Thirteen

 

Pain and terror didn’t always go hand-in-hand for me, yet this time they did. I’d been a prisoner for a week. I had to get away. I had to try. And I’d gotten caught.

Pain and terror. I didn’t know which one I hated more. If I wasn’t careful, this man was going to break me from the inside out.

“So you think you can try to run? Think you can try to ask for help?” Doctor Cooperman, my captor and tormentor, had caught me trying to sneak out of the kitchen when he’d let me upstairs to eat something for the first time in three days. His son had fallen asleep on the job of watching me, and I’d taken my chance. I had to get away.

I wasn’t sure what he was doing. From my vantage point, strapped to a chair, I couldn’t see anything. “You belong to me now. You will never escape me. And just to make that clear, I’m going to see to it that you never, ever forget me.”

My eyes widened. What was that? What did he have in his hand? He was practically on top of me when I realized what he had. Sometimes the men who worked the farms for the Sisterhood branded the cattle. He had a brand in his hand, a giant “C” and he was going to …

I’d barely registered the idea when he pressed it into the skin on my hand. I’d thought I knew pain when Sister Superior struck me.

I hadn’t.

I must have blacked out. Or maybe I didn’t. Time slowed to nothing but the scorching smell of my flesh burning.

Sister Daniella’s face passed before me. “We choose our pain. We agree to it. And from it comes enlightenment. It doesn’t help in the moment. But it helps eventually. You will survive this, Anne, if you are strong. If you are the girl they must think you to be.”

 

The possessed were everywhere. They never left me alone. The second I made one better, my captors brought me another. I screamed at night, hoping beyond reason that my guards would come; they would take me away. Eventually, I had to give in to what was reality. I was trapped. Maybe there would come a day when I would prefer death to captivity. I wasn’t there yet. But as my fifth possessed of the day came, I somehow could imagine I might someday be.

 

I lost track of my days. Months? Years? Doctor Cooperman, even though I doubted he was truly a doctor of anything, was making a lot of money off me. My days ran into one another. He’d bring me the possessed whose family paid him for help, and I would pull their demons out of them. Sometimes I did it sitting in a chair; sometimes I’d be brought to the person’s house to preform my service.

I stared at the little boy in front of me. There was never anything worse than small children who had been taken over by demons.

“Well, there could be something worse.” The demon I had gotten rid of at the train spoke to me from the corner of the room. I’d taken to thinking of him as Frank. He was my constant companion, although I doubted he was real. He didn’t make my powers turn on, and no one else could see him except me. Or at least I didn’t think they could. I didn’t have anyone to ask, per se. If I’d told the Doctor I was seeing things, he’d have his sons beat me.

But none of the people I helped or their families ever noted the big demon in the corner, which led me to believe he wasn’t really there. Frank was so strong even humans without powers could see him, and no seemed to notice him at all.

He was a figment of my destroyed mind. Each day I spent in captivity made it worse. I couldn’t remember the faces of the people I helped anymore. They’d blended into one giant ball of misery.

My hair had grown. It hit my shoulders. My only understanding of the passage of time came from the length of my locks, which was so bizarre because the Sisterhood had been shaving off my hair since I was a little girl. I didn’t actually know how long it took to grow.

I didn’t want to speak to Frank in front of the boy I was trying to help, so I didn’t ask him what could possibly be worse than being a little boy possessed. Instead, I leaned forward, my powers turning on to help the little boy who rocked on the floor. His room was quite nice. I’d never seen a nursery that didn’t have dozens of children in it, so the quiet feeling of security for just one being moved me almost to tears.

I pushed away the feeling. He’d go back to playing with his small trains and teddy bears as soon as I returned him to being a regular four-year-old boy.

The Doctor’s sons waited outside of the room. They’d grab me as soon as this was over, put me back in my cage, and that would be that for the day.

“Hello, Samuel. Your mother tells me you are brave.” I’d actually not met the woman. The Doctor didn’t like me communicating with people. But little ones liked to hear about their moms and dads. I was a stranger, and this was scary enough. “I know that there is someone inside of you, someone who is hurting you and making you sad. We’re going to put an end to that. I promise.”

Tears streaked down his face. Demons overwhelmed adults. How was this guy still even alive? He wouldn’t be brought to the Holes or the Deadlands. I’d see to it he went to having whatever life he could in these end times.

It didn’t take much for me to yank the demon out of him. For a person who had once not thought she could do it at all, I’d become quite adept at managing to save the possessed. The child cried out, and the overwhelming sadness of the demon moved through me. The cold never went away. I felt it every second of every day I lived. Too many demons had touched my soul. I wouldn’t be warm ever again.

Samuel stopped crying and stared up at me with big brown eyes. I tried to smile through my chattering teeth but didn’t manage. He reached his small hand to touch my face. “Your eyes are white. Are you a witch?”

“Not a witch. Something else.” If I was a different kind of a person, I could take Samuel and kidnap him until I could get away from Cooperman. But I wasn’t that person. I was a Sister, and some things went against my nature. I could never not help, and I couldn’t cause anyone pain.

I walked to the window and looked down. His family lived pretty high up on a cliff. Maybe I could jump …

The door flung open, and the Doctor’s sons were there. Hands hauled me backwards. I wouldn’t be jumping today.

 

I sat in my cage listening to the water drop from somewhere else in the basement. Drip, drop. Drip, drop. It was a rhythm I’d come to be familiar with. I let my mind drift into the routine I used every night.

Where were the guys right now? This wasn’t a new mental distraction for me. I knew even before I thought things what the answers I’d make up would be. Still, they drifted me into sleep, and I did them like a bedtime story I could take into my dreams.

They all had to think I was dead, and that was best. I’d managed to write that note that would tell the Sisterhood I’d known I was going to my death. They’d get their reward. They’d been kind to me, loved me a little maybe, but they’d be glad to be done with the crazy that followed me around.

Bryant wanted to be a doctor. With the money he’d gotten, he’d enrolled in school.

Mason had gone back home, rescuing his mothers and sisters. They all lived near Garrett, who had his own house that he took care of. Maybe they had jobs in their neighborhood where they could help people. They’d liked taking care of me. I’d never asked Kieran and Milo what they wanted. But, thanks to the drink Kieran had brought me the night in the engine room, I pictured him opening a bar, in the same area of course, where Bryant went to school and Mason and Garrett lived. Milo lived there too, but his investment in the railroads took him away a lot.

I pictured their faces. It was getting harder and harder to see them. Rooms and faces were becoming blurs. Only the power mattered and the people I could save. I was a tool, and I’d do what I could to help until it killed me.

In the beginning, I’d tried to escape. I looked at the burn mark on my left hand. That hadn’t gone well. Next time he might actually burn one of my fingers off.

With that dark thought, I fell asleep.

My dreams had become pretty standard. The flames around the circle where I’d once stood, staring at my masked men, were gone. The men were gone too, although their masks remained, each discarded on the ground in the place where they’d once stood.

In the distance, I heard someone crying. A young woman. I’d tried and failed to get to her on many occasions. She was alone, and so was I. Why couldn’t we be together? But I couldn’t find her. The white birds, fates, whatever, circled above. They weren’t currently speaking to me.

Daniella appeared before me bathed in white light. I had to hold my hand up to stop the glare in order to look at her. She sometimes visited me in sleep, and I looked forward to the nights when I conjured her up.

“How is your week?” I touched her sleeve. Tonight she wore silver. My fellow Sister dressed eclectically. The last week she’d actually donned herself up to look like a cat. Tonight, she could have been the moonlight.

She waved her hand. “My week was fine. How are you holding up?”

“Badly. I’m losing the ability to focus. The rooms are blurring into nothingness. I get moments of clarity, and then they’re gone. I see the demons, the victims, Frank who isn’t there. Otherwise, nothingness … I think I might be dying.”

Daniella nodded while she chewed on her bottom lip. “You’re not dying. I thought the same thing once.”

“When you were locked in a cage and dragged around to make money for a lunatic?” I wasn’t the first woman the Doctor had done this to. He’d had the cage ready, and it was clear from the scratch marks that someone else had once been imprisoned there.

“You know my story.”

I did. She’d told me the first time she visited. This was the dark time. She’d had one, and all who passed through to enlightenment, to true Sisterhood and the real purpose—whatever any of that meant—had their turn. She’d been dragged away for speaking against the Sisterhood. They’d dropped her off in a factory on the edge of the Deadlands run by a sadistic woman who hated her on sight. By the time her guys found her, which had been years, she’d been nearly dead from dehydration and starvation. Her hands had never recovered from the breaking machines she’d used to put together clothing that was then sold to the Nobles.

Every day she’d been attacked by demons until her soul was shredded. When she’d come back to herself, it had been as a stronger fighter. The kind of Sister who could speak to people in dreams, see their futures, and change her eyes at will. She still wouldn’t tell me why her guards had lost their eyes and how they were all so connected.

“I do. I’m sorry. I’m tired today.” Then I asked her what I always asked her. “Can you see my future?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

I squeezed her hands in mine. I’d be leaving soon. I still wouldn’t know who the woman crying was or anything new from Daniella. But I did know something was quite different about my story than her own—my guards thought I was dead. Hers had known, even as they’d had to escape their own deaths to get to her, that she lived in the world.

As far as anyone knew, the possessed who’d knocked me onto the ground had killed me. They’d never find a body, but it wouldn’t matter. What other possibility could there be?

 

I coughed, trying to hold in the sound. Frank laughed at my efforts. Cooperman didn’t like to hear me cough. I was running a fever, but he didn’t care and hadn’t for days. We had appointments, and the possessed people with money weren’t concerned with how sick I was getting. The last few nights I’d not seen Daniella at all. I was really, truly alone.

Something banged loudly above my head, and I rolled over, deeper into the blanket. I didn’t know that sound, and lately, things that were unknown to me were terrifying. Fear had me burrow deeper into my one blanket as though it could protect me from the unknown.

I knew better, but I did it anyway.

Several more crashes sounded, and a scream. I shuddered. Something was wrong. Maybe the possessed had descended on the house. They were killing Cooperman and his sons. They’d come for me next. Or they wouldn’t. I’d starve to death in this cage.

The door to the basement swung open, and footsteps sounded down the dark stairs. Someone struck a match for some light. Being in the dark so much, it took me a long time to adjust to light, and sometimes I couldn’t. I closed my eyes against the soft glare. My powers came to life. I shuddered. I didn’t have the energy for whatever was going to happen.

“Annie? Shit, it is you. Hold on. Hold on.”

I recognized the voice and forced my lids open. It was … Garrett. He was at the side of my cage in a few seconds. His match went out, and we were both bathed in darkness.

My voice strained, but I managed to get out some words. “How are you here?”

“I’ll tell you all about that after I figure out how to get you out of here.” He picked up the lock. Cooperman and his sons had keys.

“You’ll have to get the key from one of the sons or the father. Cooperman.” My throat ached. I sank further into my blanket. “But you’ll want to get out of here before they catch you. They kill people.”

I’d seen them take out a person who’d refused to pay. It hadn’t been pretty.

He touched my arm through the bar. “They don’t anymore.” He turned from me for a second to shout up the stairs. “I need the keys off their belts. Annie is down here.”

“You’re supposed to be in the house that you own. That’s where you’ve been.”

Garrett squatted down. In the darkness I could see his hair had gotten longer; it grew past his ears. “What?”

It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to try to speak. This was a dream. Garrett wasn’t in the basement with me. It wasn’t possible.

Loud footsteps clamored down the steps, multiple pairs of them, and someone had a kerosene lamp. I closed my eyes, hating the fact that I couldn’t take the light.

“Anne?” It was Bryant’s voice and then Mason’s. Milo. Kieran. My name over and over and then words. More words than I’d heard in so long. Everything … hurt.

The cage opened, and hands pulled me out. Garrett held me against him first. They were all talking. It was too much; the world whited out to the nothingness of blurred edges and power. I was safe in my power. I didn’t have to do anything. I could just … be.

 

Wrapped in a blanket, I shivered violently. Blinking, I realized I had no idea where I was. Someone whose voice I didn’t know spoke in a clipped tone. “Very, very sick. Lucky you got her to me when you did. The infection should clear with the lavender leaves and the healing balm in the tea. It’s going to take weeks.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Bryant answered him. “We can’t thank you enough.”

Doctor? No, I didn’t want the doctor. I didn’t want him to bring over Cooperman. Why would he do that? What was going on?

“Shh.” A cold hand on my forehead. “Easy, Anne. You’re safe.”

I raised my eyes. “Milo?”

“Yes.” His gaze was kind, and he lay down next to me. “You have a bad flu. Coupled with some infections on yours arms and legs, you’re sick. But you’re going to get better.”

He opened up his arms, and I crawled into them. “Shh. It’s okay, love.” He kissed my forehead. “You’re okay.”

“Are you real?”

He rubbed my back gently. “Are you?”

“I’m not sure anymore.”

Milo moved me until my head was on his chest. “That’s my heartbeat. I’m real.”

“She okay?” Mason walked over to us. “She awake?”

My youngest guard nodded. “She’s sort of awake. She’s not sure I’m real.”

A strong hand touched my arm and squeezed. “This is real. You’re safe.”

I appreciated Mason saying so, but I knew better. “There’s no such thing.”

I closed my eyes. The nothingness of the power. That’s what I needed. Blurred edges.

 

Over my head, the fates flew … watching, always watching me.

 

I opened my eyes. There was no sun in the room, but a fire burned in a fireplace nearby. My eyes still hurt, although less so. Kieran hummed softly in my ear. I lay on my side with his arm around me. I’d pressed my head against his neck. That couldn’t be comfortable for him. I pulled back slightly.

“Hey.” He grinned at me. His streaked hair had been cut so short it no longer fell into his eyes.

“Kieran?”

He propped himself up on his elbow. “You know me? We’re not sure if you are always recognizing us right now. Doctor says it’s the fever.”

“What doctor?” I pulled back even further. If they’d brought Cooperman to wherever this was, I had to get out. I’d run. They couldn’t understand.

“Hey, hey.” He tugged me gently back to him. “The doctor in the town here. I think his name was Hendricks. He seemed okay. What’s the matter?”

“Oh.” I tried to breathe. “Okay. I … I can’t really explain it.” He’d never understand. “Are you really here?”

He kissed my burned hand. “I’m here. I’m real. I’m so sorry, Anne. We’re so sorry. I can’t really explain to you … I couldn’t wake up. I wanted to.”

“Are you talking about the last night on the train? There was magic involved. You couldn’t have woken up. Don’t be sorry.”

Kieran stroked my hair. “I am sorry. I’ll always be sorry. I wanted to help you. I failed. Then you were … gone and we couldn’t find you for so long.”

“I’ve been really cold.” I didn’t want to talk about apologies. “I’m always going to be now. Too many demons, too much sadness. I think I might be dying.”

He shook his head. “Not dying, my sweet love. We’ve learned some things. Garrett is like a machine. He has found every piece of information on the Sisterhood he could, and we’ve learned. You need things you haven’t been getting. You’re going to have what you need to thrive.”

“Kieran.” Bryant strode into the room. He rubbed his eyes. Wherever he’d come from, he’d been asleep. “Is she awake?”

He didn’t wait for Kieran to answer but scooted in next to me. I was sandwiched between them. Bryant kissed the back of my head. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? What do you need?”

“She’s not one hundred percent coherent yet.” Kieran kissed my forehead. “But she’s getting there. She’s cold on the inside, doesn’t think she can get warm. I’ve promised her she will and that she’s not dying.”

Bryant’s hand squeezed my hip. “I’m so sorry, my love.”

“No apologies. If this is real and not some cruel joke of my mind, then you came for me. You shouldn’t have. You had the letter. You were supposed to go on with your lives. I kept thinking you were doing things. Kieran, I never asked you what your dream was. I need to know so I can think about it before bed. It’s not a bar, right? Now that I’m here with you, it can’t really be a bar.”

“Kieran did you want to own a bar?” Bryant adjusted behind me, maybe making himself more comfortable but effectively cutting off my babble.

“No.” Kieran kissed my mouth, not gently but with a force that made me sigh. “But I would if you want me to, Anne. My dream? At this point, it’s to get you healthy and warm. Any other dreams I ever had have faded.”

That wasn’t the answer I needed. “What am I supposed to think about before bed if I don’t know?”

Bryant squeezed my hip again. “Don’t think about anything. It’s quiet here. The fire is lit. You’re back with us. When the fever lifts, you’ll be sure of it. You’ve been getting your medicine, although I doubt you remember. You’re going to be fine.”

I listened to him. But he was wrong. I wasn’t going to be fine because in my dreams the possessed came. Over and over. They needed me. They needed me. And I’d never be enough.

When I woke up again, the fire in the room was out. I hadn’t moved. Kieran’s eyes were closed, and he made the slightest noise from his mouth every time he breathed. Bryant’s arm was still around me where it had been when he’d talked me into going back to sleep. My throat hurt, but I knew I was better. My body ached everywhere, yet the overall feeling of not knowing what was going on had fled.

A sound on the other side of the room caught my attention, and I looked over to see Mason getting off the floor. He grinned at me before he touched my foot, giving it a squeeze. I grinned back, which he must have liked because his smile broadened.

He’d tamed his hair back into braids, small ones that ran from the tip of his forehead down to where his hair ended.

“You changed your hair.” My voice was barely a squeak. I cleared my throat, and Kieran’s eyes flew open.

He looked around, blinking wildly before his gaze landed on Mason. “Did you wake her up?”

“No.” Mason shrugged. “She woke up. I came over.”

Kieran put a hand on my forehead. “She’s cool. Finally. And drenched in sweat.”

Suddenly, how gross it must be for him to hold me dawned on me. “I’m so sorry. I’ll move. And …”

Bryant tugged me tighter. “Don’t you dare move.”

Milo appeared in the doorway. “Garrett is cooking. Hiya, Anne. Nice to see your eyes open and clear. Come on down. There’s bacon.”

My stomach turned at the thought. “I’m not sure I can stomach it. I haven’t had more than broth and potatoes for so long.”

“Baby steps.” Bryant kissed my neck. “Milo, tell Garrett Anne will be down to eat with us when she’s ready.”

I needed a shower.

Mason followed me into the bathroom. I thought about objecting, but the truth was I didn’t know for certain I wouldn’t fall on my face. The room was spacious, as the bedroom had been. The walls were painted beige, and the sheets on the bed had been laundered, and not itchy. The bathroom had white towels folded neatly on shelves.

“Where are we?” I turned to Mason while he turned on the water.

“A place about an hour north of where you were. We rented it when we pinpointed you to somewhere in the area. We have it for a month. Then we’ll figure out what to do. The owner is visiting her family south of here.”

They’d rented a house. The act seemed so … strange to me. “Mason, how long was I gone?”

“Too long.” He pulled me to him, kissing my nose. I loved the affection, and I’d never say no, but he hadn’t answered my question.

“More specific, please.”

He sighed. With his arms around me, I could feel he’d grown, broadened with his time away from me. He was more muscular than I’d ever known him. “Little over a year, Anne.”

“A year.” I couldn’t fathom it. “How could it have been so long? The days, they’re like one giant day, and the nights …”

He kissed my cheek. “How did he hurt you? I mean, we have all seen your burned hand.”

“I tried to escape; it was my punishment.”

Cooperman sticking my hand against the hot, metal brand. I’d always have the letter C on it now …

Mason pressed his mouth to the top of my hair. “What else?”

“Sometimes they beat me. But I was worth too much money. I was hungry a lot and obviously getting sick. Other than that, nothing.”

His arms tightened around me. “Nothing else?”

“That’s not enough?” It was a funny question. What was he getting at?

“Plenty.”

A thought dawned on me. “This might be hugely inappropriate. I’m still sick and probably not up to anything at all. So maybe it won’t be interesting. But would you like to get in with me? I just …”

I wanted Mason with me. I didn’t know how else to explain it.

He took off his shirt. “Yep. Can’t think of anything I’d like more.”