“Why do you do this?”
“Find a need and fill it. Business 101. Do we have a deal, Mina?” The devil smiled at her as the devil does when he’s about to take your soul in a pact signed with blood.
“I…” She wanted to say yes. As insane as it was she wanted to believe this wasn’t the worst thing she could agree to.
“Go home and pack your things. A car will be by for you at seven in the evening. Get into the car and start a new life. Or don’t. I’ll instruct the driver to leave at seven-thirty with or without you.”
18
Mina paced the apartment. She’d packed her luggage: clothes, toiletries, and a few items of sentimental value that she couldn’t part with—mostly old photos and an ornate silver ring with small black stones that her grandmother had given her before she’d passed away.
She still remembered her grandmother taking the ring off and placing it in her hand. “I’m not long for this world, Caramina. Take it so the others don’t fight over it. The silver will ward evil away from you. If the ring ever burns you, you know you’re in the company of someone or something bad, and you must get away from it.”
Mina had known the delirium was setting in, that her grandmother was talking nonsense, confusing dreams with reality. Still, she liked to believe the ring truly did have powers and could protect her.
“Did it ever burn you?” she’d asked, playing along.
“Only once. I shot that motherfucker in the face.”
Mina had nodded and pretended to believe her. The woman hadn’t even owned a gun, and she certainly had never shot anyone in the face or anywhere else.
After her grandmother died, Mina had sorted through the bottom drawers in the old woman’s closet to find the box that went with the ring. There it had stayed for the past three years. It hurt her to look at it.
There had been a fight about the ring. Three different cousins believed it should have been theirs. Soon after, Mina had drifted away from the family and moved into another city where she’d been ever since. Her grandmother had been the only one tethering her to the people who were supposed to be her blood.
The ring story was nonsense, but she wanted to believe that if she’d been wearing it when she’d met Jason, she would have known he was bad and stayed away.
So much pain and permanent scarring could have been avoided if she’d known he was a flame to stay well enough away from.
She slipped the ring on her finger as the clock on the mantle chimed out seven ominously hollow gongs. Outside, a black sedan with tinted windows pulled to the curb. The driver didn’t honk. He just sat with the engine idling. Waiting for her.
Mina went through the apartment searching for anything else she might miss if she never saw it again. When she looked at the clock again, it was seven-twenty. The sedan still idled. Her heart palpitated wildly, trying to escape her chest.
She’d packed as Lindsay requested, but the packing had felt more like something to pass time. Once the driver left, she’d have plenty of time to unpack and put her things back where they belonged. She wasn’t going. She’d known she wasn’t going from the moment she’d taken the suitcases out of the closet.
She’d just wanted the option. If she wasn’t packed, she wouldn’t have the option because there was no way she could leave absolutely everything behind to go… wherever the hell she was being taken. But to admit that to herself and not pack at all was to admit she would never have love again. If someone didn’t arrange something safe for her, only loneliness stretched before her.
Her tenth cigarette of the evening shook between her fingers. Would they let her smoke? Would her master let her smoke? Would they make her quit? A lot of people thought smoking was a disgusting habit. She agreed, but it calmed her nerves. It made her feel like she could hold things together even while they were falling apart around her.
What if they wouldn’t let her smoke?
She laughed in the stillness of the apartment. She wasn’t going. Her smoking habit was safe.
At seven twenty-five, she went to the window again. Her stomach knotted tighter with each minute that passed. She should make some dinner. But she couldn’t. She had to watch the sedan drive away.
At seven-thirty, right on schedule, the car began to pull slowly from the curb. A panic burst out of Mina’s chest, and she ran out the door and down the single flight of stairs. Thank God she was only on the second floor. Outside, she grabbed a rock, ran down the road, and threw it at the car. It hit the back window, and the brake lights came on.
Mina dropped the cigarette she’d been holding and put it out with her shoe.
A perturbed man stepped out of the car and glared at her.
“You were supposed to pick me up,” she said, suddenly flustered and wanting to run again.
“I waited half an hour as instructed. If you couldn’t be ready by that time…”
“Can you please help me with my bags?” Had she just said that?
The driver gave a curt nod. He pulled the car to the front of the building and went inside to get her things.
The drive was silent and long—most of it outside the city in the countryside. It was late when they pulled up to what could only be described as a mansion. And even that didn’t do it justice. Maybe castle? How did this place exist? How did no one know about it?
The estate seemed to be in the middle of a forest. Had they blocked satellites, somehow? Surely if this place existed, someone would have seen it and reported on it. People would want to know what it was, who owned it, why it was out in the middle of nowhere.
The driver was buzzed in through an iron gate, and they drove up a large hill to the house. The sedan pulled into an expansive circular driveway.
“Go in. Your luggage will be brought to your room,” the driver said when the car stopped.
She trudged up the stairs like a child trying to get out of going to school. Before she could pull the old-fashioned doorbell, the door opened.
“Mina, you made it.” Lindsay took both of her hands and pulled her into the sprawling estate. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“I almost didn’t. I cracked the back window of your car with a rock.” Better for her to tell him than the driver.
Lindsay raised an eyebrow. “I see. Let me show you to your suite.”
Mina gaped at the marble floors and ornate staircase in the entry hall. She couldn’t believe she was staying here. The doctor let go of one of her hands, but kept a grasp on the other as he led her to the staircase.
A man with dark black hair and eyes even darker approached. “Lindsay, I need to meet with you privately.”
“I’ll be with you in a few minutes. My office,” Lindsay responded.
“Fine.”
Mina shrank and hid behind the doctor as the stranger stared, his gaze panning over her. She was grateful she wasn’t wearing anything sexy—just frumpy jeans and a t-shirt. The way he looked at her was bad enough, but if she’d looked remotely decent, it would have been worse.
Suddenly her whole body burned. She looked down at the ring, her eyes going wide. Was the ring…? Of course not! That was insane! She’d loved her grandmother, but her delirious ramblings days before her death hadn’t been exactly factual or trustworthy. Other tales of hers had included wanting to take a canoeing vacation on the moon, and the insistence that her canoe be pink so the aliens wouldn’t take it.