Page 93 of Ronen
William was hovering over Matty’s slack body, and as I untied him, I demanded, “Where are the others?”
William shook his head,“I don’t know. We were together, at Mason’s, but it took a lot of our energy and…I don’t know.”
There were a ton of questions in that sentence I needed answers to, but now wasn’t the time. “Can you open the door?”
Checking Matty’s pulse, I was relieved when I found it. It was too shallow and at first I wasn’t sure that it wasn’t my own heartbeat I was picking up, but Matty was still alive.
“William!” I got the ghost's attention. He was staring at Matty with fear in his light blue eyes. “The door!”
“Ugh!” Groaning under Matty’s weight, I got him to the floor, though none too gently. His left foot was swollen in hisshoe, and his calf looked like it was swollen in his jeans, the material stretched tight.
“Let me…I’ll try,”William whispered, but I didn’t have time to pay attention to what he was doing.
Pulling off Matty’s shoe, I tried to get his jeans pulled up so I could see the bite marks, but the material was too tight.
Fuck!
Closing my eyes, I shifted once more, my honey badger taking control. With a swipe of my razor-sharp claws, I ripped the seam of Matty’s jeans up to his knee.
The area around the two puncture wounds above his ankle was swollen and angry red streaks were already traveling up his calf. Using my claws, I scratched across the bite marks, making a deeper and longer wound. Matty groaned loudly, but didn’t wake up.
Blood flowed freely from the wound, with a yellowish liquid mixed in. Shifting back to my human skin, I bent over his leg and squeezed the wound.
There was no way I was going to try to suck any of the venom out. This wasn’t a movie, and the chances of me swallowing some of it was a risk I wasn’t going to take. I might be immune, but I didn’t know if my baby was.
Matty moaned, his muscles twitching, and I smacked his cheek lightly, calling his name.
“Ro?” he rasped, his voice barely audible. “What’s happening? Why are you…naked?”
“We’re getting out of here,” I told him firmly, grasping his arm and throwing it over my shoulder. “Come on, up!”
With strength I didn’t know I even possessed, and a hell of a lot of determination and adrenaline, I somehow managed to haul Matty to his feet.
He cried out when he tried to put weight on his injured leg, nearly toppling us both back to the ground.
“Did I see…William?” Matty whispered, as we took one halting, shuffling step to the door then another.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you died for a second or two,” I told him, “Let’s not do that again, shall we?”
William was doing his best to get the lock on the door to budge. I nearly dropped my shoulders in defeat, when Gigi, Miss Rose, and Emily appeared next to William. The four of them put all their hands on it, and suddenly, the lock popped off. It clattered to the floor, spinning in a slow circle.
“We did it!”Emily cheered, while the other three faded before my very eyes, disappearing like mist.“It takes a lot of energy.”
“Thanks, guys,” I said to the air, as Emily also vanished.
With a shaky hand, and trying to balance Matty’s body against mine, I pulled on the door. It creaked loudly, but I didn’t care who heard it.
Dragging Matty over the threshold, my entire body froze when I heard the cacophony of angry rattles in the air. A line of rattlesnakes stood between me and what I assumed was the door out of this place.
Fucking snakes!
Several of them struck at me, but they weren’t quite close enough. Giving Matty’s large body a shove back into the room we had just escaped from, I saw a flickering just inside the doorway.
“Shut it!” I yelled at what I hoped were the ghosts. “Shut it! Shut it!”
I heard the door slam shut, my brother safely on the other side, as my claws hit the concrete floor. Charging the rattlers, Ijumped in the air, landing on first one, then the other. My sharp teeth and fangs biting into their necks, again, and again, and again.
Rattlers counted on their quick ability to strike their prey, but they weren’t fast enough to escape my honey badger's wrath.
