But still: the fear. It rose suddenly, emotion overspilling logic and the bright Formica reason of the cerebrum, filling her mouth with a taste like black copper. —Salem's Lot
"Let me get this straight," Erica says, well-aware of the gun pressed against the side of her head. It's been there the whole trip, that uninvited party guest that doesn't know they're supposed to leave by ten because they all have work tomorrow. The gun didn't stop her from belting out all the words to Poker Face and it won't stop her from talking now that they're actually inside the place that tried to eat her. "You think you can control a literal demon when you can't even stop me from stealing the aux cord?"
"Shut up," Theo grumbles. He's had that pissy look on his face ever since Boyd sat on him in the backseat. What did he expect, though? Four grown adults don't fit in the back of a tiny car unless two of them sit on someone's lap.
"I'm serious, dude. Think this through. How are you going to control the Darkness? Where would you even store it until you find a buyer? In a cookie jar on top of the fridge?" Tracy covers her snort with the fakest cough Erica's ever heard.
"It's called the Nogitsune, not the Darkness."
"Mm-mm, nope, it's the Darkness. Anyway—" There's a loud rumbling like thunder, a metal-on-metal shriek, and Erica's heart clenches tightly in her chest because she's heard that sound before. She and Boyd struggle more violently than they have this whole time, Erica throwing off Theo's hold on her arm and sprinting for the front doors. She's almost there, hand on the knob, throwing it open—
A metal sheet slides down, narrowly missing her toes.
"No," Boyd yells, beating his fists against the plate. "No, this can't be happening again! We can't be fucking stuck here!" A hand tangles in Erica's hair, yanking her away from Boyd and the brief taste of freedom. She'd felt the night air cool on her face before the sheet came down, she was almost out. Fuck! Goddammit!
"What the fuck just happened," Donovan asks, still standing in the middle of the room.
"Lockdown." Boyd's voice is strangled with anguish, dread pooling in every line and crease in his face. "It's how people died in '31 and last year. Peter must have fixed the pulley system in the attic." He slides down to the floor, back against the sheet, head in his hands. "We're all going to die here."
"Well, one of us certainly is," Theo says. He looks at ease, like he knew Hale would throw the switch and doom them all.
"Why me, man? Why do you need to kill me in order to have the Darkness?"
"Gotta kill the five survivors in order to free the damn thing. It's like a curse or somethin'."
"You still need Blake," Erica points out. Her old boss had been invited last year, but she'd never received the invitation. Erica had stolen it, figured she could sell it to pay for her epilepsy meds. Instead she'd gotten five million in exchange for not being brutally murdered.
"Nah, I killed her a few days ago after I got an email." Theo's grin is wicked, the bad lighting making his teeth look like fangs. "She fought and screamed and begged, but I gutted her like a fish. She's still in the autopsy room if you wanna see."
"An email? From who?" Theo shrugs and that's all the answer Erica needs. He doesn't have a buyer interested in owning the Darkness, the Darkness just wants to be unleashed again. It's trapped here and it's trapping the other spirits, probably controlling a few of the nastier ones. If Boyd dies here, then the Darkness will spread past the walls.
I'll burn you like the others. A promise hissed in a nightmare, a prophecy come true. She thinks of Caesar again and how he'd ignored the soothsayer. She's going to die here and no one will ever find her body. Her kids will think she left them on purpose and they've already got abandonment issues a mile wide. She can't do that to them, she can't hurt them like that.
She's ready to spit out curses, to bite the hand in her hair and break their bones, but then her eyes catch on something. The basement door is across the way and she can see a person crouching there, mostly hidden by a gathering of odd shadows. She squints and realizes exactly who it is she's making awkward eye contact with. What the fuck is Chris Argent doing here? She tries to mouth something and realizes that he's not making eye contact with her, he's making it with someone on her left. Erica, trying her best to be subtle, cuts her gaze in the direction of the old waiting room. There, flat on their bellies, are her kids.
Oh, they are so fucking grounded if they survive this.
"Get back," Chris mouths at the teenage idiots. So far he's mouthed it at least five times and all it accomplished was getting them on their bellies. If Erica doesn't ground them, then Chris is going to. He'll tie them to a chair for an hour or take away their phones or something. He's not sure how the whole grounding thing works yet since Allison doesn't get in trouble often. "Leave."
"They can't read your lips," Kate says. He can't even see her anymore, but he just knows she's giving him that damn look that all little sisters develop in middle school. It's a look that says you're fucking stupid whenever older brothers fail at any and everything.
"Got a better idea?"
"Oh yeah. You get the adults to safety and I'll create a distraction."
"What about the kids?"
"Don't worry. They'll scramble back to the waiting room." The cold at his side moves away, replaced by the damp humidity of the basement. He can hear faint clicking sounds, heels on marble, and then the lights flicker once before going out. He takes that as the signal, moving quickly while the others are disoriented. He finds Boyd first, putting a hand on the man's shoulder and giving it a good shake.
"We need to get away from them."
"What," Boyd asks, dazed.
"Come on." Chris yanks him up with a fistful of his shirt, throwing Erica over his shoulder as he goes. There's the loud pop of gunfire and shattering glass, more of the mural falling to the marble floor. Chris moves faster, Boyd seeming to realize that he's being rescued.
"Where the hell are we going?"
"I'm making this up as I go along."
"Are you a good guy or a bad guy," Erica asks.
"Good guy." He can feel her settle more comfortably on his shoulder, her long hair tickling the back of his neck. He shivers, then shifts her back to her feet to lead her by the wrist. He doesn't know where they're going, just that they need to get as far away as possible from the lunatics downstairs.
"Bedrooms."
"What?"
"There are bedrooms on the third floor. We can hide out there until Theo's distracted and then find my kids so I can ground their asses." The muscles in Boyd's shoulder bunch up like he's just been struck.
"The boys are here? I thought they were at school with Finstock." There's a huff and then Boyd's speaking again, a little proud. "They've become such rebels."
"Don't encourage them, Boyd. If they want to rebel against the old people, then they have to give us a heads-up first. We're still young enough to enjoy that shit." Chris shakes his head in disbelief and wonders how these two ever got approved by the state. "We could take them to egg Coach's house if we get out of here on time." Chris tugs them along a little faster, up two flights of stairs and down the hall. He's not sure what he was expecting when Erica had mentioned bedrooms, maybe an uncomfortable cot with leather restraints, but it certainly wasn't a four-poster with silk sheets. He always forgets that this was meant to be a party last year, not a bloodbath.
"Whose room was this," Chris asks, looking around. There's a pair of suit pants on the floor leading to an opulent bathroom and a waistcoat draped over the back of a vanity chair. A shiny black shoe is poking out from under the bed.
"The Hales'." Erica holds up a sign by its broken string, letting it sway gently back and forth. "This is where Stiles was taken from." Chris knows the story, how Derek had supposedly brought Stiles down to the electroshock room in the basement and fried him, but he doesn't buy it. Derek was a lot of things, he could be a mean son of a bitch, but he wasn't capable of murder.
"They never found him either."
"They didn't find anyone." Erica drops the sign like it's poisoned, wiping her palm off on her pajama pants. "The Darkness took them so it could escape, but Boyd escaped and Blake never showed up in the first place." There's a bitter smile turning up the corner of her mouth. "Now we're back."
"We'll get out of here," Boyd promises, wrapping her up in his arms. Seeing the two of them like this makes something twist in Chris' chest, all those old heartstrings tugging at once. He hadn't loved his wife, they'd been friends and it had been a good arrangement, but there wasn't much affection. He didn't cry at Victoria's funeral and she wouldn't have cried at his.
"You said something about a pulley system earlier," Chris says. "Could that open this place up?" Boyd shrugs one massive shoulder, cheek resting against Erica's head.
"It opened a single panel in the attic," he says. "That's how we escaped last time, but the stairs to the attic are in pieces. The house…." He winces at an unpleasant memory. "The Darkness used the house as a weapon, turned it into a mouth that tried to fucking eat us."
"Is there another way to the attic?"
"How should we know," Erica snaps. Chris scowls and drops onto the soft mattress, sinking into it; it still smells like a floral laundry soap. He frowns a little and sits up, taking in the room again. The wood furniture is free of dust, the deep carpet has no stains, there aren't any holes in the bedding from moths or bugs. He gets up and checks the bathroom, everything in there is pristine. Someone's been keeping this specific room tidy.
"Kate's spirit is stuck here, she helped me get to you guys." Chris turns slowly to face the others, dread pooling low in his belly. "If she's still here, then so are the Hales." Erica winces at that realization, thumping her head against Boyd's chest.
"Do you think Derek's still pissed about me shooting him?"
October 9, 1931
Kira's been at the Hale Institute for three years now and still she doesn't know enough to stop struggling in her straitjacket. Peter sighs and kneels down in front of her, hands hanging between his knees.
"When are you going to learn," he asks, disappointed.
"Learn what," Kira bites out. "I know what you are, Hale! You're a monster, a wolf! I'm going to kill you when I get out of here! I'll burn you!" These little fits have grown more frequent this past month and her threats have gotten more creative since Malia disappeared. "I'll burn all of you and then I'll dance on your ashes!"
"You can't even sit up on your own in that thing. You're like a goddamn turtle." Kira snarls and then goes still, just staring up at him with malice burning in her dark eyes. They almost look silver down in her basement room, a trick of bad lighting. "Are you finished?"
"Two days."
"Until what?"
"That's when you'll die." She laughs, a dark rumbling like thunder. A laugh like that belongs to a grown man, not to a twenty year old. She shifts forward onto her toes so that her face is close to his and Peter has to fight the urge to back away. "You'll die slow, you'll die painfully, and you still won't find your precious baby girl." Peter slaps her hard, his palm stinging and Kira's head rocking to the side. He stands and moves to the door, pausing there to look back at her. Kira's still crouched on the floor, her bedding stuffed in the corner of the room like a nest. She no longer sleeps on the cot, she curls up like some kind of a bird or (a fox) something.
"If I die, then so do you." Kira's smile bares all of her teeth, sharpened from weeks of gnawing on leather straps.
"Your fear tastes wonderful, Doctor Hale."