City of Thorns by C.N. Crawford
Chapter 6
Iwoke in total darkness to the sound of dripping water, my back pressed against a cold stone floor. My dress had ridden up around my hips, exposing my legs, and my right thigh lay in freezing cold water. My teeth chattered.
Down here, the air smelled stale and mildewy, though not wildly different from the basement where I lived.
Shivering, I sat up straight, my mind whirling.
From what I’d gathered, the Lord of Chaos had kidnapped me, and he’d locked me in a basement. I hadn’t expected an amazing birthday, but this certainly fell far below my worst expectations.
My heart thundered in my chest. I shot to my feet, searching for my phone. Only then did I remember that one of the frat boys had smacked it out of my hands.
Swallowing hard, I wrapped my arms around myself. “Hello?”
My own voice echoed back to me. The only other noise was the sound of dripping water.
After a few minutes, I started feeling around in the darkness. My fingertips brushed over a slimy wall, moss, ivy, and then iron bars.
Okay, I wasn’t in a basement. I was in a jail cell. Or a dungeon, perhaps.
“Hello?” I called again.
As I stared into the darkness, flames burst to life in the torches on a stone wall across from me, making me jump. But since no one was around, I could only imagine that magic had lit the torches. Now, warm light wavered over my cell, illuminating the iron bars that locked me in.
I surveyed the dim space. Vines grew over three of the walls around me, and across from my cell was a crude stone wall with the torches. That was about it.
As my heart raced, I crossed to the bars and gripped them, waiting. Down here, it was cold enough that my breath clouded before my face.
A few moments later, I heard the sound of footfalls.
Then the Lord of Chaos arrived before my cell, his perfect features gilded in the torchlight. It was too bad he was a demon and an unrelenting asshole because he was heartbreakingly beautiful. He stood with an eerie, demonic stillness that made goosebumps rise on my skin. The amygdala—the part of my brain that assessed a threat—instantly picked him out as predator,not human.My brain was telling me to get the fuck out of there, and it didn’t seem to care that there were bars.
“There you are, love,” he purred.
I stared at him, trying to remember how to form sentences. “Don’t lock someone in a dungeon and then call them love.”
He chuckled softly, taunting. “Sorry, is that bad manners?” His smile faded fast. “I guess I don’t give a fuck, Mortana.”
“Why am I here?”
“Because I loathe you more than any other living person, and I’ve always wanted to see you on the other side of these bars.” His cruel gaze brushed slowly up and down my body. “It’s fucking delicious. Especially seeing what a sad little life you’ve been living among the mortals. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
I pointed at him. “You need to understand that everything you’re saying is wrong.”
He stepped closer, his eyes piercing in the gloom, and gripped the cell bars. “This night has been delightful. I never quite imagined it being this good.” Despite the fact that he was threatening me at every opportunity, his voice felt like a soft, seductive caress. It brushed over my bare skin, sending a hot shiver through my body—a deeply confusing sensation. “This might be the greatest thrill I’ve ever experienced. Don’t you remember what it was like when you used to come see me?”
Panic was stealing my breath. “I’m not the person you think I am. How can I make you see that?”
An ice-cold smile. “Oh? Have you had a change of heart in the past few centuries? Are you nice now?” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Shall we have a bake sale to fund sports for underprivileged mortal children?”
“I’m not two centuries old. I’m mortal.Can’t you tell the difference?I’m from Osborn. I went to Osborn High School. I was Lady Macbeth in one of the plays junior year, and I fell off the stage. Jared Halverson asked me to the prom as a joke, and I got dressed up in a black gown, and he never showed up.” I blurted these last few tidbits of information in a desperate attempt to explain how utterly nonthreatening I was.
His smile only deepened, his beauty making my chest ache. “Well, this is a rather sad display. You’re really going to play it this way? The night before your execution, Mortana, and you’re going to pretend to be a mortal who’s pathetic even among the other humans? This is fascinating.”
I ignored the degree to which he was insulting me and focused on one word: Mortana.There, I had a name. I pointed at him. “Okay. Let’s start here. Mortana. That’s not me. My name is Rowan Morgenstern. If you’ll check my wallet, you’ll see my ID. I’m twenty-two years old. It’s my birthday tonight. I gave a presentation about repressed memories today, and I fucked it right up. I live in a basement with spiders.” It seemed I was unable to stop spewing irrelevant information.
What were the chances an ancient terrifying demon would accept a Massachusetts license as proof of identity? Not great, I thought.
My heart was racing out of control. “There’s got to be some way that I can prove I’m not Mortana.” Never before had I felt so desperate to be back in that spidery basement.
He gave a bitter laugh. “Here I was, hoping for remorse. I thought you might want to unburden yourself before your death. But I see I won’t get that particular pleasure.”
My mouth went dry. “Before my death?”
“You must remember the prison gallows,” he said quietly. “I certainly do.”
I shook my head, my heart thundering. “No. I don’t!” I shouted. “Because for the last fucking time, I’m not Mortana!”
Shadowy magic spilled around him, then shifted in the air. “You’ve been out of the city gates long enough that you will die quickly. You will die like a mortal if I kill you tomorrow morning before your magic returns. It’s not really the death you deserve, but it’s the one you’ll get. You can thank me tomorrow, love, for your mercifully quick death. Assuming you’re not ready to thank me now.”
And with that, he turned and strolled away, shadows coiling around him.
As I watched him leave through the cell bars, the torches flickered out, and darkness filled the prison again.
Forcing myself to take a deep breath, I tried to corral my racing thoughts into a plan. Screaming and begging would do no good. In the darkness, I searched out a dry part of the cell and slid down into one corner. And as I sat in the silence, I realized my first mistake. Dr. Omer would have called me on it right away. You can’t just tell someone they’re wrong—they’ll just argue back. You have to gently guide them to the conclusion themselves so it seems like their idea.
I dropped my face into my hands, my chest tight.
On the cold cell floor, a sense of loneliness hollowed me out. Was I really going to die in this place? Buried with all my secrets? There were so many things I’d never told anyone. Things that were too dark, too scary.
I hadn’t told anyone that the night mom died, I’d been covered in ashes. My senior year of high school, the police had found Mom’s charred body in the Osborne Forest. They’d found me by the side of the road half a mile away, shaking and covered in soot. When I talked about her murder, I could always sense the change in the air. I could feel muscles tensing, breath sucking in. No one wanted the absolute horror of having to hear more about a mother incinerated in a forest. People looked at me differently after learning about what had happened, as if the tragedy had cursed me. And it had.
I didn’t tell anyone how I’d been nearly catatonic, with confused memories of the night. I hadn’t told Shai that when the police had interviewed me, I’d been incoherent, and that I’d been a suspect for a while. All I could remember was that Mom had injured her ankle. She’d told me to run, fast, to get help. I’d known we were in danger, and I’d started to take off in the dark woods. But then I’d heard it—the inhuman sound like a growl. The smell of flesh burning, and her screams. That’s when my memories became muddled, but I remembered a five-pointed star burning bright in the darkness.
The only thing still clear to me from that point on was the bone-deep terror.
After the police interviewed me, they came to the conclusion that I was delusional, possibly on drugs. Demons hadn’t killed mortals in centuries. It wasn’t even possible, they were certain. Have you lost your mind, Rowan?
Eventually, they’d come up with a half-baked theory that the murder was probably drug-related. But that wasn’t Mom. She never did drugs.
At school, the rumors had gone wild. People who didn’t know a thing about Mom had said she was a prostitute, a drug addict. Some had said I’d killed her in a fit of rage—that I’d poured gasoline on her and lit a match.
When I found the real killer, I’d know what actually happened.
“Fuck,” I muttered. Then, louder. “I am not Mortana!”
A sigh sounded from the next cell. Was someone there?
“Hello?” I tried again, this time more quietly. I felt oddly relieved to have company. “I didn’t know anyone else was here.”
The only response was another sigh. Definitely someone there.
Hugging myself, I swallowed hard. “I’m not supposed to be here. I know, right, everyone probably says that, but I’m mortal. I don’t think demons are supposed to imprison mortals. Don’t suppose you know how to get out of here?”
No response.
“I guess you wouldn’t be here if you did. Have you ever heard of someone named Mortana?”
Water dripped into the puddle next to me.
I dropped my head into my hands, my body still buzzing with panic. “I’m not her. I’m not a demon, and I’m not two centuries old.”
Somehow, my new prison friend’s silence only made me want to tell him more. Because the Lord of Chaos was right. I did want to unburden myself, but not because of guilt. My secrets were weighing me down, stealing my breath, and I wanted to be free of them.
“Let me tell you something, prison mate,” I started. “I’m twenty-two. And I can’t die tomorrow. In fact, I refuse to die tomorrow. Do you want to know why? I’ve never even been in love. I had one boyfriend my freshman year of college. He was into comics and played the piano, and he was tall and cute. But he always told me I needed to exercise more, and I started to resent him, and when we finally had sex, it was…so boring. I remember reading the spines of the books on his shelves, waiting for it to end. I remember a mosquito biting my butt cheek. Then he broke up with me for a girl from his town, and that was at. That was my only relationship.”
My mind was racing. I’d never actually told anyone this before, and it felt good to get it out. And I didn’t actually give a fuck what this stranger thought, so he was the perfect person to unburden myself with.
This was freeing.
“I think we need to talk about Jack,” I went on. “You’re a good listener, you know that?”
I launched into a diatribe about Jack in high school, the “Home Run Rowan” nickname, how Jared Halverson had posted my confused texts on social media the night he stood me up. Then I rambled about every indiscretion, every embarrassing thing or terrible thing I’d ever done. The time I’d written a friend a bitchy email about my math teacher’s sweat stains and accidentally sent it to him. My weird snack of microwaved tortillas with sugar and butter. The time I’d thrown up repeatedly in a trash can in Harvard Square Station after too much tequila. The cab driver with mutton chops I tried to hit on in Cambridge. How I’d peed outside a Dunkin’ Donuts because they wouldn’t let me use the bathroom. How I’d never actually had an orgasm, and I wasn’t convinced they were real—the idea seemed like an elaborate hoax. I explained how I’d given up on men and started wearing granny panties from Rite Aid because what difference did it make?
For at least an hour, I unleashed every embarrassing or selfish thing I’d ever thought or done.
“…and can you explain to me why the one guy who seemed like he would actually be able to sexually satisfy me is also a demon, and also he kidnapped me and threw me in a prison? That’s how I know there’s no God. It’s too cruel. The sexiest person I’ve ever seen, the guy who’d make me want to wear lace underwear instead of the pharmacy stuff—he’s the Hannibal fucking Lecter of the supernatural world. Are you kidding me?”
Silence filled the cells, and I realized my eyes were growing heavy.
A man’s voice came from the next cell, hardly a whisper: “Are you done?”
I sighed, only now realizing that I’d pretty much run out of material. “Yeah, I think that covers my life pretty much,” I said, and dropped my head into my hands, exhausted.
But there was only one thing I didn’t cover—my mom’s death at the hands of a demon with the mark of a star. Because I was still determined to find my way out of this. And I wasn’t ruling anyone out. Not the Lord of Chaos, and not my quiet prison friend.
Any demon could be guilty.
As I sat on the cold floor, I was sure of three things.
One, I was going to find a way out of here.
Two, I’d find a way to stay in the City of Thorns.
And three, I would get revenge on the demon who killed my mom.