Valcour- Enchanted by a Demon (Hunted by Hellfie- Book 1) (6 page)

“Brianna, wait!”

He was close behind her. She chose a direction, went left, and stayed along the wall. Eventually it had to bring her to the door. It had to.

Instead, what it led her to was Jake. He was standing right next to the door, hands out like he was going to catch her and Brianna nearly stumbled right into him before she could stop herself. She brought her hands up in fists as if she was going to be able to do anything to stop him if he wanted to—

“Be calm,” he said to her.

And she was calm.

His voice had been odd, like it was vibrating through tissue paper. But as soon as he spoke the words, all of her fear and anxiety melted away and she stood there, blinking at him, wondering why she had been so scared. Jake was such a nice guy and he would never hurt, so there couldn’t possibly be anything at all wrong.

Wait a minute.

She blinked again, this time coming back to herself and remembering exactly why she had been so freaked out and exactly why she had bolted for the door. “What did you just do to me?” she demanded, taking a step back from him. “Stay away from me, Jake.”

He looked surprised. But then he reached out for her as she took another step back. “Listen, I know it’s a lot to understand.”

“Yeah?” she scoffed. “You think?”

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you anything about it until we were in your car and on our way, Brianna. And even then, I’m pretty sure I was going to leave out the part about the demons.”

“Oh, thanks so much. Just stay the hell away from me!”

He lowered his hands, finally, and looked down at the floor. Jake looked disappointed, dejected almost, like a puppy that had just been shoved off the couch or something. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was hoping we could get to know each other before all this had to come out. You know?”

Did she know? Did she know what? That he had lied to her, led her into a dangerous situation, and then tried some Jedi mind trick on her? “Oh, no. No. You do not get to act like the victim here, Jake. You want to go around acting all crazy and telling people there are demons chasing you, that’s on you. Not me. For all I know those guys are like from the local psycho hospital and they want to take you back there.”

He flinched at her words and huddled into his sweater more. “I’m not crazy, but I can see why you might think that.”

“Uh, yeah. We just covered that.”

He sighed and looked up at her again. “Look, if you want to go, fine. I understand. But you can’t leave yet.”

She gave him the most determined look she could muster up. “I’m leaving.”

“Those two are probably still out there, waiting for us. If not, then they went back to the hotel to wait for us. For both of us.”

“I’m not a part of this!”

“You are,” he said, “as far as they’re concerned.”

“Why would they be waiting for me?”

“Because you were with me.”

“And that’s enough to get a girl chased by the crazy patrol?”

He smirked at the way she said it, but his eyes were still overcast. “It will be enough for them, Brianna.”

Without her permission, her heart went out to him. He looked so lost and shaken and even if he was crazy, he did have evil versions of the Weasley brothers from Harry Potter chasing after him.

She was such an idiot when it came to cute guys. If only she’d listened to her conscious and not gotten involved with him in the first place … but now she knew she was in a bind. Staying wasn’t an option and neither was running. Inwardly she kicked herself for being so stupid. Everything has its consequences, even flirting that wasn’t meant to go anywhere. Apparently this town wasn’t Vegas; where you could have a little fun and then leave it behind.

“Okay.” She relaxed a little, but folded her arms defensively across her chest as she leaned back against the wall of books. “Fine. So tell me more. Why are demons chasing you?”

“Well, that’s the complicated part.”

She groaned in frustration. “Fine, man of mystery. I gave you a chance, you don’t want to talk to me. Fine. Keep your secrets. I just want to go.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

She glared at him. What little patience she’d had was disintegrating.

“Look, it’s not that I’m trying to hold you hostage or anything. It’s just that if you leave here, now, they will take you. And they won’t be gentle about it.”

“I’m leaving, Jake. Don’t try to stop—”

“You want to stay,” his voice said in that raspy vibrato.

And she found that she wanted to stay.

For all of half a minute she was content to lean against the carefully stacked books. There was nowhere to go. There was nowhere she needed to be. She could just stay right where she was for a while and that would be fine with her.

Just.

Stay.

Here…

She snapped back to herself again. Shaking her head, she pushed away from the wall. “Will you stop that? What are you, some kind of—”

“Please don’t say vampire.”

Which was exactly what she had been about to say. Vampires she might have been able to buy into. More so than an escapee from the mental ward being pursued by demons. But this was the real world. And she should know better. Crazy things didn’t happen in her world.

“Okay, you’re not a vampire.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re just crazy.” A thought occurred to her. “Hey…when we first came in here, you told me to trust you. And I did. Was that more of this? Did you mind rape me or something?”

“Mind rape? Seriously?”

“Well, you’ve got me dancing in circles like a trained dog! You’re telling me what to do and I’m doing it. What do you call it?”

He twisted a hand in the air like he was trying to find the right words. Then he blew out a short breath and just shook his head. “When we came in here, I was just asking you to trust me. That’s all. No tricks.”

“But tricks now.”

He pursed his lips tightly but nodded. “Yes. Tricks now.”

“Mind raping tricks.”

“Look, Brianna, I can’t let you go out there to be hurt by those two. It would be my fault.”

She ran her tongue around the inside of her teeth while she thought about it. She hadn’t heard his voice buzzing when he’d asked her to trust him, back when they came in here. It had just used his normal voice, simply a guy asking a girl for her trust. She had given it to him, because she had really felt that she could trust him.

But now?

Crazy things didn’t happen in the real world where she lived. But they were happening tonight.

“Listen…we have a lot to talk about,” she said to him, unfolding her arms and twisting her fingers together. “But right now, I just need to pee. So, let me go use the bathroom and we’ll talk more after that, okay?”

He regarded her, as if looking for the truth in her face. But at last he shrugged his shoulders and stepped aside for her. Brianna went by him, past the front door, and down the side wall where there was a sign that read “Restrooms.” It led through the doorway and into the room on this side of the building, a children’s reading room by the looks of it, with two doors off to the side. One read “Men’s” and one read “Women’s.”

The door to the women’s room wasn’t locked, and she went inside quickly, shutting it behind her, throwing the sliding lock into place.

She listened at the door and couldn’t hear Jake moving around. Maybe he was going to give her privacy to do her business, or he was still out guarding the front door. Nice of the guy that was holding her in a library against her will to give her space.

There were two stalls with green half-walls around them, and a sink and a baby-changing station. Looking quickly around her she found what she was looking for and stepped into the stall on the left. It was the one underneath the window.

Putting her sneakers on the black plastic seat she straddled the bowl and pushed herself up. The window was recessed, frosted, and hinged so that it would swing outward. And it wasn’t locked; just secured with a sliding latch.

It was no easy task pulling herself up quietly and shimmying through the elongated rectangle of the window, but she managed it. Suddenly she was through it and dropping the eight feet to the ground, landing badly on her left wrist. She heard and felt a small pop as that hand took her weight. The pain started instantly. It was a nasty pain that burned and itched at the same time, and she was afraid that it might be broken. However, it didn’t matter at the moment; she was out and away from Jake.

Time to run for it.

Full night had fallen. The streetlights and the lights from inside the homes she passed gave her plenty of light to see by. Her hotel was on the main drive through Blue Earth, Route 169, so Brianna just kept going straight down whatever street this was until she saw the divided highway ahead. Traffic was steady at this hour, even though there were few people out and about. Once she’d found the highway it was just a matter of making a left turn and following the road up.

Her wrist was really throbbing now. It was swelling, too. She cradled it against her body as she went. Calling for an ambulance, or the police even, would be the smart thing to do, but her cell phone was still back in her hotel room. The businesses she saw were all closed. So she kept walking.

Two blocks up she found an all-night gas station. Six pumps out front stood silent under bright fluorescent lights. The small store was painted a garish purple with brown stripes. Neon signs for beer and lottery tickets flashed in the windows.

It was the same station she had stopped at on her way into Blue Earth.

She could see there was no one inside the store except for the lone worker behind the counter. The man was wearing the same ugly brown shirt. His stringy hair hung down over his face as he peered out the window, straight at her.

Damn it.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed her way through the door. She needed help and she couldn’t be picky just because it was the same creepy guy from before.

“Excuse me, please,” she said to him. “I need to use your phone.”

The man stared at her. Then he smiled slowly. “You’re hurt.”

His voice was raspy with phlegm and full of soft menace. She rubbed her wrist self-consciously. “Yes, I am. I need help.”

Her voice sounded small in her own ears. Everything that had happened to her today was finally catching up to her. She was tired, and hurt, and scared, and she just needed someone to help.

He chuckled. “I told you to stay away from him.”

Brianna’s eyes widened. Did he just say what she thought he did? “Stay away? From who?”

“I told you not to trust him.”

Jake. He was talking about Jake. Those were the words she had heard over the phone in her hotel room. The words she had heard through the static, which she had convinced herself weren’t really there to be heard. But it had been real. She knew that now, staring at this man’s leering grin.

And if that had been real…

Demons. Jake had told her there were demons after him.

Brianna took a step back. The guy leered at her still. She felt like running. Running, and hiding again.

But then she stopped. She swallowed back the lump in her throat and forced herself to stand her ground. She didn’t know what was going on here, and she didn’t care because right now she couldn’t afford to back down. She had lived her life backing down to what other people wanted or thought or did, but not now. She had to be strong.

“Look,” she said, hardening her voice, “I need help. I’m hurt. Are you going to let me call for help or not?”

“Well now,” the man said, stroking the side of his face with a finger. “There’s a little bit of a fire in you after all. No wonder he’s so attracted to you.”

Maybe this was a bad idea after all. There had to be somewhere else that was still open. Someone else that she could turn to for help. But this time, she forced herself to do what she needed to do for herself. “Mister, I need to use your phone.”

His dull gray eyes sparked with flashes of crimson. His smile stretched thinly, wider than any concept of normal, almost to the man’s ears. He hooked a thumb at the black phone on the wall behind him, hanging between the display racks of cigarettes and a sign that told customers to smile because they were on security camera. “Help yourself, darlin’.”

Brianna had reached the end of the small amount of self-confidence she had tapped into. “Um. Can you maybe hand it to me?”

The guy’s laugh was the hissing of snakes on a cold winter’s day. He took the handset off its cradle and handed it out to her. Brianna stared at it, reluctant to take it from him, not wanting to get even that close.

“Here, darlin’,” the guy taunted her, hefting the phone on his palm from where he stood behind the counter. “Take it. Make your call.”

She inched forward, keeping her eyes on the phone, not looking at the man at all. Just his hand, holding the phone out to her, his fingernails dirty and cracked, the phone held in a loose grip as she went forward a bit at a time, carefully reaching out with her good hand…