Buried

Excerpt

Buried
Lizzie Strong © 2021
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

10-39 at 37 E street, suite 1802, back-up required.

“Quinn Gwenevieve Foster, age 16, born Idabel, Oklahoma… you sure are a long way from home.” Pressure built up at the back of my head as the voice of the detective clawed at the insides of my ears. The pressure dulled but never released as I opened my eyes, which was an effort in itself. My eyelids were the weight of cement bricks.

The windows fogged in the frosty interrogation room. The only light came from the sharp halogen bulbs and the long, thin window along the top of the wall. A female officer had chained my hands to the table, which forced contact with the harsh steel, stinging my skin.

“I want a lawyer,” I answered, my head hung to the right.

“Of course, and you can have one. While we wait for them, why don’t we talk?”

Tears spilled down my cheeks. Exhaustion bit into my muscles, turning my bones to putty. If I did not rest soon, I would pass out. I wasted too much magic in Leo Ashwood’s apartment. My aunt would not be pleased to hear how recklessly they caught me. The last time I was caught by human police, she yelled my ears raw. Out of love, out of concern and fear, it didn’t matter why she was furious with me. History showed time and time again that humans were not capable of mercy to witches. Granted, the detective had not accused me of being a witch…yet.

“I want a lawyer, sir.”

“It’s Detective Henry Smith, Miss Foster.” His face softened around the cheeks but not near his lips. The way one’s face softens when they are trying to convince someone smaller and more naïve of untrue things. His lips pursed tighter. He reminded me of Officer Blevens, the officer who dragged me out of the graveyard years ago. A man who tried to lie to my face about how much trouble I was in. I was found hip-deep in what looked like an empty grave… Well, it was an empty grave by the time they got to it. The true corpse fell apart piece by piece about thirty yards north of my arrest. Darlin foamed at the mouth when Winestra called her at about two a.m. to come to the police station. Officer Blevens looked me dead in the eye that night and gave me the same face Detective Smith gave me now. ‘It was just a slap on the wrist.’ Liar.

“I want a lawyer.” I learned my lesson from last time.

They didn’t even let me shower. I stank enough to make my eyes water and gag every time I moved. They washed my hands but crusty blood lurked under my nails. My hair was a ball of grease superglued to the top of my skull and left to drape around me. I’d never felt that gross in all of my life, and I once spent six hours drenched in rainwater and coated in graveyard soil. Her gravestone illuminated behind my lids: Melissa Keen, beloved mother and daughter, born in 1981, taken too soon. She had still been fresh; it was the whole reason I dug her up. The fresher the better. If I could bring her back, then I could bring back others…

It didn’t work out.

“Miss Foster—”

“I want a lawyer,” I whispered for the umpteenth time. My throat, coarse from screaming and lack of water, itched from the back of my teeth down to the top of my shoulders. They offered me a glass of water in a paper cup, but it sat untouched. Darlin always said ‘never drink anything offered from someone who wanted trouble’ and Detective What’s-his-face wanted trouble.

“And one is coming, but we can keep talking,” Detective Smith repeated for the umpteenth time. He said we, but only he talked. I merely repeated my request every time the silence grew too long. I couldn’t look at him; I only stared at my disgusting reflection in the dented steel table. Handcuffs chaffed my wrists but stayed frosty against my skin. They continually pumped the room with as much A.C. as they could afford. It would not change anything. The problem with human torture was that it could never hold a flame to what I endured the night before.

I repeated myself once more. Detective Smith did not listen, but I am stubborn. He would learn nothing from me. My vision blurred. It sharply cleared for a long moment then swirled back out of focus. Energy dripped from my dirty pores and left me empty of everything. Emotionless and run ragged, I just wanted to sleep. Even my bones ached as I let my eyes flutter shut and my body swayed to the side.

A sharp, internal stab to my brain brought me back to life. I couldn’t let my guard down, not here. Not while he was still loose.

“Want to tell me why you have a record for grave robbing?” Detective Smith cocked his head. I rolled my eyes before they fluttered shut again. My insides begged for sleep’s sweet release but refused to fully take me away. Recovery was the hardest part. I wavered in and out of full consciousness. My aunt usually held me when exhaustion hit me that hard. Darlin would always whisper stories into my ears with her long arms around me. I could smell the soft puffs of basil and thyme on her breath as if she sat there beside me—

“Miss Foster?”

I could tell him about my record, but I wouldn’t. Officer Blevens had asked me why I would spend a night in a grave, and foolishly I had answered him. He had told my aunt I had delusions and should be locked away. I learned my lesson that night, and for years to follow; reanimation was impossible. Life after death was a fool’s dream. Witches weren’t meant to mess with the laws of life and death. Then I brought Leo Ashwood back from the dead.

“I want… a… lawyer.” Words tumbled off my lips like stones. I swayed in the seat, my bones like pudding. I would have toppled over, but the cuffs prevented me from sliding off the chair. I hit the arms of the steel chair. The cuffs held fast. Between the tension of the cuffs and the rigid chair, I was forced to sit up like a porcelain doll. Panic pumped through my chest, hot and fast. My veins raced blood to every extremity.

“You sure you don’t need medical attention?” Detective Smith reached over to touch my hands again. I jerked away, and he returned to his side of the table.

A female cop moved my chair closer to the table with her foot. My stomach nearly pressed into the edge of the chilled steel. She returned to her spot in the corner, arms crossed and eyes focused on me.

“I want a lawyer,” I mumbled, half alive. A short passage of time became an eternity as I wavered in and out of consciousness. Even if the detective wanted answers, I was in no position to give them. Mouth shut, even when unconscious, lips sewn shut.

“Quinn, I just want to know how—” Detective Henry finally gave up as the door swung open and a man in a tweed champagne colored suit entered the room, fury etched into his aged face.

“That is enough!” My gaze jumped up from the table and relief flooded my system. The man’s attire screamed lawyer. I knew the type, pressed and clean, heavy scents of aftershave, hair slicked back and eyes sharp.

“My client asked for a lawyer. The questioning should have stopped the second she asked for one.”

“Your client was found in a pool of blood, fingerprints all over the murder weapon, and the only survivor of a massacre—” Detective Smith stopped mid-rant as a slow yawn broke through my lips. He questioned me with his eyes, his mouth hung open ever so slightly. “Does murder bore you?”

My eyes caught the furrowed brows of the female cop. Her last name etched into a tiny sliver of silver on her chest—Alvarez. She pursed her lips as she stepped forward from the corner, eyes on the lawyer. The lines of a tattoo just under the collar of her uniform piqued my interest. Branches of something reached up the sides of her skin, but all I could make out was a raven in flight beneath her collar. Officer Alvarez surveyed me like a hawk as she crossed the room and hovered to the right of the table.

Her hands snatched up the cuffs. She stared me in the eyes, holding back from releasing me.

“Release her before I press harassment against your precinct,” Tweed Suit Guy said. “She is a minor, and her parental figure is already on her way here. If I were you, I would rethink how you talk to me and my client.” Tweed Suit Guy inched toward me, a briefcase in one hand and the other on his hip. A thick stench of rustic cabin and burnt red wood wafted off of him. It wasn’t unpleasant, but the strength of his scent made my eyes water.

Detective Smith slid back from the table and scowled. My eyes settled on him; the world blurred for a moment at the sudden change in focus. There were two beauty marks upon his right cheek, one beside his upper lip and the other south of his ear. He’d missed a spot shaving. The hair on his head was thick red hair, but his facial hair was nearly blond. He met my gaze. A man who chased justice, I could see it tattooed to his flesh. I was a monster in his eyes. I was the reason for all those deaths. If only he knew that Leo Ashwood was the reason. Had Leo Ashwood just seen reason and let Berry and me go, no one would have known.

“We will talk again, Miss Foster. You are not to leave the state.” Obviously, he didn’t know a thing about me.

I shook my head calmly as Officer Alvarez unlocked my cuffs. She refused to look me in the eye as I stood. I hugged myself in the donated police sweatshirt and sweatpants they had given me after my own were handed over as evidence. Not that I wanted any of it back. The only thing I wanted back I had failed to get back long before they found me. Berry was gone, and her blood would cake my hands for the rest of my life.

“Miss Foster.” Tweed Suit Guy stretched a hand out toward me. I shuffled around the table, my eyes locked on Detective Smith’s. He refused to break eye contact. I was not as prideful. I looked away. As I passed the table, I heard Officer Alvarez finally speak under her breath.

“Creepy little witch.” Although her voice was soft, the words scratched at my ears.

If only she knew the half of it. Blood fell like dandruff from under my nails as I picked them clean with my newly freed hands. The second I was safe, I’d shower and scrub off three layers of skin. Not even the swamp made my skin feel this sensitive. Every swish of the fabric against me lit up sensors all over my body. Detective Smith and Officer Alvarez stayed silent as I shuffled out of the doorway and into the loud precinct. Hours of being awake and then chained to a table seemed like nothing compared to the seconds it took to walk out of sight of the two in the room.

One gentle hand on my shoulder blades, Tweed Suit Guy led me through the hallway and toward the massive opening in the precinct. My mouth refused to unclamp as I focused on the nondescript sneakers they put on my feet. Such a shame that they dirtied such a clean pair of shoes on my toes.

“You are a lucky girl. They didn’t charge you. I wonder what game they’re playing,” Tweed Suit Guy whispered as we walked quietly through an empty hallway. Not even murmurs filled the police station. He was keen on chit-chatting. But a Witch is never safe talking with humans. Rule number one: Never talk about Witch business with humans. I’d already broken enough rules for a lifetime.

A crackle of electricity filled my ears as I looked up through the glass ceiling. Snow covered the tips of the slanted roof. Soft plump fluff fell from the sky like feathers and slid across the glass. I smiled. I’d never seen snow before.

“Do you think the snow feels as soft as it looks?” I breathed.

“Miss Foster, your aunt—”

Before the lawyer could finish, fireworks went off behind my eyes, making the world fuzzy. Danger. My skin crawled and electricity ran up my spine. The interrogation room clicked shut behind us at the end of the hall. We rounded into the main bullpen of the precinct. Something within me snapped to action.

I grabbed his hand and pulled him forward with me. I could feel his pulse race under his skin. Exhaustion bit at my ankles, spots formed in my eyes, but I wanted to taste the freedom of winter air on my tongue. There was danger here. Shadows whispered sweet promises of relief from the pain and exhaustion if only I went outside. My lips glued shut and I focused on getting out.

Freedom. All I needed was freedom.

I burst through the doors as if I’d been shot from the police station out of a slingshot, gasping for air. Tweed Suit Guy dropped my hand and stumbled away from me as I stepped out into the snow. The sky was a steely gray muddled with black clouds. Flakes tickled my face, and tears fell down my cheeks in fat drops. Free. I was free.

“Miss Foster?” Tweed Suit Guy choked. “What was…”

I barely heard him. The whispers from the shadows turned to roars that drowned out his gasps for air. Magic crackled across my nerves like sparks from open wires. I spun in the snow, arms out to feel the chill as it bit through the sweatshirt. Exhaustion seeped away from me and reinvigorated me entirely. Hydrated, awake, alive! My magic sparked at my fingertips; even my bones seemed soothed and relieved.

I smiled, truly smiled, as I stared up at the buildings around the precinct. The roads were empty of life and cars, just snow as it silently fell to the ground. I was alive! Leo Ashwood didn’t kill me! The words felt so unreal, and yet, there I was, alive and smiling on the streets of New York!

Berry came to mind with a slap and my face fell. She was still very much dead and there wasn’t a thing I could do. Her body laid on a slab somewhere with giant gash wounds, gutted like a fish. She was surrounded, I imagined, by at least six other people but there were no slashes to their midsections. Berry died at the end of a blade; the others in that examination room died by magic…my magic. It was the reason I was in that police precinct in the first place, but it was also the reason I stood ankle deep in snow and she didn’t. I sucked in the hollows of my cheeks as I absorbed the world around me. The snow glared brightly against my eyes.

“I want to go home,” I croaked as I turned to the Tweed Suit Guy.

Suddenly, the lawyer collapsed, his body flopping onto the frost-covered sidewalk with a sickening thud. His skin paled to a gray hue and sunken in, his eyes had rolled back in his head. His mouth hung open. Snow flurried around me like a snow globe from the disturbance of his corpse hitting the ground. My hands shivered as I reached for him. A finger grazed his cheek and I lived in silent horror as his skin sank in further. Zaps of electricity filled my veins, and I jerked my hand back. His eyes turned to puddles in his sockets and his jaw fell away from his face. Reality sank into my skin like a thousand needles pushed through my pores. I stumbled backward until my back was against a thin pole.

I touched him and sucked the life from him like a straw directly into his soul. My own bloody juice box. I pushed against the steel pole behind me. It whined as it bent. I turned toward the pole, now tilted with a sharp dent where I pushed. Strength pulsed within me as I stumbled into a different pole. With no thought or reasoning behind it, I punched the next lamppost with all my strength. My knuckles tore the metal and slid right through the other side. My jaw dropped in shock.

With a wiggle, I slipped my hand back to my side. Tears dried up on my face as I smirked. Impossible, and yet, here I was, with a massive hole through steel in front of my face and a corpse behind me. My aunt, Darlin, said that my strength came from me and only me. And yet…

I had done the impossible. I brought Leo Ashwood back to life. In all that blood, with my own magic, I brought him back to life and watched him jump out into the snow. No evidence he still lived, but I could retrace my steps. Not to mention I sucked the life from the lawyer. My magic. I felt it tingle my fingertips as I stepped around the pole.

Power coursed through my veins, and I realized I liked it.