XXIV

Odette held in her gasp, her eyes flashing over to the front door. She couldn’t see anything but she knew she wasn’t alone. It was never just the wind. They must have been in a blind spot.

“Hello?” the person called out. “I saw you run inside here … I’m not a cop or anything like that but are you in trouble?”

Odette didn’t know if she should respond or not. This could have been a trick by Grayson but he didn’t seem like he was in his right mind to be tricking anyone.

Please, go away, she begged.

The male walked forward, the sound of his shoes echoing throughout the room. Each tap was like a gunshot and Odette couldn’t help but flinch the closer he got to her.

Why won’t he just leave already?! Odette squeezed her eyes shut, not seeing anything helped her feel more hidden. Is he going to search the whole church?

“I promise that I don’t mean you any harm,” the guy continued. He was probably nearing the front two pews at that point. “I just thought that you looked like someone who needed help.”

The scuffing of his shoes on the steps leading up to the altar made Odette’s heart lurch. She could see his feet from where she was curled up, his shadow marring the cloth. Odette scrambled back as he lifted her last line of defense, tearing the altar cloth away. She yelped, cowering in front of him. The man was crouched down low, so he could see her hiding beneath it, and she didn’t know if she should be frightened or relieved that the man looked nothing like Grayson.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” the man asked, his eyes darting all over her ripped, blood-covered nightgown. He was horrified by her, scooting back an inch in case she were to lash out.

“M-most of it is-isn’t mine,” Odette stammered. She looked behind him. If he saw another man cornering her …. It made her ill just thinking about it.

“Do you need a hospital? The police? Can you call your parents?” He held out his hand to her, which she took with great caution. She didn’t want this innocent man to be Grayson’s next victim; she needed to get away from him.

She tore her hand away from his and put some distance between them. She needed a new hiding place, this man had ruined hers. If Grayson was nearby, he would see the open doors of the church and hear their voices.

If I have to, I’ll duck behind one of these pews, Odette thought. And then I’ll make a break for the door.

Odette realized that she had been quiet for some time and that, if her plan was going to work, she needed to get rid of the man. She hadn’t answered his question either, so she did so slowly. “No …”

The man scratched the back of his head, looking around the abandoned church as well. “I guess that makes things easier on me.”

Before Odette could ask him what he meant by that, something hard slammed into her head and she collapsed onto the stairs.

Even without opening her eyes, Odette was acutely aware that she was not where she had been last. Unlike the Mages’ mansion, wherever she was now was warm. The thing she was laying on was rough and lumpy, and there was a breeze that ran across her bare legs and arms. She wasn’t wearing what she had been wearing last.

That thought alone made her open her eyes.

She was in a prison cell … or a room that had been converted into a prison cell. There were bars that gave her maybe fifteen feet of cell space before they stopped, the room beyond looked like it could have had more. She had a tiny window high up inside of her prison and there was a much larger one outside of the bars. White sheets that were two feet wide had been pinned up along the bars to give her the illusion of privacy, but they didn’t go all the way through the length of the cell.

Her room was fairly simple—the bed which was chained to the wall, a table and two chairs, and a toilet. The girl frowned. Odette obviously wasn’t very happy about being locked up inside of a cage but she felt no need to panic. She was still groggy from just waking up and the back of her head throbbed from being hit with something. Whoever had kidnapped her was very strong.

Odette went to stand but was too weak. She collapsed onto the floor, her knees taking the brunt of the impact, scraping the skin even more what they already were. Her new white nightgown fluttered around her. It was thin like the “curtains” and it gave her no real source of warmth.

She narrowed her eyes, her skin crawling with disgust. Whoever her abductor was had not only changed her out of the horrendous nightgown she wore before, but had also cleaned and bandaged her injuries. The thought of some creep laying his hands on her made her shudder in disgust.

Well, Odette thought. I’m already down here. Might as well look for something to defend myself.

She spent a good ten minutes sweeping the cell. There were no loose nails or other pointed objects. The bars were very sturdy and seemed to be newly installed. They didn’t give in at all when she shook them, and they were too thick and close together for her to try and slip through. The table and chairs were bolted to the floor and they wouldn’t even come up. Same with the bed.

The room had been babyproofed. Whoever made it had done a thorough check of everything, making sure that nothing would be to Odette’s advantage. Even the window was too high up for her to reach.

Odette eyed the gauzy curtains. She wondered if, she was careful enough, she could twist them up and strangle whoever it was that took her. Using the bars as leverage, she hulled herself upright and leaned against the painted wall. Sweat had already gathered along her hairline from the summer heat and also from how much energy she had to use.

Odette reached out and gathered the fabric into her hands and began twisting it up until it was almost as small as her arm. Luring the guy would be a little difficult, especially getting him close enough to the bars. He would have already seen her trap by the time he walked through the doors. It was pointless—no—it was hopeless.

He would never fall for it. Still, it was her best option.

“Trying to come up with a way to kill me? Not very nice of you.”

Odette jumped, releasing the fabric. The man was there, leaning against the far wall. He looked pretty amused by her actions and far too casual for someone who just knocked out a minor and locked her up in a cage.

“Who are you? What do you want? Why—”

The man waved his hand, silencing her. “Why are you here? You need to be more creative with your questions, doll.”

Odette recoiled. “Are you kidding me? I want answers! Now!” I did not run away from one psycho to be taken by another.

It was dark when she had first seen him, so she hadn’t been able to see him all that well, but now, in the light of day, she could see him much better. He seemed tall but he might have only been a few inches taller than her. He had more of a broad build and he held himself in a way that made him seem arrogant. His blond hair was the only striking feature about him; his brown eyes far too dull and hidden under his thick eyebrows.

Odette saw that he was really nothing like Grayson.

“It hurts me that you don’t remember me … then again, I suppose I didn’t leave a very lasting impression. We only talked the one time. Still, you’d think that you would remember talking to someone different than your mommy and daddy and the Mages.” The man came closer but still not close enough for Odette to try and choke him. “Hmm, let’s see if you remember. You wore a white dress and I had on a suit.”

Odette recoiled. She didn’t like where this was going.

“There were a lot of people around us. A lot of people talking and dancing and almost everyone knew each other except for you. The little girl that no one knew. You looked like a little princess or an angel dressed in your white and silver.

“Still don’t know who I am, doll? How rude. Anyway, I came up to you so I could get to know you better. I wore a gold mask that night, shaped like a rabbit’s face.” He was forming a deranged grin on his face, one that was only used on cartoon characters.

Odette’s lips parted and she gasped lightly. She did vaguely remember talking to someone. That guy who kept trying to learn her name and she couldn’t remember his.

“It’s coming back to you, isn’t it?” the guy teased. “Good, otherwise I might have done something drastic.”

“Why did you do this?” she croaked, still searching her mind for his name. “Why did you knock me out and … and take me here … Claude?” The name rolled off of her tongue easily. Claude. That was his name.

He laughed loudly, the sound echoing throughout the very small room. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? Why you? Why did it have to be you? I can tell you, Odette, that I am sorry it had to be you. If Grayson Mages had loved any other girl, it would have been her in your place.”

The girl stepped back, furrowing her eyebrows. “What? You … you did this because I was his girlfriend? That doesn’t even make sense, you sicko!”

Claude clicked his tongue, “Oh no, no, no. Don’t you know that you’re supposed to flatter your captor, doll? Eh, it wouldn’t matter anyway. I need you as … bait. You can think of this as a hostage situation if you like.”

“So, you think that Grayson will pay you money to get me back?” Not unlikely. “I’m sure that you don’t care but I don’t want to go back to him.”

“Ah, so you found out about the killings?” Claude leaned against the opposite wall as her, his face smug and his eyes knowing. He was egging her on, she could tell.

Odette clenched her hands into fists. “How can you say it like that? He murdered my family; he murdered his own grandfather—”

“That’s not what I meant, silly girl,” Claude hissed. “I meant the ones before that. Surely, you must have known that the deaths in his past weren’t just an accident. The deaths in his sinister past, such as Romy Bacheller and her family. When she rejected Grayson’s advances, the poor boy didn’t go home and whine about it. You can’t be so stupid that you can’t figure out the rest.”

She clenched her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms. “And why should I believe anything that you say? You did kidnap me.”

The man’s eyebrows shot upwards. “Are you defending him now? You change your mind a lot. Romy didn’t just run away to kill herself, doll; she wasn’t suicidal. Depressed, maybe, but not enough that she wanted to kill herself. That was your beau’s doing. He offed the rest of her family too, saved the father for last and made it look like he did it himself.”

Odette’s mind flashed to the body that she had found in the woods. She had believed that the man killed himself too but it had been Grayson. How was he even capable of something like that?

“How do you know about all of this?” Odette inquired. She pressed her face against the bars to get a closer look at him.

Claude licked his lips, his eyes fixated on the window above her head. “I have been watching the Mages for a long time now. They have something I want and … so do you.” He motioned to the ring that was on Odette’s finger.

Horrified that she hadn’t lost it in the chase the night before, Odette tried to pry the jewelry from her finger. The dull blue stone didn’t budge from its spot. It was like it had grown attached to her. She could wiggle it a little and move it up and down ever so slightly, but she could not get the band to go above her knuckle.

“I’ve already tried that. My next idea is to cut your finger off but I don’t think that it will do me any good,” Claude sighed dejectedly. “Yours is different from theirs. It doesn’t have any of that supernatural power in it.”

Her nostrils flared. “And how would you know?” she snapped.

“Because of your eye,” Claude motioned towards her brown eye.

She raised her hand up to cover it.

“If you had the same powers as those twins, they both would have been blue.”

“So, you’re after their amulets? Is that what you’re hoping to be paid with when he ‘rescues’ me?” Odette asked, smoothing her thumb over the jewel on her ring.

Her captor pointed his finger at her and winked. “Bingo!

Maybe you aren’t a silly girl after all, but a clever girl. Yes, Mages will give me his and his sister’s amulets or you will sadly—” he imitated having his throat sliced with his finger, complete with noises and faces. “And you might think, ‘There’s no way he’d give up his power for someone like me!’ but you would be wrong,” he sang. “Grayson has it bad for you, doll; he’s mad about you. If he had to choose between giving up his magical powers and being like the rest of us just to save li’l ol’ you, he will.”

Odette studied the crazy man in front of her carefully, her face twisted up in disgust. “You won’t let us go, though.”

“Hm?”

“You won’t let us go; you’d have to be stupid to let the people you assaulted go. You’ll kill us once you get what you want.” Odette released the bars and stepped back. “I’ll be dead either way.”

It took the man a moment to think through everything that she had said. He was a rather dramatic fellow. Odette thought that he and Greer would get along well if the circumstances were different.

That was when Claude snorted, holding in his laugher. It grew and bubbled until he was cackling and wheezing, holding his sides from laughing so hard. His face was contorting into a gleeful expression but it looked painful with how his cheeks were stretched and eyes shut tight.

“Oh doll, I don’t have to kill you! I’ll have so much power that it won’t matter what you kids try and do to me; I’ll still be right on top with my magnificent magic.”

Odette narrowed her eyes, challenging him. “The Mages are still famous even if you have power. It won’t matter if they have to cancel their shows. They still have weight over the media and they can hunt you down and make your life as miserable as mine.”

“Sounds to me like you want to die,” Claude said. “Say, I do kill Grayson and Greer, what will you do? I won’t kill you. You’ll be all alone and the one person who still loves you will be dead.”

Then I’ll kill myself, she almost said, but she caught herself. “So, what if Grayson still loves me? He’s a monster. He can rot for all I care,” she rasped. Those words didn’t really sit well with her.

“Oh, that’s rich.” Claude shook his head, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “You still love him. I’m not blaming you; he did condition you to the best of his ability. If he had a couple more months, you would have been the perfect housewife. The poster child for Stockholm Syndrome.”

White hot rage flowed throughout Odette’s body. In a matter of seconds she had crossed back over to the cell bars and she slammed her fist against them, the pain not registering with her. “Shut up!”

Claude snickered, shaking his head. “You’re about as terrifying as a baby bunny, doll. I think I’ll keep you after I finished with the Mages family; you can be my little pet. You’re so amusing.”

There was no way that she would allow herself to be held captive anywhere again. “Shut up!” she screamed, ready to break through the bars and kill him.

“Oooh, okay,” he said in mock terror. “I’ll come back later to bandage your hand. I hope you don’t try to yell at me some more.”

Odette’s left hand was starting to turn purple in color. The ache from punching the metal had finally set it. She only glared at the door Claude had gone through a few hours before. She felt so insulted, his words stinging her even as she sat alone in the dimming cell. She wouldn’t be anyone’s pet.

There wasn’t a whole lot to do besides imagine ways to escape and/or ignore her creeping paranoia the darker it got. Her leg had started to shake from the anxiety, tapping incessantly against the concrete floor.

The door swung open silently but the movement caught Odette’s attention. Even though she had been waiting on it, it startled her enough to make her gasp and recoil further onto her bed.

Claude peeked through, his stupidly annoying smile in place. In his hands, he held a tray with an array of supplies and possibly food, but Odette couldn’t see anything too well.

“Are you going to be a good bunny rabbit when I open your cage?” Claude teased, dangling the keys in front of her playfully.

Odette’s stomach lurched but she relaxed against the cement walls. “I’m too tired to try anything.” Not a complete lie.

“That would probably be the shock. Poor doll. This has been a rough summer, huh?” The cell’s door swung open and she was half tempted to get up and headbutt him in the gut in order to escape. The chance of getting caught, however, by two—potentially three, if Greer got involved—psychos was too great. She stayed put.

Claude seemed pleased with how compliant she was being; she could see the light blush on his cheeks and the way he smiled haughtily. He sat the tray down on her table and motioned for Odette to come and join him.

“Hold out your hand for me,” he instructed while grabbing something that looked like athletic tape.

Odette gave him her hand cautiously; worried that he would come through on the threat to cut off her finger. Thankfully, he only paid attention to her ring when he had to move her finger to bandage her hand.

“Um thanks,” she said flatly. She felt like a mummy because she had so many cuts and abrasions that had been bandaged.

“Well, we don’t want Grayson to think I’m mistreating you,” Claude joked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Odette didn’t laugh.

“I’ve brought you bread and water because you are my prisoner and some painkillers,” he said and gestured to the other things on the tray.

He had indeed provided bread and water but the multicolored medicine tablets looked like the ones that burned in the fire. Did he think she was that much of an idiot?

She wet her lips and looked him in the eyes. “There is no way I am taking any medicine that you give me. That’s, like, hostage survival one-o-one.”

“Unless you want me to shove them down your throat and block your air passages until you swallow,” he replied casually. “Then I would suggest you take them.”

Odette sat up a little straighter, looking between him and the pills. “I don’t want to.”

“Oh well, that changes everything, doll,” he said sarcastically. Claude shoved the tray forward and the water sloshed against its cup.

With a shaky hand, Odette tore her bread into smaller pieces and began to pop them in her mouth one by one. Claude wouldn’t look away, he just watched it all with interest or a perverted fascination, Odette couldn’t distinguish.

Soon, there was nothing more to eat. Her bottom lip trembled and she glared at the man. Her silent refusal irked him and his once playful expression darkened into something more deranged.

“Odette,” he sang. “Are you testing me? Are you trying to see if I won’t do what I said I would?” His fingers tapped out a haunting beat on the tin table, his nails scraping against it. The hair on the back of Odette’s neck rose with the irritating and shrill sound, watching him carefully as he stood up from his spot.

Claude knelt down beside her, smiling kindly but it didn’t meet his eyes. He looked scarier than Grayson in that moment. His hand was quick to shoot out from beside him and he gripped her jaw with a bruising force. His fingers dug into her cheeks and forced her mouth to open wide.

One by one, like the pieces of bread, he dropped the bitter pills into her mouth before he shut it. Odette tried to take a large breath of air through her nose but Claude cut it short by pinching her nostrils close with the same roughness he used before.

Odette’s eyes bugged out and she fought against him, screaming and trying to force her mouth open. She didn’t know what the medicine actually was; it could have been anything. Her throat contracted and she involuntarily swallowed all of the pills that he shoved into her mouth. Still, Claude did not let her breathe.

She was choking; she needed to cough. She needed air. Odette tried to convey to him just through her eyes that she was sorry and that she had done as he asked, but it didn’t move him. Claude’s eyes sparkled with delight seeing Odette suffer. He was smiling again but it was only a slight upturn of the lips. It was just as creepy as his other one.

Finally, he did rip his hands away from her face and made her fall onto the floor. Odette coughed violently, wheezing and panting loudly. Her head was pounding and the lack of oxygen had amplified all of her aches and pains.

Claude giggled from somewhere behind her. “That was fun. You must be a little masochist, doll, ‘cause you need pain to motivate you to do things. This just makes you even more fun!”

Odette wanted to argue with him but she couldn’t. He had won that round and done it far easier than Odette wanted to admit. What could she do about it now, though? Nothing but glare at him from the floor and curse at him.

“Yo-you’re as bad as him,” she rasped, her throat raw. The pills that she had swallowed dry were sitting uncomfortably inside her. “No, you’re worse!”

“Aw, wouldn’t that make him happy?” he cooed in a sickeningly sweet voice.

Odette wanted to just lay on the floor and fall asleep, but she wouldn’t allow Claude to have the satisfaction of knowing he hurt her that much. She lifted herself up onto her hands and knees and crawled at an agonizingly slow pace to the bed chained to the wall. She could feel him watching from the door, enjoying her pain to the fullest extent. As soon as she was laying on the “mattress” the door slammed shut and she was finally alone again.

It was a hazy summer day in her dream. White butterflies fluttered past her eyes, dancing together in a small cloud. The garden that she was in was the same one that belonged to the Mages family, and the same one that she had visited before in a previous dream. There were many people there, all of them looking like death dressed up for a tea party.

Odette swallowed back a scream, pressing back against the stone bench she sat on. None of them paid attention to her; they just went about their business and talked or ate with each other. But they weren’t normal people—they were zombies.

“It sure is a beautiful day, princess.”

An icy tendril of dread ran down her back. Odette looked to the side only to see Grayson. He seemed cheerful, not bored or insane, and he most definitely was not dead. His face was bright and lively, his lips pink and in the shape of his gorgeous smile, but his attention was trained on the party.

He wore a white suit with a blue bow tie, his amulet sitting in the center of it. His hair had been slicked back nicely and there was a small blue rose in the breast pocket of his coat. What drew Odette’s attention, however, was the silver ring he wore on his left hand.

“What’s going on?” Odette cried, narrowly avoiding having someone’s intestines fall onto her lap.

Grayson laughed at her, caressing her cheek. “Well, this is generally the part of the wedding during which the guests eat and wish us well.”

“Wedding?!” It made sense why her dress was fancier than their “guests” now. “I don’t want to be here.”

“Are you not feeling well? Do you need to go inside?” His concern was stifling. It looked so genuine and she supposed that it would be if he claimed to love her as much as he did. “Is it just nerves? You’re so cute, Odette. Greer told me that, sometimes, girls get cold feet before the wedding, but to still be nervous after … it’s endearing.”

Odette’s eyebrows twitched and she snarled. “This isn’t ‘cold feet’ and I am not ‘endearing’! I don’t want to be here with you.”

She sprung up from the bench and took off running, her skirts gathered in her fists. Strangely, she couldn’t run. It was like she was the only one in slow motion and, every time she tried to push herself faster, she only got more tired and irritated. Odette still managed to put a good distance between her and the morbid wedding reception, but not enough.

Grayson’s hand wrapped around her bicep and pulled her to his chest. “You were trying to run away from me. Why would you do something like that?” his voice was broken. She could feel his tears falling onto her face.

“I don’t want to be near you, Grayson! Not after what you’ve done to me!” She was glued to him. “You’ve ruined my life—you and your sister! How can I ever love you after all of the killing you’ve done?”

She couldn’t see his face at all, like she was physically incapable of looking at him. All she knew was that she could feel his emotions go through her and he felt angry.

“There are many ways I can make you. It doesn’t even have to be done with magic; I can do it with my words and my actions. You are meant to be mine, Odette; all of those other girls in my past were nothing. The two of us have to be together for the world to make sense, and I promise if you just love me back, it won’t hurt you.”

“You mean you won’t hurt me,” Odette snapped. “You just want me to be a mindless doll. When I came to town, you saw someone you could easily manipulate and you lunged at the chance. I don’t think you even love me for who I am.”

“But you want me to.”

In the corner of her eye, Odette spotted a splash of silver against the green landscape. Her head snapped in that direction but she didn’t see anything or anyone. “Thorn?!” Odette called out.

Grayson’s arms tightened around her. “How dare you yell for another man!”

“Thorn?!” she shouted again.

“How about I cut out your tongue, huh?” Grayson threatened. “How would you yell for your precious Thorn then?”

If he’s really in here, maybe he can save me from Claude.

“He doesn’t deserve you, Odette!” Grayson continued. “No one deserves you! No one can love you like I can!”

Odette ignored his words, twisting even more to find the angel. “Thorn, please! I need help!”

The world tilted and swirled, the scenery changing from the Mages’ garden to an entirely blank room. It didn’t even look like a room; it was just pure white as far as the eye could see—on the ground and in the sky and all around.

“Miss Odette, are—are you safe?” Thorn cried from behind her.

She turned around and sighed. It was an odd feeling of relief seeing him but he was her only hope. “No. Not even close. Some insane man has me locked up in a cell. He wants to use me as bait for Grayson; he’s after the twins’ amulets.”

Thorn moaned, tearing at his hair. “Th-this isn’t good!”

Odette nodded, her breathing ragged. “I figure that Grayson won’t give up the amulet anyway—”

The angel shook his head. “N-not that, miss. The amulets … the amulets will b-be useless to your c-captor. You b-being trapped is terrible! I-I would help you if I could b-but I-I-I can’t!”

“Can’t you track me down?”

Thorn shook his head, “N-no. I-it would be dif-different if yo-you had an amulet th-that worked. Un-unless, y-you kn-now where you are?”

“No ….” Even if she did, what would happen? She would tell Thorn and Grayson would come “rescue” her. She needed strength she didn’t readily have if she was going to survive. She sighed, running her hand over her face. It wasn’t like Claude would just spontaneously fall over dead.

Odette had an idea.

She took the angel by the hand. “Thorn, why don’t we make a deal?”