Anna's Hope Episode One

  Chapter 10

  He said nothing as he pulled her down the cold, dark staircase.

  She tried to struggle, but every move was met with a tightening of his viselike grip.

  She had to get out of here.

  Oh god, she had to escape.

  She fumbled for the hex bracelet she wore on her free hand. Luminaria, in her wisdom, had made her wear it.

  Now it could save Anna.

  She fingered it until she selected the correct hex.

  Before she could do anything, the wizard pushed into her, using his bulk to knock her against the wall. Her bracelet fell from her grasp and into the darkness.

  As his face jerked past a slice of moonlight, she saw his wide-open, white-rimmed eyes.

  She screamed, but there was no one to hear. Her voice echoed up and down the spiral staircase.

  With a fast, practiced move, the wizard caught hold of her free wrist, and twisted it hard.

  She fell to her knees. It was that or let her arm break.

  With a stuttering, caught breath, she whimpered.

  The wizard stood over her, his dark figure cut against the shadow of the stairwell, outlined by the silvery moonlight.

  He dropped her wrists and flicked his hand to the side as he stood back.

  Though his stone cold fingers no longer crushed her wrist, the grip was somehow still there.

  “Come with me.” He turned, secured one hand languidly in the pocket of his jeans, and walked leisurely down the stairs, each thump of his footfall slow and deliberate.

  That phantom grip was still around her wrist, and it dragged her forward.

  She tried to fight it, she tried to hook her fingers around the lip of the window above her, but she was yanked forward.

  She screamed, the strangled noise echoing sharply down the winding staircase.

  She had to scuttle forward, pushing against the wall with her free hand so she could keep up with the grip. Its ghostly influence relentlessly pulled her forward, and if she didn’t keep up with it, her wrist would snap clean off.

  The wizard did not once turn to look at her. He slowly, almost ponderously walked down the stairs, one hand still hooked in his pocket, the thumb tucked into the denim while his fingers tapped his leg.

  As they descended, they passed the occasional window, moonlight cascading into the shadowy stairwell and lighting up the wizard’s side, face, and back.

  “Just … let me go,” she whimpered.

  He said nothing.

  “It won’t work. They’ll catch you,” she tried to reason with him.

  He said nothing.

  “People know I came here tonight. They’ll come looking for me.” She stuttered as she stumbled into the wall, only to be dragged forward again.

  The wizard didn’t even turn to her.

  “It won’t work,” tears trembled down her cheeks, each drop cutting an erratic pattern down her blotchy skin as she was jerked down stair after stair.

  “It will.” The wizard half inclined his head over one shoulder.

  All she saw was one eye and a flash of his smooth forehead. It wasn’t enough to note his full expression, but it was enough to sicken her.

  “Oh god,” she sobbed.