Sacrifice Me: The Complete Season One (28 page)

I shook my head as tears streamed down my face.

I’m so sorry,
I wanted to tell her.
This is all my fault.

I knew she couldn’t
hear me, but I could swear for an instant, her eyes locked with mine.
She saw me and her lips parted. She sucked in a surprised breath,
then struggled to lift her head from the ground.

The Devil, in his
half-shadowed form, looked down at her and laughed. “Die
already,” he said. “I need to get inside that club.”

Selena’s blood
ran like a river against the ground, but she managed to move her hand
toward the pocket of her jeans. With labored movements, she reached
inside her pocket and pulled something out. Her palm opened and I
caught a glimpse of a small clear bead with a red spark glowing
inside.

I gasped.

Rend’s gift to
her earlier tonight.

I couldn’t breath
as I watched her hand close around the small bead. Then, with her
eyes locked on mine, she gave me a sad smile and mouthed a singled
word.

Run.

With her last breath,
she gathered her strength and squeezed.

The world in front of
me exploded in fire. The front of the building went up in flames and
the Devil flew backward, his body slamming against the brick wall
behind him and disappearing into a cloud of ash and flame.

I shielded my face from
the blaze, coughing on the growing cloud of smoke. Lyla clawed at my
arm, urging me to run, but I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t
force myself to move.

All I could do was
stare dumbly at the destroyed building that used to be Venom.

Episode 5: The Devil

Debris floated through the air. Ash coated the
side of my face. I screamed, but my voice was lost amidst the wail of
sirens. My ears rang from the noise of the explosion and blood
trickled into my eyes from a cut on my forehead.

Venom is gone.

Lyla pulled furiously on my arm, but I was too
numb to move.

Rend was still inside that building.

But in the flames and smoke, I couldn’t tell
how much of the building was still standing.

“Franki, we have to go now,” Lyla
said, her voice desperate.

“I can’t,” I yelled, yanking my
arm away from her.

I ran toward the fire, but she blocked my way. She
placed both hands on my face, forcing me to look at her.

“We have to go,” she said.

“I can't just leave,” I shouted. I
shook my head, not wanting to believe this could be happening. This
was all my fault. Selena and the others, they were all dead because
of me. “We have to find them. What if someone's still alive in
there? We have to go back.”

Lyla shook her head, panic in her wide eyes.
“Dammit, Franki, you have to listen to me. It’s not what
you think, but we have to go now. If we don’t go, you’re
going to be dead, too. Do you hear me?”

I nodded, still in shock. I couldn’t focus
with the weight of panic and sorrow on my heart.

We couldn’t just leave them here like this.
We couldn’t just walk away and leave them. I couldn't leave
Rend like this. Not if there was a chance. Didn’t she
understand? But a part of my mind registered what she was saying. The
Devil had come here for me. He’d been knocked back by the
blast, but how long would that keep him down? If he woke up, he'd be
coming for me.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll
explain as we go, but we have to move.”

I let her grab my hand and pull me back toward the
main street. She led us through the crowd gathered on the sidewalk. A
fire truck pulled up on the curb and rescue workers were yelling,
running, and directing people to stay away from the alley.

We ducked our heads and ran through the crowd,
past the rows of bars and restaurants, and toward the nearest ‘L’
station.

Cars were stopped all along Hubbard street, and
people were getting out of their cars to see what was going on. A cab
driver motioned to us.

“What’s going on up there?” he
asked. “Someone get hurt?”

I just shook my head, unable to put words to what
I’d seen. It didn’t seem real. The entire club was gone.
Just like that, the building destroyed.

I pictured the Devil flying back against the brick
wall, shock registering on his pale face. I pictured Selena's sad
smile and the way she had told me to run. Chills broke out along my
skin.

Had she died for me? Because of me?

I would never be able to forgive myself.

Lyla got us on the first train that pulled up and
led me toward a pair of seats in the back.

We sat down and I stared straight ahead. It took
all my willpower just to force breath into my lungs.

I couldn’t lose him now. Not when we hadn’t
even had a chance to decide what we meant to each other. I might
never know if I meant anything to Rend or not, but with the
possibility of him being gone forever, I gained a new clarity about
my own feelings.

And now it was too late.

My hands were ice cold and shaking uncontrollably.
I held them in my lap, unable to stop them.

Lyla leaned over and placed both her hands on top
of mine. She put her mouth close to my ear. “You have to get
control of that,” she said. “People are going to stare.
Franki?”

I shook my head, as if waking from a dream.

I blinked several times. What did she mean? Why
would people stare?

Then I saw it. A series of small whirlwinds
kicking up dust from the floor of the train. It looked like four
miniature tornadoes traveling along down the center of the aisle.

My mouth fell open and I forced a deeper breath.
Had I done that?

“I don't know how to stop it,” I said.

“Yes, you do,” she said. “Just
breathe. Focus. All you have to do is calm down and find where that
energy is coming from and tell it to stop.”

I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. I
focused on my body, connecting in a new way to what was going on
inside of me. And she was right. Somewhere in the core of my being, a
fire burned. Rage. Sorrow. Fear. Regret. My magic was so closely tied
to my emotions that I had created small tornadoes of dust and wind
right here on the train in downtown Chicago.

I pictured it slowing down and dissipating into
nothingness, and the whirlwinds obeyed, collapsing into piles of dust
and dirt on the floor at my feet.

Lyla squeezed my hands and looked around at the
other passengers on the train.

“We’re safe for now,” she said.
“But I have to get you someplace safe.”

“I don’t even understand what’s
going on,” I said. I felt more helpless than ever before in my
life. “How could this happen?”

“You saw him, didn’t you? Before I
even saw what was going on, you noticed him.”

I nodded. “I saw him going in. The second I
laid eyes on him, I got this weird feeling. I knew he was a bad man,
but it wasn’t until he came out with blood on his hands that I
realized who he really was. That was the Devil, wasn’t it?”

She swallowed. “Yes. He’s the worst of
the vampires,” she said. “The most evil demon I’ve
ever seen. Well, I’d never actually seen him in person, before
tonight, but I'm sure that's who he was.”

“He killed Selena,” I said.

“She’s the gatekeeper here in
Chicago,” Lyla said. “She understood that danger when she
took the job. The gatekeeper decides who is allowed inside that
particular gate. If she told him he couldn’t go in, there was
no way he could cross that barrier. The only way in would be to kill
her. Once a gatekeeper dies, the gate opens to everyone. At least
until another gatekeeper arrives. Selena knew that going in. She
volunteered for the job.”

I closed my eyes. “She died because of me,”
I said. “The Devil was there for me.”

“The Devil was there for you? How do you
know that?”

I slumped down in my seat. I wasn’t sure I
had the energy to explain all of this to her right now, but I knew
she had a right to know the truth.

“He’s the whole reason I ever found
Venom in the first place,” I said. “He sent me black
roses on my twenty-first birthday, inviting me to the club.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,”
she said. “He’s been banned from Venom for more than a
decade. Why would he invite you there?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I
think he wanted to make me discover my own magic. He wanted to make
sure I really was who he thought I was.”

“And who is that?” she asked, her
voice soft and full of fear.

I swallowed and looked out the window at the city
lights. It was just after one in the morning and I had no idea where
we were going. Or what the hell I was going to do once morning came.
I couldn't just go home and go back to my life before Venom. Before
Rend.

He had opened my eyes to a whole new world. A
whole new life. Finding the club had changed me forever. There was no
way to turn my back on that now, even if I wanted to.

Of course, without Rend and the club, I wasn't
sure how much life I'd have left to live. If the Devil had come to
Venom for me, he was going to find me no matter where I tried to
hide. Without Rend, there would be no one who could protect me.

“What are we going to do?” I asked. “I
can’t go home.”

“No,” she said. “We’re
going to a safe-house just outside the city. Rend will come looking
for you there.”

I snapped my head toward her. My heart skipped a
beat. “Rend? But—”

“I know what it looked like, Franki, but
that’s what I was trying to explain to you on the street. The
club itself wasn’t destroyed. It was only the Chicago entrance
that was destroyed.”

My head pounded. She wasn’t making sense.
“What do you mean? How is that possible?”

“There are six entrances to Venom around the
world,” she said. “Chicago, Paris, New York City, Berlin,
Moscow, and Havana. Only that one entrance to the club was
destroyed.”

Hope fluttered in my heart and tears sprang to my
eyes. “You mean he’s okay? Don’t fuck with me.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I’m
not fucking with you. Anyone who was inside Venom is fine,” she
said. “But they won’t be able to get here to Chicago
without going through another gateway.”

I felt the first true breath of hope enter my
body, and my hands stopped trembling. I needed to talk to Rend and
tell him what I saw.

My heart was still sick for Selena, but I was
relieved everyone else was okay.

“How does this work?” I asked. “We’re
just supposed to wait for word from him? Or do you have some other
way of contacting him to let him know we’re okay?”

I groaned, realizing Rend wouldn’t know
where I was. Not for sure. He hadn’t seen me leave the club
with Lyla. I wasn’t sure Azure had been paying attention,
either. The only person I could be sure who knew we had walked out
into the streets of Chicago was Selena. And she wouldn't be telling
anyone.

“Did you tell anyone else you were going out
to smoke?” I asked. “Any of the other dancers?”

She shook her head. “No, I just came to see
if you wanted to go out,” she said. “But when they
realize I’m not there, they’ll guess where I went, I’m
sure.”

“But they won’t know I was with you,”
I said, thinking out loud. “Rend won’t even know the
Devil was there.”

“I’m sure he has a good idea of what
happened,” she said. “It’s not like the doorways
get destroyed very often. Selena wouldn’t have blown the door
unless it was absolutely necessary. An explosion like that is rare.
It's a fail-safe to make sure no one dangerous gets inside the club.”

I closed my eyes, my stomach rolling at the
thought of Selena’s death. “I saw Rend arguing with her
before we opened tonight,” I said. “She said she didn’t
want to risk her life for me.”

Lyla pressed her lips together and shook her head.
“You can’t blame yourself.”

“Who else can I blame?” I asked. “This
is all my fault.”

“Look, we’re family at Venom. We look
out for each other. Remember what I told you earlier? Every single
one of us came to be there because we were in some kind of trouble,”
she said. “Rend gave us jobs to protect us from people like The
Order and The Others.”

I shook my head. “I don’t even know
who those people are,” I said. “It feels like the more I
learn about this world, the more I don’t know.”

“All you need to know is that there is a
constant war going on in this world for the souls and power that
witches hold,” she said. “There are those who think we’re
evil just for existing and there are others who want to control us.
Once these people realize a witch has great power, they will do
whatever it takes to get control of that power. Rend has been around
for a very long time, Franki. He’s seen the worst of it first
hand, and he wants to do everything he can to save as many people
from falling into the hands of evil as he can.”

I sat back against the cold plastic seat on the
train and tried to process what she was telling me. How could I have
been so clueless to the war between good and evil happening all
around me? How could I have missed it?