Page 61 of Cole: Bloodlines
Maddy’s ears felt clogged, as if stuffed with cotton, and the words passing between the giant and the creature were muffled. He focused on lying still, afraid that if he so much as twitched, the thing would clamp down again with his teeth. The back of his neck throbbed and stung as blood continued to trickle down, following the line of his jaw to drip off his chin.
I’m gonna die… it’s gonna rape me and tear me to shreds.
Maddy slowly clenched his fists tightly, his body trembling with a terror beyond human comprehension.
Please, God… protect Savannah… save her from this nightmare.
The weight on his back lifted as the thing crawled off him. Maddy didn’t move. He’d seen cats play with mice, sitting and watching their prey until it twitched or tried to run, then pouncing. It looked like a game, a prolonged act of torture.
“Uhh…”Maddy yelped as a strong hand suddenly grabbed his arm and hoisted him to his feet. As soon as the hand let go, Maddy stumbled back, crashing into the wall, with scraped, bloody hands held up defensively as sobs caught in his chest. The two figures, almost comically contrasting in size, were mere shadows in the darkness. Maddy pressed his back against the cold wall, trembling violently, his hands still raised in front of him. He had no defense; his fighting skills wouldn’t save him from these…men.
The giant—at least a foot taller than Cochise and twice as thick—grabbed Maddy’s arm again and dragged him away from the wall.
“W-W-Wait… what… d-don’t…” Maddy choked, but the man ignored him and turned back the way they’d come, hauling Maddy with him.
The smaller creature—Maddy couldn’t see him any other way—slinked beside him with a noticeable limp, sometimes scuttling on all fours, with his feet and hands touching the floor in a twitching, loping motion. It was creepy as hell, and Maddy opted to press closer to the giant rather than get near his freaky little companion.
When they entered the pale-lit corridor, he caught a better glimpse of his captors—and wished he hadn’t… at least, not the smaller one. He looked young, maybe a couple of years older than Angel; it was hard to tell for sure when all he could focus on was the sharp-toothed grin leering back at him… and the blood drooling from the lips.My blood.
The thing’s tongue flicked out and slowly slid across its lower lip, as if savoring the taste of Maddy’s blood. A glint of moonlight reflected in what appeared to be green eyes—eyes that radiated pure feral insanity… and something else.Lust. But not the kind of lust he saw in his kidnapper’s eyes. This was different, somehow more…terrifying… as if the thing didn’t just want to fuck him—but literallydevourhim.
Tremors shuddered through Maddy, and he was almost afraid to look away from the thing, fearing it would attack if he weren’t staring right at it. But his eyes were drawn up to the giant whose large hand gripped his upper arm, fingers sinking into his cold flesh like steel vices. The man’s face was mostly hidden in the shadow of his hooded overcoat, the pale light reflecting only glimpses of his beard.
What if he rapes me, too?
Maddy wouldn’t survive a violent assault by the giant—he would tear up his guts and split him in half. Maddy jerked his head down and squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperatelyto erase the horrifying images from his mind as his terror and panic escalated.
“I like the pretty baby,”the creature suddenly spoke in a scratchy, slightly nasal voice.“She has a pretty name… pretty like her.”
Maddy stared at it. It was eerie hearing it speak.
“Pretty, pretty,”it crooned in an off-pitch sing-song voice as it pranced ahead of them a little.“Pretty, pretty Savannah.”
Maddy’s blood froze in his veins. “What… What did you say?” he whispered, his words trembling. “H-How do you know that name?”
The creature tilted its head at Maddy and grinned, baring its teeth, its green eyes flashing with madness.
“Wh-What did you do to her?” Maddy cried. “What did you do?!”
The thing tittered at him—a sound like breaking glass mixed with a child's laughter—and scurried around the corner, fingernails clicking against concrete. They found it crouched next to a rusted table bench positioned before a door so corroded its original color was indiscernible. The creature’s thin frame vibrated with excitement as its face contorted with glee, yellow teeth gleaming in the dim light, pupils dilated to black pools. The giant walked over, his massive hand engulfing Maddy's upper arm in a vise-like grip that numbed his fingers, and dragged the table away from the door. Metal scraped against concrete, the sound reverberating through Maddy's skull like nails on a chalkboard.
Maddy's chest heaved, each breath a ragged gasp that tore at his raw throat. Hot tears streamed through the grime on his face, stinging the small cuts on his cheeks. “What... what did you do?” he choked, words fracturing between hiccupping sobs.
The giant heaved open the rusted door, hinges shrieking in protest, just wide enough to shove Maddy through with onehand. He stumbled forward into a void so absolute it seemed to swallow light itself, the darkness a physical presence against his skin. He spun back in time to see the door slam shut, cutting off the last sliver of murky light. The table screeched as it thumped against the door, followed by the muted, high-pitched cackle of the giant's feral companion fading away down the corridor.
Then silence descended, a physical pressure against his eardrums, the darkness so thick it coated his skin like oil.
Then something shifted in the dark—the scrape of bare feet on stone—and Maddy's blood ran cold.
CHAPTER 27: OUT OF THE DARK
Maddy pressed his back against the door,the ice-cold metal biting into his bare skin like frozen teeth. Sweat beaded at his temples despite the chill, trickling down to sting the raw scrapes on his cheeks. He held his breath without realizing it, eyes straining uselessly in the pitch blackness until white spots danced across his vision. The darkness pulsed with quick, stuttered breaths that weren't his own—wet, ragged sounds that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Maddy flattened his trembling palms against the cold door, shoulder blades digging into the rusted surface, his entire body pushing back as if he could somehow melt through the unyielding barrier.
In this nightmare, anything could be hiding in the dark with him—claws, teeth, or worse. His frightened mind conjured the image of another creature like the giant's companion—all yellowed fangs and rope-thin limbs—locked in here with him, watching him with hungry, unblinking eyes... and no one to harness it this time.
Another slight scuff of feet against concrete made his heart stutter painfully against his ribs. He couldn't see the room he was in, but the way sound bounced back at him suggested it was small—a closet of some sort? Too cramped to run, too confined to defend himself if something attacked. He inched to his right, the rough concrete floor scraping his bare feet, his hand feeling blindly through the suffocating darkness for something, anything to use as a weapon, fingertips scraping against rough concrete until his nails bent backward.
A stuttered breath from the darkness made him freeze. Not wet breathing, like the thing that had tackled him in the corridor, but hitching breath like... someone crying. The soundwas small, almost fragile, a series of tiny gasps that punctured the oppressive silence.
