Intuition: The Premonition Series (39 page)

“Brenn,” I croak, but before I can get any more words out, he slides the slat shut. I want to cry because he is gone and I need water. I need it. Lying on the floor, where I had been most of the day, I try really hard not to cry.

About an hour later, the slat opens up again and Brennus asks me, “Do ye want some water, pet?”

“I…” I try to say that I want to talk to him, but he closes the slat on the door. I bury my head in my arm and cry.

About two hours later, the slat on my door opens and Brennus asks me, “Do ye want some water, pet?”

“Yes,” I croak my reply. A 4-ounce water bottle drops through the slat. The puzzle pieces snap into place at the same time and I understand clearly what is going on now. The slat slides closed. Crawling over to the door on my hands and knees, I pick up the one water bottle that he left me. I know that there won’t be another one for another day. I also understand what he is doing. He is breaking me—I will receive nothing unless it is from him. It will be at his whim that I’m to receive anything, and if I do not follow the rules as he has given them, I will suffer for it. He is a sadistic demon.
That’s it then, game over,
I think as a brutal pain stabs my heart.

I can’t win this game. The only way this game ends is with me as Brennus’ pet. A cold, soulless, Gancanagh pet that sits like a lap dog by his side and is tied to him for eternity. I have to end it, or somehow change the game and it has to be a conscious choice…and I have to do it now. If I drink this water, I will get stronger for a while, but then I’ll become weaker faster. Tomorrow, what will I do for him when I am so weak and he only allows me half a bottle of water…will I then do anything he wants me to do just for some water? Probably. I may not even be conscious enough by then to care. I have to decide now what I want. Do I want to live, and by living I will die and become a Gancanagh and Alfred gets my soul? Or, is it better to die? Hopefully my soul will be allowed into Paradise where I can see Reed again someday…well, at least my soul can…the rest of me will be stuck down here to rot for eternity. Those are my choices. I am not surprised to feel tears slide down my face to drip into the dry, cracked dirt beneath my head.

If I’m not strong enough, and I choose to be a Gancanagh, then one day, when I see Reed again, he will have to kill me because I will have become a demon. If I die now, at least my soul might see him in Paradise one day. It takes everything that I am, not to open the water bottle that I have just been given. Placing it back by the slat in front of the door, I crawl back to lie in the same spot. Another tear slips over my cheek and becomes lost to the cold earth beneath my neck as I wait for death to find me.

Time passes and I can no longer move from my prone position on the floor. I watch an industrious spider spinning its web in the corner of my cell; its dewy, white silken threads are secreted from behind it. Its legs move in intricate patterns, shaping and molding its trap for the next hapless victim to hopelessly ensnare itself. Once the victim walks into the ambush, there will be no getting out. The spider will come and paralyze its victim with its venom, making a snack out of it while it waits for another to come along to take its place in the web.

If I could’ve gotten up from the floor, I would’ve crushed the spider. But I can’t move, so I wait patiently, along with the spider, to see if anything tasty will come along. Hours pass as I study the spider and I begin to realize that the spider is just doing what spiders do. It wants to survive as much as I do. It is driven by the same instincts that I am. I begin to wonder what I would do to survive, if I were the spider. Would I spin my webs without remorse? Would I feel pity for my victims as I consume their blood with agonizing efficiency? Would I be a monster?

I don’t know exactly when I began talking to the spider, but there comes a point when I begin rooting for the spider. I think it’s because I want one of us in this cell to make it, to survive. I think I realize that the spider has the better odds.

I am talking at some points throughout the eternity of time. Raving would probably be a more accurate description. Every now and then, I sense something moving around my cell. Turning my head to look at the shapes and shadows, they morph into sinister, skeletal demons. The skin of the demons shows all of their spiny vertebrae as their bones stick out of their backs at sharp angles. Creeping toward me, their frightening jaws and claws look like they are made to tear and rip flesh. I can’t contain the screams that are escaping me, even though I know that the sounds won’t carry very far. There is no longer much moisture in my throat to help produce sounds. But, it doesn’t matter anyway. Even if I beg for help, no one here will help me.

Watching the terrifying images of the snarling beasts growing closer to me, I feel someone grasp my hand and hold it firmly. Turning my head slowly, I have to blink a couple of times because I’m staring into the eyes of my Uncle Jim. The gray and blue of his irises are just as I remember them as he stares back at me serenely, smiling from his position laying on the ground next me. I gasp when I look at his beautiful face, my eyes filling with tears because I have missed him so much.

He speaks to me, his mouth is moving, but I can’t hear the words he is saying. It doesn’t matter because I can feel him. I can feel his hand in mine and I know he is real. He is here with me. Maybe he has always been here with me—have we always been here? In this place? I would stay here forever if I could, with my Uncle Jim and hold his hand. “I missed you so much,” I say with my voice tight and strained. He smiles at me again.

I’m not at all aware of what I say when the slat opens again and the scary voice asks me the question that tumbles around in my head every few minutes. Do ye pet some water? Water some do pet ye? Ye water some do pet? I think I laugh when I hear him ask it the right way—it is the wheezing laugh of a crazy person. Maybe he notices the water still lying on the floor under the door, maybe he doesn’t—it doesn’t matter. I feel like I’m floating on an ocean of water now and I’m beyond the point of caring if I have a drop of water again. Ever.

“Ye’re a stupid, stubborn
aingeal,”
Brennus’ voice penetrates into my brain as the pain of his backhand wakes me from wherever I had been…where had I been? I wonder, looking up at him. I’m still on the floor of my cell in the ugly copper mine; except now, my Uncle Jim is gone. Looking around feebly for him, I can’t find him. I guess he couldn’t stay here with me. A part of me is grateful that he has left because I don’t want him trapped here in this hell. The other part of me wants to cry because I wish he could’ve taken me with him.

I’m not alone anymore anyway. Alfred is pacing back and forth outside the door of my cell. Finn is kneeling by my arm, holding it so that the IV they had stuck in it can drip into my vein. Finn’s icy fingers gently rub my wrist as if he is concerned about me. When I realize what the IV means, that Brennus is going to get another opportunity to make me a demon, I immediately try to pull it out of my arm. “Ah, no ye don’t,” Brennus says, pulling me up by using a fistful of my shirt and glaring into my eyes.

“What did you say, pet?” I ask in delirium.

Brennus looks like he wants to murder me. He probably can’t believe that I would rather die than be his pet.
Believe it, freak,
I think, watching the IV drip into my arm slowly.
He’s going to bring me back, and then the real fun is going to begin,
I shiver. When the first IV finishes, Finn puts in a second one. Watching its slow drip, it makes me realize I’m probably not going to die today. That thought chills me as much as the cold, prickly sensation of being near the Gancanagh.

“Finn, leave,” Brennus orders, and my head slowly turns from the IV to see if I can gauge what Brennus is going to do next. He looks like he would like to toss me through the wall, not nurse me back to health. For the life of me, I can’t see why he’s bothering to keep me alive.

Finn looks like he doesn’t want to go, but he gets up off his knees, handing the IV bag to Brennus. Turning, he heads out the door where Alfred is lividly speaking to him in the hallway about the fact that I had chosen to die rather than submit to them and give up my soul. “Your methods are suspect, Finn. I don’t care how many centuries you’ve been using this method to break the will of resistant beings—we are talking about a Seraph—she has evolved since I’ve been with her—she is strong—I suggest…”

Brennus’ roar is enough to make me flinch when he says, “FINN, GET HIM OUTTA HERE!” Immediately, Alfred is ushered away from the door by Finn.

“You should’ve let me kill him for you,” I murmur. I can’t get my voice to rise above a whisper as I look at Brennus who has let go of my shirt so that I can lie back down on the ground. He is still fuming over my resistance to his plan.
Is he surprised that I figured out the game and chose another option?
I wonder.

“Do ye know dat ye’ve broken a tradition dat dates back older den I can recall?” Brennus asks me in a menacing tone, scanning my face for my reaction. “Dat is how it has always been done—ye submit, and den ye become one of us.”

“Oh…so you’re saying I banjaxed your tradition? I’m sorry—I thought it was a game you were playing—Master and Servant. I got really bored with it, so I decided not to play anymore,” I counter, but I’m becoming more lucid. With reality comes the crushing fear that this is not over, my plan for evasion into oblivion has been prevented. There is still a chance now that I can be turned into a demon.

“Ye are by far the most frustrating craitur I’ve ever met,” he spits out as he squeezes the IV bag to make the drip go faster. He means every word of that statement.

“And you are not the first creature to tell me that,” I reply, trying not to let the terror of my situation overwhelm me. I can’t let fear control me. My brain is working feverishly, looking for a loophole or an angle to get me out of this.
Maybe I’m taking the wrong approach with Brennus,
I think, watching him frowning at me.
Maybe I should just tell him I don’t want to be a Gancanagh.
I moisten my lips and say, “Brennus, what if I told you that, however flattering it is that you and the other fellas want me to be a Gancanagh, I just can’t make that kind of… commitment right now?” I ask him, but I cringe inwardly, seeing his eyes darken in anger.
Maybe not such a good idea,
I surmise.

“Whah did ye say?” he asks me. “Do ye know whah I’m offerin’ ye?” he asks me, and I think it is a rhetorical question, because he starts to explain. “Do ye know whah any one of da wans ye saw upstairs would do ta get an offer ta be changed by us?” he asks, deeply offended.

“Then, why me?” I ask in an urgent tone.

His eyebrows pull together more. “Ye need protection. How long do ye tink ye’ll last out dere alone?” he asks in anger.

“I was doing all right until you showed up,” I retort because it’s true, for the most part—other than feeling like I’m dying most of the time, I was surviving all right. “And, by the way, I give myself better odds of surviving out there than in here.”

“Yer moin. I want ye and I will have ye,” he blurts out pompously.

“Why would you ever pick someone like me, when there is a room full of women upstairs who will line up to be with you?” I ask him, stunned.

“Dis has never happened ta me before. I’ve never had a wan resist me…a wan of any species. I have jus ta touch whah I want and she comes ta me,” he pauses to see if what he is saying is sinking in. “My skin—’tis a toxin—a drug. No one can resist it—but ye, it did na affect ye,” he says in frustration. It all makes sense to me now. The women upstairs can’t resist them—literally. They’re like junkies.