laugh sounds behind me and to the left, making me jerk my head in that direction, but I barely see a figure before he moves out of my sight again. He smacks the naked light bulb above my head causing the light around the room to dance with the shadows. Straight ahead I find what looks like a dark doorway and stairs leading upward.

The sobbing continues, and I jerk my head toward the sound. The light washes the area in and out, light then shadow. And on the floor is a bare, stained, twin-sized mattress. With a girl lying on it, her back to me.

Laughter and movement comes from my left again, but when I spin, my chair tips. I crash to my shoulder and smack my head on the floor.

“Tsk Tsk…that wasn’t very smart, was it?” Deep throaty laughter follows. The voice is familiar, but my fogged brain can’t place it.

I clamp my jaw and try to gain composure. Panicking will not get me out of this situation. What can I do? What are my options? I will myself to breathe slowly and for my heart to reduce speed. But it refuses to listen and thumps wildly in my chest, in my ears, in my throat.

Rough hands snatch the side of my chair and yank me upright. I whip my head, searching, but he stays just out of sight. His laughter becomes hysterical as though this is some kind of game.

Finally, he places his hands over my eyes. The rough texture of his palms and the smell underneath the earth and mold becomes stronger. Is it blood? My breath hitches.

His hot breath tickles my ear, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “Guess who?”

I struggle harder against my bonds, to release myself from his hands, but refuse to play his game by staying silent. He grabs both sides of my head and squeezes until I still.

He pats my hair gently and pulls it up. I try to turn my head, but he yanks it viciously in the opposite direction when I do. I bite my lip to keep from screaming. When he’s done pulling it through a rubber band, into my usual ponytail, his hands rest on my shoulders, and he puts his disgusting lips against my neck. I struggle so hard that the chair falls again. Same shoulder. Same head injury. Stars dance before my eyes.

Maniacal laughter rings in my ears. The husky voice he’s using seems like a disguise, but there’s still a familiar ring to it. “To think you’re a straight A student. Must not be very street smart, eh?”

When he reaches down again to pull my chair upright, I whip my head toward him and look him full in the face. The light of the single bulb shines on Mr. Scott’s bald head. I choke on a sob.

His eyes meet mine and he throws me back to the ground in anger. “You cheater!”

Black spots dance in my vision and my ears ring from the blow to my head this time. Tears spring to my eyes. Sobs are coming uncontrollably now. Sweet Mr. Scott? He’s been kidnapping girls from Fairfax? Who’s on the mattress? Oh, Lord, please let that be Stacy.

“No matter,” Mr. Scott says, and his voice has lost its false deep tone. “I was getting bored with that game, anyway.”

He yanks up my chair again so quickly that my neck whips to the side with a crack. Pain shoots from my neck through my shoulder, until my fingers tingle from it.

“Let’s play a new game!” Mr. Scott strides over to the girl on the mattress and grips her by the hair. He yanks hard, and she begins kicking and screaming. He drags her in front of me.

It
is
Stacey. Her hair is as matted as a rat’s nest, and her mascara runs down her cheeks like the makeup of a grotesque mime. She has no shirt on and sits on the floor in jeans and her beige-pink, dirt covered bra. Innumerable red slits cover her arms and torso, most of them bleeding.

My eyes grow wide. She looks like she’d run through a thorn bush. Her hands and feet are bound in silver duct tape. Her bloodshot eyes plead with me. Her lips are cracked and bleeding. Has it really only been a day since she went missing?

Mr. Scott pulls a long knife from behind his back, and at the sight of it, Stacey begins whimpering. “No, please. Please don’t.”

He looks down at her with sad eyes. “Tsk, Tsk. The pants are going to have to go today. I need more places for Knife to taste your skin.”

Stacy’s sobbing becomes more frenzied as she struggles to breathe.

Mr. Scott licks his lips and turns his gaze on me. “Or if you’re a good girl, maybe Knife will sample the new skin first.”

He releases her, and she struggles away, doing her best to return to the mattress as though it’s the only safe place in the cave. And for a crazy moment, I wonder if it is. With a wild smile on his face, and the light glinting on his blade, Mr. Scott walks slowly back toward me.

I want to scream, but somehow all sound escapes me. My mouth is wide open, but my throat is closed so tight that it takes all of my concentration just to breathe.

“I didn’t want to do this to you, Chira. You’re one of my favorite students. It’s the bad girls Knife likes to taste. You’ll be the first good girl. But Knife has wanted a new flavor.” He kneels down and presses the knife against my green sweater, and suddenly I can breathe again. I scream.

Mr. Scott hops to his feet and slaps me with the back of his hand. My teeth cut the side of my cheek, and I taste the blood even before the side of my head slams the ground again.  I whimper and spots close in on the periphery, narrowing my vision.

“No screaming. It’s not allowed,” Mr. Scott says while he pulls my chair back to upright position once more. His knife returns to its position against my chest, and this time, that doesn’t seem so bad.

I’m calmer somehow. Maybe this is why they call it slapping sense into someone. I always hated that expression.

With an excited twinkle in his eye and the ghost of a smile on his lips, Mr. Scott’s knife moves to the end of my sweater and pulls upward, ripping through the fabric.

Blood and saliva pool in my mouth, and I wait until he’s at the v-neck of my sweater and he grins up at me. And then I spit the full collection into his face. He leaps back and swipes at his eyes with his flailing hands, the knife flashing in the light before he falls into the shadow.

My heart beats faster.

“You’re going to regret that.” He strides back into the light with blood smeared from his eye across his cheek and spots of red across his forehead. “Maybe you’re not such a good girl after all.”

His hand switches position on the knife so that it points downward in his raised fist. Fear makes my blood turn cold. He pulls his hand back and slams his fist into my stomach.

My breath comes up so fast that it engages my gag reflex, and I dry heave. Pain sears through my abdomen and chest, burning me from head to toe. More tears cloud my vision.

“For a smart girl, you sure are stupid.”

A huge bang causes him to stop and stare toward the ceiling and behind him. Deep voices intermingle and stomps sound above.

We
are
in a root cellar. And as my eyes have adjusted to the meager light, I barely see the stairs that I’d caught earlier when the light danced around the room.

I fill my lungs to scream again. Mr. Scott rushes over and slaps his hand so hard against my mouth, my teeth cut into my lip again. More blood pools. He pulls a silver roll of tape from his pocket and rips off a four-inch sized piece with his teeth. He smashes it over my mouth before I can squeak.

A thumping sound at the stairwell catches his attention, and he backs up to hide against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Light floods down the steps when the door at the top opens, and the shadow of a tall man with disheveled hair enters in.

My heart leaps.
Ben
.

He sees me in my pool of light and starts rushing down the steps.

Mr. Scotts lifts his knife above his head.

My eyes grow wide, and I panic, hopping up and down in my chair, trying my best to warn him. I dart my eyes and jerk my head to the left in a morbid game of charades.

He stops just before he reaches the bottom step and turns toward Mr. Scott.

Our geography teacher plunges his knife toward Ben’s chest.

In my panic, the chair tips, and I fall over for the fourth…fifth time? I’ve lost count. But my head slams the ground, and the stars and spots return to my vision. Another set of footsteps stomp down the steps, and Matt yells an expletive.

The knife skids across the floor and spins in front of my face, reflecting the pale light of the overhead bulb. Fingers wrap around the handle of the knife, and panic ignites my skin. I struggle automatically against my bonds.

A hand rests on my shoulder and a voice tickles my ear. “Stay still, Chira, I’m going to cut the tape.”

Matt
. Thank God.

I sit still and the knife slits the sticky bond at my hands. The moment they are free, I whip them in front of me and push myself up a bit. I pull the tape from my mouth. Ben and Mr. Scott still struggle in the shadows, and I can’t see what’s going on.

Matt frees my legs, but my head spins when I try to stand. I plop back down again on the packed earth. I shake my head to try to clear it. Matt stands over me with the knife in his hand and watches the fight. He looks unsure of what to do. I grab his khakis by the leg to get his attention. When he looks down at me, I point at the mattress hidden outside the circle of light.

“Stacy,” I say, my voice husky.

His eyes go wide, and he darts in that direction.

A grunt comes from the shadows at the stairwell, and I watch one body fall, a limp hand reaching into the light. The other man rushes up the stairs. When he reaches the top, he turns back with a sneer. Mr. Scott.

I crawl over to Ben. Is he hurt? Unconscious? Oh please, don’t let him be dead.

My fingers still feel numb, half asleep from their binding, and the remnants of the silver tape glint on my wrists. I grip the outstretched hand I find there, and his fingers are cold and lifeless. Oh, dear God, please be alive.

Matt collapses at my side and grabs Ben by the arm, pulling him into the light. Blood oozes right along Ben’s hairline and drips toward his ear.

Matt places his head on Ben’s chest. “His heart is strong, and he’s still breathing.”

Relief floods me.
Thank God.

“I’m going after Mr. Scott.” Matt nods and rushes up the stairway with the knife still in his grip.

A shadow falls on me, and I flinch away, but look up and find Stacy standing over me. Her arms are wrapped around her chest, barely covering her bra. Her eyes are wide and staring at nothing. She has to be in shock. I try again to get to my feet and succeed this time. I pull my sweater off. It is open in the front like a cardigan, and I wrap it around Stacy’s shoulders.

Her gaze finds me for the first time, and tears well in her eyes. She wraps me in her arms and squeezes so tightly that my ribs ache.  I pat her back, unsure of what else to do. A groaning from the floor causes her to release her embrace. I drop back to my knees.

“Ben, are you okay?”

His eyelids flutter and then snap open. He jerks himself upright and then winces and places a hand to his forehead. Blood runs faster and harder from his head injury. 

I rip off a shoe and pull my sock free. After balling it up, I put it to his head.

He puts a hand to mine and laughs, saying, “Uh…thanks.”