“How the hell did he lock this thing?” I shouted, yanking on the door handle like no tomorrow. “Seamus! Open the damn door!” When nothing else seemed to work, I slammed my hand against the wood so hard that I lost feeling for a second. When the feeling returned, the thing stung. “Seamus!”
“That’s clearly not working,” Yesterday said. “Maybe you should try something else.”
“Oh, that’s so helpful. You want to give it a try, since you’ve got so many helpful ideas?”
“Sure,” Yesterday said, and turned to look at Seanan. “Stop standing there a dunce. This is your house, and you have to know all the same tricks that Seamus does. Get that fucking door open before we have an even bigger mess on our hands.”
The harsh words seemed to do the trick. Seanan blinked, coming out of her surprised shock. She stared around the room, frantic fear filling her gaze. “What the hell do you expect me to do? Am I supposed to just magically figure out how to make the door open because you want it to?”
“That would be ideal, yes,” Yesterday said. “But since none of us have magic, why don’t you take a second to think about where there might be a key. There’s no way that Seamus has the only one. I’ve met your father. Paranoid is too kind a word to describe the man.”
Seanan might’ve argued that point, but we heard a meaty thud from inside the room, and my heart leapt into my chest.
“Um,” Seanan said, her eyes wide and staring at the door. I wanted to grab her and shake her, but that wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere. My hands rested on the door while so many images swam through my mind. All of which had a bloody demon in them, with my friend standing over his corpse. If he brought the taser in there…
I leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.
“Oh!” Seanan shouted and dashed back up the stairs.
“I swear if she’s running, I’m going to beat her face in with the stairs,” Yesterday said, turning back toward the door.
“Do you think threats are the best thing you could be doing right now?” I asked, glaring at my sister.
“As opposed to what you’ve already done?” Yesterday demanded, gesturing to the door. “I think we are so beyond you getting angry with me for my attitude. Anything that happens right now, it’s because of you and Seamus. The two of you decided this, and I’m not taking the blame.”
She was right. Seamus had decided to get the tickets, and instead of telling him what a stupid idea it had been, I’d encouraged him. I’d gotten dressed and ended up at a demon party without much hesitation. Even getting Lochlynn here hadn’t been Seanan’s idea. We just dragged her down with us. Yesterday had been spending all her time trying to fix what we had done, when it would have been much easier for her to walk away.
All of that was true. It also didn’t matter right now, because we had done what we had done. We needed to solve this problem, and my sister snapping at me wouldn’t get it done. “Fine, you’re right. I’m a fuckup. Now, can you please get a better attitude so that we don’t all die in this basement?”
Seanan came barely down the stairs again, holding a plastic card. It looked like a hotel room key. My friend skidded to a halt, nearly crashing into the door. She fumbled with the plastic, until she could slide it into the door, which had one of those scanner things. In my panicked state, I hadn’t realized that it had one of those. Now, I stared stupidly at it while the little red light turned from red to green.
“Yes!” Seanan shouted and slammed her hand down on the door handle. It moved easily, allowing the door to swing open. I barreled in, only to come to a stop for two seconds. It felt like the longest two seconds of my life.
Seamus stood in the cage. A discarded taser sat on the floor, and it looked like someone had stomped on it. Lochlynn laid on the ground, prone. Blood had leaked out of his nose and mouth again, looking grotesque in the harsh fluorescent lights from above. He had fallen unconscious, but that hadn’t slowed Seamus down. He kicked and punched at Lochlynn like a man that couldn’t see anything anymore. He just attacked blindly, half of his punches missing, and some of his kicks looking ineffectual.
He’s going to kill him, I thought.
“Seamus!” His name ripped from my throat, but I might as well have whispered it for all the good it did me.
He had left the cage door open, though. While his attack stunned me, it didn’t my sister. Yesterday rushed right into the cage with him, and body slammed into the wall. It shouldn’t have worked, since she was so tiny, and Seamus was…not. Yet, the two of them hit the wall hard enough to make the room shake. He must not have seen her coming. I couldn’t think of anything else.
Seamus twisted around, prepared to attack my sister. I came unglued from the floor then and rushed into the cage as well. Somehow, I managed to hook my arms around his as he pulled it back to punch Yesterday. It took all my weight, but I kept him from throwing that punch and making this so much worse.
Seanan stood at the cage door, looking down at the demon. “What did you do?” she asked, staring up at her brother. “Seamus! What did you do?” her voice shattered the tension, bringing Seamus to a halt. His chest pumped up and down hard enough that it looked manic.
Yesterday nodded to me, and I knew what she wanted. The two of us started to haul Seamus out of the cage. I looked over my shoulder at Lochlynn as we pushed our friend through the door. The demon didn’t look good. He had blood on his back, on his face, bruises had already started to form, and he just…laid there…
Yesterday grabbed my arm and pulled me past the bars. She slammed the door closed, and I watched as the seam disappeared. I thought about how, if I hadn’t fed him earlier, none of this would’ve happened. All of our actions had consequences, and my sister had been trying to slam that fact into my head.
I started to see what she meant, but I still didn’t think I would’ve changed anything.
Seanan guided her brother over to the couch and eased him onto it. She leaned down to look into his eyes, which had gone dull. Seamus looked barely alive, and I wondered if someone could go into shock from something like this. It didn’t feel like a traumatic experience to me.
“Are you okay?” Seanan asked.
Seamus looked up at her and blinked. “What?”
“Are you okay? Did he hurt you at all?”
He shook his head this time, his eyes going back to the prone demon. “He didn’t even try to attack me. At least, I don’t think he did. It happened so fast…”
“What the hell were you thinking?” Yesterday demanded, stepping forward, aggression in every part of her stance. “Great, he didn’t attack you this time, but did you take a moment to wonder what would happen if you killed him? Do any of you ever take a moment to think about what will happen if you do something?”
Seamus’ back straightened, and I knew that whatever happened now would be terrible if I didn’t interfere.
“You aren’t helping,” I said to Yesterday.
My sister gave me an incredulous look. “What was that?” she asked. “I’m not helping. Your psycho friend just got into a literal cage match with the fucking demon, and I’m not helping?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m not a psycho,” Seamus said, getting to his feet. He spoke through his teeth, which only made me angrier. I didn’t need either of them fighting. That made things worse. “He’s a demon, and he deserved every punch that he got from me. They are vile creature that do even worse things, and you don’t fucking know. If I had killed him, the only thing I would’ve been sad about is the fact that we won’t be able to find Derrick. Even then, I’d still think he deserved it and that I made the world a better place.”
“You shouldn’t be down here,” Yesterday said. “That’s the only thing that I can say. You are too deep into your prejudices, and you shouldn’t be down here.”
“It’s not a prejudice if it’s right, and it’s not something to mourn when it’s over something like that.” He pointed at Lochlynn with a look of disgust on his face.
“You’re wrong on both accounts,” Yesterday said. “You need to leave.”
“This is my house, and you don’t have the right to tell me to go!” Seamus growled.
“She’s right, though,” I said, breaking into the conversation. Seamus stared at me with such a look of betrayal that I didn’t quite know what to do about it. But I couldn’t let that stop me. “You aren’t thinking right. You need to go upstairs. Get something to eat and rest. Do something. Maybe leave the house. You’re too deep into this, and quite frankly, you’re starting to scare me.”
That last bit seemed to do it for him. He straightened out like I had slapped him and rubbed his hand along his mouth. Seamus looked around the room, his eyes growing darker. “Fine. You don’t want me here, then fine, I’ll walk for now. You can take my shift, and we’ll talk in the morning.”
He stormed out, and all the strength left my legs. I slid down, and there just happened to be a recliner there to catch me. When I found myself sitting, I breathed out, and looked at Seanan and Yesterday.
“You didn’t have to be so mean about it,” Seanan said, and walked away. She went up the stairs, closing the door behind her hard enough that the entire house shook. I figured she would forgive me in a few hours, when all the tension had eased.
“You should leave,” I said to Yesterday.
My sister didn’t argue. She grabbed her bag off the ground and slung it over her shoulder. “I’ll head out, but I’m coming back for my shift. After all this craziness, you’ll need a break from demon duty.”
“Okay,” I said, and watched her leave. She disappeared out of the room. As she did, I turned back to look at Lochlynn. Seamus had done a number on him. I could still hear my friend saying that Lochlynn hadn’t tried to attack him first. I didn’t know what that meant. Maybe that Lochlynn didn’t know what Seamus had been doing? Perhaps that he had been too surprised that someone would come into his cage?
Either way, he looked like a mess, and I could too easily see how this would turn bad. Rubbing my hands down my thighs, I looked back toward the door. Seanan might come back down to apologize, but I didn’t think Seamus would. Still, I locked the door, just to buy myself a couple of extra seconds in case they decided to check on me.
Going on blind hope, I opened up the panel that I had found before and started pressing the correct buttons. Within seconds, the seal on the door opened up with a little hissing sound. I walked back into the cage, and stood in the doorway, counting to twenty. When I reached the number and Lochlynn didn’t come at me like a zombie from a bad horror movie, I breathed out.
I found a first aid kit in the bathroom and hoped that would be enough to fix Lochlynn up, while also being pretty sure that it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough.
I knelt next to Lochlynn, trying to figure out how to do this. Rolling him over sounded like a bad idea, so I’d wait on that. He had been hit mostly in the back, anyway. His shirt looked torn and blood, and I could see places where he had been hit. Seamus had done a number on him.
First, I had to get the shirt off him. The first aid kit had a pair of scissors in it, and I took those out. Lochlynn still wore the nice clothes that he had been sporting at his father’s casino. He had removed the jacket, but his button down had remained on. It probably cost more than my bed did, and I sent a silent apology up to the gods of clothing as I started to cut through it.
That turned out much harder than I thought it would. It took me nearly ten minutes to get the damn thing off Lochlynn, and by the time I managed, my hands shook. I just kept picturing him waking up and attacking me. The taser had been broken, so he could easily kill me before I got out of that cage.
The shredded shirt made a nice pile in the corner of the room, and then I took back to Lochlynn. He had several cuts, one which seemed to bleed freely. Dark bruises had started to form already. They would be black by the time they finished.
I realized that my eyes hadn’t moved since I’d gotten the shirt off him. They had locked onto his strong back and seemed to be glued there. Shaking my head, I turned to the first aid kit, and started to dig through it. None of the band-aids inside would be big enough to cover his cuts, but the gauze pads would do. I took them out, with the little scissors, and then debated the disinfectant.
Did demons get infections? Would he even need this, or would it be a horrible inconvenience? Did I want to risk giving him an infection before I had been too unsure of myself to do anything else?
I smeared the stuff across his cuts, covering them as I went. I also poked at his arms and legs to make sure that nothing had been broken. Though, I’d never dealt with broken bones before, so I didn’t know how to tell. I just assumed that something would move that shouldn’t have moved. Or that he would wake up screaming and that would be a good indicator.
When I finished that, I shoved my hands underneath Lochlynn, and used all the strength in my body to turn him over. He was heavy. I thought lifting a boulder would be easier than moving this demon. When I got him onto his back, though, I kind of stalled out. He had so much blood on his face.
He had leaked out of his nose and mouth, just like I had the last time we tasered him. His front didn’t have nearly as many cuts, but it looked like something had sliced through his chest. I wiped that down and covered it in some gauze as well. Once I had done that, I leaned back on my heels, still staring at his face.
Lochlynn hadn’t woken up, and I didn’t know how much time had passed since I’d gotten in there. At least an hour.
I gathered up all the supplies, stuffing them back into their box. Once I had, I took the thing back into the bathroom. The little room felt sterile, with nothing but white everywhere. White walls, white floors, white tile. It felt like walking into a sci-fi movie.
I threw the first aid kit back into the cabinet where I found it, and then knelt down to look under the sink. Gray towels had been stacked neatly, and clearly never used. I took one from the top, wet down a corner in the sink, and then went back out to where Lochlynn laid on the ground.
He hadn’t moved, so I figured that I had time to do this before he woke up.
The blood came away easily enough. I cleaned his neck and chin first. As I started on his face, Lochlynn’s eyes opened, startling me. I dropped the towel and went to jump up. All my instincts screamed to get the hell out of that cage before he started feeding on my soul the way Seamus said that he would.
Lochlynn moved blindingly fast, grabbing wrist before I could do more than release the cloth from my fingers. The towel hit the ground, and Lochlynn’s cold eyes looked toward it.
He let me go, and grabbed the thing, starting to sit up.
I scrambled away from him, tripping over my own feet. As I hit the ground, Lochlynn finished wiping his face off. He eyed me, and I watched him, too scared to move. “Well?” he asked.
“W-what?”
“Aren’t you going to finish running away from me? I’m a demon, remember? You should be getting the fuck out of here, before I do something that could hurt you. It would be easy for me, right?”
He tossed the towel away, disgust painting his face.
“I-I’m sorry,” I said, and then cleared my throat. I insulted myself a dozen times and tried again. “I mean for bothering you and for what Seamus did. I don’t know what he was thinking.”
Lochlynn snorted. “I can tell you what he was thinking. He was thinking that he could rid the world of one more filthy demon. He didn’t take a second to consider that I don’t want his soul, and that I can’t take it without making a deal first.”
I blinked, too surprised to do anything. “What?”
He gave a bitter smile. “If we are such horrible creatures, why do you think we bother with getting souls through deals? Souls are finnicky things, and they have to be given over freely. Annoying, I know.” He rubbed the back of his head, making all that blond hair stand up.
I glanced at the door and made a break for it. I dashed through, and pushed the door closed. It sealed with a little hiss, the seam disappearing. A relieved breath left my lips as I leaned against the door, my hands resting on it. I felt like my legs would give out any second.
Lochlynn’s bitter smile became even more sour. “Always running away from us, right?” he asked, shaking his head. He started to get up, and I watched how slowly he did it, like his entire body ached. As he got to his feet, he looked down at his bare chest, and then at the pile of clothing in the corner. “Scared of me, but don’t want me to die? Is that it?”
“I’m not…scared of you.”
“Tell that your knocking knees,” he said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. He rubbed the back of his neck, staring down at the ground. Lochlynn looked…tired. Very tired. I also noticed that the glow that seemed to suffuse his skin had gotten weaker. It didn’t shine like it had at the party. Of course, his shine had been nothing in comparison to his father’s. I’d never seen anything like that before.
I shifted my feet. “Are you feeling…okay?”
Lochlynn looked up at me, those blue eyes so tired. “You really need to pick an emotion. You’ve locked me in a cage, but you insist on talking with me like we could be friends. You bring me food but run out of the cage like someone set you on fire. You let your friend beat the crap out of me, but then bandage me up. Are you scared or are you not?”
“I didn’t let him do anything,” I said, some hostility entering my voice. “He locked me out of the room, and I couldn’t get in. As soon as we did, we stopped him from hurting you.”
“We?” he asked.
“Yes. Me, my sister, and Seanan. We grabbed Seamus and hauled him right out of there.”
“Did you?”
“Well…my sister tackled him, and the two of us dragged him out.”
Lochlynn nodded. “Part of you thinks I deserve this.”
“What? No!”
“Yes,” he said. “Because if you didn’t think I deserved this, then you wouldn’t be doing it. I can understand how situations get out of hand, and how you can make mistakes. But the second your friend walked in here and tried to kill me, things changed. You could’ve let me go. You could’ve done a thousand things other than locking that door again. Instead, you bandaged up the worst of my wounds, because you still need me, and then you locked that door again. You think that I belong in this cage.”
“That’s not true!” I said.
“Of course, it is!” he thundered, and I flinched. I hadn’t heard Lochlynn speak with so much emotion since we had brought him in. The fury seemed to burn me, and I stumbled back. “It’s true, because I told you that I can’t help with your friend. I said it as plainly as I could, and you still won’t believe me. I don’t know where he is, but he sure as hell isn’t with my family. Instead of listening to that, instead of hearing what I’ve been trying to tell you, I’m still here.”
“I don’t know what else to do!” I shouted back, which stopped Lochlynn in his tracks. “What else am I supposed to do? If I let you go, then it’s like admitting that Derrick is dead, and I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to lose someone else. My mother took off, my father is dead, I have a caretaker that I’ll never seen again after I turn eighteen. I only have my sister and my friends. Am I supposed to let Derrick die too?”
Lochlynn didn’t say anything for a long time. So long that I sat back in my recliner and had to keep myself from crying. “I don’t want your friend to be dead,” he finally said. “But keeping me here won’t change if he is.”
“I know that,” I said. “I’m not stupid, and I know that. But if I let you go, then it’s admitting that we can’t do anything. It’s admitting that we are just as helpless as we’ve always been, and what’s the point? What’s the point of any of this?”
The two of us stared at each other.
I sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry. That’s not fair and it sounds way crueler than I meant it to.” I shook my head, shoving my hands through my hair. “We’ll…figure something out. I’ll talk to my friends tomorrow. Seamus wouldn’t forgive me if I let you out without talking to him first.”
“That’s not just another excuse, is it?”
“No,” I said, exhaustion lacing every part of my voice. “I know that it’s selfish, but…I can’t lose anyone else, and I would lose my friends if they found out that I let you go without talking to them first.”
Lochlynn stayed put, watching me with those oddly cold eyes of his. “Believe it or not, I can understand that. I’ll even accept your terms. And because I understand why all of this happened, I won’t tell my parents about it, either.”
My shoulders slumped. “Thank you. I know that we deserve far worse than what you’re giving us. We shouldn’t have tasered you the first time, let alone the second.” I looked at the broken thing in his cage and couldn’t imagine what that felt like. I shuddered in horror.
“For what it’s worth,” Lochlynn said. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
My chest ached. “Yeah. Me too.”