Meet Amber, a teenage girl struggling with the death of her father, an overstressed mother- and lycanthropy. All she wants is for her life to go back to normal, but a magical corporation has lost a valuable test subject and they believe Amber will b...
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Chapter Sixty Nine
Fifteen minutes later, the limo pulled up to an abandoned gas station and parked beside one of the rusty old pumps. It was one of the really old ones that looked like a robot sticking its fingers in its ears, but I wasn't in any mood to think about that when Hendricks opened the door and pulled me out after him.
This has to be a trick, I thought as he dragged me across the parking lot towards the door, which hung on one hinge from the dilapidated wall. There'll be a secret door in there, like at Dr. Munse's office, to take us someplace weirder.
As we walked away, I glanced back just in time to see the limo morph into a junky old hippy van. I kept quiet as Hendricks led me into the building, remembering his earlier threat to rip my head off. His good mood had soured after Victor stabbed him, and it didn't look like he was going to cheer up anytime soon. Not that I blamed him, I guess. If somebody had stabbed me in the chest, I'd probably be pretty pissed too.
The inside of the gas station was exactly as the outside would have suggested. Dust everywhere, graffiti on all the walls, and the front counter had been smashed to splinters. A mouse ran by my foot. Seven months ago, I probably would have screamed and scurried away on my tiptoes. Now I just stepped on it, hardly noticing it.
"Where is that idiot?" Hendricks grumbled to himself, looking around. I didn't know who he was talking about, but he didn't seem to be here. "I'm not waiting for him. He can make his own way back."
He tapped his cane on the floor, and the ground rumbled. A hole opened up at our feet, big enough for a person to fall into.
"Oh, jeez," I exclaimed, and tried to back away. Hendricks gave me a smack with his cane, though, and I stopped. The hole was deep, too. So deep I couldn't see the bottom, but a weird smell was coming out of it.
"Get going," he said, pointing down into it.
"What, jump?" I asked, looking at him incredulously. "Are you crazy?"
"No, but I am rather irritated," he said. "Do it."
His black eyes chilled my bones, and I decided it would be better to do what he said than see what he'd do if I didn't. He didn't want me dead, after all. If he did, then he wouldn't have brought me all the way out here when he could have just zapped me weeks ago. Taking a deep breath, I stepped up to the edge of the hole and jumped. I kept my body as straight as I could, trying to keep from hitting the walls, bracing myself for when I landed. The light was gone less than a second after I jumped, leaving me plummeting into pitch blackness. I fought off the panic when nothing caught me. I was falling so fast now that there was no way I'd survive hitting the ground. But Hendricks didn't want me dead. I kept telling myself that as I fell faster and faster. My hair whipped around my face, but it didn't matter since I couldn't see anything. And was it just the wind, or was it getting colder down here? How deep did this hole—
