The Demon's Daughter

Chapter Six - Traitor

Chapter Six – Traitor

I gasped.

The floor was jerked from underneath me, causing my head to split open. I was suspended in the air, with nothing but my pain to hold on to, and then I was falling, and the ground met me halfway.

“Ouch,” someone said from above me, “did that hurt?”

I brought up my hand to rub my forehead, but the movement was slow, as though I was fighting through a syrupy mix. I touched my head and I hissed: a large, throbbing bump laid beneath my fingertips.

“Kyle!” the person yelled. “It's awake!”

“Kick them harder next time,” Kyle snapped.

I struggled to sit up, but the floor was moving chaotically underneath me, making it hard for my thoughts to become coherent.

“It's sitting up,” the boy I recognized as Henry said.

“We put some tranquilizer in it,” Violet's voice said. “It's not going to hurt you, Pipsqueak.”

I squinted through the dark. I could tell that I was sitting in the back of a truck. A dusty truck with tinted windows and boxes. Across from me, I could see the outline of a small boy with unruly hair.

The car jerked again, and my elbows caught my fall.

“You're bleeding,” Henry commented. I glared at him. “Does it hurt?”

The little runt was a weirdo, that's for sure.

I ignored him, and struggled onto the metal bench I must have fell off. The tranquilizer they apparently put in me did it's work well; everything I did was slow, my thoughts were groggy. I felt like I was melting, but I remained solid.

“Vi?” Henry said curiously. “Does the tranquilizer stop Demons from talking?”

“No,” Violet said through the wall separating the back of the truck with the front. I could see the outline of her hair through the blurry window. “She's just trying to feed on your frustration.”

“Where are you taking me?” I tried to sound demanding, but the affect was ruined by my slurring words.

“To your death, vermin,” Violet answered easily.

It took a while for me to register what she said, and when it did, I couldn't even feel properly alarmed. The tranquilizer wasn't only prohibiting my movements, but my feelings. I felt broken.

“Let me go,” I said.

“Does that usually work?” Henry asked. “Can you control people's decisions? I've heard stories about Demons being able to convert humans' emotions but no one has been able to confirm it. Not even Erik, and he's been killing Demons for a really long time.”