Chapter 55

My eyes feel sore, like I’ve been crying for hours. My tongue feels like sandpaper and my mouth dry. I look around the darkened room. Misty lays on one of the couches, her legs dangling in an unnatural position. The boys lay scattered around the room, all appear to be sleeping.
I pull myself into a sitting position slowly, relieved to discover the pain is no longer there, and happy my legs work again.
I creep into the kitchen and take a seat at the table. The books we have yet to look through lay piled on the top. I take one and scan the pages. I need to find away to stop the order before they destroy me.
I look through book after book with no joy. The Order of Terror never once gets a mention. I throw the last book down and decide on a cup of coffee to keep myself focused. I’m not usually a fan of coffee, but I could sure use the caffeine now.
Every one of my muscles hurts like I’ve run a marathon and I am now paying for it. My head feels groggy too, like I’ve not slept in days. Sleep is the last thing on my mind right now though.
Pouring the hot water into the cup, the aroma of coffee causes nausea to rise. Maybe coffee is a bad idea. Strong arms wrap around my waist. I freeze.
“You had us all scared there for a moment,” a husky voice says into my ear, their warm breath tickles my neck. The arms feel unfamiliar, strange to me.
I turn around to be met with Cole’s black eyes. I gulp at the look of untamed desire staring into my eyes.
I gently push at his chest to move him away, but he locks me in place with his arms. Caged in, a feeling of claustrophobia spreads over me. The feeling reminds me of the dark woodland, and the terror reappears. I launch myself at him, kicking, punching, and clawing at him. His eyes burn with wild fire.
Chris’s manly arms grab me from behind and holds me to his chest. A feeling of calm and serenity settles over me
“What did you do to her?” Chris’s voice is on the border line of a growl.
“Nothing. She just went crazy,” Cole says looking at me with his head tilted to the side. I push Chris away and leave the room. The Order of Terror have got a clutch on my mind.
After berating myself for being so childish, I sit up and stare out of the window at the early morning sun. Someone knocks softly on the door and enters, but I don’t turn around or acknowledge their presence as they pad across the plush carpet. The bed dips slightly, and a warm, soft feminine hand takes hold of mine.
“Kayla, I know you’re scared. We all are. But we will find a way. We always do. We will be beside you every step to hold your hand and help you through this.” Misty squeezes my hand reassuringly. Slowly I turn to face her, and she wipes stray tears from my cheeks and pulls me into a hug and whispers words of comfort.
“What happened? How did you break your back?” she asks shyly. This was weird because I can’t ever remember Misty ever being shy.
I replayed what happened to me and recalled how the eyes had no physical body. As I do, she listens quietly, waiting for me to finish. Every now and then she nods her head.
“James thinks you got pulled into a dream by one of the orders.” The same thought had crossed my mind. It was very scary to think they could inflict so much pain on me and I couldn’t touch them.
“I couldn’t fight them or do anything to defend myself.” I look away, ashamed of being so weak.
“It’s okay, I understand, we all do. We will figure out a way out to fight them.” She sounds so sure, like it’s as easy as going to the shop. I wish I could believe it, but right now, my hope and faith are slowly draining.
How can I fight something with no physical form?
I’m not a fighter or a warrior. I’m not a witch who can clear the world of evil. I’m Kayla, a teenage girl who’s been ripped from the only family I’ve ever known and thrown into a world of chaos and fighting. A world I know so little about. Yet, it isa world where I have to fight for my life against supernatural creatures, I’ve only just come to believe are real. To top things off, I’m spoken about in an ancient prophecy, foretold thousands of years ago.
Suddenly, the room fills with snakes, cockroaches, maggots, and spiders. Thousands of creepy crawlies and angry looking snakes slither and scuttle towards us.
I sit completely still. Misty screams, it’s so ear-splitting I’m surprised the glass doesn’t break. The door flies open, and the boys rush in stamping on bugs and creepy crawlies as they move. The more they squash, the more there seems to be.
Misty grips my hand in a death hold, and we appear outside the cabin. We both brush our clothes off while jumping up and down.
“I hate snakes!” Misty screeches. “They have beady little eyes with horrible tongues, have you seen the way they look at you!” I agree, but to me, the snakes aren’t as bad as the spiders. I would take the snakes over the spiders any day. It’s when you lose a spider it scares you the most. You just know they’re going to creep up on you.
The sound of leaves crunching in the trees draws our attention, but nothing is insight. Misty grabs my arm and heads back to the cabin. I tug my arm free as another wave of terror hits me.
“I am not going back in there with those bugs,” I say, shaking my head.
“Please, something feels off out here,” she whispers.
As she says it, some foul-smelling cloth covers my mouth and nose. My body goes limp. I try to scream, to fight, but my eyes drift closed involuntary.
***
I awake to a small, dark, empty cold room with stone walls and floor. Misty is curled up in a tight ball in the corner. Bars cover the only way out. I crawl over to them. My body feels weak and unstable. I grip the bars, only to be struck by a bolt of electricity that sends me reeling back. The jail-like cell is the least of my concerns. Who are my new captors? A thin line of light comes through a small vent outside the cell. I make my way to Misty and shake her awake. She bolts upright, nearly knocking me over in the process.
“Where are we?” I ask. She looks around the room. Her face pales to a sheer white.
“The Council.”
Great, this is all I need.
Misty sighs. “This is bad, really bad.” The fear in her eyes gives fuel to my own. If Misty is scared, we really are in big trouble.
Hours pass with no sign of the Council. We sit in silence or pace around the small cell. We have no powers now either. Misty says the cell bars are enchanted and have stripped us of our powers.
My vision blurs, and panic rises from its hidden depth. Bright lights momentarily blind me.
Rows of tombstones stand erect like silent sentinels. Some are deteriorated with the weathering of centuries; others are still quite new. The sky is pure red. The first drops of what I think is rainfall brings a coppery smell. The raindrops hit my bare skin, thick red droplets. It's blood, not rain. The sky is bleeding.
A rumbling and cracking sound grows louder. The ground bulges and some of the tombstone’s collapse. I watch in terrified curiosity as zombies rise from the graves. One of them has one ear missing, and both its lips have been bitten off, perhaps the result of its death-kiss from the zombie that turned it into one of the undead, or perhaps the result of a fight with another zombie.