***Ben***

I actually try to convince my parents that I need to leave through the coming weekend. Three days off from school and a weekend in a cool mountain cabin totally works for my groove. I don't tell them why I think I should leave all of a sudden besides mentioned a vague discomfort left over from passing out in the kitchen.

They think school is a health remedy, unfortunately, and the only compromise they make is that I don't have to do my usual gardening chores. So school as usual it is.

Wednesday and Thursday come and go with no sign of Veronica. I go over everything she said and what she looked like (felt like) during classes instead of paying attention. With a certain amount of regret, I tell Amber that I need to cut things off for a while. She kisses one of my best friends in the cafeteria to prove she's already over me. Ouch.

By Friday after practice, I'm tired as a coal miner from worrying about Veronica. What if those cuts turn septic and she is dying of blood poisoning somewhere? I jog out to my truck, thinking I would drive around town, again, looking for her. I search my pockets, but come up empty. My keys were missing.

Damn, they must have fallen out of my pockets in the locker room. On my way back inside, I pass the last of my teammates. None of them had seen any keys on the ground. The locker room is empty and I hurry past a couple of rows, checking the floor as I go to my spot. Nothing is in my locker either. Shit. The only other place I can think to check is my regular locker. If I dropped them during the day, the janitor might have them in the lost and found, but I have no idea how to get ahold of him.

"Ah, this sucks," I mutter. I'd have to call my parents to come and bail me out, there's a spare at the house. "Shit on a biscuit."

The lights go out with an electric thump.

"Coach Evans?" It is pitch black for a second until my eyes begin to adjust to the little bit of sunlight coming in from the around the door frames. I take a few steps and immediately hit my shins on a bench. "Hey, I'm still in here!"

There is a person in black standing against the white wall. My first thought is Veronica, but I have warnings going off in my head that something is off.

"I don't think you're supposed to be in here," I say, forcing my voice to sound manlier than I feel.

The girl or woman raises her face. In the dark, she resembles Veronica so strongly, that I'm not sure if it's her or not. Long, black hair hangs in a stringy mess and her skin is sickly white. It's the shape of her mouth and eyes that tell me this isn't Veronica. This woman isn't Asian.

"Big, strapping boy like yourself will do so nicely. So big, so handsome, so sweet. Do you want some candy?"

"Get the hell out of here, lady. I'm calling the cops." I get my phone from my pocket and dial 9-1-1, eyes on the freaky chick the whole time.

She draws a long knife that is very familiar and walks towards me.

The dispatcher answers and I say my name. A hand knocks the phone away. I jab my elbow to hit the person behind me and a turn, swinging. Another pale woman is leering at me. She blocks my punch and rakes her nails down my arm, drawing blood. I swing with the other hand. She steps to the side. Someone grabs me from behind. I'm swinging and thrashing, but my aim is wild. All my strength is gone and I'm tripping over myself. My knees buckle.

From the phone, I hear a tinny voice asking if I need assistance to for me to state my location.

"Help me," I say. It's nothing but a thin whisper.

A third woman comes into my view. I am staring up at them and they watch me wiggle like a dying bug on the tile floor. Their mouths stretch in obscene smiles. I really don't want to be here. I fumble for the phone, so close and so out of reach. "I'm at Bella Vista High-"

My phone is kicked aside. It clatters across the floor to hit the lockers.

The women crouch lower, their black pit eyes devouring me. I am cold. I can't move. I am going pass out.

"So big, so handsome, so sweet," one whispers.

"So delicious," another agrees. "Just like a piece of candy."

----------

I roll over, every muscle sore, especially my right arm and shoulder. It takes my brain a moment to wake up, but when it does, a bolt of fear has me jumping to my feet. This would have been more effective if my body had cooperated. I fall sideways and hit my head on...rusting, metal bars.

Shit on that biscuit again, I'm in a cage.

Seeing a person I recognize staring in at me doesn't make me feel better under the circumstances. The circumstances are that Veronica has a metal collar around her neck and she looks like she's an hour or two away from dying.

"I hoped you would stay under," she whispers through dry, cracked lips. Her eyes are red and haggard. The scratches on her cheek are blackened and she is barely able to prop herself up to talk to me.

"What's going on?" I ask. I reach through the bars to touch her. She's burning with fever. "We've got to get out of here."

"We will go when the sisters take us up. I'm so sorry, Ben."

"It's not your fault. There were three psychotic cows who attacked me in the locker room. Are they the sisters? I'm gonna kick some ass just as soon as my body reconnects to my brain."

She drops her head. She is half-sitting, half laying down on the slimy floor outside my cage. Her collar is chained to the wall and it appears as though she's been here a couple of days. My stomach turns. Where the hell are we? I am sitting on something bumpy and I shift. Under my leg is an old Barbie doll whose arm has been pulled out. Bile rises in my throat as panic squeezes my chest and guts.

"The other day, I thought I was having a heart attack," I say. "During the pains, I saw a little girl who was dirty and sad, and I imagined she was being killed."

Veronica stirs and glances at me. "You saw her? She must have come to you."

"What the hell is going on? What are these sisters planning on doing with us?"

She curls her hands in fists and I swear I have never seen such pure hatred on anyone's face like hers. "They are getting what they want!" she hisses. A strange, gurgling moan comes from her throat.

I am ready to piss myself from fear, but then decide that it might be the right time. By the look of things, our situation is going to get worse.

"Tell me what's going on, Veronica," I plead. "Just give it to me straight. I don't need the sugar-coated version."

"Knowing what they plan won't make it easier or better."

"Just tell me, please," I say. Not knowing what happens when they take me out of the cage is driving me crazy.

She waits another heartbeat. "Tonight is the night you die," she says. "You are to be sacrificed in order for the sisters to gain even greater power than they already have." The fierce hatred in her eyes tells me she's not lying.

It takes me a moment to recover. "In hindsight," I say, "a little sugar-coating wouldn't have bothered me."

"What is this sugar-coating?"

"It's where you break bad news gently or don't give all the terrible details," I say.

"Ben, I'm sorry, but that was with sugar-coating."

"Oh, hell."

"I am so very sorry. It is my fault you are in here," she says.

"What do you mean? You're chained to the wall. They whipped you, for Christ's sake!"

"Do you want the truth straight up or will you simply accept my apologies?"

"You'd better tell me everything. There has to be a way to escape. Tell me exactly what they've got planned."

The anger fades and she shrinks inwards with sadness. "They will take us out in the forest, under the dark moon to an altar. You will be held down and I have a choice to either kill you according to the ritual or not."

"I know what choice I would make."

"Wait. If I kill you, I will become both a witch like the sisters and a Shadow Hex, a being of great power and darkness. This is what the sisters want me to do, because they will have greater power through me. But, if I don't kill you, they will kill you very slowly and then they will kill me even more slowly."

"So for me, it's between getting to die or getting to die slowly?"

"More precisely, you will die slowly and painfully or you will die slower and more painfully. That is the choice Vivian has given me. You have no idea how many times I've tried to escape, to run away. I can't even kill myself, they will find me in the after world and torture me from there."

"Let's talk about the part before dying. They will come down here and fetch us to take us outside?"

"Yes."

"Listen, Veronica, I know you are tired and in pain, but-" a door opens above us. I lower my voice, "but you have to try and run for help. It has to be you; I'll hold them back. You've gotta save yourself so they won't want me. Get to the police and tell them. Will you try?"

The sisters are coming down the stairs, their feet scuffing on the stone steps.

Veronica hit her fists on the stones. Her eyes meet mine and she nods her head weakly.