Finally, the last locks were sliced, and she was free to run. Blood slipped down her back from where she had been scalped by the vise grip and her own frantic attacks with the blade that just kept growing larger and larger in her hand.
She looked down in her hand as she ran and saw her reflection glint in the dimming light. Her face was dripping and bloody, but what had her running frantic to the nearest room was happening in her mouth. She rushed into the first bathroom she could find and dropped the huge, bloody knife into the sink setting off a series of echoing clatters.
With two trembling hands, she reached up and touched her teeth carefully. Three of her top teeth tumbled effortlessly from her bloody mouth, making tiny tinkling sounds as they danced and spun into the sink, ricocheting off the bloodstained basin.
Meg screamed in horror causing four more teeth to slip and slide out of her mouth as if greased by the blood and mucus. They followed their counterparts into the wide-mouthed sink that looked to hungrily eat her piece by piece.
Violent tremors caused her to snap her jaw shut, shattering the rest of her teeth and molars like a small, well-planned explosion had just taken place inside her head. Her lips were closed around the damage, but morbid fixation forced her to open wide. The last of her teeth clattered down into the hungry basin and wobbled back and forth until they came to a stop.
Her eyes were wide with horror at the stranger staring back at her in the mirror. Her scream was muffled by a strong, gloved hand over her mouth. In her ear she heard a reptile-like hissing before words came hot and wet in her ear.
“You are mine. I made you in my own image.”
Chapter 20 Fractured
Meg flew from the bed and crashed into an empty corner of the room in which she was supposed to be resting.
Her door burst open and there stood two huge figures almost completely blocking the hallway light as it tried to find a way into the room.
Meg could only see the bloody-faced monster caressing her torn face with his black gloved hand. And she knew what she had to do. At least, her body did.
Meg leaped from her crouched position and attacked with every ounce of venom and violence she could. She ran up Creed’s body and kicked him square in the face, breaking his nose instantly. While he staggered, holding his face, Cole looked on in horror as Meg finished her backflip off the soldier, landed and spun into a round house. The blade of her bare foot boxed him in the ear so hard all he could hear was a screaming ring. Stars burst across his field of vision and he was down for the count.
She didn’t hear them calling her name. She didn’t recognize them as her extended family—people she should love. All she knew was what her terrified body was telling her.
Fight!
“What in the hell is going on—” Evan’s sentence was cut off in his throat by Meg’s vise grip, stabbing him in the pressure points at the corners of his jaw.
“There’s nothing to see here,” her voice came out achingly sweet as she pushed her influence into Evan’s mind. And though he was as sharp-minded as they come, the pain stabbing him in the nerves rendered him malleable.
“Close this door behind me and lock it. You’re tired and you must sleep now,” she cooed right into his face, only vaguely aware that she could speak without teeth.
“Sleep,” Evan gagged, his eyes glassing over as the lack of oxygen was diminishing his life-force.
She dropped the boy to the ground and turned to the first two men who’d made the mistake of coming for her. She blinked once and saw their faces as bloody masses. She stood; arms stretched wide to her sides and channeled all her amped, nightmare-induced powers at the two. “Do not follow me. The door is impenetrable and you are feeble,” she spat. Both Creed and Cole stared glassy-eyed at her. Her psychic vibrations burst from her in gusts that tossed the contents of the room around as if a tornado had dropped from the sky.
The bed sheets and pillows flew like a ghost, flipping and dodging, performing aerials. The mirror above the dresser shattered of its own volition, sending shards of glass tumbling into the mix.
Meg looked at what she’d done and felt a moment of doubt. She wiped it away like a crumb from around the mouth of her nightmare come to life.
She stepped over the threshold of the room and closed the door behind her, still absolutely lost in her sleepwalking tirade until she saw the golden hair of the little boy standing in the middle of the hallway.
“Wake up, Meg,” he said softly.
Meg shook her head waiting for the boy’s face to melt off leaving a bloody skull like she’d seen happen moments before with the men, but his face stayed soft and pale as though glowing from the shadows.
“Meg, you’re having a bad dream. I want to help you—wake up!”