Purgatory (Part One of the Purgatory Series)

Chapter Thirteen: Shift and Strip

I'm not sure whether it was poor judgment brought on by starvation or the boy's big, honest eyes, but I wanted to believe him when he told me there was a way out. Unfortunately when I realized what Oliver was any hope I had begun to feel was shot down faster than Dick Cheney's hunting buddies.

 "You're a shape-shifter, right?" I asked him, although I was already pretty sure of the answer.

Oliver nodded and shrugged. "Does it matter? I'm trying to help you."

I crossed my arms and stared at him for several seconds. "Okay, then. If you really want to help me, then tell me the way out."

"I can't tell you," Oliver replied, frowning. "I have to show you."

I rolled my eyes. Of course, he would have to say something suspicious like that. This was classic horror movie stuff: girl stumbles upon creepy kid, creepy kids leads her to dangerous scenario and then disappears leaving the girl to die.  I wasn't stupid; I knew how these things usually ended up. Which was why I was staying put, thank you very much.

"No dice, kid," I replied. "I'm not dumb enough to fall for that."

Oliver sighed, and for a moment he looked ages older than the child he had chosen to portray. "It's a pity you decided to be difficult," he said, his icy, blue eyes narrowing at me. "It would have saved us quite a bit of trouble."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I snapped, backing away from him.

Oliver smiled, but it wasn't reassuring. His face had taken on a dark and menacing look, which made the little voice inside of me shout, Run!

"Sam! Kurt!" Oliver shouted, looking somewhere over my shoulder.

I spun around, my feet already poised to run, only to find two enormous men standing in my way. My heart raced as they advanced on me and I couldn't breathe. Sure, I had had every intention of dying when I made my way through the corridors but part of me was afraid their plans for me were far more elaborate – and painful. 

"If you're going to kill me, just do it," I snarled at them. "I'm not scared of you."

Oliver walked around to join his friends in the hall and snickered under his breath. "Kill you? Why would we waste our time on that when you're dying anyway?"

I backed slowly into the opposite direction, but their eyes followed my every move.

"What do you want from me then?" I asked, knowing that with all the trouble they put into following me this meeting wasn't over yet.

The three shape-shifters shared a look, that coupled with their chilling grins, made me stumble over my feet as I raced away as fast as humanly possible. Before I got ten feet more shape-shifters appeared at the other end of the corridor. I swallowed hard and looked for an escape, but there was none.

One of the few girls in the group of shifters began circling me and gazed at me intently for several minutes. Eventually it seemed she had seen all she wanted because she backed away and closed her eyes. I could only watch in horror as her skin and features slowly morphed into a perfect semblance of my own.

"Excellent," Oliver said as he moved forward to see her transformation. "Good work, Lyra. He will never know the difference."

The girl wearing my skin bowed her head humbly and replied, "Thank you. Should I make my way to the cave now?"

The gears in my mind might have been turning sluggishly, but I was still able to figure out this had something to do with Roran.

"If you want to hurt someone, you can hurt me!" I begged, hoping they would listen. "Just leave Roran out of this. You can't kill him anyway, so I don't see the point of this plan."

Oliver whipped around to glare at me and snapped, "Oh, rest assured we will make sure you suffer for the part you had in the deaths of my brothers, but not until after we get rid of the phoenix. He has already revealed many of his secrets to you. He will tell you, or Lyra rather, the information we need to get rid of him once and for all."

I shook my head, tears forming behind my eyes. "There's no way he will fall for this."

"Oh, I think he will," Oliver replied, looking completely confident in his plan. "He is practically insane at the thought of losing you. So he will take advantage of his remaining time with you and not question things too closely."

I tried to speak, to tell him how wrong he was, but the words wouldn't come out around the lump in my throat. My breaths were shorter now, and I knew an asthma attack wasn't far off. In an attempt to prevent it, I tried to take deeper breaths and relaxed my muscles. That was when I felt it. One of Roran's blades was still tucked into the back of my pants, pressing lightly against my skin when I inhaled deeply.

If I could just injure enough of them to get away, I could warn Roran before anything bad happened to him. I pretended to wheeze dramatically and leaned backward to make it look like I needed to catch my breath. I reached my hand toward the blade as discreetly as possible, trying to make it look like I was just stretching.  Just as my fingers grazed the knife I was shoved hard and pinned against the wall by one of the larger shifters.

"Did you really think we didn't know about the knife? Honestly, what did you think you were going to do? You're human again, remember?" The shifter snarled at me.

"Wait, how can you possibly know all of this?" I asked, knowing we had only discussed my transformation with Nicolai, and then only vaguely.

"That cave you take refuge in isn't sound proof," Oliver snapped. "We've been listening to every word."

I cringed, remembering when I had been worried about that very thing and Roran had dismissed my fears so quickly I hadn't brought it up again.

"Knock her out and strip her. Lyra will need her clothes," Oliver instructed the shifter that had me jammed up against the wall.

I fought like a mad woman, but in the end it was like struggling to lift a boulder. Eventually the shifter had enough of my pathetic rebellion and smashed my head hard against the rock. The first hit only dazed me, but the second time my skull rebounded off the wall everything went black.

.....

Uh oh. Thea's in trouble again. And this time Roran is too! Comment and vote if you get time! Thanks for reading! Sorry if there are errors I will go back and edit it later.