A Banshee's Wail (The Banshee Curse #1)

Chapter Eleven

THE PAIN IN my head registered before I was even fully conscious. Next was the ache that spread throughout my entire body, coming to hurt the most in my arms. I let out a soft groan and lifted my head, wincing at the crick in my neck. Another groan left my lips as I shifted my weight fully onto my feet. What had happened?

     “Jemma?” The whisper came from my left, soft and barely noticeable. If it hadn't been so silent, I probably wouldn't have noticed it.

     I blinked my eyes open slowly, only realizing after the sixth blink that it wasn't that I couldn't open my eyes that made it so that I couldn't see. The room was sunk in darkness, the only light a small sliver of a line that I assumed came from underneath a door. I tried to blow my hair out of my face, and when that didn't work, brought my hand up to swipe it away. It was then that I realized my arms were raised above my head and that I couldn't bring them down; they were chained to the ceiling.

     I made an indignant sound and rattled my arms slightly, grimacing at the soreness in them. How long had I been out? It must've been a long time if my arms were already hurting from holding up my weight. I tried to remember what had happened, but my mind was drawing up a blank with the killer headache pressing against my skull. I pressed my lips together and glanced around my surroundings, even though there was nothing to see.

     “Jemma?” the voice said again. There was the sound of chains clanging together softly from my left. “Jemma, are you okay?”

     I looked in the direction of the voice and could just barely make out another life form from the sliver of light. “Lyle?” I whispered, confused. What was he doing here? And what was here exactly anyway?

     Everything came back in a rush and I gasped from the onslaught of memory. I'd run away from the academy after a note from the Secret Admirer and Lyle had followed me. Unable to get him to go back, I'd reluctantly let him come with me. Then we'd been chased down by a group of men—one's I now knew to be Ivan Gold and his men—and we'd barely just managed to escape them. After I'd accidentally murdered one, of course. The last thing I remembered was falling down a hill after escaping and that was it. Had Ivan gotten us after all?

     I strained against my chains. “Lyle, where are we?” I asked, trying and failing to slip my hands through their binds. I only ended up chafing my wrists.

     A sigh escaped his lips. “I don't know,” he said uncertainly. “The last thing I remember is falling down a hill...”

     “Crap,” I muttered. The more I struggled to get free, the more chafed my wrists became until I could feel something wet trailing down my arms. I was making myself bleed. “Okay, okay. Calm down, Jemma, and think. How do we get out of here?”

     “I'm thinking that door is the only way out of here,” Lyle interjected. Without looking at him—not that I'd be able to see him, anyway—I knew he was talking about the sliver of light.

     “Have you seen him yet?” I asked.

     “Who?”

     “Ivan Gold,” I elaborated, giving up. My wrists stung now. “The man who took us.”

     There was a rustle as Lyle shifted. “No,” he said. Anger brimmed on the edge of his words. “I only woke up a few moments before you.”

     “Crap.”

     We fell into an uneasy silence. We didn't know what to expect when that door opened and talking only seemed like it made it worse. Of course, the longer the silence drug on, the more my insides seemed to twist with anticipation. At some point, the people who had taken us would have to come in here and check on us, right? And what would happen then? Would they take one of us, both? Would they kill us?