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Mad Hatter99 said …
Princess! Where u BEEN, girl?
*snuggles up closer for a hug*
The Dark Princess said …
Been busy with school n stuff. Having a REALLY strange day.
You seen BAC recently?
Mad Hatter99 said …
Me too! U missed the convo yesterday. What u think of Tuesday’s ep?
She was on earlier. Had some role-play stuff going on. Y?
The Dark Princess said …
Just need to talk to her. Nvr mind. Too sleepy to wait up. Nite nite x
Mad Hatter99 said …
Nooooooo! Don’t leave me!
Amber logged out of the messageboard and lay back on her bed. Taking off her clothes was far too much effort. Brushing her teeth seemed a ridiculous waste of energy. She could barely keep her eyes open. She heard her parents and the others talking, but couldn’t make out the words. There was laughter. Excitement.
Her phone rang, buzzing against her hip. With numb fingers, she pulled it from her pocket and held it to her ear.
“It’s me,” said Sally. “Just got a call from Frank. Two cops came into the Firebird ten minutes ago asking about you.”
Faint alarm bells rang in Amber’s head. “What’d they want?” she asked groggily.
“You,” said Sally. “They said you attacked those guys from earlier. Did you? They said one of them’s in the hospital.”
Groaning, Amber sat up. “Did Frank tell them my name?”
“Of course he did, Amber. They’re cops. What happened?”
The doorbell rang. Amber hung up, slipped her phone into her pocket while she stood. The room spun for a moment. When she was sure she wasn’t going to fall over, she walked with Frankenstein feet to the window.
There was a patrol car in the driveway.
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THE CHATTER IN THE house died away, replaced by a new, unfamiliar voice. A man’s voice. Official-sounding. Amber wished she wasn’t so tired. If she could only get her brain in gear, she’d be able to explain herself. She was sure she’d be able to make the cops understand. She took a few deep breaths to clear her head, and walked unsteadily to her door. She opened it. If they wanted her to emerge with her hands up, they were going to be disappointed. She was far too tired to lift her arms.
From the sounds of things, the others had stayed in the dining room, and Bill and Betty had taken the cops into the living room to talk. Amber stayed close to the wall as she moved, in case she needed the support. She got to the family photo in the hallway – the only framed photograph of the three of them – and stopped. From here, she could look across the corridor, through the open door.
Two officers of the law stood there in full uniform, talking to her parents. The cops were saying something, but Amber couldn’t focus enough to make out the words. She didn’t know why she felt so tired. They all stood in the centre of the room, watching each other. Amber shuffled her shoulder along the wall, then stopped again, concentrated on what the cop was saying.
“…just need to speak to her, that’s all.”
“Amber’s not feeling well at the moment,” Bill said. “Maybe if you come back tomorrow she’ll be strong enough.”
“Mr Lamont,” the cop said, “I understand what you’re doing. Please don’t think I don’t. Your daughter may be in trouble and you want to protect her. I get that. I do. But you’re doing her no favours if you don’t let us speak to her.”
Despite her drowsiness, Amber felt her insides go cold.
“My husband isn’t lying,” Betty said, sounding upset. “If you’d just call Chief Gilmore, I know he’ll vouch for us and for Amber. Whatever you think happened I just know didn’t happen.”
“We’re not calling the Police Chief, we’re not even calling this in, until we’ve had a chance to speak with Amber,” the cop said. “We have two young men who swear that she assaulted them.”
“One sixteen-year-old girl assaulted two men?” Bill said. “And you’re taking them seriously? You’re actually wasting your time with this nonsense?”
“We’ll get this whole thing cleared up if you’ll just let us speak to her.”
Bill put his hands on his hips and shook his head despairingly. Betty looked at him.
“You are such a perfectionist,” she said. The upset she’d briefly displayed had disappeared.
“I just like it when things are neat,” said Bill. “This … would not be neat.”
“I’m sorry, what wouldn’t be neat?” one of the cops asked.
But Bill and Betty ignored him.
“This is a special day,” Betty said. “A wonderful day. For sixteen years, we have waited for this day. What’s happening now is a minor inconvenience. That’s all it is.”
“Mrs Lamont,” one of the cops began, but Bill talked over him.
“It’s already in the system,” he said to his wife. “Already logged.”
“No, it isn’t,” Betty answered. “That one said they haven’t even called it in yet. Gilmore will make it go away. He’s done it before, and for the money we’re paying him he’ll certainly do it again. You might have to drive their car into the marshes later on tonight, just to confuse their colleagues, but why not?”
The officers glanced at each other.
Bill looked at his wife and smiled. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You really want to do this?”
“Yes,” said Betty. “I really do.” She took a coat from the back of the couch and put it on, pulling the sleeve down past her wrist and wrapping it around her hand.
“Uh, excuse me?” said the cop.
“So which one do you want?” asked Bill.
Betty nodded to the cop closest to her. “That one.”
“Fair enough,” Bill said, shrugging. “I’ll kill the ugly one.”
“Hey,” said the big cop, but his next words were muffled by Bill’s hand covering his face.
Only it wasn’t Bill’s hand. It was red, and tipped with black talons. Bill’s face was red, too, but different, altered, and he was bigger, taller, suddenly towering over the cop, a red-skinned monster with black horns curling from his forehead, like a ram’s horns.
The demon that had taken Bill’s place slammed the cop’s head against the wall. The head crumpled like an empty soda can.
The cop’s partner jumped back in shock, scrabbled at his holster for his gun, then remembered Betty and turned just as she changed. One moment Betty. The next a monster. Tall. Red. Horned. Her fist went right through his chest, popping out the other side in a spray of blood. The cop gurgled something that Amber couldn’t make out. Betty opened her hand, letting go of the sleeve, and withdrew her arm from both her coat and the cop’s torso.
Amber ducked back as the dead cop collapsed.
“Well,” she heard Bill say, “that’s done it.”
Betty laughed. It was her laugh, all right, but it was coming from the mouth of a demon.
The door between the living room and the dining room opened, and Amber inched forward again to watch Grant lead the others in. They stared in shock at the carnage.
Kirsty covered her mouth with her hand.
Bill turned to them. “We can explain.”
Kirsty rushed forward. “That’s my coat! What the hell, Betty?”
Amber’s knees went weak.
“Can we talk about your coat later?” said Grant. “Right now can we talk about the two dead cops on the carpet?”
“I’ll call Gilmore,” said Bill. “We’ll get it all smoothed over. This is not a big deal.”
“They’re cops!”
Bill-the-demon waved a hand. “We got a bit carried away. We shouldn’t have done it. Happy? It’s low key for Betty and me for the rest of the night, we promise. We kill Amber, and that’s it. No more killing for the week.”
Amber’s stomach lurched and suddenly she was cold, colder than she’d ever been.
“I really am sorry about your coat,” Betty said to Kirsty. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
Kirsty shook her head. “It was limited edition. You can’t get them anymore.”
Amber slid sideways, forgetting how to walk, forgetting how to breathe. Her feet were heavy, made of stone, dragging themselves across the floor towards her bedroom while the rest of her body did its best to stay upright. She fell through her doorway, down to her knees, turned and reached out, numb fingers tipping the door closed. Her mouth was dry and her tongue was thick. Something was happening in her belly and she fell forward on to her hands and knees, throwing up on the rug she’d had for years. She didn’t make a sound, though. She heaved and retched, but didn’t make a sound.
Her parents were monsters. They had grown horns. They’d killed cops. Her parents – and their friends – were going to kill her.
Betty had drugged her. That’s what she’d done. A sedative or something, served up in the food. No, the Coke. Amber looked at the mess on her rug and wondered how much of the drug was congealing down there.
She reached out, hand closing round the bedpost, using it to pull herself up, steady herself, stop herself from toppling sideways. She had to get out. She had to run. She started for the window and the room tilted crazily and she was stumbling towards it. She threw herself to one side before she smashed through the glass, instead banging her elbow against the wall. It hurt, but it didn’t bring her parents running. She was so thirsty. There was a bottle of water on her nightstand, but it was all the way across the room.
Dumb, numb fingers fumbled at the window. Stupid, dumb thumb jammed against the latch. Dull teeth bit down, drawing blood from her lip. The pain was sharp, sharpened her for a moment, and her thick, stupid, unresponsive fingers did what they were supposed to do. The latch squeaked, moved, and she braced her forearm against the sash of the window and pressed in and up, using her whole body to slide the window open. Then her legs gave out and she fell, cracked her head against the sill on the way down.
Amber lay with her eyes closed, blood pounding in her ears like drumbeats, like footsteps, like knuckles on a door.
“Amber?”
Eyes opened.
“Amber?” Betty said from the hall. “Are you okay?”
No answer would mean the door opening, Betty looking in.
An answer, then. An answer.
“Yeah,” came the word, awkwardly, from Amber’s mouth. More followed. “Tired. Sleeping.” Each one clumsy on her tongue.
The door. The handle. The handle turning, the door opening. Bill’s voice from somewhere else. “Where do we keep the stain remover?”
The door, closing, and then Betty’s footsteps, walking away.
Amber turned on to her side, then got on her hands and knees. Stayed there, breathing, gathering her strength. Without raising her head, she reached for the sill. Grabbed it. Hauled herself up until she got an arm out. Grabbed the sill on the other side. Pulled herself up off her knees, got her head out of the window, into the heat and the air and the rain.
Amber fell to the grass, her legs banging off the window frame. They’d find her like this. She hadn’t escaped. She couldn’t rest, not like this. She had to get away. Had to keep moving.
Amber was crawling now, along the wet grass, through the dappled shadows of the trees. She had to get away. She had to crawl faster. Had to get to the road. Get to the road, get into a car, drive away. Escape.
The ground beneath her changed, got harder. Not grass. Not anymore. Darker. Harder. Smoother. The road.
Approaching footsteps, hurrying through the rain. They’d found her. They’d found her already. Her arms were weak, no strength left. Her body lay down. Her mind … her mind … where was her mind?
Shoes. High-heeled shoes on a wet road, right in front of her. A voice. A woman’s voice. She knew that woman’s voice.
“Hello, Amber,” said Imelda.
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AMBER AWOKE IN A room that was not her own. Clean lines and no clutter. Heavy curtains kept the dark from escaping into the morning light. Moving slowly, she pulled the covers off and stood. She was in her underwear. Her clothes were neatly folded on the dresser. Clean and dry. She crept to the window, parted the curtains, and looked out over Lake Eola. She frowned. An apartment in the city overlooking Lake Eola. She didn’t know where the hell she was.
But she was alive. That was something, at least.
Amber grabbed her clothes, put them on. Her phone was gone. She started to reach for the glass of water by her bed, but stopped, remembering the Coke. There was a bathroom, clean and polished, looking like it had never been used, and she drank from the faucet and wiped her mouth. Then she went to the door, put her ear against it, heard nothing.
She opened it, hesitated, and stepped out.
The apartment was vast, impressive, and utterly devoid of personality. It looked like the penthouse suite of a hotel. Everything was clean and in place. Every colour matched, every curve and line complemented the curves and lines around it. It had all been designed to cohere, to fit, to belong. There was a designer kitchen to her left, all gleaming metal with a huge breakfast island, and a balcony to her right, a view of the city beyond, all glass and palm trees, and ahead of her was the way out.
She was halfway to the door when she noticed Imelda standing in the living room, her back to her. She was on the phone, listening while someone spoke.
Amber reached the apartment door, opened it silently, and stepped out into the corridor. White walls. She moved up to the corner, and peered round.
At the end of the corridor was the elevator, the door to the stairwell, and a window. Standing at that window, looking out over the skyline, was a tall man in blue jeans, black T-shirt and battered cowboy boots. On the side table behind him there was a mirror, a bowl of potpourri and a shotgun.
Amber stared at the shotgun.
