The Temptation Read online

  “Here is the short version of the story for you, Shane,” said Victor, pacing nervously back and forth, in a way that very much reminded me of the coyote he sometimes materialized as. “Travis loves you. I hate Travis. The best way I can think of to hurt Travis is to hurt the one he loves.”

  “He’s gone from my life now!” I cried. “He said so himself. He knew you’d do this, so he and I aren’t together anymore.”

  Victor cut me off, a violent rage boiling in his eyes.

  “Silence!” he roared, stalking in a strange way, shifting shape before our very eyes. His shoulders grew hunched, and his arms became thinner, and longer, and the bones made a terrible din of crunching and crackling, as he became a coyote. Even so, he was able to keep talking, through his coyote’s mouth, the voice deep and horrible now, snarling and phlegmy.

  “I’m a smart man,” he said. “You might not guess that to see this house, but I am smart. If I hurt you—and I will, don’t you doubt it—he’ll come for you. It don’t matter what he promised. He’s weak. He’ll come. And when he does, he’ll break a rule. I’ll make sure of it. He’ll be tempted, and in that temptation, he’ll mess up. They think they’re better ’n me, just like that bitch mama of theirs, but they’re not. Him and Randy, they’re just like me.”

  “They’re nothing like you!” I screamed, as Kelsey whimpered next to me.

  My outburst infuriated Victor. He shape-shifted again. I heard the bones of his body as they crunched and grew and shrank and reformed in the shape of something I can only describe as a demon, hairless and spiny, with a long, barbed tail. The voice, when it came, was even worse now than it had been before.

  “Here,” he growled. “It’ll all end right here, in this room, but not without a little bit of fun first.”

  I didn’t ask anything more, because I didn’t like the look of the way he licked his chops and his red eyes glowed at us.

  “Logan here is my friend. I found him the night you walked with him. His soul called out to me, and I answered its call. There are some among you who seek to be associated with my kind. They reach out in their own ways, through their own magic, and I was lucky enough to find him just in time to make this beautiful arrangement we have here happen. The Maker works in mysterious ways.”

  “The Maker had nothing to do with you, or any of this!” I raged. “You’re disgusting!”

  Victor came in close then, and kissed me on the lips. I resisted, and spit the sticky, putrid taste off of me when he was done. Kelsey somehow curled her legs into her chest and unleashed them with a stunning blow to Victor’s chin, knocking him down, to protect me.

  Victor rose up, furious, with bright red blood dripping from his lower lip, and unsheathed a knife with slow, cold deliberation and a devilish smile. The blade, engraved with snaking, moving lettering, gleamed.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, little best friend,” he told her. “You do realize you’re the disposable one here, don’t you, blondie?”

  “No!” I screamed, as he came close to her and, grabbing her hair in his free hand, yanked her head back and held the blade to her throat. “She was only trying to help me! Take me. Not her. She hasn’t done anything to you.”

  “It’s true, your brave cowboy won’t come for Kelsey,” Victor hissed in her face, spittle dripping from his lips. “Pretty as you are, Kelsey, delicious as you look, Travis don’t care about you. No boy does. And that hurts you, don’t it? I see what Shane can’t. You’re jealous of her.”

  Kelsey’s face was a messy mix of fear and pain. Suddenly, I understood why someone like Victor might choose to prey upon his enemy’s loved ones rather than the enemy himself. It was because good people suffered more for others than for themselves, and more than I wanted to save myself, I wanted to help Kelsey.

  Victor laughed in her face as he pointed to me with his clawed hand. “It’s her he wants. I could cut you right here, right now, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to my plan.”

  “Please don’t,” she stammered, trembling.

  Victor clearly got off on watching her squirm, just as Logan had enjoyed watching the jackrabbit squirm. Then, he abruptly sheathed the blade once more, and stood up to face me with a wild grin.

  “I’ll wait to take care of your friend—later, after you’ve gone to sleep. You, pathetically, love your little friend. Pity. I wouldn’t want you so traumatized that you won’t be of help when he finally get here.”

  With that, he produced the handkerchief, and once more put it over my nose and mouth, as Kelsey screamed. The world faded, and then I was gone, falling into a deep, dark, blank, horrible sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I woke up feeling nauseous, to the sound of a punishing rain on a metal roof. The cartoon curtains in the rancid bedroom where I was still held captive were drawn. I could tell it was daytime, albeit a dreary, gray day that felt hopeless and suffocating. I was still on the bed, as I was the last time I came to, and my wrists and ankles were still bound tightly. It felt as though I had no circulation in my hands and feet anymore. I was thirsty, and hungry, and I needed to pee. Kelsey was gone again, and I was alone in the room now. I struggled to maneuver myself to the edge of the bed, and wriggled to get myself to my feet. My high-heeled pumps were nowhere to be seen, and the carpet felt like a dry, hard Brillo pad under my feet. I looked about me wildly, hoping to find my phone. My purse. But none of it was here. I wondered what my mother thought. There must have been people out looking for us by then. I wondered how long I’d been unconscious, what day it was. I held a small flame of hope in my heart that he might somehow find me here.

  I tried a few pathetic hops, with the aim of getting myself to the dresser so that I could attempt to saw the bindings off my wrists with its lopsided edge—but all I managed to do was fall, with a loud whump, to the floor. It was filthy, with dead cockroaches on it and, to my horror, a few live ones, too. I screamed.

  I heard footsteps coming—or, I should say, I felt them. I braced myself in dread. I heard the door open, a person breathing and moving slowly, looking for me. From where they stood, they would not have been able to see me because of the position of the bed.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” called Victor’s disgusting voice, in sinister imitation of a child’s game.

  I held my breath, hoping irrationally that he couldn’t find me if I just stopped breathing.

  “Peekaboo,” he said next, as I saw his head round the edge of the bed, smiling horribly, viciously. “I see you. . . .”

  With one unfathomably strong hand, the demon picked me up off the floor and dumped me back onto the bed. I screamed as loudly as I could. Suddenly a moving blur came flying across the room from the doorway and tackled Victor. They began to wrestle.

  “Travis!” I cried, as I recognized him.

  I watched in horror as they pummeled each other. Travis moved with great skill, however—and was stronger and more agile than Victor. In fact, Travis seemed to handle Victor as though he were some sort of enormous livestock. Soon, Travis had rope out, and was literally hog-tying the demon’s limbs. He wrapped the rope around Victor’s head, and tied that up, too. Victor could not move, other than to struggle against the bindings. They were already coming loose, however, and I knew we didn’t have much time before he’d be back up.

  “He’s getting out!” I cried.

  “Shh,” Travis said, finger to his lips.

  “You shouldn’t have come!” I cried. “He’s going to hurt you!”

  “Quiet,” he commanded.

  He sawed at my bindings with a Swiss Army knife until they popped, and a wave of blood flowed from my arms to my fingertips in a painful but refreshing tingle. He repeated this process with my ankles.

  “Thank God you’re here,” I breathed into his neck.

  “Shh, not now.” He lifted me onto his shoulder as though I weighed nothing, and sprinted from the room, down a dank and narrow hallway, and out the front door. Running with superhuman stren
gth and speed, he hauled me across the fallow, frozen wasteland outside, and set me gently in the bottom of a dry irrigation ditch, out of sight from the trailer.

  Speaking in a firm voice, he said, “Stay down. Don’t move. Don’t scream. No noise. I’m going back for Kelsey. Wait here.”

  “He said he was going to kill her,” I told him.

  Travis rushed to my side, and put his face, deadly serious, directly in front of mine. “I told you to be absolutely quiet. I need your cooperation. Now. Life or death, Shane. Please.”

  I did as he said, my heart thundering in my chest. I began to shiver, and my shoeless feet began to freeze. I wanted to peek up and get a sense of where I was, but I knew better than to defy his command right now. Right now, he knew more than I did.

  Travis returned a few minutes later, with Kelsey on his shoulder. She was as stunned and terrified as I was.

  Travis crouched next to us. “You guys ready to get out of here?”

  We nodded vigorously.

  “Yeah, me, too. I need to get you to the descansos, and then we can transport you home. I’ll deal with Victor after that.”

  We crouched with him. Travis whistled, and Scooter, the horse he’d ridden the first day I met him, came galloping out of the nothingness. Travis threw us one at a time onto his back, and was about to come up after us when we heard the sound of a motor in the near distance. An all-terrain vehicle was bearing down upon us over a nearby hill, driven by none other than Logan. Victor, back in human form, stood triumphantly behind him, like an overseer, pointing his finger to where we were. They were gaining on us quickly. Travis, his eyes betraying courage and lightning-quick plotting, slapped Scooter’s hip and said, “Yah, go! To the descansos!”

  Scooter took off, without him, racing across the desert through the rain, in the direction of Highway 550 and Travis’s and Randy’s descansos. I craned my neck in a panic, trying to see Travis, and saw Logan and Victor speeding straight toward him. I screamed, but to my astonishment, Travis jumped up and over the ATV, landing on the other side of it. Logan spun the vehicle around, aimed it at Travis again, and charged while Victor laughed maniacally. Missing him a second time, Victor seemed to think up a new plan. He spoke into Logan’s ear, and instead of going after Travis again, Logan turned with a filthy smile on his face, and began to chase after us.

  Scooter seemed to perceive this, because he hastened his pace, and Kelsey and I held on to his mane for dear life. But his speed was no match for the ATV, and before we knew what was happening, Logan was revving his engine right next to us, trying to ram the vehicle into Scooter’s side and legs as Victor licked his chops at us like a hungry dog. The horse—in revenant form, I presumed—dodged, and stopped in his tracks to rear up, whinnying with a crazed look in his wide-set eyes. Victor placed a hand on Logan’s shoulder. Logan stopped the ATV suddenly, and then Victor rose up even taller, with a large electric crossbow and arrow. Victor aimed the hideous weapon at the horse.

  “No!” I screamed, but the arrow made a whizzing sound, zipping through the air with astonishing speed and accuracy, landing squarely in Scooter’s side, toppling him instantly. Kelsey and I were thrown from the horse several yards. I looked back, horrified and heartbroken, and saw the horse struggling on his side, squealing in pain. I knew he was already dead, a ghost horse, a revenant like Travis, and I wondered whether the same rules applied to the horse that applied to him. If Travis were to allow himself to be killed again, in revenant form, he would be instantly condemned to the Underworld.

  “Scooter! No!” I cried, hurrying to his side to try to help him. But it was too late. When I got to him, he had already stopped breathing, his eyes glazed over by death.

  Logan hopped off the ATV and ran over to watch the dead horse with a fascinated look on his face.

  “Did you see that?” he asked me, pleased with himself, as though we were still friends. “The way his soul left his body? Did you see that?” His eyes were manic, excited with his own power and bloodlust.

  Travis came running toward us now, a look of sheer fury and sadness on his face as he spotted Scooter downed, and understood he was gone. Victor, upon seeing Travis coming closer, suddenly lunged from the ATV for me. He zipped through the air effortlessly and pinned my back against his chest, holding Logan’s massive hunting knife to my throat. Logan watched Victor with a look of surprise, as though he hadn’t actually counted on the demon being capable of killing people, and realized now that Victor would do it. Logan was so naive.

  “Victor, yo man!” Logan called out. “What are you doing?”

  “Shut. Up,” Victor hissed at my former boyfriend.

  “Whoa, you said we were gonna scare ’em, shake ’em up a little, not—”

  “Silence!” Victor commanded with a damning look, sinking the blade just a bit into my skin. Then Victor spun us around so that we both faced Travis. I tried to find air, but I couldn’t breathe.

  Travis slowed to a walk, confusion and agony washing over his face as he tried to figure out what to do next.

  “Shane!” screamed Kelsey hysterically.

  “Just stay back,” Travis instructed her. “Get back, stay away.”

  She did as he told her, and though I couldn’t see her anymore, I could hear her muttering prayers to herself, and whimpering, crying.

  “Sometimes, Logan, as y’already know, it’s just not enough to scare ’em,” Victor said, his tone logical and cold in my ear. I felt his lips move excitedly against my skin, and realized that to him this was a form of intimacy. “You’ve killed a lot of animals, and now, you gotta admit, Logan, it’s just not enough of a rush no more. Consider this your first real lesson from your new mentor. Logan? Are you listening?”

  I heard Logan’s voice quake as he answered, “Yes, sir.”

  “Come,” said Victor to him. “Take the knife. You hold her now.”

  There was a pause.

  “What did I just say?” roared Victor. “Either you do as I tell you, Logan, or you go with her.”

  Logan came and took Victor’s place holding me captive. Travis still watched, doing nothing.

  “Good,” said Victor. “She’s been nothin’ but a little bitch to you, Logan. Now’s your chance to make her pay.”

  “Sir,” said Logan uncertainly. I could feel him trembling.

  “Let her go, Logan,” said Travis, coming closer, slowly. “You don’t want to do this.”

  Victor answered for Logan. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, cowboy. He does. He does wanna do this.”

  “Well, forgive me, Victor,” Travis said sarcastically. “I wouldn’t have a clue what it’s like to want to hurt another human being. Especially Shane.”

  “Is that right?” asked Victor in a slippery tone. “That’s not what a little birdie told me. From what I understand, you’re no superhero, Travis. After all, wasn’t it you, the little brother, who told your big brother to pull the trigger on me? Ain’t you the one who actually made it happen? Isn’t that knowledge what keeps you up at night? Ain’t that really why you stick by Randy, no matter how much he screws up? Because you know whose fault it really was that I died.”

  Travis’s face dropped.

  “That’s what I thought,” Victor sneered. “Yeah. You know your true potential, Travis. You know you’re no different from me. Or Logan. Ain’t that right? It’s not as simple as you make it out to be, cowboy. It’s not just good guys and bad guys, is it? Shades of freakin’ gray.”

  “Let her go. She didn’t do anything to you,” Travis demanded of Logan.

  “Oh, but you’re wrong,” Logan said, seeming to change now, pushing the blade into my neck. The pain was sharp, red and achy, like a supreme paper cut. I gulped for air like a fish out of water. Logan continued, “She dumped me. For you. No one dumps me.”

  “That’s it,” Victor said to Logan. “Good boy. Make her pay.”

  “Shane!” Kelsey shrieked.

  Victor spoke again. “Imagine how good it’d feel, Logan, to f
inish her now, in front of the man she left you for. You’d see them both suffer. And they’d both lose their souls.”

  “The only soul that would be lost if you killed Shane would be your own, Logan,” Travis said. “Think hard about this. This isn’t who you really are.”

  Then, before I could understand what was happening, Travis lunged through the air, and attacked Logan. Somehow, in an instant, the knife went flying, and I was freed, and I stood for a moment, trying to figure out whether I could help Travis.

  “Run, Shane, Kelsey, go!” Travis shouted as he wrestled with Logan quite violently. Victor, oddly, just watched, smiling. He probably was waiting for Travis to kill Logan, or to mess up in some other way. After all, that was the goal of all of this, to back Travis into a corner.

  Travis called out to us, “Get to the descansos! Go!”

  I did as he told me, grabbing Kelsey’s hand and pulling her along with me. I ran, as fast as I could in stocking feet that were frozen all the way through, over rocks, ice, and cactus. Like a coward, I ran.

  With Kelsey limping along beside me, I ran for the highway, as every ounce of energy I had was channeled into the simple act of survival. My breath came ragged, my chest heaved with the effort, and I feared for Travis, but I did not look back and I did not stop. Behind me was death. Life lay ahead.

  We made it over the top of the rise, and I pointed us in the direction of the two white crosses on the side of the road. We began to slip and slide down the scrubby hill. I breathed a little. We were almost there.

  Suddenly I felt a hand wrap around my wet, matted hair, yanking forcefully. My head was jerked so violently I saw stars, and I stumbled, and fell with a sickening crunch as the rocks smashed into my nearly bare kneecaps. I rolled my eyes up, as my head was tilted vigorously backward, at such a sharp angle that I felt the bones in my neck begin to crack. The back of my head was flush up against the top of my back now, and a fiery pain seared my spine all the way down. From this loathsome angle I could see Victor’s face grinning down at me madly, as he held me powerfully in his unwavering grip. He was still in human form. His nose bled, his lips were swollen and split, and his eyes were blackened from being beaten. He had the wickedly happy look of a man who was only getting started.