Unknown (28 page)

“If you can go up that rope with one hand, I plan on getting your blood.
 
What you’re proposing is impossible.”

“We’ll see.
 
And I’ve got nothing to hide.
 
I’ve been exercising all summer to take you ladies on.”
 
I put my hand on the rope.
 
“Your call, Mr. Stewart.”

He readied his stopwatch, held up his hand and then lowered it.
 
“Go!”

And up I went.
 
With each pull on the rope, I propelled myself upward so quickly, I rang the bell in less than ten seconds and then came down the rope in about six seconds.
 
What took Maxwell minutes to accomplish took me sixteen seconds with one hand.
 
The other was still tucked in my pocket.
 
“What else you got for us?” I said to Stewart.

“For you, a blood test.
 
That’s never been done.
 
Ever.”

“Glad you witnessed it.
 
You can check my blood for anything you want.”
 
I looked at Maxwell, who was seething.
 
“So, what’s next, Robbie?
 
The rings or the long jump?”
 
I shrugged.
 
“Whatever it is, I think it’s pretty clear that I’m going to be wiping your ass all over this nice hardwood floor.
 
Since we don’t want any stains, let’s hope you wiped it yourself before your mother sent you off to school today. “

“At least I have a mother,” he said.

“Rob.”
 
It was Hastings.

“It’s true,” Maxwell said.
 
He looked hard at me.
 
“I’ve got my parents.
 
Sorry about yours, buddy.
 
Shitty way to go burning up the way they did.”

I looked over at Mr. Sewell, who once again was allowing this to happen.
 
He shrugged at me, but there was a smirk on his lips.
 
“It is true, Seth.
 
Shitty way to go.
 
Sorry.”

It took everything I had not to think what I wanted to think, which was their immediate deaths.
 
I took a breath and willed them both not to get to me.
 
I kept saying to myself, “They’ll get theirs.
 
Be patient.
 
Just wait.”
 
I thought that over and over until my head cleared and I was able to look up at the rings.
 

“Yeah,” I said.
 
“It is shitty what happened to them, but the repercussions of what happened to them are slowly being doled out by those who have come forward, like Whitehill did the other night.
 
After he burned down that McDonald’s, that was good of him to come clean.”
 
I nodded over at Hastings.
 
“Don’t you think so, Mike?”

He didn’t say anything.

“And what about you, Rob?
 
Unforgivable what he did, but at least he came forward.
 
He’ll serve the rest of his life in prison for it—and probably become someone’s bitch while he’s there—but that’s what happens when you kill someone.
 
You ever think of what might happen if he talks?
 
You were friends with him, weren’t you?
 
And so were you, right, Stewart?”
 

I held up a hand so neither could answer.
 
“I think we all know that both of you were his close friends.
 
Mike over there was a friend, too.
 
So, my question is this:
 
Who else in this school is going to go down for murdering my parents?
 
I’m hoping Whitehill or Tyler or the others will let us all know who else was there that night.
 
I think they will.
 
Especially when they stand trial and get pressured by the D.A.
 
Plea bargains can be pretty powerful shit.”

I brushed past Mr. Sewell and when I did, I accidentally touched his forearm and started what would become the gradual loss of his eyesight.
 
For years, he refused to see what people did to me.
 
He watched and allowed it to happen.
 
So, why should he even be allowed to see?
 

Throughout the day, his vision would slowly leach away from him, like it was doing right now.
 
By the end of school, he’d be certain something was very wrong, but knowing him, he’d attribute it to one of the silent migraines he was always mumbling about.
 
When he woke the next morning, he’d be completely blind.
 
It wouldn’t be forever—I couldn’t bring myself to be that cruel.
 
But it would be for a long while.
 
He deserved it.
 
Fuck him.

I looked up at the rings and then over at Rob.
 
“Iron cross.”
 
I jumped, grabbed the rings and started to flip around on them.
 
I swung so high, I released myself in mid-air, did two full-body twists and then caught the rings before I stopped them from swinging completely while everyone just stared at me, unbelieving.
 

“The iron cross is one of the toughest feats to accomplish on the rings.
 
It’s all about strength and control.
 
We’ll see who holds it longest without the rings moving.”
 
I looked over at Sewell, who was squinting at his stopwatch.
 
“Ready, Mr. Sewell?”
 

He blinked a few times, shook his head and then pressed the button while saying, “Go!”

*
  
*
  
*

Naturally, I won.
 
It also was me who jumped the farthest—big surprise.
 
But the word would spread and that’s what I wanted.
 
That was key.

When it was all said and done, when I beat Maxwell into oblivion and he stormed out of the gym into the locker room with the others, Sewell had my blood checked by the nurse, just as promised.
 
It would be a few days before the results came in so nothing was confirmed yet, but I wasn’t worried.
 
My blood was clean.
 

So was my conscience.
 

As she was putting a bandage on my arm, Sewell asked the nurse to check his eyes while she was there.
 
He said things were getting foggy.
 
The room seemed to be closing in on itself.
 
He wasn’t seeing right.
 
He looked confused and angry, not unlike I had been for the past dozen years, several of which he could have made better for me had he just intervened when I was being harassed.
 
But he never did.
 
He let it happen.
 
And because of that, I’m certain he enjoyed what he saw.

He wouldn’t be seeing it again for awhile.

When I went into the locker room to change, I already knew I was late for Mr. Lisnet’s history class, so I hurried.
 
But as I neared the door, the amulets immediately grew hot against my chest.
 
And then I saw why.
 

Coming out of the locker room were the three witches—Anna, Leana and Celina.
 
I took a step back in surprise, which I instantly regretted.
 
That move could be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
 
It now looked as if I was unnerved by their presence, which I was, but they didn’t need to know it.
 

“Hello, Seth.”

They said it in unison.

“Have you had any nightmares lately?”

 
I immediately cased myself in a shield.

“Because you’re about to.”

They giggled as they walked past me, each holding hands as they stepped across the gym’s gleaming hardwood floor and moved into the hallway beyond.
 
They turned right and were gone.

I looked back to the locker room.
 
For some reason, the amulets were still hot.
 
I listened and could hear something that sounded off, but I didn’t know what it was.
 
I didn’t want to took, but there was no choice.
 
They obviously left something for me.
 
A trap?
 

I took a tentative step inside, eased around the corner and prepared myself for anything.

But when I looked down the long, tiled corridor, which was still glimmering from the moist heat of the showers taken minutes ago, I saw what they did, I lifted myself into the air and I flew to the back of the room before it was too late.

chapter forty-three

From one of the large cast iron pipes that ran along the top of the ceiling, the witches had hung a noose and put Jim’s neck through it.
 
They’d transported him here knowing he was the only family I had left and now they were trying to kill him by hanging him.

The sound I heard earlier was Jim struggling.
 
But he wasn’t struggling now.
 
His eyes looked like poached eggs bursting out of their sockets.
 
His face was blue from lack of oxygen.
 
He was dangling lifelessly while the rope swayed.

Even before I reached him, I knew he was dead.
 
They killed Jim.
 
I wanted to scream in outrage and pain and loss and fury, but that would just draw attention, so I stuffed it inside while I freed his neck from the rope and gently lowered him to the damp floor.

As I did, the amulets grew hotter.
 
Why?
 
Were they coming back?
 
I didn’t know—and I didn’t have time to find out.

I looked around me to see if we were alone.
 
We appeared to be.
 
I pressed my head against Jim’s chest and listened for a heartbeat.
 
There was none.
 
I picked up his arm and checked his wrist for a pulse.
 
Nothing.
 
There was only one thing I could think of to do.
 
I raised my hands above my head, turned my palms into paddles of pure electricity and then pressed them hard against his chest in an effort to jumpstart his heart.

His body heaved up and a rush of what smelled like beer wafted out of his mouth, but when I removed my hands, he just slumped down again.
 
I tried three times, but the results were the same.
 
I felt my throat closing on me.
 
Tears filled my eyes.
 
He looked so fragile to me.
 
Why would they want to kill him?
 
I didn’t understand it.
 
Jim was a good man.
 
I’d give them the amulets to have him back.
 
None of this was worth it anymore.

The amulets were growing hotter still.
 
Now, I was sure they were coming back.
 
I looked down at Jim and fed so much electricity into my palms that they glowed.
 
In a final effort to bring him back, I slapped my palms down on his chest, Jim jerked up and then suddenly, without warning, he exploded.

Into a nest of spiders.
 

I staggered back, unbelieving.
 
He was no longer there.
 
Neither were his clothes.
 
All that was left were tens of thousands of large scrambling spiders, which now were racing toward me, either along the walls, on top of the ceiling or along the floor itself.
 

I hurried to the door and felt them falling on top of me from the ceiling.
 
They dropped into my hair, onto my shoulders and back, and immediately popped because of the shield that surrounded me.
 
But these weren’t regular spiders.
 
These were witch spiders.
 
I could feel them weakening the shield.
 
When they hit, each bit into it before they burst.
 
And it was working.
 
They were starting to get through.

I tried to tap into the amulets and imagine all of them dead, but I was too freaked out and distracted to do so.
 
They were leaping onto me, trying to cover and bite me, but for the moment, the shield was keeping them off.
 

I looked down at my feet and was startled to see that some of them were as large as my hand.
 
I looked ahead of me and saw that already they had spun giant webs leading to the exit.
 
I wanted to scream for help but if I did, how would I ever explain them sizzling into puffs of smoke and splattered innards when they struck the shield?

I was stepping on them and slipping on their guts as I made my way to the door and the openness of the gym itself.
 
It’s there that I’d have a chance because the room was so wide, I could escape.
 
But the webs they’d built were stronger than I expected.
 
The shield didn’t cut straight through them as I hoped because the shield was weakening.
 
I had to fight my way through them, tear them down, and each time I did, they continued to bite into the shield.

And then I felt one bite me.
 

I looked down at my shoulder and saw a spider the size of a rat sinking its poison into my skin.
 
I pulled it off me and felt another bite my arm.
 
They were getting through.
 
I didn’t feel right.
 
I was starting to feel sick, drowsy.
 
The shield was flickering.
 
I couldn’t move my feet.
 
I looked down and saw that they were beginning to cocoon me with alarming speed.
 
My feet were already bound.
 
Now, they were at my waist, spinning and swirling and tightening and threading.
 
There was only one way to stop this.
 
I needed to focus and feed into the amulets even while they bit me.
 

I sank my soul into the amulets and felt them spark to life against my chest.
 
But whatever movement I felt from the amulets wasn’t because of me.
 
A hive of spiders were pulling on the four strands of rawhide looped around my neck that secured the amulets.
 
They were trying to steal them from me.
 
They were trying to rip them off me.
 
That was their main purpose.
 
I tried to reach up to get them off me, but now my hands were cocooned against my sides.
 

And that was it.

With everything I had left in me and in spite of being repeatedly bit, I drove my heart into the amulets and set myself on fire.