“Don’t do this. I’m not your enemy. But if you put me in the ground, you better spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, because someday I’m going to claw my way out of here.”
“That I don’t doubt. But all that hostility you have will fade, darling. Otherwise, Christian would have tried killing me. But he hasn’t, because he knows I gave him a gift. And he also gained enough perspective to realize that emotions are a weakness. This is something you’ll have a lot of time to reflect on.” Lenore tidied a loose lock of her hair before reeling me in with her gaze. “Set your internal clock, Mage. In thirty minutes, you’ll have forgotten our conversation. You won’t remember seeing me in the car, speaking to me, any of the things we talked about, or my driver carrying you to the grave. Your last memory will be stepping outside the White Owl and crossing the street to the donut shop. Goodbye, Raven.”
“Don’t do this! You can’t just leave me here!”
“Coffins are more luxurious than they used to be. You have a nice pillow and lots of padding. Poor Christian. He had none of these luxuries.”
The casket closed, and I heard something turn and click on the side.
Oh God, the casket key.
Immersed in darkness, I felt my limbs tingling, and the feeling returned. My heart pounded against my rib cage as the coffin lowered. I immediately thrust my hands upward at the lid and pushed with all my might. I cursed and cried as I punched against the coffin lid. Despite the padding, I was certain I’d bloodied my knuckles. The heavy sound of dirt thumped against the lid of the coffin, and reality began to sink in.
“Do you hear me?” I shouted, my voice trapped inside the small space. “I’m going to make you regret that you didn’t kill me.”
I could almost imagine her laughing, because it was Lenore who would have the last laugh. She’d scrubbed my memories of the entire affair, and the clock was ticking. It was only a matter of time before I’d be trapped in the dark with no memory of how I got here.
Fear evaporates when you’re fighting for your life. But when you strip away the element of danger, you’re confronted with that fear. I was going to suffocate in this coffin, and it would be a slow and agonizing ordeal. As my life flashed before my eyes, I went completely still and slowed my breathing.
Conserve your air.
Even if I had consumed Lenore’s blood, she would’ve still charmed me. And I had doubts that I could break out of the heavy weight of earth above. This wasn’t a movie. How exactly did all those undead zombies punch through their coffins and climb through two tons of dirt?
Stupid filmmakers. Think, Raven, think.
How long would it take before Keystone realized I was missing? Christian might wait until dusk before worrying. He knew how I liked to go off and do my own thing.
I shut my eyes. Oh shit. Eventually Christian would go searching. And his first stop would be the White Owl. Then he’d run into Houdini and realize that I’d kept that a secret from him. Lenore would continue to work him over like putty until he didn’t know up from down. He’d give up looking, thinking I’d deceived him somehow. All the possibilities made me cover my face.
Worst of all, my mother was only a few feet over. I’d visited her grave many times, and there was always comfort looking at her name on the headstone while I told her about my life. But down here, in the dark, my mind went elsewhere. I thought about that fateful night of the fire when she plunged through the weak floor and into the flames. I imagined what a painful death that was and how the last horrific thoughts that went through her mind were that she’d failed at saving me from the same fate. I had so few memories of her, and I clung to them. I heard stories about how soldiers dying on battlefields cried out for their mothers, and I always thought that it would be Crush’s name on my lips. But as I lay there in the dark, all I wanted was my mother. I wanted to feel her embrace one last time and hear her soothing words telling me that she loved me and everything would be okay. Maybe