Pretty Faces and Dark Places (7 page)

My throat felt as if it was burning from the inside out, just like the rest of my body. My nudeness in front of too many strangers to even count or see brought tears to my eyes. My tears stung and hurt, but the feel of them over the wounds on my cheeks and chin was strangely welcomed, because it eased the pain I was feeling in them just a bit.

The fear of being raped consumed my every sense. I had no idea what they were going to do to me, had no idea why they were tying me up this way, had no idea if they were some psychos that would get off on seeing me being tortured to death, or what.

And in that moment, death didn’t sound like a very bad thought. I found myself wishing for it to come and hug me so I would feel no more pain.

I felt a hand on my cheek, so tender and gentle that I think my head leaned a bit into it. The hand wiped away my tears ever so softly, and then I heard it, a whisper that was even tenderer than butterfly wings, “Hush now, Beautiful Angel.”

A soft gasp left my mouth. “Andrew?” I asked, eyes still too heavy to fully open, head still pounding too hard to be able to move it, and voice is almost too low to be heard.

“Yes, Angel, it’s me,” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Andrew, please help me,” I begged. The questions I had about him and about what had brought me here, or all of the things I’d wondered about for the past year, were completely forgotten. All I could think of now was for him to just get me out of there and back to the comfort of my house.

“I
am
helping you, Love,” he said, to which I frowned. He couldn’t be serious. I was in so much pain, I was tied up, I couldn’t move, I was naked and I was bleeding from all over my body – how could he say that he was helping? “It’ll end soon.”

“Andrew, please, please!” I cried and pulled at my restraints. All of my attempts to free them were fruitless, only managing to make my body heavier and the wounds all over my skin to sting badly.

More tears came out of my eyes and more screams and begs came out of my mouth as I felt Andrew no longer beside me. The thought that maybe he could be the one who’d brought me here and was the reason why I was facing all of this made my stomach twist and turn.

It felt as if hours and hours passed as I stayed in this position. I was no longer screaming, no longer asking for help, no longer struggling against my restraints, but I couldn’t stop crying.

My vision become a bit better as the time passed, still slightly blurry, but I could see things more clearly than before. It felt like there was a thick fog of smoke all around the large room, a room that was completely empty aside from the chairs that surrounded the wide space in the middle of the room where the cross I was tied to was. It brought the full attention to it by being centered this way.

Where I am? What’s going to happen to me?
The questions kept roaming in my head.

A while later, a great door opened right in front of me, and then I saw people entering the room, many people. All of their eyes were on me as they took a seat here and there on the chairs that were placed around the room.

I was completely humiliated and terrified, feeling like this was some kind of a live show for them just by the look in their eyes and smiles on their faces. I even thought it wouldn’t be a shocker if they started passing around popcorn.

What shocked me the most was seeing Sophie entering, followed by William. Her face was blank, no emotions showing on it at all. I thought she wouldn’t like seeing me this way. I thought she’d try to help. But – she didn’t do anything. She just took her seat and sat down, watching me closely just like the rest. This alone made me wonder if it was really Sophie whom I was looking at and not just her clone, because I knew Sophie would never allow this to happen to me.

Still, I tried, because I was
that
desperate. “Sophie?” I called with the tears causing my voice to shake. “Sophie, please help me!”

“Andrew?” a voice called, and I turned my head to look at the source, a woman in her late 40s. The seat she took was a bit different from the rest, making her stand out, though her clothes that were sparkling in the fogged room were enough to make her look as if she was a lot higher than the rest, if you know what I mean.

“She was her best friend during her human life, Mother,” Andrew replied.

Mother?

Human life?

What did that even mean?

It was only then that I noticed that every single one of them had black wings. The same as the wings I’d seen on Andrew’s back in my dreams.

My eyes widened as I stared at them, shock consuming me. I had no idea if I was dreaming, having a very bad nightmare, or if I’d simply gone insane and started imagining things.

I didn’t get the chance to wonder for long, because once everyone was seated and the great door was closed, Andrew brought an iron collar and put it around my neck. I struggled a lot, but all of my efforts did me no good, not helping me at all. I even begged him, but he only smiled and patted my cheek tenderly.

I disliked his tenderness so much.

“Andrew! Please! What are you doing?” came my terrified voice.

He didn’t reply, only focused on the task at hand.

After he was finished securing the cold collar around my neck, he then attached chains to it and pulled, causing me to lean my top half down. If it wasn’t for the chains around my stomach, I would’ve fallen, but instead I stayed in this position when he tied the chains to a nail in the floor.

My arms were behind me, still tied but keeping me standing. The whole of my back was exposed, and looking at the people – or whomever these creatures were – became so difficult that eventually I just stared at the floor beneath me.

My tears fell from my eyes to the floor, my arms aching and my legs hurting. The restraints around me were making me almost unable to breathe, and everything was just too much, everything was pain and darkness, everything was wrong.

The next thing I knew, there was a loud noise that sounded like rocks moving, similar to the sound you’d hear when you push marble pieces on the floor. And suddenly light filled the room that had only been dimly lit before, and the fog disappeared.

I tried moving my head to the side, looking at the source of the faint light, but I couldn’t see. Not long after those noises, I heard the disgusting rackets that only bats make, sounds like screams and squeaks, and it made my terrified heart beat even faster.

I couldn’t see much, but the shock was preventing me from screaming as I listened to the noises as they neared me. When I felt a hard pinch on my back, I screamed with all of my might.

The pinch turned to two, then three, and then there were so many that I lost count. I felt the bats –or whatever those tiny creatures were that were making the noises – biting at my skin, pricking it and maybe even removing some of my skin.

All of the bites were mostly between my shoulder blades and the top of my back, but some other bites were around my back and some were on my arms.

I felt the wounds that the bites had caused start bleeding, and the warm liquid of my blood seeped out to stain the floor under my feet. By then, my screams were almost louder than the noises the bats were making. I was in so much pain and I knew I was going to pass out very soon because I wouldn’t be able to bear it anymore.

The bites on my shoulders and upper back were the most agonizing ones. As crazy as it sounded, I wanted them to bite more on my arms if it meant they would leave that area.

“Andrew, please,” my plea was nothing but the whisper of an exhausted body and an almost lost voice. I started thinking that this would be my way to go, that I would be tortured with those bites, bleed out the last drop of my blood, and then just die like that.

“It’ll be over soon, My Soul, you’re doing great,” Andrew’s tone was comforting on its own, but I couldn’t be comforted whatsoever. I still couldn’t help the ray of hope that entered my heart, because I simply just wanted to believe him, even without not knowing what ‘Over’ meant – if it was about the bites or about my death.

True to his words, the creatures I chose to call bats started slowing their bites on my back, one by one. Their noises grew quieter, and then there were no more new pinches that I could feel.

The noise like marble moving sounded again, and the room started to darken just like it had been before. I heard the great door being opened, followed by the sounds of the ones who were watching as they left the room.

I felt hands fumbling with my restraints, freeing then one by one, starting by my feet and then up to the chains around my stomach. My body was heavier than I could explain and I knew that once my hands were released, I would fall face first to the floor.

But that didn’t happen, because right before I fell to the floor Andrew caught me in his arms, and though falling into his arms was better than falling to the floor, it still hurt for my skin to be touched in any way. Everywhere hurt so badly.

I felt cloth being wrapped around my body and when I opened my eyes, I could see with my blurry version as Andrew lifted me up, carrying me bridal style and walking us to where I didn’t know.

His green eyes were soft, and his beautiful features were calm. He smiled down at me as he said with his deep voice, “Welcome to my world, Angel.”

For the past year, every day I woke up, it was a struggle to get out of bed. It was never easy for me when almost every morning I reached for my phone to call Sophie, only to remember she wasn’t there to answer.

It was what I’d always done whenever I woke up and she wasn’t sleeping over at my place. And when I woke up and didn’t find her all of those times over the past year, my first thought was to call her. And it was even more painful when I realized why she
wasn’t
sleeping over.

This time when I woke up, I had the hope that everything I’d witnessed before I went to sleep – passed out or whatever – everything that’d happened was nothing but a stupid nightmare I’d had because it was the first Halloween I’d spent without Sophie, or because I’d lost her on the same day. But I knew it was only a hope, I knew that everything I’d seen was real – because the pain in my back made me certain of it.

I groaned as I moved my hand up to rub my eyes, my arms aching and my eyes burning. I was sweating and breathing wasn’t the easiest thing to do.

When I opened my eyes, I was met by the same shade of bright green I’d seen right before I was knocked off: Andrew’s eyes.

“Welcome, Beautiful Angel,” Andrew smiled.

Welcome?

“Where am I?” I asked with a gruff voice, my throat burning from all of the screaming, I guess.

“You’re home, where you belong,” he replied.

Home?

What is he talking about?

I tried lifting my head up to look around me, but it took a hell of a lot of effort. When I tried turning just a bit onto my back, I cried out in agony.

“There, there, try not to move, you still need time to recover,” Andrew told me.

“Recover from what? Where am I? What happened to me?” I asked with tears falling from my eyes.

“Relax now, Angel,” he said, “Just one more hour.”

Hour?

“Why do you keep calling her that nauseating name?” I heard a woman’s voice asking from behind me; her tone sounded disgusted.

“It’s a long story, Mother,” Andrew replied with a kind voice. I realized it was the same woman that had been sitting on that chair on a higher point than the rest. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Good!” the woman said. “The bones are forming well, better than most would in just three hours. I think she’ll be well very soon and good to start with forming feathers by the start of a new hour.”

“Ah! That’s great to hear!” Andrew said cheerfully, “I can’t wait!” He smiled down at me with so much tenderness and happiness in his eyes. I don’t think I liked it.

I was seriously confused, aching and hungry. My body was heavy and my mind wasn’t thinking right. I wanted answers, I wanted to feel better, and I wanted to go home. I was so scared. Yet, all I could do was just stay there, lying on my side, afraid and waiting for what I didn’t know.

I watched the woman whom I now knew to be Andrew’s mother leave the room. She was dressed in some kind of black dress that was backless, but the dress didn’t get my attention so much as what was on her back. There were wings.

I swallowed thickly, wondering if my mind was playing tricks on me. I got more confused and maybe even terrified when I saw Andrew follow her outside; he was only wearing jeans and the same huge, black wings I’d seen in my dreams of him.

Was that even real?

A minute or two later, Andrew came back into the room, a glass of water in his hand. And it was only then that I realized how thirsty I really was.

“You must be thirsty,” he said, sitting by the side of the bed.  He brought the glass near me, the straw inside it just an inch away from my lips.

I wanted to drink it so badly, but I didn’t know if it was a good idea to just sip it so easily. It could be poisoned for all I knew, but then I thought that even if it was, being poisoned wouldn’t feel as bad I was feeling now. For him to actually poison me didn’t sound like something Andrew would do, and I didn’t even know where I got that realization from; after all – he’d witnessed what I went through with smiling eyes and didn’t offer me any kind of help.