Bat Boy curls back its lips, baring razor teeth.
“That’s enough,” the woman says, her unstyled black Mohawk blowing in the breeze. She pushes off the spire she’s been leaning against and walks over. As she nears, I notice a cowbell nose piercing, spiked collar necklace, and heaps of dark eye makeup that make her look like she just blew her life savings at Hot Topic.
“There are still more down there,” she says, flicking a dismissive hand at Bat Boy.
It ignores her, bending its fanged mouth toward me like it just can’t stop itself from getting one little taste. Its hot breath makes me gag.
“Go on, before he wakes up.” She gives the bat a swift kick in the side. It hisses, but the woman doesn’t flinch, and it finally takes flight.
I look frantically after the bat as it retreats.
“Hey.” A boot lands in my side, knocking my breath out of me. I curl into myself, tasting something metallic in my mouth: blood.
“Who are you?” the woman asks.
I can’t even find breath to speak. The kids in the van. What’s going to happen to them?
The woman bends down and takes my chin in her hands, snapping my head up so that I have to face her. “Did they tell you why they kidnapped you? Give you any idea what they’re using you for? Why all the humans?”
I cough up a mouthful of blood.
“Spit it out!” she yells, shaking my head.
A splitting pain shoots into my temples. I gasp, instinctively grabbing my head. I squeeze my eyes shut against a sudden rush of tears. I’ve never felt a more intense pain in my life. I wonder if I’m having a stroke. I can feel the woman standing over me, hear her words floating around my head, but the more I try to grasp onto them, the further and further away they get. I vaguely feel another boot in my side before everything goes black.
9
I have the nightmare again—the one with Mom tied to the chair. This time a tiger paces around her. It makes a low rumble that causes the fur on its chest to vibrate. Mom draws back into her chair, shaking with fear as tears pour down her cheeks. She whimpers into the rag stuffed in her mouth. The tiger reaches out a paw and claws at her face. Three long slashes cut down her cheek.
I scream.
“So you survived.”
The words pull me back to reality, and the nightmare fades to black. I flutter my eyes open. My head pulses against cold stone, exhaustion pulling at my body so intensely I can’t move an inch. The witch from the boardwalk stands over me. Her hair hangs down over her bony face as she watches me with a measure of disinterest mixed with annoyance.
I’m back at the Black Market. I never would have believed I’d be so happy to see the creepy witch, or to be in her basement lair.
For a split second I feel satisfied. I traveled to Los Demonios and made it back safely—haters can suck it!
And then I remember that the point wasn’t just to survive—it was to save Paige. And my euphoria evaporates.
The woman shuffles out of the room. I try to sit up, but it’s just too hard, and I sink back onto the stone floor.
“Where are you going?” I ask, then let out a raspy cough that tastes of blood.
Clanks echo from deeper in the cave.
Los Demonios. I can’t believe I survived that place. Everyone said it was dangerous, but in the span of an hour or so, I almost got killed on three separate occasions, if you don’t count the freaky goth woman on the roof. She wasn’t exactly friendly, but I can’t say for sure she wanted to kill me. More like she wanted to beat answers out of me.
Her words reverberate through my head.
“Did they tell you why they kidnapped you? Give you any idea what they’re using you for? Why all the humans?”
What does it all mean?
The witch comes back with a goblet of pink fluid and some mystery capsules, which she sets down in front of me before moving back to continue watching. I could lie here forever, but the promise of potential painkillers is making me salivate. I flatten the palm of my uninjured arm against the floor and force my body up. It feels like my head is weighted with lead, and my movements are sluggish, like I’m coming out of anesthesia.
Cruz’s dirty T-shirt is still wrapped around the crook of my right arm, making it hard to bend, so I pick up the goblet with my left hand and bring it close to my face, taking a whiff of the pink fluid. I cough at the unexpected acrid scent.
“It’ll make the pains go away,” the witch says, reading my mind.
I eye the capsules. Taking unmarked pills from a stranger seems like something I probably shouldn’t do, but surely if she wanted to kill me she could have done it when she was slicing me up with a rusty dagger.
Still coughing, I pop the capsules in my mouth, throwing back half the liquid in one gulp. I almost spit it out, but force it down my throat. And then I sit there, panting, until the urge to vomit finally passes.
“Get up,” the witch says, then disappears back into the tunnels again.
I realize the pain and the sluggishness are gone.
I get up and follow the witch upstairs.
The cab rolls to a stop. It’s four a.m., yet all the lights are on inside my house. Anxiety grips my chest. Aunt Penny’s probably been up all night worrying about me. Maybe she even called the cops.
“I got places to be, lady,” the cabbie complains.
I consider asking him to drive right past the house, maybe drop me off at the park so I can sleep under the slide or something. Even going up against Bat Boy again seems appealing compared with going inside right now.
But I’ll have to face Aunt Penny sometime. And so I fork over the cab fare, take a deep breath, and climb out of the taxi.
She’s on the front steps before he even pulls away.
Marvelous.
“Where the hell were you?” she screams, storming down the driveway. “And where the hell is your car?”