He looks so sincere. I hear Marie give a little squeal behind us. Dane looks back to me and I look immediately away.
“There,” He says. “I’m done groveling. Now come with me.”
He catches my wrist but I pull away, my greasy gloves helping with that. “Just because you apologized doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere with you. I know this is going to blow your mind, but I’d actually prefer it if I never saw you again.”
“You don’t have a choice,” He grunts, grabbing my arm and pushing us out the back door. I dig my heels in but it turns out the floor’s greasy, too, my converse getting no traction. Marie calls after us;
“May! Your shift!”
“Marie, help me -“
Dane turns around and throws her a smile, that lopsided, confident one he gave me. “I’ll be borrowing her for a bit - my mother wants to see her. Urgent family matters. If you could cover for her, I’d be very grateful.”
I gape at him - he’s doing that thing again where he makes not-sex words sound like sex with that purring voice! Conniving little shit! He’s going to kidnap me and he’s gonna get away with it, too, all thanks to his runway body and his angel face - no, devil face! He’s gonna get away with it because I was stupid enough to call him my cousin.
Marie flushes ten shades of red and winks at him. “Alright, killer. Just bring her home before midnight.”
“Marie, no -“
Dane smiles and the whole world drops away below me as he hefts me into his arms and strides away. My stomach vaults into my throat - he’s really taking me away - holy shit I’m gonna be kidnapped by this freak!
“Put me the fuck down!” I yell, flailing and aiming for his eyes. He gracefully dodges my assassination attempts with some clever neck-work, and when we turn the corner behind a dumpster he finally obliges. I make a run for it, but he catches me by the back of my work uniform’s collar and pulls me to him, flush against his hard chest. God I wish I spent those ten dollars and took that Judo class but life always looks so easy to solve in retrospect, doesn’t it?
I’m suddenly keenly aware of how warm he is, and how that heat seeps into my spine, my neck, down to my ass - I mentally beat my libido with an ice-cold stick. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a special announcement to May’s idiot horny body; this is the guy who tried to choke you to death!
I have to try to get away. I open my mouth and start to scream with all the pent-up might in me;
“SOMEBODY -“
“That’s enough out of you,” Dane murmurs. I feel a cool metal something around my neck, what’s left of the bruise twingeing at the pressure - not hands, this time, but a necklace? No - a choker. How ironic. But jewelry bribes won’t stop me, and I breathe in to scream again but…nothing comes out. I’m screaming - I can feel it in my throat. I’m screaming ‘SOMEBODY HELP ME’ over and over, but there’s no sound. Not even a whisper, just nothingness. What the acrobatic fuck? I try to talk normally, but nothing comes out either. I turn in horror to see Dane looking at me with a sardonic smirk pulling at his velvet lips, his vivid blue-green eyes narrowed in victory.
“Definitely an improvement.”
‘You sonofabitch! What did you do to me?’ I mouth words but no sound comes out. This has to be some kind of noise canceling field - some fancy new tech.
“Nothing,” He smiles wider. “I’m just the delivery boy.”
How did he - how did he hear that when I can’t? What the hell is going on? There’s no dark-haired guy to act like Dane’s conscious, this time, and my insides start to twist around themselves. What does he want with me? Who cares? He might’ve muted me with this freaky choker, but I can still run, so I do, my legs pumping back to the restaurant, back to Marie who I can beg to call 911, back to normalcy and home and safety.
The asphalt parking lot starts to blur on the edges of my vision, like I have tears in my eyes but I don’t, I’m not crying at all but things are turning melty and transparent, the colors of the cars and the restaurant’s cheery yellow sign blurring together until I can’t see anything but smears, brightly-lit smears, but I force my calves and thighs faster, burning more, burning harder, and then I trip on something solid and I go flying - I’m going to land face first on asphalt. This is it - this is where I die, again, or at the very least scrape my whole face off.
Sorry Mom, sorry Dad. The daughter you worked so hard to raise is going to get her whole face removed. A face you made, technically. It’s not that she didn’t like it, it’s just that gravity decided to exist and an arrogant piece of shit tried to kidnap her.
My head hits the ground and my whole existence shatters into white-hot pain…except it doesn’t. It hurts, sure, but something soft cushions the worst of the fall, my brain only slightly jiggling in my skull. My knees take the beating the most, digging into that same soft something. My jeans immediately start to get cold at the knees, damp. The smell of earth floods my nose and I force myself up and look around, brushing crumbling dirt off my face.
“Wrap me in a tortilla and fry me,” I groan. I clutch at my sore throat and the weird metal choker there - I can hear myself again! My vision’s clear too, and all I can see is grass - long, wide, sleek stems of verdant emerald grass swaying in the gentle wind. I stand up shakily to get my bearings, but I can’t see anything but an ocean of grass in every direction. Since when did the parking lot of my work have such a huge field? Since when did soft, damp earth replace the concrete? Since when did this gray cloudy Monday turn into a flawless, ceramic blue bowl with a few puffy white clouds skittering across the surface?
I answer myself; “It didn’t. That’s impossible. Which means I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
“I prefer to call it my own personal hell,” A voice drones out from the grass, and I jump. Dane.
“Where are you?” I snap. “You better not try to sneak up on me! I’ve got a black belt!”
“In what, screaming like a banshee?” He asks, the grass parting on my left to reveal his body, his clothes stark black against the greenery. With his looming height he can see just fine over the grass. Asshole. I decide to be the bigger person and ignore his insults for more pressing questions.
“Where the fuck are we?” I politely inquire without looking at him. God he’s so hard to look at straight on, like a torch burning too brightly.
“I’m not getting fed to explain things to you,” He scoffs. “I’m getting fed to bring you to the people who will. So let’s go.”
He starts off in the grass, and panicking about getting lost in the stuff I chase after him, limping a little with my definitely-bruised knees.
“Hey! I asked you a question!” I call. He ignores me and turns so fast I nearly lose sight of his broad shoulders. “It’s polite to answer someone when they ask you things!”
“It’s also polite to not swear.” He lilts. “But you fire those off constantly.”
“Maybe because I’m frustrated? Maybe because I’m not a saint?” Rage starts to build in me, like a jenga tower in fast-motion done by an expert. “Maybe because a guy chokes me to half-death and then puts a collar on me that shuts me up!”
“Like I said; an improvement.”
“You’re a dick,” I grit my teeth as he turns again, and sick of getting nearly-left behind I lash my hand out and grab the tail of his jacket.
“Is that why you’re clinging to me?” He asks, smirking over his shoulder.
“No - it’s because you’re going too fast.”
“You’re right,” His voice deepens into that sultry, infuriating tone. “As a dick, it’s my job to make sure to go very, very slowly. One inch at a time.”
Parts of me I didn’t even know could move start to throb. The rest of my parts break out into the world’s biggest eye-roll. “One inch, total.”
“So generous,” Dane chuckles darkly. “Haven’t any of your human friends told you? It’s not the size that counts.”
Human? That’s a weird tag to add on.
“Well there’s your first mistake; assuming I have any friends.”
I swear I feel his pace stutter for a second in his heavy black boots, but he recovers quickly. “And yet here you are; a well-adjusted girl who smells like animal grease.”
“At least I don’t smell like a hipster’s liquor cabinet and a grandma’s herb garden!” I fire back. He doesn’t say anything to that, striding along with me tailing behind for what feels like an hour. Two hours. An eternity. Finally, when I’m sweaty and stink even worse and my feet are two lead bricks, the grass ends. We walk out (well, he walks out, I stagger) onto normal grass, with a perfectly manicured gravel path cutting into the distance. Old, stately magnolia trees line the path, blossoming in bushels of white flowers that blush pink. The wind picks up, cooling the sweat on my brow and scattering a wave of pink petals at me. Despite how tired I am, how confused I am, the softness of the petals and the beauty of watching them spiral in the wind makes me feel a little bit better in the same way Sir Charles did. I feel…at peace.
Dane makes sure that doesn’t last long. “Come on, little beast - we’re almost there. Don’t give up on me now. Or do. Dragging you the rest of the way could be very entertaining.”
“You’re a sadist,” I feel my hackles rising and let go of his jacket. “And if you ever touch me again, you’ll be a dead sadist.”
Dane scoffs and starts down the gravel path. “Threats aren’t a good color on you. Come on - hurry up.”
“What am I hurrying for? You still haven’t told me -“
“If you want answers, you follow me.”
I turn and look behind me - the grass field stretching out as far as I can see on the horizon. There’s not even a building, or a road sign. How the hell did I get from the asphalt jungle of my city to here? All I remember doing is tripping. Am I tripping? On shrooms? Because that would explain a metric fuck-ton more than what reality is explaining right now. I check my phone - no reception. And no wifi, either. But if I’m tripping because this asshole somehow slipped me shrooms, everything I see is suspect. So I text Mom anyway, hoping it’ll pick up a spot of reception long enough to send it, and start after Dane.
This place is huge. I say that, but the scale of it is like something out of a BBC drama - what do they call them? Estates. This definitely looks like an estate, complete with lush, perfectly cared-for orchards; plums and oranges hanging ripe and clouding the air with the smell of dizzying sweetness. Soon the magnolias flanking the path give way to topiaries shaped like moons and suns sitting opposite each other.
“Somebody rich lives here, right?” I ask Dane, but he just ignores me and keeps walking. So I take in the sights - half for my own enjoyment (because I haven’t seen somewhere this beautiful uh, ever), and half for when I get home and report all this to the police. Shiny-leafed bushes thick with little yellow and blue flowers, huge stalks of sunflowers standing like soldiers at attention, even a thicket of blackberry bushes, the white blossoms letting off a cloud of sugary tartness.
And that’s when I notice it - no bees. A place like this should be swarming with bees, butterflies, hell, even hummingbirds. But there’s nothing. Not even regular birds in the trees, or squirrels - not even flies or mosquitoes. Either they use pesticide for rain, or something about this place is off. And with an estate this big should have gardeners - but there’s no one for miles. The beauty all around me is no less beautiful, but it feels sterile now. Hollow.
“Noticed it, finally?” Dane asks lightly. I jump at the sound of his voice.
“Y-Yeah. What’s wrong with this place?”
He laughs, that same nothing-about-it-pleasant laugh I heard that night. It’s bitter and thin, like it could shatter and cut me at any moment. His gemstone eyes narrow at something in the distance - something ebony-colored and edged with silver and faintly in the shape of a building.
“Everything, little beast.”
-3-
There are so many parts to the grounds my eyes can barely keep up with it all - a miniature pond in one corner, complete with a little waterfall and a river that snakes through an herb garden packed high with blooming lavender and velvety sage bushes. Old stone statues of gorgeous, half-naked warrior women loom in a shadier corner, covered in what looks like blue-glowing moss, a blanket of the soft stuff carpeting the ground around the womens’ feet. Does moss even glow like that?
I jump and nearly cling to Dane’s coat again when I spot the statue in the center of the women - a low-set, dragon-like creature with a thick mane of flowing fur and bat wings and a gaping maw with razor-sharp rows of teeth. It’s bigger than an eighteen-wheeler truck, its shadow engulfing me when we walk past. Its long thorned tail curls around itself, and I realize all the women are fighting it - throwing spears or shielding themselves or leaping for it with a sword drawn. The hate in the dragon-thing’s slit pupils is so lifelike it feels like it’ll lunge in and snap my head off if I look at it for too long. So I don’t.
As we get closer to the building in the distance, it gets clearer - black roofing edged with silver, vast windows glinting. Three stories? No, it’s gotta be four or five. My jaw drops when we get close enough to see it in full; made of deep black stone, with pure silver pillars and windowsills. It’s got turrets, too - what do they call those? I forget, but there’s six of them spaced out like little towers and they’ve got perfectly rounded silver roofs. A fountain billows out front, crystal water pouring from the mouths of two intertwined warrior women.
It’s the most incredible house I’ve ever seen. It takes a slam dunk on any of the houses in Paringway Heights I stared at from my kitchen window, a slam dunk on any mansion ever made by human hands.
“If this isn’t a palace for royalty I’ll eat my greasy uniform,” I marvel. Dane doesn’t hear me, or doesn’t care. Probably the latter. He keeps loping straight towards the mansion. Follow him for answers, right? I jog after him, but immediately come to another stop.
There, spread out on both sides of the path and closest to the mansion, is a marvelous garden. I don’t know if ‘garden’ is the right word for it - there are eight plots of pristine green grass, each of them containing a single elegant glass dome-shaped building, wrought with iron spirals and delicate doors. And inside each building, poised in the very center, is a plant - all of them a giant spiraling vine thicker than my thigh. Some are darker than others, some lighter, some have smaller leaves or curlier leaves. But in the center of each curled vine rests a perfect rose about the size of a head of lettuce. Eight of them in total. Every rose is a different color - sea blue, butter-yellow, blood-red, sunset orange streaked with pink, even a pale, light purple and a spring green. The black rose has no thorns at all, but the white rose plant has thorns so big they’re the size of hunting knives, nearly covering the plant’s entire surface.
“I didn’t even know roses got that big,” I mutter.
“Hurry,” Dane barks, now way ahead of me. My knees creak like an old lady’s as I run to catch up. My converse crunch on the gravel as we get close enough to the house for its shadow to engulf me. Dane doesn’t slow down at the door, slamming it open without even asking if anyone’s home.
“Um, manners?” I ask. “My bad, I keep forgetting you were raised in a barn.”
Dane gives me a single scoff this time and walks into the foyer. Or at least I think that’s what they call fancy entryways like this. The inside is just as dark as the outside, the floor black marble with gold veins running through it, and the ceilings are so high I can hear my breathing echoing. Two grand staircases whirl around each other leading to the second floor, and there’s so many identical doors down long halls that I get dizzy.
Dane leads me down a hall with huge windows on one side, the gardens looking even more beautiful all spread out before us. The door at the end of the hall is wide open, and I can hear something familiar coming through it - heavy death metal.
But not just any heavy death metal. A beat that’s ve
ry familiar - a beat that knocked Sir Charles down, a beat that drummed into my skull over the course of three sleepless, hair-pulling nights. Dane turns to me just before we enter the room, leaning over my shoulder and flooding my senses with him - rosemary, that sharp jaw, his low voice.
“Don’t eat or drink anything. Don’t promise anything. If you do, you’ll never go home again.”
My heart skips. “What do you mean? That’s a joke, right?”
Dane pulls back and dusts his leather jacket off before walking straight into the room, two of his fingers twitching at his side and beckoning me forward. I walk in, the refined room completely at odds with the grungy death metal blaring in it. Pale white walls, with sky blue curtains and a stunning pale wood floor, polished so hard it shines like a mirror. The sunlight from the windows suffuses the floor with light, and the floor in turn sheds the light everywhere else - making this the cheeriest, lightest part of the mansion I’ve seen thus far. A white grand piano sit in one corner next to a golden harp, a few fancy white leather couches and chairs scattered around.