Daughter of Blood and Nightmares

19: How Much Am I Worth?

There's a painful silence between the three of us, our feet slow as we make eye contact with the girl. Carden and Oliver are quick to run to her distress, but I stay back. This doesn't feel right. She doesn't feel right.

Her hands grope at them as she collapses into their arms. Bloody streaks stain their uniforms. I can hear her mumbles from all the way back here. "Help me, please...please help me."

The boys instantly heed to her beck and call, fawning over her and her injuries.

Carden's head whips back as he hollers my name. I don't come. He says it once more, more aggressive this time. His deep voice echoes down the street. If no one realized I was back in town, they do now.

Oliver slips away from the girl. His shirt front is streaked with blood. Stopping a few feet away, he looks at me. "Nineteen, we need your help." He's trying to be charming by calling me Nineteen. "You're a soldier and a bullheaded girl that doesn't shy away from a fight, so let's go get the creep that did this." And there it goes. Bullheaded. Those are charming words that any girl would love to hear.

"Uuggggghhhhh." I groan as my feet slowly shuffle forward. "I'm saying it now, before we're neck deep in our own deaths, this is a trap." It's definitely similar to the trap my mother had me use back in the day.

A shiver runs down my spine as I reminisce about the day my mother slashed me open in the name of a profit. Not deep enough to kill me, because I was useful back then, but it was deep enough to have me bleed out a couple of pints.

"That's why we need you." Oliver says before rushing back to Carden and the girl.

Unsurprisingly, she can't stay on her own feet and has Carden nearly carry her down the sidewalk, leading us back to where she was attacked...leading us back to Parker St. And let me tell you, for walking nearly four blocks she's doing pretty well.

I'm a safe distance behind them regretting every minute of this. Carden assists the girl, Oliver scans every corner, every crevice on high alert. The three of them cross onto Parker St. and my feet hitch once again. We're not on the seven hundred block, but still. All blocks of Parker St. are infested.

Against better judgment, I cross that invisible line. Stepping onto Parker St. is like stepping into Hell. It's filled with darkness that seems to slither over my body looking for a way in. Maybe The Order are too big headed to feel it, too stupid to care, but I can.

I hadn't noticed that we had been following her blood trail. It leads to a house with dark curtains and dead flower bushes. Carden easily follows the girl that's all too eager to go back inside. I mean is the psycho that cut her up still in there?

Oliver is completely blinded and a loyal Order soldier that quickly follows after him. But it takes me a great deal of effort to climb the steps. My eyes can't pry themselves away from the crumbling brick and the shabby curtains on the second floor. "This is gonna be so much fun," I grumble as I stupidly step over the threshold and step into the house.

Upon entering I find Oliver closer to me than I expect. I nearly run into him. We don't get too far inside before the girl's head snaps up at an inhumanly fast speed. We're regrettably far enough in that the door has clearance to slam closed by itself behind us.

My heart is desperately trying to exit my body. It's the jump scare before the real scare. I can feel it. The thickness in the air, the multiple eyes that gawk at me. From right to left, I scan the living room searching for where they're hiding.

The second my eyes lock onto a dark, almost black corner of the room, they step out from the shadows, two large men...demons. "I told you." I whisper into the room.