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“Alright, Mr Grumpy!” said Luz, stomping down the basement stairs. “Time for your mush.” Hopping down off the last step, she held out the plastic bottle they’d repurposed as a – what would you even call it? Scratch that thought. “It’s warm, and it’s been through the blender.”
Across the basement Amity took her feet off the box she’d been using as a footstool and turned down the volume on the lo-fi hip-hop beats humming out the speaker. “Want me to do the honours?”
“I’ll say when,” said Luz.
She went over to their – she didn’t want to say prisoner. It felt kinda aggressive. Unwilling guest was a nicer way to put it. Patient also accurate.
She studied his face, grey under the gag. More duct tape and twine bound him arm and leg to the chair – it’d taken a frankly impressive amount to get him fully immobilised. She eyed his taut wrists and twitching fingers and thought man, that looks uncomfortable.
Mom had started to worry about pressure ulcers. He was also getting real sweaty. Soon or later they were gonna have to move him out of the chair; none of them were ready for that level of forward planning.
Blue eyes glowed up at her.
“Okay,” she said. “If we ungag you, can we trust you not to try and bite anyone and generally not be a massive a-hole?”
The blue eyes narrowed into a glower that was a pretty clear hell, no.
“I think he’s gonna try and bite you again,” said Amity.
She held out a pair of Dad’s old gardening gloves. Luz traded her for the bottle. “Alright, Hunter,” she said. “I know I say this every time, but we’re doing this because we love you. ‘Kay?”
The guy in the chair made a garbled noise around the gag. She ignored him and held out her hand for the food bottle. “Ready?”
Amity nodded. “Ready.”
“Okay.” Luz braced herself. “Gag.”
As per usual, he did not waste any time once it was out. “Filthy wrench,” he bit out, voice low and distorted. “Take your hands off me – I’ll kill you – I’ll –”
In an uneasy mercy, as the bottle approached his mouth he sucked in a breath, pressed his lips together, and went quiet. “Stop that,” said Luz as he jerked his face away. Amity’s fingers twisted in his hair, forcing his head back where they wanted it. “Stop it – no –”
His eyes were squeezed shut and that always kinda made it worse. She could feel the tension in his neck and jaw as she cupped his chin, muscles hard as iron, and hoped that the strain didn’t hurt.
Grimly, she said, “Get his nose.”
Holding his nose meant Amity had to relax her grip on his hair a little, which meant he was back to thrashing, head jerking back and forth. Warm mush dripped from the open bottle onto his chest. She counted, slowly, in her head. They’d done this enough times that she had a pretty good idea of how long he could hold his breath.
“C’mon,” she said, using the gentle coaxing an unruly puppy voice that she was pretty sure he hated. “Come on.”
After about fifty-five seconds, he breathed and she shoved the mouth of the bottle in between his teeth.
Amity yanked his head back. He grunted in displeasure, face creasing, as she emptied the contents down his throat. “That’s it,” Luz said. “Eat your mush. Good boy.”
The not eating was – new. For the first few days he’d accepted a brief truce at meal times and let them spoon-feed him. Not that it had been nice for anyone involved – he obviously resented the indignity and whenever the gag was out he would not shut up about how really super dead they were all gonna be just as soon as he got out of the chair – but it beat this.
Whether this was a genuine attempt to end things, a ploy to pressure them into untying him, or a just a desperate effort to claw back some control of the situation, she had no idea. But he’d made up his mind that he wasn’t gonna eat unless they made him eat. So, there they were.
They got about half the bottle down his throat. The rest ended up on his face and his chest and her hands. When it was empty, she drew it back. His shoulders heaved as he struggled to catch his breath. A little of it was coming out his nose. His head fell forward. He spat a mouthful of mush out onto Hunter’s shirt and shot her a vibrantly blue look of disgust.
“Gag him,” said Luz.
His face twisted into a sneer and he managed to bite out, “You little bi –” before Amity got the gag back between his teeth. “Mmph,” he grunted around it, testing his bonds. “Mm – mm –”
Luz opted to ignore the noises of protest. “Sorry, Hunter,” she said. “I hope that didn’t suck too much. At least this batch of mush tastes okay? Gus tried it and he said it was –”
The guy in the chair fixed her without another of those furious looks. She sighed. “Can you pass me the wipes?”
Amity checked the box. “Almost out,” she said. “I’ll grab some more. Do you wanna –” She held out her hand for the bottle.
Luz stood, wiping the excess mush off her hands, as Amity made her way up the stairs. Then she drew up a chair.
“How’re you doing, bud?”
Blue eyes glared back.
She rested her chin on her hand. “Sorry, I don’t know why I keep asking you that,” she said. “It’s not like you can answer me.”
There was a grunted response that she was pretty sure was an attempt at an insult. She ignored it. They were trying to pretend the other guy wasn’t there as much as they could, given that he had no right to be there; as she pondered what to say next, she tried to tune out the twitching, snapping sounds of him straining once again against his bonds, the creaking of the chair, his tense, quick breathing.
“I know I say this every day,” she said. “But it’s gonna be okay, Hunter. We’re gonna get you through this.” He had murder in his eyes. “I’m gonna fix this.”
The whole awful situation was her fault, even if no-one else seemed to see it. This latest development was a real kick in the teeth, huh?
They’d got Hunter out. They’d got him away from his uncle and the castle and out of that uniform and he’d started to look relaxed and happy and maybe even hopeful for the future and now – this.
She’d saved him from one nightmare only to land him in a worse one.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice shaking. She said that most days too. “God, Hunter, I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how this must feel.” She studied his face, twisted into a mask of scorn. “I really can’t.”
Okay, she told herself. Keep it light. She sucked in a breath, and sat up straighter, and said, “Sooo, Flapjack is doing good. I mean, he’s not doing good, obviously,” she corrected herself. “He really misses you. I mean, it’s very obvious that he misses you – and also he told Ghost, and Ghost told Amity –” Dang it, she was rambling again. She gripped the seat of the chair. “Flapjack says he loves you a lot, okay?”
Those eyes stared back at her.
“We took him to the park again this morning,” she went on. “So he could fly around outdoors? He likes that a lot. I think.” Her voice was getting shaky. God. She could never handle being alone with him. “You’re gonna be okay,” she said again. “You’re like, one of the toughest people I’ve ever met, and I’ve met some tough cookies. If anyone can get through this, you can –”
But maybe she shouldn’t start on that again.
They’d given up on the whole we know you’re in there, Hunter – fight him off, Hunter – line of argument within the first day. Within the first hour, if she was gonna be honest. If it was within Hunter’s power to fight his way out of there he’d have done it by now.
Her hands balled into fists. “God. I’m so bad at this.”
Weird thing to discover about yourself, huh? Bad at talking to your friend while he’s possessed by his evil uncle.
Mom and Willow were always so sweet and Amity was managing to be real matter-of-fact about it and Vee had a way of saying I know this sucks, it’s gonna be okay which sounded so sincere on account of she’d lived through her own nightmare and Gus was happy to sit next to him for hours monologuing about Cosmic Frontier or human realm trivia or whatever he’d been watching on YouTube, and there she was, with no idea what to say.
The dirty truth was they didn’t even know if Hunter could hear them.
They had a range of guesses about what might be happening in there, ranging from the optimistic maybe he’s just taking a real long nap (Gus) to the bleak maybe he’s trapped in a never-ending nightmare deep within his subconscious (Willow). They could only act on the assumption that he was aware of what was happening.
The other possibility – the stomach-rolling chance that there might be nothing left of him – they were trying not to talk about and definitely not talking about in front of Hunter. If she was Hunter and she was possessed and she heard her friends speculating that she was already dead it would send her into paroxysms of terror.
“This’ll be over before you know it,” she said. “Maybe one day it’ll even be funny. Like, hey, remember when we had to tie Hunter up in the basement? Wasn’t that a riot.”
The eyes that stared furiously back at her weren’t Hutner’s, but it was one of those moments when it was easy enough to project. She slumped in her chair. “Maybe one day really – really far in the future.”
It was difficult to think about the future right now. Like, what they would do if Hunter was still like this when – when – they found the Titan Blood. What to do about the red marks forming on his wrists and arms and ankles where the bindings were cutting into his skin. How long a person could live on the amount of mush they were managing to get down his throat three times a day.
The basement door banged against the wall and she wiped frantically at her eyes. “Okay,” said Amity as she came down the stairs. “This is the last packet till your Mom goes grocery shopping, so she says be smart with them.
“Can do,” Luz said, and sniffed. “Want me to –”
“I got it.” Opening up the packet, Amity wiped away first the globs on his shirt – it was getting real dirty and there was just no good way to launder it – and then the mess on his face. Her grip on his hair, holding his head in place even as he resisted, was firm; but the movement of the wet wipe against his skin was gentle. “This is so gross,” she said, but nicely. She was talking to Hunter. “I know. I’m sorry.” She wiped away the streaks under his nose.
He made a noise like mmphgph.
“Shush,” she scolded, checking him over for mess.
Luz watched, as Amity stroked his damp hair away from his forehead; as he gaze drifted to his eyes, studying them. She knew what Amity was looking for. She kept looking for the same thing.
That last, tiny glimpse they’d had of him. The look of baleful terror in his eyes, before he was subsumed. At the time it had felt – but she’d do anything to see it again.
Amity released him and he tensed against the bonds, making another of those slurred noises that was definitely meant to be an insult.
“Stop that.” Amity put her hands on her hips. “You could end this whenever you want, you know. You are being so petty right now.”
“Amity,” Luz warned.
Amity sighed up at the ceiling and dropped it. “You’re up,” she said. Plopping herself down on a lawn chair.
“Sure am!” Luz reached for the stack of books. “Okay, so, we got some options today,” she said, holding a couple up. “I know you and Gus finished Cosmic Frontier book five yesterday, so Mom picked out some other stuff she thought you might like. This one is called Dune.” She motioned at the cover. “It’s a Human Realm sci-fi classic – apparently – not really my thing. As you can see it’s a long one and apparently there’s sequels, so, lots of material there.” She held up the other book. “Orrr we got this thing called Astounding Science Fiction which is some piece of pulp garbage my dad liked.”
From the look on his face, there was nothing the other guy wanted to do less than listen to her read any kind of sci-fi.
“I like the look of Astounding Science Fiction,” said Amity.
“Yeahh.” Luz flipped it over. “I had a flick through Dune and honestly it looks super dull.” She dropped it beside the stack and cracked open the worn spine of the pulp collection. “Let’s see, do we wanna pick which one sounds most exciting or just start from the top?”
“Hit me with some titles,” said Amity.
“Hmm,” said Luz. “We got The Horizon of the Orb, whatever that means. The Metal Moon of Saturn. Ooh, The Buxom Space Princess from Alpha Centauri?”
“Oh, definitely start there.” Amity drew up a leg onto her lawn chair, settling in for the long haul.
“Okay!” Luz leafed through the book, ignoring the sounds of the chair beginning to creak again as he tugged against his bonds, the muffled groans. “Here we goooo. The year was 2025 – the distant future, natch – and when Earth Astronaut Joe Smith travelled to the planet Betelgeuse orbiting the distant star Alpha Centauri, little did he know that waiting him was both danger, and –” She paused for dramatic effect. “Love.”