Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels (68 page)

“You might be right.” She chewed on her lip. “Does that mean the police won’t believe us either?”

“Probably,” I said.

“Damn it. That really sucks.”

“We need to go to my aunts,” I said. “I’ve got to get Carter back. I’m afraid they’ll hurt him if they don’t get to do the ritual.”

“You really like Carter, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “There’s something between us. Something important.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t just taking advantage of you?”

“He helped me escape,” I said. “He forced me to go on without him when he got hurt. He put my safety above his. Even if he was taking advantage of me, he’s changed. Besides, I care about him. I have to make sure he’s okay.”

“Well, I guess that’s sweet,” she said. “But you have to admit that it is kind of gross that he was your professor when you guys hooked up.”

“I think it’s hot,” I said.

“Why? He’s a creeper.”

“He’s a tortured soul who fought as hard as he could to keep his hands off of me, but couldn’t because he was so desperately attracted to me.”

“Oh,” she said. “When you put it that way, it does sound kind of hot. Plus, he’s always so proper. Did he call you Miss Moss while you guys were making out?”

“Sometimes.”

She sighed. “Fuck you, I’m still jealous.”

I laughed.

“Anyway, what’s this about your aunts?”

“Oh, right,” I said. “Well, they know about magic, and if there’s anyone who can fight off Scales and Fangs, it’ll be them.”

“Cool,” she said. “I want Scales and Fangs to pay.”

“Me too,” I said.

She grinned, and we soared down the highway.

Reba’s phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket and answered. “Hey there, Harper. You tell your pals at Scales and Fangs that—What?” She rolled her eyes and tossed the phone to me. “It’s for you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, it’s always about you, Teagan,” she said. “You’d think after I just rescued your ass that I’d become a little more important. But no, it’s always Teagan, Teagan, Teagan.”

I furrowed my brow and put the phone to my ear. “Harper?”

“Hi, Teagan,” he said. “I’ve got something I want you to hear.” There was a muffled sound, like the phone was moving. And then I heard a bloodcurdling scream. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes.”

“That was Carter,” said Harper, giggling. “Guess what I’m doing to him?”

I heard Carter’s voice, strained in the distance. “Don’t come back, Teagan. No matter what, don’t come back.”

“Harper,” I said. “Don’t hurt him, please.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he said. “But I’ll stop on two conditions.”

“What?” I said.

“One,” he said, “that you come back to Thornfield College so that you can be part of the ritual to save Scales and Fangs.”

“There’s another condition?” I said.

“That you star in the play we’ve been working on for the past two months.”

* * *

“Don’t go back,” said Reba. We were parked on the side of the road, only about ten miles away from Thornfield. “If you go back, they’ll hurt you.”

“I have to,” I said. “He’s hurting Carter. I can’t let him do that.”

“But if you go back, they win,” she said.

“Maybe not,” I said. “You can go to my aunts and tell them what happened. They can come and rescue both Carter and me.”

She considered. “That would mean that I was pretty important, wouldn’t it? Going on a mission that would rescue everybody?”

“It’s a pretty important job,” I agreed.

“All right, fine,” she said. “You go back and save Professor Alexander. I’ll bring back your aunts so that we can destroy Scales and Fangs once and for all.”

“Thank you, Reba,” I said.

“My pleasure.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I sat in the dressing room, trying to keep my hands steady as I applied lipstick. Harper and Adelaide stood behind me. I could see their reflections in the mirror, but I refused to turn to face them. It was the night of the play.

“Now, remember, if you mess any of this up, Carter will pay for it,” said Harper.

On arriving back at Thornfield, I’d allowed Harper to take me back down into the inner sanctum of Scales and Fangs again. If I didn’t cooperate with him, then Carter was hurt.

I hadn’t been able to see Carter, only videos on Harper’s cell phone. Carter hadn’t been given proper medical attention for his ankle. It was splinted, but nothing more. And Harper had him tied up somewhere. He used knives and needles and ropes to torture him if I didn’t do exactly as he wished.

He’d been smuggling me up for rehearsals for a week and a half. I couldn’t try to leave the rehearsals, not until I found and saved Carter.

At first, I’d hoped that Reba and my aunts would show up. Every day, I’d expected them. But the days wore on, and they didn’t arrive.

“And Reba too,” Harper continued. “I’ll hurt her for trying to help you. So, unless you want them to be terrorized, you’ll make this the performance of your life.”

Reba hadn’t made it to my aunts’ house. Instead, she’d been hunted down by members of Scales and Fangs and brought back. She was being held prisoner along with Carter and me. There was no hope. I had to do as Harper said, or people would be hurt. I had no choices.

I glared at Adelaide’s reflection. “Don’t you think he’s gone to extremes? He’s torturing people. Is that what you do here?”

She smiled coldly. “I think that he’s hit on a very inventive way to keep you in line, Teagan. It seems to be working very well. I’m not going to interfere. Besides, I do love a good play.”

I’d be performing tonight.

The ritual would be later. At midnight.

The show would be done around ten o’clock. There would be enough time afterwards to prepare me for the ritual.

This was it. My last night with my mental faculties. After tonight, I didn’t know what I’d be like. Probably like my mother, seeing things that weren’t there and mumbling nonsense. I’d be ruined.

I was terrified. I wanted to refuse to do this play for Harper. I didn’t want him to get a shred of satisfaction after the horrible things he’d done to me.

But I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

And the truth was, I loved to act. I was grateful that my last night would be on stage. It was my greatest joy in life. In some ways, Harper was doing me a favor.

There was a knock at the door to the dressing room. “We’re at ten minutes before curtain,” called the stage manager.

“Thank you,” I responded.

“We’ll leave you to get prepared,” said Harper. “But don’t forget that I have no problem making Carter cry like a baby.”

I wanted to strangle him.

Instead, I just glared as he and Adelaide left the dressing room.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I was already in my costume for Ella, the woman stuck between a human fiancé and a man who is a dog during the day and a human at night.
Moon and Moon
was a quirky play, but Ella and I were both equally as trapped. Still, in a few minutes, I’d be able to escape into her for an hour and a half. I’d stand on a stage, move in ways that had already been decided for me and speak words that had been written for me, but I’d be freer than I ever was when I got to make decisions for myself.

I thought about trying to make a run for it. The back entrance was open so that the other actors in the play could go out back and smoke cigarettes.

I could probably make it.

But they’d warded me again. I hadn’t had a chance to test it, to try to leave campus again, but it would probably be the same as last time. I’d be in excruciating pain if I tried it.

Another soft knock on the door. “We’re at five.”

“Thank you, five,” I acknowledged. I wasn’t going anywhere. I took a deep breath, and I began to whisper vocal warm-ups to the mirror.

“Red leather, yellow leather,” I said. “Red leather, yellow leather.” I repeated it faster and faster until I tripped over the words.

“The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue,” I muttered. “The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue.”

“Unique New York,” I said.

I repeated them again and again until they sounded like the chants my aunts had whispered over me when I was still at home.

Tears filled my eyes. My aunts. Their magic. “Mother Innarra,” I whispered.

I took a deep breath. My voice got louder. “Mother Innarra, Serpent of the Sky, I offer myself into your protection. Coil your servant Teagan in your body, keep me safe from the schemes of the Evil Ones.”

It was quiet in the dressing room. I waited, hoping for something to happen, for some magic to save me.

But there was only another knock on the door. “Places.”

“Thank you,” I said. I opened the door. I walked down the dark corridor of backstage to the place where I stood and waited for my first cue.

I could hear the audience in the theater, tittering and talking. Anticipation was thick in the air.

I waited for the lights to go down, to take the stage, to escape.

* * *

The dungeon was made of cold stone. Like something medieval, it had chains coming out of the walls, and I had been chained there by the same robed people who had whisked me out of the dressing room minutes after the play was over. I could still hear the applause thundering in my ears.

Maybe it was the after-performance high that was making things easier to take. I felt I should be panicked and screaming, but instead, I’d been almost numb, not fighting as they took me through the tunnels and brought me here.

But then moonlight streamed through a rectangular window above, and I could see the other side of the dungeon.

Carter was there.

His hands were chained above his head. His clothes were tattered. He hung his head, defeated.

I watched him, tears forming.

This was really happening.

We’d failed.

“Teagan?”

Carter looked up. He hadn’t spoken. The voice was hoarse and female. I could see her on the other side of the dungeon.

“Reba,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“Does it look like I’m okay?” She was chained up in the same way that Carter was. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it to your aunts.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “You tried.”

It was quiet.

Carter gazed at me. I looked back at him. I wished we could touch.

“They didn’t hurt you?” I finally said. “They told me if I didn’t do what they said, they’d hurt you. So I cooperated. Did they hurt you anyway?”

“You should have gone when you had the chance,” he said.

Reba’s tone was dry. “Oh, you two are adorable.”

At a time like this, she was going to be sarcastic?

“Seriously,” she said. “You two are staring at each other like you’re Romeo and Juliet or something. I think someone should remind you that you’re his student, and he’s your professor, and you guys have a shallow relationship based solely on sex.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Reba,” I said.

“I know that in these rituals, the man chosen to do it always falls for the girl. Harper told me. It’s like part of the process. You, on the other hand, are supposed to be afraid of him. I don’t get why you’re all lovey dovey. He totally manipulated you so that he could rape you and steal your power. He’s a jerk.”

“She’s right, you know,” said Carter. “I don’t deserve you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We don’t have much time left, anyway. They’ll come for us at midnight.” It was part of the process for the man performing the ritual to fall in love with the girl he was supposed to rape? What kind of weird, fucked-up ritual was this?

“I’m not going to do it,” said Carter. “I won’t take you. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

At that moment, we heard the creaking of the dungeon door opening. Someone shrouded in a robe made his way over to Carter. The robed man held a glass of water in one hand, and a pill capsule in the other.

He forced the pill between Carter’s lips.

Carter tried to spit it out, but the man pinched his nose and tilted his head back.

He poured water down Carter’s throat, and stroked his neck until he swallowed.

“What was that?” Carter sputtered.

“Just something to make sure you can... perform.” He gestured meaningfully to Carter’s crotch.

“Viagra.”

“Something like that.” The robed man smirked and left the dungeon.

Carter rested his head against the stone wall, squeezing his eyes shut.

We listened as the latches were fastened on the door.

He opened his eyes. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

I gulped. There was no way to stop this, was there?