Mimi's Demons

Chapter 44: Bite Your Tongue

The moment Serena locked the door, the guard had looked down at Mimi and said, in that expressionless, polite way she'd noticed all Omen's people spoke, "Little Miss, I've received a text. The young Cromwell is out in the hall with a gift."

Mimi hid her expression too, even though she desperately wanted to scrabbled far from him. He a street demon hiding unsuccessfully behind his legs. She thought she had seen spidery legs on his head, but when she looked up she couldn't see much of his through the turban. Demons didn't have physical bodies, so they could hide anywhere they pleased.

"Why doesn't he just come in?" she asked.

"The Master made this place strictly off limits to him while you swim. Something about having a boy around his daughter."

Mimi wrinkled her nose, completely unused to such frivolity. She could barely remember her dad, and her step father's hadn't ever had such care. Besides, she was eleven. What was there to see? Was Juli even old enough to like girls? Maybe she'd ask.

She eyed the demon hiding behind his legs again. Usually Omen and his men's demons flittered on the edges rather than standing so close. Perhaps this man had done something particularly violent before coming here, or perhaps he was thinking violent thoughts?

...Probably something to tell her father.

So she followed him out to the hallway, even as she started a text to her dad about how ridiculous he was to not let Juli come near her in a swim suit. It would have been so much funner if she had Juli to swim with rather than Serena, nothing against Serena, but she didn't look particularly ready to throw herself into a chicken fight or marco polo.

Since she was completely new to having a smart phone, she'd only gotten half way through the text when she stepped into the carpeted hallway and looked up to meet Juli—

And met two men wreathed in spiders instead.

Even as she recoiled and seized, before she could so much as squeak, the guard from before slapped something over face and hauled her off her feet. In a blink her wrists and ankles were zip tied.

The rag smelled awful and made her too dizzy to breathe. Without breath she couldn't scream.

Her heart raced. Every thought was a scream.

And yet she found her blood running oddly cold.

It was like she had been waiting for this to happen.

The men didn't speak as the guard handed her to one, who flung her like a potato sack over his shoulder, and began sprinting down the hallway. Mimi's already wavering world jerked around. They were none too gentle with her head and the man's shoulder kept hammering into her stomach, like a dull blade trying to cut her in half.

No, no, pay attention, whispered a familiar voice in her head, even as black began to bleed into her vision.

She remembered this voice. It was a part of her, steeled and sharp, that had cropped up after she'd left the stuff animal man's apartment and decided not to try and get home. It cropped up when she cut her wrist, ate questionable food, scavenged old clothes for winter, and made her bed in the garage. It was cold, but strong.

Barely able to see anymore, stomach punched again and again, the carpet of her home giving way to concrete, that voice pulled Mimi's arm to her mouth and bit down hard. A bite fueled by animalistic fear.

She tasted the blood. She spat.

"Stop them," she gasped, only for her chin to slam on the man's back, biting her tongue.

She hadn't the air to scream. Stars burst across her vision.

But more blood filled her mouth.

Unable to see anymore, unable to think, she weakly spat. Again she mouthed the words 'stop them,' but couldn't hear or feel if she'd managed to make any sound.