Beyond (20 page)

The pit
.

This is where he breaks you
.

Billy Hughes knows that better than me.

“How long have you been here?” I asked, after he told me his name.

“Don’t know. What month is it?”

“January. The thirtieth.”

“Still January? Last day I remember was the tenth.”

Nearly three weeks for Billy. But not always down here.

“What’s up there?” I asked.

He went silent for so long then, I didn’t think he was going to answer. The eerie blue light made him look frozen and half dead.

“Bad place,” he mumbled finally. “Bad things.”

It took a while getting it out of him. This cell is hidden under the floor of a small house. The trappers’ hut.

I made him describe it to me, down to the smallest detail he could remember, so I could build a mental image of the layout. Where the door is, the boarded-up
windows. There’s a woodstove, a table, a long workbench with all kinds of tools.

I kept him talking for a while. It seemed to calm him a bit, and helped keep my own panic from swallowing me up.

Billy Hughes is from Mill Valley, farm country in the interior, a long way from Edgewood. He’s thirteen. Same age Leo Gage was when he was taken.

“How did you end up here?” I asked. He stayed quiet on me a long moment. “You don’t have to say if you don’t want.”

“I should’ve run,” he whispered. “I would’ve, but the bird stopped me.”

Billy was walking home from the grocery store on a back road in the valley when a truck drove past him. He was just a half mile from his family’s farm. The truck went over a hill and out of sight. When Billy got to the top of the hill he saw that the truck had pulled over to the side. There was a tall bald man in a strange uniform standing beside it, looking up into the trees. “Lost my bird,” he said. “He’s big and black. You seen him?”

Billy just shook his head and kept on going. Then he spotted it, hopping out from the underbrush onto the road straight ahead. A crow, dragging one wing in the dirt.

“That him?” Billy called back to the man.

“Yeah, that’s Blackjack,” he said. “Looks like he’s hurt. Don’t let him get away.” The bird kept hopping, toward the far side of the road, so Billy rushed to cut him off. The crow stopped right at Billy’s feet, one wing hanging limp.

“Don’t scare him off,” the man told him. “Don’t move. Does it look like his wing’s broken?”

Billy was staring down at the bird when the man reached him.

“Then it was like I got hit by lightning,” he said. “I saw a big flash. Felt like burning under my skin. And … I woke up here. But it wasn’t lightning. He’s got an electric gun.”

“I know. It’s a stun gun. That’s how he got me too.”

Lexi was right. Starks uses the crow as a lure. The Amazing Blackjack knows a lot of tricks.

“What’s with this blue light?”

“He says it’s a special kind of light—ultraviolet. It kills germs. He likes things clean.”

That explains why it stinks of ammonia in here.

Billy quit talking after that. Now he’s just crouched under the hatch. I won’t press him to tell me what’s happened to him since he got caught—really don’t want to know. His own
MISSING
poster must be buried somewhere in Dad’s task force files, with all the other lost kids and runaways.

I hug my knees to my chest, trying to conserve body heat.

If it was just me alone in here I’d be freaking out of my mind by now. I don’t know, maybe it’s being a cop’s daughter, but I feel like I have to step up and take charge for both of us. So I tell him what must be my worst lie ever.

“Hey, Billy. We’ll get out of this. Just hang in there.”

“I’m never getting out,” Billy mumbles. “Gonna die here.”

Then he retreats to his end of the pit.

My turn to go silent. I’m trying to believe my own lie. There’s got to be some kind of chance. Look at how many times I’ve cheated death. The odds were always against me. Like Lexi says, I’m the girl with nine lives. So maybe I’ve got one more life in me. Have to fight for it.

I run through all the self-defense moves Dad ever taught me. Eye gouges, throat chops, head butts, kicks, bites, punches, elbows and knees. Whatever it takes to survive, he said. I remember the moves, but that was all so easy back in the community center, practicing on a man-shaped dummy that didn’t fight back. Starks is more than a foot taller than me, with a longer reach and a stun gun. I don’t have anything to use as a weapon—no keys, pen or nail file. All I’ve got is me.

My breath shudders out, and I have to swallow back the sobbing rising in my chest. What did Dad tell me?
Don’t let fear freeze you
. I’m trying, but it’s so hard.

Do something! I yell at myself. Whatever it takes.

So I find a rough patch on the floor and start scraping my fingernails on it. I want them ragged. I need sharp claws for scratching.

Nails, teeth and knuckles. The only weapons I’ve got.

I can feel Leo nearby, watching. Waiting.

Huddled in my corner, I try to plan. Visualizing the room above me, I play out an attack in my head. No way I’d make it to the door with him still standing. Go for the workbench, the tools. Grab something. But any way I play it, I end up dead.

I can smell the fear in my cold sweat.

I test my new claws against my palms. Jagged and sharp.

Whatever it takes.

If Dad could see me now. I’ve really become the Bulldog’s daughter.

A distant thud breaks the silence. Billy whimpers. I hold my breath, listening. Leaning on the cement wall, I feel vibrations.

Footsteps!

What do I do? What do I do?

More steps. Coming closer.

He’s there! Standing above me.

Metal clashes against metal, deafening inside the cramped space. Sounds like—unlocking!

I lie back down, just how I was when I came to. How he left me.

Shaking inside, I force myself to keep still.

Whatever happens, don’t move.

Play dead!

The hatch squeals open.

Through my closed eyelids I can see the brightening, smell fresh air.

“Get up!” Starks says.

I stay still. Breathing slow. Swallowing back a scream.

“Move!”

Shivering deep inside. Don’t let it show.

Hands grab my ankles near the opening, dragging me out. I fight the instinct to kick and struggle, going limp as I’m pulled up and out of the pit. The back of my head hits the edge.

I don’t flinch. Not showing it. Keeping my eyes shut.

He lets my legs fall to the floor.

“This can be quick and painless.” Starks stands over me. “Or not. Up to you.”

Sounds like Leo—
I tried to make it quick, painless
. This is where he learned that. I can feel him close by.

I want to scream. Run. But no—

Stay limp. Don’t move. Not yet.

There’s a loud screech somewhere to my left. Blackjack.

The crow’s over where the bench should be, if I’ve got my directions right.

Grab a tool. Anything.

“Get up!”

He kicks me in the ribs. I grunt, but keep still. Eyes shut.

Wait. Don’t move.

“You got a little taste of what my stunner can do. It’ll knock you out, or I can make it last longer. Till you wish you were dead.”

A fist locks onto my right wrist, dragging me across the floor.

“You’re gonna talk.” His voice is ice cold. “Tell me what you know.”

I struggle not to flinch. Not to pull away.

Wait! Not yet!

He lets go. I can feel him bending over me. His hands gripping under my arms, lifting me.

Not yet.

He’s up close. His stale coffee breath in my face.

Now!

My eyes fly open. I swing my arms up and go for his face. Scratching wildly. Digging my claws in and raking down before he can block me.

Starks shoves me away. I stumble back and hit something hard with my tailbone.

The crow’s shrieking. The room’s spinning on me.

I whip my head around, trying to find— Behind me, the bench! I lunge for the nearest thing. A hammer. Grabbing it, I spin back.

He’s coming! Blood trailing from his cheek and forehead. I raise the hammer to strike. Starks rushes me, his arm up to block. I swing, jumping to the side at the last second.

The hammer bangs off his skull as he crashes me into the bench. I fall to my knees, sliding away from under him. Still got the hammer. I stagger to my feet, turning to face him.

Too late!

He’s on me, taking me down. The back of my head bounces off the floor. I try to move, but he pins me.

Feels like my skull’s split apart. Can’t see straight.

His bald head hangs above me. Those black eyes—black holes—lock onto mine.

He’s dripping on me. The blood runs from deep cuts on his face and from where the hammer gouged a chunk of flesh from behind his ear.

My head rolls to the side, my vision spinning. I see black wings in the air. The crow’s screeching. There’s a table. A stove. A door on the far side of the hut. And a head sticking up from a hole in the floor.

Run, kid!

Starks presses his knee into my chest, holding me still as he rips something out of his pocket. I try to raise my head, but he snags my hair and yanks it down.

What’s that he’s got?

I catch the lightning flash a split second before he hits me with it.

The jolt tears through me. White-hot spikes. My whole body spasms, seizing up. Breathless.

Shaking wildly, I nearly throw him off me. For a moment the stun gun breaks contact. I suck in a gasp of air. My arms and legs jump and twitch.

Starks sits on my chest, trapping my shoulders down with his knees. He holds the gun in front of my eyes, finger on the trigger, the jagged electric charge sizzling.

I beg silently, Let me black out, go numb.

Let go
, says Leo’s voice in my head.
Give up
.

My ghost is so close. Almost touching me.

Let go
.

Then Starks jams the gun under my jaw. My body convulses. Lightning flaring behind my eyes.

I let my last breath out in a ragged scream. Screaming inside: Stop! Stop! Help me!

Begging for an end.

Help me!

Then I feel him, my ghost. His touch. Crawling inside me now.

Starks keeps on shocking me. But it’s so far away—my pain, my panic, my body.

Every part of me is shaking violently.

Everything but my shadow. I watch as it stretches out from my shuddering left hand. Flowing through the air, the five-fingered shadow reaches out for Starks.

The dark hand presses up against his chest. Starks glances down and tries to brush it off.

His confused look turns to shock as those shadow fingers dig in, passing through his jacket. Sinking deeper till the dark hand is buried wrist-deep in him.

Starks’s face goes rigid and he tries to pull away. But it won’t let go.

I can just barely feel that hand moving inside him, as if it’s an extension of me. Like an extra limb I never knew I had.

Starks drops the stun gun, breaking the current. He grabs at the black wrist growing out of his chest that stretches from me to him.

The crow’s shrieking now, swooping low. I feel the rush of its wings as it passes near.

Those shadow fingers are searching inside Starks. The hand cups around something that throbs in its grasp. His heart.

The ranger claws at his chest.

Leo’s voice rises up in my head, a scream of pain and rage only I can hear.

My shadow’s hand closes in a fist. Squeezing tight!

Starks goes stiff on top of me, back arching, neck straining. Dark eyes bulging. His face clenches in agony as he shrieks.

The noise is deafening inside me and out, with the crow screeching too, as if it’s being torn apart.

Starks drops off me, hitting the floor with a thud as my shadow crushes his lifeless heart in its grasp.

Then, silence. Only my ragged breathing.

Random twitches and electric shivers run through me. But I can’t make myself move. Not an inch. My head is rolled to one side. I’m staring straight at Starks. At those dead eyes.

Finally, that dark arm connecting us pulls out from his chest. It drifts away from me like smoke.

Something else comes into view. Billy stands stunned and wide-eyed, holding the crow in his hands. The bird is limp, its neck bent back at an impossible angle.

As I’m looking up at Billy, I see him turn red. But not just him. Everything’s going red on me.

“You’re bleeding,” he says. “From your eyes.”

I’m fading fast.

I see two kids watching me now. One dark, one light. Leo and Billy. Dead and alive.

The dead one has the last word.

Now you’re mine
.