Girl Possessed (Book 1 of The Girl Trilogy) (16 page)

I was surprised to see a smile spread
across his face. “Do you like killing people?” I tried to speak
nonchalantly so not to reveal the alarm ringing in my
mind.

“
Do snakes enjoy the bite?”
He shrugged.

Fear rose up inside of me. “I really
don’t know.”

“
Are you afraid of me?” His
voice was cautious now.

“
Maybe I should
be.”

The expression on his face was
serious. “You’re right—you should be afraid of me.”

“
You’re not the one I’m
frightened of. I’m much more afraid of what the other guards might
do to you when they find Wardo dead on the floor.”

“
Don’t worry about that. I
can take care of myself.” He laughed.

I felt queasy. “What are you going to
do?”

“
Eat him.” He ran his
fingers through his hair.

“
What?!” My chin jutted
back involuntarily.

He laughed.

I remembered how I had been told that
the serpent people eat human beings whole just as snakes swallow
mice. “Are you joking?” I asked hesitantly. I hoped he was kidding
because I didn’t think I could stomach seeing him swallow Wardo
whole.

A crooked smile formed on his dazzling
face. “I don’t care for dead food. If he was still alive it might
be a different story.”

My eyes widened.

“
I’m joking.” His tone was
adamant.

“
Well, that’s a relief. So,
I don’t have to worry about you eating people alive?”

“
No,” he chuckled. “That’s
more my brother’s thing.”

“
Ooh, really?”

“
Yes, I’m afraid so.” He
looked amused with the thought.

“
What are you going to do
with Wardo’s body if not eat it?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t figured that
out yet.”

My eyes widened. “You mean you just
killed him without a plan?”

“
Pretty much.” He sat down
on the edge of the bathtub. “Want to take a bath together?” He
smiled charmingly.

I put my hands on my hips. “Very
funny.”

“
She doth protest too
much.”

“
Taking a bath with you
could cause hell on Earth.”

“
Or heaven on
Earth.”

“
Earth could never be
heaven without you. Either way, I lose.”

“
You’re right—no baths.”
His expression was ambiguous.

Even in the presence of a dead body, I
felt light headed being near Shaul. I wanted to touch him and that
frustrated me. “Can you make Wardo’s body disappear
magically?”

“
No. I can only make my own
magic disappear.” He was contemplative.

“
Maybe you can cover him
with a blanket so we don’t have to look at him.”

“
Yes, can do.” He waved his
arms and chanted something in Latin.

An extravagant velvet jeweled blanket
fell from the air and covered Wardo’s body perfectly.

“
Wow. You treat your dead
enemies well.” The covering was lined in huge diamonds and rubies
with fringe and golden tassels.

“
Why not go all the way,”
he smiled facetiously and then said some more chants.

A huge tombstone appeared with massive
stone angel wings extending from the top edge. White flowers of
every variety bloomed up from the floor surrounding the
deceased.

“
Not bad.” I nodded in
approval.

Shaul looked contemplative. “I’ll have
to get rid of all this before the guard comes. But, when she does,
I’ll tell her Wardo had a heart attack…”

I rolled my eyes. “And when he fell,
he broke all his bones.”

He chuckled. “Bad idea.”

“
Looks like we’re in a real
bind here.” I sat down on the edge of the bathtub next to him,
trying to ignore my racing heart, the music in my mind, and my
overall dizziness from being so close to him. “When the guard finds
the body, you’ll be charged with murder. I think the penalty for
murder is public hanging.”

He looked at me with his entrancing
silver eyes that bored into my soul. “I only came to this dungeon
to get away from you.”

“
Thanks a lot,” I said in
mock protest.

He raised an eyebrow facetiously.
“But, now we’re together all the time, so there’s no real point in
staying here.”

“
Do you think we can break
out of this dungeon?”

“
Because the cells are made
of shoham stone from the Garden of Eden, I can only enter the
structure, but cannot exit. The only way I can leave is if someone
else collapses the stones. If you cry loud enough, I think you can
destroy the building with one of your earthquakes.”

“
I was wondering about
that.” I looked at him inquisitively. “Did I create those
earthquakes by myself or did you help me somehow?”

“
It was all you.” He winked
and I wondered what he meant by that.

“
Oh.” I held my forehead in
my hands for a moment trying to process everything. “If I created a
big earthquake, wouldn’t the stones fall on us and maybe even crush
our bodies?”

“
I can manifest shields for
us as protection.”

That sounded like a good idea to me.
“Let’s say we’re actually successful and escape from this dungeon.”
I looked at him uncomfortably. “Where would we go?”

His face lit up. “We could go anywhere
in the world, but we both know, the only place we want to go
is…”

“…
to the lake.” I finished
his sentence with a smile.

“
We’ll live at the
lake.”

“
Won’t Mazen Tratzel and
his army come after us?”

“
Not if they don’t know
we’re there.”

“
But, what about my mother?
We can’t leave her in Tratzel’s community. I’m sure she’s worried
sick about me.”

“
We’ll save your mom, but
don’t be so sure she’ll agree to come with us. Remember, she said
she would never allow you to go to the lake. She might not want to
go there either.”

“
You’re right. Why doesn’t
she want me to go to the lake?” I looked at him inquisitively. “I
can’t figure that out.”

“
She must know something
about your part in the Garden of Eden prophesy.”

“
If she knows about it,
maybe she’s afraid the serpent will not return the apple, but will
eat from the Tree of Life instead.”

“
I’m sure that’s a
concern.” His expression was devilish.

“
How could she know my part
in that?” I shook my head. “She must know I am a josephine because
she vaguely warned me about puberty. I just don’t understand how
she knows all this. Who told her?”

His eyes were sparkling as he gazed at
me. “There’s more to the story than you know. I have a surprise for
you when we get to the lake.”

My eyes widened.

“
You might not like the
surprise.”

“
Oh, no.” I was
concerned.

“
Then again, you might like
it. We’ll see. You’re a complicated one.” He smiled and ran his
finger across my cheek, which sent my body aflame.

I wanted to kiss him more than
anything I ever wanted in my entire life. My body tingled all over.
Just looking at him made me want to die to gain relief. The music
was erotic in mind. I could hardly stand it.

He must have sensed my strong desires
because he leaned into me and our lips touched tenderly. I felt
light headed and euphoric all at once. His lips were so soft and
the way he touched my hair made me yearn for him
entirely.

Suddenly, the cell door flew open. In
the passion of the moment, we hadn’t even heard the key turn. It
was Lucindean, the woman guard with her electrical baton and
whip.

25

Lucindean’s eyes nearly popped out of
her head when she saw Shaul and me sitting on the edge of the
bathtub kissing with the grand tombstone, jeweled covering, and
stunning array of white flowers before us.

“
What is this?” Her voice
cackled in alarm. “Serpents!” she cried. She grabbed her electrical
baton and pointed it at Shaul.

He fell to the floor twitching in the
strong electrical current.

At once, I started to scream. My voice
lifted to the highest of pitches, growing and growing in volume at
a rapid pace. I pushed the strong, massive woman. She stumbled
forward in the motion of the earthquake and my thrust as the floor
started shaking. The baton fell from her hand. It rolled across the
floor as the walls began trembling something terrible. The woman
tried to regain her balance.

Holding onto the bathtub for support,
I watched Shaul stand up. He looked dazed. His eyes were glazed
over, but he managed to keep a fairly steady stance. He reached for
the baton. It fumbled in his hands as the building
shook.

A beam from the ceiling fell just
missing my head by an inch. I couldn’t stop screaming even though I
wanted to. The sounds had somehow taken over.

Once Shaul had a firm grasp on the
baton, he swiftly made his way over to the woman. When he reached
her near the doorway, he flipped the switch and pointed it at
her.

Immediately, she went into
convulsions. Her body writhed and contorted on the shaking floor.
Bile spewed from her mouth.

He dropped the baton, a rushed, but
satisfied expression on his face, and grabbed a sharp edged stone
that had fallen amongst some new formed rubble. With the rock in
his hand, he swung his arm back to gain momentum and stabbed it
fiercely into her eye.

I covered my face in horror, but the
escalation of my uncontrollable screams threw my head backwards,
making passageway for the ever increasing sounds which had reached
astonishing heights. The noise lifted higher and higher out of my
throat without my direction.

I managed to change my body position
and get a steadier grip on the tub. When I looked at Lucindean, I
saw that her face was covered in blood, her expression contorted in
terror. She reached pleadingly at the air.

Shaul threw his hand back again as if
to further ravage the woman with the sharp edged stone, but the
floor broke away, throwing him back against the wall.

With Shaul out of the way, Lucindean
tried to crawl out of the cell, but fell onto her back.

Shaul reached for her leg, but slid
back toward me as the stone floor rolled in great waves
now.

Regaining her position, the woman
struggled to drag her body over the chaos. A piece of the roof fell
on her back. She didn’t give up. As she pulled her torso over the
floor, the skin on her underside tore across the sharp broken edges
of the stones. Blood gushed forth, but she managed in her
relentless determination to make her way on out of the cell
alive.

I thought about how much I hated her,
Mazen Tratzel, and Jezebel Bradeere. The more I filled with hatred
and pain, the more uncontrollably intense my cries became. The
severity of thought was just what was necessary to collapse the
building. I yearned for my mother desperately. With that thought,
the structure thrust violently from side to side. I was
terrified.

And just as it began to give way and
fall completely, Shaul threw his body over mine and yanked the
bathtub out of the floor and over the top of us.

I guess that was his idea of a shield.
I was expecting something more supernatural and full proof, but I
couldn’t even stop my screaming to say anything.

Stones and beams crashed down upon the
ceramic basin, splitting it apart but still providing enough
protection to keep us safe.

My screaming stopped and I heard Shaul
chanting Latin faintly in my ear. I felt the rise and fall of his
chest on top of me. His voice waned. I closed my eyes
tightly.

He sighed and carefully lifted the
bathtub pieces off of us, tossing the large sections over the sides
of the rubble and refuge walls that had formed around us in the
collapse.

I opened my eyes. Dust filled the open
air. I coughed. My throat was dry. The destruction was shocking and
marvelous to the eyes.

We were under the night sky now. It
was amazing to be alive and in the outdoors after being trapped
inside for so long.

The music was so much more intense and
seductive now that we were outside of the dungeon. I yearned more
than ever for the lake as the splendorous symphony played in my
mind.

“
Cordellia,” Shaul
whispered as he put his hand gently to my cheek.

The smile on my face was
huge.

He helped me to my feet and lifted me
over a pile of stones to boost me out of the rubble. “Careful,” he
said as I made my way to a more level surface.

I managed to stand up on top of the
refuge as he made his way to me with such agility reminding me that
he was anything but human. He held his hand out to me and when I
took it, butterflies fluttered something wild in my stomach. Then
at once they shot out of my body and into the air. I couldn’t help
but laugh as we climbed over the rock expanse together.