The Innocent: Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Index

Chapter 13

Kyla

There was a distant murmur as something shook me, pushing my shoulder. “Kyla.” The voice was getting closer, and the nudges stronger. “Shit, Kyla, are you okay? Wake up.” It was Luna, and my eyes drifted open to find her kneeling above me in the dark. “Kyla, get up.”

My eyes flew all the way open as everything came flooding back, and I shot into a sitting position as I searched the room. “Camille?”

“Gone,” Luna said, rising to her feet and offering a hand.

I let her pull me up. I was human again – being unconscious caused an automatic shift – so I hurried to gather my clothes off the floor, struggling to contain the panic as I said, “Constance took her.”

“Kyla…”

I didn’t bother taking the time to put on undergarments, and pulled my shirt on over my head. “I can feel her, she’s alive.”

“Kyla.”

I tugged on my jeans, doing the button as I slipped my bare feet into my shoes. “She has to be at the grave-”

“Kyla.”

I gasped as it finally hit me what Luna was trying to say. “Abby,” I blurted, all the blood draining from my face. “Oh my god, Abby. Luna, what happened? Is she okay?”

“I don’t know,” Luna said, her eyebrows furrowed with deep apology. “We were fighting Constance and it was obvious she wanted Abby, so we were making it difficult.”

“What happened?”

“She got stabbed,” Luna whispered. “In the stomach. I don’t know how bad it is, but she went down and Constance knocked me out. I woke up alone.”

A wounded breath stuttered from my lungs and I threw my hands to my head, so instantly worried that my mind was swimming. I inhaled a deep breath and let it out in a pulse of air, trying to keep myself from panicking because that wouldn’t help. But Abby was hurt, who knows how badly, and even though I could feel that Camille was alright, there was no telling how long that would last. “Okay,” I breathed. “Shit, okay.”

“I’m sorry, Kyla,” Luna said. “I tried.”

“I know,” I said. “Camille and I tried too.”

“What are we going to do? Abby didn’t tell us how to stop Constance.”

“Let me think.” I folded my hands behind my head, hoping the stretch would help me breathe as I paced a tight circle. My stomach was an icy knot of fear, and my chest was so tight it took an effort to suck in steady gulps of air. I couldn’t lose either one of them. God, I couldn’t, and I needed to keep my head if I wanted to see either of them again. If I wanted to keep myself whole. “They got to be at the graveyard,” I thought aloud. “But if Abby’s hurt we can’t waste time fighting a useless fight against Constance.” I turned another circle, grateful for Luna’s forced calm even though I knew she had to be nearly as panicked as I was. “We got to know how to stop her first.”

“You think Abby found out how?”

“If I know her at all,” I said, “she did.”

“Then the information is on her computer,” Luna suggested. “At the office.”

I didn't waste a moment in turning to search for Camille’s backpack, where her keys to the Jeep would be. “Keys,” I muttered.

“I have mine,” Luna said, reaching into her jacket pocket.

I darted toward the door, stopping cold as I reached for the handle. “I don’t know where the office is.”

Luna’s eyes dropped with intense thought, and then she reached into her pocket again. “Abby dropped her phone.” She took it out and tried to open it. “Password.”

I snatched the phone from her hands, typing in the four digits and then rushing to pull up the contacts list. The Council office had its own contact in her phone, and I opened the details only to sigh with relief at the address listed. “Got it.”

We sprinted out the door, not bothering to take the elevator as we vaulted down entire flights of stairs at a time. I threw myself into the passenger seat of the Jeep, navigating to the address while Luna peeled out of the parking lot, following my directions.

“Why'd Constance take Abby?” she asked, veering a hard right and slamming on the gas.

“I don’t know,” I said. I grabbed the overhead handle to brace myself for the next turn. “She had a mission over winter break, but…” I shook my head, trying to process that maybe Abby had known this was coming. Even Camille realized it when Abby and Luna weren’t answering their phones. Camille must’ve known about the mission too, and she’d noticed something of Abby’s had gone missing, and Constance had broken into the Council office for something else. Abby was too smart not to have known. “Dammit, Abs, you should’ve said something.”

Luna glanced over at me. “We’ll get them.”

We screeched to a stop outside the Council only minutes later. I’d hoped that someone would be there, that we could get help from the Council because Abby was in danger too, but the office was as dark as our dorm had been. Everyone had gone home. Luna and I sprinted to the door, which had been glass before Constance had broken through it, and now the middle of it was boarded.

I tried the handle. “Locked.” 

Luna peered through the building’s windows while I pressed on the board, testing how easy it would be to break through. “Kyla,” she said, pressing a finger to the window, “that’s an alarm.” I reached her side to look too – there were flashing lights from a panel on the wall. She pointed up into a corner of the office and added, “And those are motion detectors.”

We didn’t have a choice. If we didn’t find out how to get rid of the demon, then Camille and Abby could die. “We’ll have to be fast,” I said, lining myself up in front of the boarded door. “Sorry, Mr. Johnson.” I kicked so hard that the wood flew away from the frame, hitting the carpeted floor with a thud. The alarm beeped once before a steady light started blinking. A silent alarm, but it knew we were here. “Hurry.”

We rushed down the first line of cubicles on our right, finding the desk with Abby’s name on it. I booted up her computer, and during the minute it took to turn on, there was a bite of pressure against my palm. It was unmistakable even though I’d only felt pressure like it a couple of times before. It was Camille. She was scared, but we weren’t ready yet. “Hang in there, Cami,” I said, digging my nail twice into my hand.

“The sentry project,” Luna whispered from the desk behind Abby’s, lifting the cover of a manila folder.

“What are you doing?” I asked, waving her back over to me. “It’s bad enough we’re here without snooping.” The computer started as Luna reached me, prompting for the password to log in. “Please work.” I typed in the same password Abby used for her personal laptop, relieved that it got me in and we wouldn’t waste time trying to figure it out.

“Do you know all her passwords?” Luna asked, and I knew what she was insinuating.

“Really not the time…” I muttered, scanning the desktop for something useful. Right there in the middle of it was a folder titled ‘Deof nos Neadwoz.’ I clicked it open, and there were various subfolders labeled with things like ‘summoning,’ ‘ritual,’ and ‘history.’

“There,” Luna pointed to another folder. “Dispelling.” I opened it, spotting a document titled ‘Kyla.’ “No way that’s not for you.”

I clicked the document, bringing up a scan of an old-looking piece of paper that described how to get rid of the demon. “The only person who can forcibly relieve the demon of service,” I read in a murmured rush, “is the innocent survivor of a murderer.”

“Where are we going to find the survivor of a murderer?” Luna asked. “Isn’t that the point of murder? No sur…” But she trailed off as it sank in what that meant, and why the document was titled in my name.

It was me. I was innocent – I’d never killed anyone – and more importantly, I was a survivor. Jonathan had been a murderer, he’d killed people before me, and would’ve succeeded in killing me too if Camille hadn’t given me the bite. Constance knew it. That’s why she was so nice to me when she’d barely even look at Camille or Abby, and why she was so reluctant to hurt me.

"What do I do?” I asked, scanning farther into the text. “All that’s required is reciting this phrase in Anlisc. ‘I am a survivor of the guilty, innocent and unmarked, and I relieve you of this burden. Go.’” I skimmed even further, rubbing my wrist at a vague discomfort in my skin, a discomfort that carried through the connection. “That’s it?”

“What do you mean, that’s it?” Luna asked, gesturing at the foreign language on the screen. “Look at that. How do you pronounce any of it?”

“I’ll practice on the way.” I grabbed a pen from the desk nearby, but there was another pulse of pressure in my hand before I could write the phrase down, and I’d been so focused on finding a solution that I hadn’t stopped to feel. Camille wasn’t hurt too badly, mostly it was the discomfort in my wrists that were a result of her pain. But I could sense that she was far from okay. She wasn’t close enough for me to feel exactly what she was – the strength of the connection lessened over distance – but something was wrong. So wrong. I dug my nail into my hand once to let her know we were coming, and then scribbled the phrase onto my palm. “Let’s go.”

We didn’t bother turning off the computer before sprinting back out to the Jeep. I vaulted into the passenger seat as Luna tore out of the parking lot, but the moment she got onto the road, there was another bite in my palm, harder than the last two. And Camille was never so impatient. Never so urgent. “Luna, step on it.” She slammed the gas pedal to the floor, but all I could think was that if Camille was okay, then she was distressed because Abby wasn’t, and my heart was steadily sinking. “Please be alright.”

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