| |
Moxie stood looking out the window of her room. Memories of her time with Rose and Ellie replaying on a loop. They spent several hours telling her their story. Acceptance was the last thing she was looking for and something she never expected to find. Once they decided that she understood the warning imparted, they accepted her into their small click.
Should she be honored or scared? Evil was coming for them; it was coming for her, too. There was an understanding a bond they all shared that the only way out was through. The road ahead wasn’t going to be easy, and the only other way out was a road paved with the souls of the innocent. She didn’t want to take that walk.
Her eyes closed, knowing she couldn’t run forever. Her name was whispered with the honeysuckle scent of a spring day. The voice promised gifts unimaginable until it cut across her mind with a sharp blade. She didn’t bleed. Instead, she was infested with memories of her past where she had been made to perform for the master. It was sexual, it was murderous, it was her life.
“You hide as if I won’t find you.”
Facing one’s past may be the thing to do, but it wasn’t what she wanted to do.
“You can’t reach me where I’m at.” She was relatively sure of that. The barrier around this land wasn’t going to let him in. Although wards didn’t last forever, she hoped to be dead by the time they failed.
“You forget whom you address. There will be no escape for you. Those who help you will face my wrath and slow death. Leave now, and I may be persuaded to ignore them.”
Right, and she was a fool on top of everything else.
“I will not kneel at your feet or come to your bed again. You will never get the chance to humiliate me or beat me. I’d rather die. You have nothing to hold over my head for my obedience.” She was free. It was the first time she ever allowed herself to think about freedom in a way that said she was living it. He had nothing to call her back to, nothing to threaten.
If she died, she would die free. If she died fighting him, then her life would mean something. Maybe she would save one person from the hell of being owned by him. The irony of being a slave in what was supposed to be a free land hadn’t escaped her. Cruelty and injustice didn’t go away. It simply took on a new modern face, but underneath it wore the same skin.
“Not only will you come back, but you will beg for my favor. I will not give it to you. Everything you loved or thought you loved will be stripped away. When you are vulnerable, that’s when I will end your physical life so your next life of misery as my slave will begin. I own you.”
“No, you want to own me. There’s a difference there.” She did what she wanted to do years ago. The door he used to talk to her closed, and she bricked it up using mortar that only a mind could make. When it was done, she walked away, never looking back.
––––––––
“MOXIE?” SHE TURNED around to find Rada looking at her.
“Sorry, I was in my head. Have you been calling my name for long?”
“A couple of minutes.”
She was glad he didn’t touch her; there was no telling what the demon could sense.
“Can we sit?” her hand pulled at the short curls around her ears.
Rada moved to the couch, taking a seat while Moxie sat in the armchair. She wanted to sit next to him. That had happened only once in her life, and she paid a price worse than death for giving in to that desire.
“You’ve been strangely honest with me by showing me the beast that lives within you.”
“The beast does not live within me. I live within it.”
She nodded slowly as if she was gaining understanding with every slow move of her head.
“I want you to know what you’re getting by keeping me here.” She told him about her dad and her mother before she broached the subject of the demon. “I’m running, but I think you know that.”
He never moved. It was making her nervous, but she owed him the truth. Something she hadn’t had the nerve to tell Rose or Ellie when they spoke of their past.
“Master, he beat me if I called him anything else, is a demon. Not a demon as we know the word. We, meaning humans, I expect there are demons and hell but not as cruel as he is. I only know that because he showed me his plane once. He was showing off telling me how one day I would be made to live there after I slipped my mortal coil and sold my soul to him.” She shivered, hugging herself in a bid for warmth.
The memories of what she had seen that day still plagued her, people who screamed without sound, the agony that infected her body. She could feel the pain of others, not just physical, but mental and spiritual. That’s the day she realized that hell was not fire and brimstone.
“My father was an assassin, and he trained me in the family business. Even after we were moved and watched, he continued to train me. By the time I was six, I could take apart and clean a shotgun. At seven, I had perfect aim with a pistol. At ten, I could not only hold a shotgun but take the kickback. Some might call me a prodigy, but he called me daughter. When I was fifteen, something happened.”
Thinking about that time in her life still made her nauseous. Goosebumps rose on her arms, and she wanted to rip her skin off with her nails. She jumped up and walked across the room to the mini-fridge getting a small bottle of water. Vodka would be better, but she never drank. ‘A tipsy assassin was a dead assassin.” Her father's voice replayed.
She guzzled the water before crushing the bottle and throwing it away.
“I was given my first kill order. He was a boy about five or six years older than me. Master was clear, he died, or my father died. How do you pick between two lives?” She still didn’t know the answer. The boy worked for master the same way her father did, the way she did. What had the boy done that was worthy of death? She didn’t know the answer to that either.
The one thing she had been convinced of by the end was that the boy wanted to die.
“Last chance, Jonas, you know what you have to do to live.” The boy spit on the master’s shoes. He signed his own death certificate.
“Moxie, kill him now, or you all die.”
She pulled the trigger, but her shot was off.
“I didn’t want to kill people.” Her voice was small as the hidden child came out. “I pulled that trigger, but I knew the bullet wouldn’t kill him. I also knew that my dad would be killed for my mistake.” Her dad had known also.
Time seemed to slow down seconds became nanoseconds as she watched the bullet move through the air, changing its path with inestimable slowness. There was a place inside of her that cried out that she couldn’t lose another parent. He could leave her here alone. She reached out, grabbed the bullet changing its course enough to become the headshot she was going for. ‘Never make them suffer if you don’t have to.’ Words of wisdom from her father.
“I don’t know what happened, but that bullet changed course, and the hit was perfect.” If you could call stealing someone’s life perfect. “I do know after that incident I became the master's favorite. He raped me the first time on my sixteenth birthday. I guess I should be happy he waited that long.”
Who was she fooling? He was never going to stop searching for her. He would own her one-day body and soul. That plane of hell would become her home.
“Come with me.” He waited until she stood before going to the door.
When they walked outside, Moxie was surprised. Was he kicking her out? She stayed silent as she followed him down the stairs and through the town until they got to a section that was nothing but thick trees. Silently they walked through them until they got to a cave. He took her in, stopping to take her hand before guiding her.
They stopped in a cavern with all sorts of crystals reflecting off the surface. It brightened the room, making her think of the purity of the sun.
“This way.” They followed a path further into the cave where it got darker, until they stepped into a much smaller cavern. She went to move closer, but he stopped her.
The wards were invisible but flared to life when the hem of her shirt touched it. There was also something behind the wards. It came closer, causing her to back up. It was a demon.
“This is the demon you heard. The one who thought to talk to me like he knew me.”
“I know you. I created you; I twisted and turned you to fit my needs. You’re a cold-blooded killer because I made you into one.” He swung his head to glare at Moxie. “I won’t let this bit of fluff who thinks she’s special mess with what belongs to me. Do you think that you’ll find the same salvation as your brother?” He laughed. It was a hard sound that split several of the crystals in the small cavern in half.
“There is no escape for you. Your soul is mine, and I will collect. You.” His eyes swung to Moxie the word coming out as a slivering hiss that crawled up Moxie’s back like a nest of fire ants burning her along the way. “When I am free, I’ll return you to your master and delight in watching him tear you apart.” He settled back his eyes on Rada.
Moxie grabbed Rada by the arm. He seemed to be rooted in place, staring at the demon. She threw herself at his chest rocking him enough to break eye contact. Then she dragged him out, thankful that he chose to follow her.
“Rada.” He shook his head.
“It seems I am owned by a demon. This is not a good place for you.”
“Strangely enough, I would have agreed with you fifteen minutes ago.” She walked out of the cave, not waiting for him.
When he caught up with her, she stopped and took a deep breath.
“Roughly nine years ago, I met someone I wanted to get to know better. I had a night and a day with him. Then I walked away, never looking back. I knew if I spent any more time with him, he was a dead man. I haven’t met another male I wanted to get to know until I met you.”
She started walking back to the house. When they got there, she took a seat on the top step.
“You’re arrogant and rude.” His chest puffed up like she was giving him a compliment. She kind of was. She didn’t see him the same way she did a few days ago. “I was forced to leave this other person behind by a demon for his safety. You know, and understand, you can fight, and although it makes no sense, I would like to get to know you.”
“You want to stay?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll cook for you.”
She frowned at him even as her heart burst with pleasant sensations. Rada didn’t have a love language or even an I might like you language. All he knew was what his brother did, and his brother cooked. Staying here might be worth it, after all.