John Everson - NightWhere

He had hoped that her lips would split into a smile, that her eyes would raise and widen, that her cheeks would expand as they always did when she was happy.

Instead, Rae laughed at him.

“You are an idiot,” she spat. “I don’t want to go to your home. This is my home now…and you just shit all over it.”

Rae kneed Mark in the groin and he fell back as she stepped around the table and grabbed the arms of Selena.

“Do you see this?” she asked, as Mark gasped and struggled to stand back upright.

“This is the pussy that wants you now,” she said. “Maybe you should open your eyes for once in your pathetic fucking life and pay attention to what’s really going on around you instead of what you wish was going on.”

Rae pushed Selena back one step and then another. “Do you think that I used to fuck your best friend or that I wanted to go to swingers clubs because your pathetic cock made my happy, Mark? Seriously?”

Rae grabbed a lock of Selena’s hair and twisted it around her wrist like a bracelet. “I was bored to death, Mark. I needed someone, something, that could excite me. And that was not you. I know. You thought you knew me, and you thought you were giving me what made me happy but…no. Just proves, I guess, that you can never truly know anyone. Not really. So, thanks for coming here to be my white knight, but, no thanks. I have finally found the place I was looking for all my life and there is nothing that you can do or say to pull me away from this. NightWhere is my home.”

Rae turned away from Mark and gave a wide, feral grin to Selena. “As for you, our little angel-spy bitch…” Rae walked the pale woman backwards another step and then gave a heavy push with both of her arms.

“I hope you find him worth the effort. He wasn’t worth mine.”

Selena fell backwards into the iron casing of an iron maiden. Rae didn’t wait for her to catch her balance. Instead, she grabbed the heavy metal door and flung it closed. As the dark metal creaked quickly closed, Selena gave out a single horrible shriek from inside.

“Who needs saving now, Mark?” Rae asked. But she didn’t wait to hear his answer. Rae walked towards Yvonna, who was slowly raising herself up from the floor, blood streaming like pitch across her midnight skin. Kharon, too, rose from the ground despite the torrent of black blood that streamed from the gaping hole in his head.

Rae put her arms around the Watcher and the Midnight Queen, supporting them. Damia staggered across the room to join them.

Rae’s face turned back to meet Mark’s eyes. For a split second, some remnant of the old Rae looked back at her husband, as she explained almost gently. “I never wanted to be rescued,” she said. “I’ve been dreaming of hell my whole life. I’m home at last.”

With that, she pulled Kharon and Yvonna forward, towards a black door at the back of the room. Damia limped ahead and opened the door as they approached, and Mark could see the flicker of flame from beyond its reach. Something moved and shifted beyond its opening…something hellish and evil.

Something that spoke.

“Welcome, to The Black,” a female voice echoed, as Rae stepped through the opening. “We’ve been waiting for you for a long, long time.”

With that, the door slammed shut.

Rae, and all of them, were gone.

Mark looked away from the door and realized that the rest of the Watchers had disappeared as well. Even those that he’d shot.

The room was completely empty. He looked at the rack of whips and chains on the left wall and realized that it had simply…disappeared. Likewise, the iron racks that had taken up the back half of the room. And other torture devices had suddenly vanished as well…even the sacrificial table in the center of the room was gone, taking with it the headless body.

The one thing that remained was the tall metal case that vaguely resembled a human body.

The thing that Rae had pushed Selena into. An instrument of medieval torture and execution. An iron maiden.

Mark rushed over and grabbed the outer case of the thing, pulling it open to set Selena free.

But instead of leaping out, her body only fell forward to the ground, its pale flesh gored in a half-dozen places by the blades that extended from the inner casing of the iron maiden. They ran red with the blood of his guardian angel.

Mark knelt at her side, rolling Selena over to look at her face. Blood blossomed from the wounds in her breast, belly and thighs. Her hands bled from where she had raised them to protect her face, and the gouges of the knives still had sliced through her palms and into her cheeks.

“Selena,” Mark cried. He slipped an arm beneath her head and raised it up. “I told you to wait for me,” he whispered.

She opened her eyes, and those electric orbs caught his and held them. “I couldn’t let you be killed.”

She coughed then, and blood seeped past the thin join of her lips. Mark felt a pang of fear. He’d already lost Rae…he couldn’t lose Selena too!

“I thought you were an angel,” he said, reaching down to press his fingers against the gaping hole in her left breast. His fingers were quickly covered in rich, red, hot blood.

“Not anymore,” Selena whispered. “I went beyond The White to try to save you. I was your guardian. But I broke the truce to help you escape…and then get back in…I interfered.”

She coughed suddenly, and a spume of frothing crimson exited her lips to speckle Mark’s face.

“But still,” he said again. “You’re an angel. You can’t die…just…heal yourself.”

Selena shook her head. “Not anymore,” she whispered. “I did what I came here to do. You’re free now. Just…do this for me. Go home. Live again.”

“No,” Mark said. “You were here for me. I’m not going to leave you now.”

He slipped his hands beneath her slim form and lifted her body from the floor. He pressed his lips to hers in the gentlest, most loving kiss he could give.

“Stay with me now,” he begged. “I need you more now than I ever did before.”

Mark moved through the door that led into the hallway of The Red, and then with a quick thrust of his hand, opened the door to the Blue Room and moved past the last couple of laggards still hanging at the bar towards the door out of NightWhere. Tailor still stood guard, but Mark didn’t even wait for the Watcher to try to stop him. Instead he aimed a kick at the man’s crotch, and threw the door open himself as the Watcher fell backwards.

He stepped outside and saw the orange of the sun on the horizon.

“Are you with me?” he asked the still form in his arms.

Selena struggled to open her eyes again. Those icy blue orbs stared into his again. But the spark was gone. She was fading.

“Stay with me,” he begged.

“I’ve always been with you,” she whispered. “You just never noticed.”

“Well I know now,” he said. “And I know that we just need to get those cuts stitched up and you’re going to be okay.”

Selena coughed again. A wet, wheezing sound. “If you say so,” she said.

“I’m your guardian now,” he promised. “Just hold on a little longer.”

Mark saw the inconspicuous grey of his Sonata out in the empty field near the vacant farmhouse. Normally it blended into a crowd and was often difficult to spot, but now…it stood there alone. NightWhere was gone, and soon, Selena might be too. He began to run. When they reached the car, he struggled to pull his keys from his pocket without dropping her.

“We’ll be at the hospital in just a few minutes,” he whispered, finally unlocking the car and carefully slipping her into the passenger’s seat. He lay the back of the seat down as far as it would go. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you again,” he said.