The Lost Girl (30 page)

He frowned as he watched me and his eyes darkened dangerously. “Joey, Joey …” He sighed deeply. “Why do you do this to me? Why do you act like this, like you don’t like the way I touch you? You let all those dirty boys put their filthy hands on you all the time and now you act like mine disgust you? Hell! You’ve probably slept with all of them. Now you think you can act all prudish like a saint with me?” he asked, gripping my chin hard, digging his fingers in painfully, forcing my head up.

I let out a muffled cry but the gag drowned my voice. I tried pulling at the bonds on my wrist, but he intensified his grip on my face and I stopped moving.

“It makes me furious seeing how those boys look at you, baby. All of them: Josh, Sam, Harry and, good God,
Tristan.
Tristan is the worst, the hungry looks he gives you … It’s disgusting! And now this freaky Vigil kid following you around, too! He is messed up in the head, Joey. He’s not normal. He makes my blood chill just looking at him – how can you stand being so close to him?

“I warned you in my notes, Joey. I told you I was going to make you see your wrongdoing. You can’t ever be with them again. You are mine now, only mine!”

One minute he was letting out violent outbursts of anger, the next he was all excited and manic. Completely insane.

“We will have a lot of fun tonight, babe.” His voice held a dark promise. He squeezed my face again and leered at me, dangerously close. I could feel his hot breath on my face. I whimpered and tried to wriggle free from his grasp, but he gripped my face even harder.

He pressed his chest against me, a wicked smile on his filthy lips. I needed help.
Someone, anyone, help me!

I twisted and writhed beneath him, crying out as I tried to break free.

He shouted at me to stop struggling, and punched me hard. My head snapped back and blood started to trickle out of my nose and down my throat, the coppery tang filling my mouth.

I wanted to spit but the gag stopped me from doing so. I started to choke. I struggled even more, turning my head to the side to see if that would help. I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I was suffocating, slowly drowning in my own blood.

He grabbed the cloth covering my mouth and yanked it down to my neck, freeing my mouth. I sputtered and coughed, trying to catch my breath. He stood above me, looking calm, like the sickeningly deranged psychopath he was.

I cussed and started to shout at him, but that only egged him on, making him cackle maniacally, his arms raised high in victory.

“YES! Shout at me, Joe Gray. Call me names! This is even better than I imagined. Go on. Shout at me!” He laughed. “There is no one to hear you. It’s just you and me, no one else for miles and miles around. Go on, shout again. Louder!”

That got me to shut up pretty fast. Fucking sicko. He
was enjoying hearing me scream. Before I could think of what to say he leaned close again, a sneer on his lips and a dangerous glint in his eyes. “I like it when girls get scared, when they shout, when they cry my name. Say my name, Joey.”

“Fuck you,” I said, and spat at his face.

He wiped the bloody spit with one hand and gripped my neck with the other, smiling warmly at me. “Ah, that’s my little spitfire talking. But I will make you behave, Gray. I’ll break down your wild heart.” Then he whispered close to my ear. “I will tear you to pieces and rip you apart.”

A shiver ran down my spine and I forced my tears back. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to show him I was scared.

“I’m not scared of you, Jarvis,” I told him in the calmest voice I could muster. “You’re so pathetic, really. It’s pitiful to look at you. You know what the real torture here is? Listening to your crap. Can you just shut up already?”

That changed his mood, fast. He was seething now. And then he punched me again. Hard. I spit more blood on the floor but didn’t cry out. I didn’t make a sound. That made him even more pissed.

“Hit me all you want, it will only prove you’re pathetic
and
a coward,” I spat out, anger slowly taking the place of my fear.

He narrowed his eyes. “Let’s see if you still say that after I’m finished with you, then,” he snarled.

He stood up and walked back to the car, leaving me alone for a brief time. I looked around desperately, tugging frantically at my bound wrists, trying to break free from the damned ropes that burned and dug into my skin. There was no escape. They were bound too tight. Then I caught
sight of my black tattoo.
Vigil.
He was my way out of this. I closed my eyes hard and chanted his name over and over in my head.
Please, please, please, Vigil, come back and save me. I need you now. Come back, wherever you are. Help me!

I looked around, feeling panicky. There was no one there. Nobody. I was alone, in an abandoned dark room; alone with a monster.

Then Jarvis came back, holding a knife in his hand. This time, I couldn’t hide the fear on my face. He saw it, and smiled gleefully.

One of the fluorescent lights gave one last sharp buzz and cut out, leaving the room even darker; shadows danced along the walls, wrapping their ominous shroud over Jarvis’s evil form. He looked even more scary now in the half-light, like a monster straight out of a fairy tale.

This was just a nightmare, I told myself; a vivid, horrible, scary dream. I was going to wake up any moment now – right? I was still sleeping on the couch back home and this was just a really bad dream.

I watched as Jarvis straddled me and brushed the tip of the knife close to my chest. I shut my eyes hard and silently pleaded.
Vigil. Vigil. Vigil.
Why wasn’t he listening to my pleas? Where was he? Why wasn’t he here?

Please, please, Vigil, come back to me.

Jarvis grabbed my jaw and squeezed it painfully. “Stop mumbling some other man’s name, Joey,” he growled furiously. “Can’t you see this is our special time alone? You’re saying another man’s name. You’re breaking my fucking heart, Joey. Guess I’ll have to break yours back,” he threatened. “Tear it apart.”

I felt a sharp, stabbing pain at my side and something warm and sticky started to drench my shirt. A loud gasp
escaped my lips but I clenched my mouth shut, despite the pain I was feeling. I wasn’t going to let him hear me cry.

But when he put the knife close to my face, I started to break down.

Vigil wasn’t coming. No one was coming to help me. It was just me and this monster alone in this dark room. I was powerless, helpless, bound and hurt. There was nothing I could do to stop him. I had nothing. I was nothing. And I was going to die here, alone in this place, and no one would ever know.

If only I had paid attention. If only I had listened. I’d thought nothing could ever hurt me then …

My eyes filled with tears, which began to run down the side of my face. I couldn’t hold them in any longer. I was in too much despair, too broken down by fear.

I didn’t want to die. Not like this.

I turned my face to one side, staring at the ground in the distance. I could see black heavy boots moving far away, not making a sound. I looked up to see Sky’s face. Her beautiful face with sorrowful black eyes staring back at me. She stood still, watching in silence.

She was here for me.

Was this the way it would all end for me, then? Couldn’t she do something to help me? Couldn’t she intervene, one last time? Sky smiled sadly when she saw the look in my eyes, my silent pleas inside.

“Sky …” I croaked through parched lips. My voice was coming out shaky and weak.

Jarvis’s head shot up, searching for what I was staring at, but found nothing but darkness. It was like he could sense something was there, lurking in the shadows – something eerie, but he couldn’t see what it was.

“Please …” I called again, still looking in her direction.

Jarvis looked at me angrily. Despite the fact that he couldn’t see what it was, he knew that my pleading was not to him, but to someone else. Or
something
else.

“Let’s see if I can make you beg for me, Joey. Let’s see if I can make you cry my name now,” he hissed.

I turned to look at him and then my eyes widened in surprise. Stabbing needles shot through my wrist. I started laughing. It was low and quiet at first, but soon it rolled into a crescendo, growing louder, heavier.

Jarvis stared at me in puzzlement, trying to understand what was happening.

“I’m going … to love seeing this …” I told him between laughs, “… so much.”

“GET OFF HER.” Vigil’s cold, hard voice boomed through the room, making the walls shake as if in fear. Vigil was here. He had finally come.

Jarvis’s body lurched violently away from me and he was thrown up in the air by an invisible force. The knife he had been holding flew out of his hands and clattered loudly to the cement floor.

His body smacked against a metallic structure in the middle of the room a couple of times, and he cried out in pain. Then his body stopped and hung limply in the air like a floating rag doll.

I had stopped laughing and was crying now. Vigil knelt silently by my side, setting my hands and legs free with a swift wave of his fingers. He didn’t help me get up, or ask me if I was okay. He didn’t say anything.

He just stared hard at me, a deep frown painting his angelic face as his dark eyes swiftly morphed into complete white. His fists clenched and an unyielding fury broke out
of him. It was like nothing I had ever seen before: cold hatred flaring out like a dying star transforming into a black hole deep within his eyes.

He wasn’t in blazing flames like I had been when wielding his powers. He was cold – like space: unforgiving and without mercy.

The air in the warehouse began to freeze in front of me, making puffs of hot air steam out of my mouth.

Vigil stood up, staring at Jarvis’s form hanging in the air a few feet away from us. Vigil’s fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides as he struggled internally with something. Jarvis began to shout and try to break free from the invisible force that held him captive. Vigil watched in silence, and then turned to me.

“I am sorry,” he said. “But I have made my decision. I will have to break some rules today. I do not care for the consequences,” he stated, his voice cold and implacable. “That is one of the reasons why you were not meant to wield these powers. You could never do this and forgive yourself afterwards. But I can. It is built in me to have no mercy. And I shall have none with him. He is going to have to die.”

Jarvis heard this verdict and started to thrash widly in the air, spit and foam escaping his mouth like a rabid dog. Vigil waved a hand and Jarvis slowly descended until he was hovering inches from the floor. Vigil stepped close to him. “Silence now, you poor excuse for a human being,” he ordered. The look in his white eyes and the deadly tone of his voice were enough to make Jarvis go completely still.

“You are not only going to die, you despicable thing,” Vigil spat out, leaning close to Jarvis’s face. “I’m going
to obliterate you out of existence. Not only will your body cease to exist, not only will your flesh and bones vanish, but your spirit and soul will also die. You will never be able to come back; you will not be able to return in any possible way. You will be completely and utterly gone. For ever. I am going to give you the ultimate death. You can never
be
. Ever again,” he invoked, his voice sharp and cold like an ice blade.

Sky finally decided to let herself become visible. She walked ahead and stopped right next to Jarvis.

She had come for him.

Sometimes I wonder if I could have tried to persuade Vigil in that moment. I could have tried to change his mind, reason with him.

I knew all too well what it was like to let anger and hate take over your mind until there was nothing left but thoughts of destruction. I knew Vigil was angry – no – he was furious. I tried to imagine how loud the rattling chains were inside his mind.

But
I
also knew how to have compassion. I could vividly remember how I couldn’t kill those men in the park, how I couldn’t even hurt Nick in Sky’s desert. Looking back, I should probably have tried to stop Vigil from killing Jarvis. I should have tried.

But I didn’t. I sat there bleeding on the cold floor and watched as Jarvis burned in agony, his bones, flesh, blood – every cell in his body igniting from the inside. He completely disintegrated right before my eyes until there was nothing left of him, not even ashes or dust. He was gone. In the most complete and possible way.

I have never seen someone die before. I was shocked, but it wasn’t the shock that got me so rattled. It was the fact
that I didn’t say anything. I just wanted to watch him burn. I wanted him dead and gone. For ever.

I was just as guilty as Vigil of Jarvis’s death. I had silently witnessed this murder and done nothing to prevent it. I had been an executioner just as much as he. And I was going to have to live with that for the rest of my life.

It was only after the flames disappeared completely and the room was once again bathed in darkness that I realized I was freezing. I was still on the cement floor with a pool of my own blood surrounding me. I felt so cold. So very cold.

Vigil kneeled by my side and held me carefully in his arms. I couldn’t feel my limbs any more, just this icy cold gripping my body, running slowly and relentlessly through my veins.

“You came for me,” I let out on a ragged breath which I hadn’t known I was holding. His eyes were still ice-tinted.

“I am so sorry, Joey. I was really far away. I had just delivered Nick to my colleagues when I felt your call. I came as fast as I could … I-I shouldn’t have left you alone in your house … I wasn’t thinking straight … I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, V.” I gave him a weak smile. “How could you know this was going to happen? It’s not your fault.” My voice was getting weaker and weaker by the second. I felt so tired and so cold. The pain in my stomach didn’t seem to hurt as much any more. I wanted to go to sleep now and rest for a long time. I blinked slowly. Even that small action seemed monumentally hard, as if my eyelids were glued together.