Tortured: Book Three of the Jason and Azazel Trilogy Read online

  "Yeah, it's ugly," she said, putting it back on the rack. She pulled out a long shimmery green dress with spaghetti straps.

  "Pretty," I said.

  "You try it on," she said.

  "You saw it first," I said.

  "Azazel, try on the dress. Let's try to have some fun girl time for once."

  Right. Fun girl time. When Jude was sitting in a basement tied up and bloody, and my roommate was pregnant with my little brother's bastard child. Okay. She held the dress out to me.

  "What size is it?" I said, sighing.

  "Oh, who can understand this ridiculous Italian sizing? It says it's huge, but it's made for dwarves, so don't worry about it and try it on."

  I took the dress and went into the dressing room.

  It was low cut and bunchy around my waist. I surveyed myself in the mirror. "I don't think so," I said.

  "Let me see," said Palomino.

  "No, it's bad."

  "Show me!"

  I emerged from the dressing room. Palomino was waiting for me in a long black dress with a halter top and an empire waist.

  "That dress is awesome on you!" I exclaimed.

  "Thanks," she said. "I wanted something that would hide my belly."

  I rolled my eyes. "Mina, prom is in a week. What kind of belly do you think you're going to have?"

  "I already have one!" she exclaimed.

  "You do not!"

  "Besides," she said. "This dress is cheap. My parents give me money for all kinds of things, like dresses and stuff. If I don't spend it all and save it, and maybe if I sell my car, then, when they find out about the baby and they kick me out on the street, maybe Chance and I can . . ."

  I hugged her. "You don't really think your parents are going to throw you out, do you?"

  She shrugged. "They're going to be really, really mad, Azazel."

  "That sucks." My parents would never have done something like that to me. Of course, they'd tried to keep me pure so I could participate in a Satanic ritual. Parents pretty much sucked no matter how you sliced it. "I'm so sorry."

  "It's okay," she said. "I'm glad you told Chance. He's been really, really awesome. And I think it's gonna be okay. I really do." She smiled. Then she looked at my dress. "Oh God," she said. "That's awful."

  "I told you," I said.

  We ducked back into the dressing room and changed out of our dresses. Mina hung hers up on the door and helped me hunt through the racks some more. I tried on at least ten dresses. Some of them were okay. One of them looked really, really nice on the hanger, but didn't look so nice on me. One of them I really liked, but cost way too much money.

  And just when I was beginning to despair ever finding a dress at all, Palomino rushed forward with a dress in her hands and gave it to me. "This one," she said.

  She was right. That was definitely the dress. As I zipped it up in the dressing room and surveyed myself in the mirror, hardly able to believe how well it fit me, my phone beeped at me. Text message. I dug in my pants on the floor to get it out.

  It was from Jason. "Get back here. NOW," it said.

  "what's up?" I texted back.

  "NOW!!!" was all he replied.

  "Mina," I said, "we've got to go back to school."

  Chapter Six

  April 26, 1990

  Ted had a lot of information for us to go through this evening. He says he believes the Rising Sun could be born from the Weem line and that we needed to try to find someone young among his cousins that could possibly bear the child. Then our business would be to prepare that person as best we could. But I've been spending a lot of time with Ted, and I have an idea. It's crazy and weird, and I'm afraid to even bring it up to him, because I'm not sure what he'll think about it. But if we go the route that Ted's suggesting, it could take years to really get things rolling. And he says that we're running out of time, because the Rising Son is a key player in 2012.

  Jason met us at the entrance to the dorm. He grabbed me by the arm and started to drag me away with him. "Come with me," he said.

  I had my dress in a bag draped over my arm, so I shook it in front of his face. "I have a dress I need to put away," I told him.

  He took the dress bag from me and shoved it at Palomino. "Take that upstairs for her," he said.

  Mina took the dress and stared after us as Jason pulled me along. "Where are you guys going?" she asked.

  "Don't worry about it!" Jason called over his shoulder. Once we were out of earshot, he said, "We've got a problem."

  "Problem?" I said.

  "I'll show you," he said.

  We went to the assembly hall. It was open and there was a guard at the door. Inside, the drama club was on the stage up front, practicing the spring play.

  "Someone's gonna see us," I hissed at Jason as he pulled me towards the basement door.

  "No, they won't. They're not paying attention." He thrust open the door to the basement and pushed me inside first. I went down the steps. "Is Jude gone or something?" I asked.

  But when I emerged in the basement, Jude was still in the place we'd left him. His head was slumped over, and he wasn't moving. I turned back to Jason. "What?" I asked.

  Jason strode over to Jude and lifted his face up by the hair. Jude's eyes were open. They stared dully out at the dark basement. There was a large bloody wound in his forehead. A gunshot, most likely. Jason dropped Jude's head. It thudded back against Jude's body. "He's dead," Jason said.

  "I see that," I said.

  "You were the last person to see him," said Jason.

  "What?"

  "After all that stuff last night about not killing him, then you just come in here after breakfast and shoot him?"

  "I didn't do it!" I said. "You must have." Although it didn't make sense for Jason to accuse me of killing Jude if he'd actually done it. He wouldn't lie to me, would he?

  "You wouldn't lie to me?" Jason said, echoing my thoughts.

  "Of course not."

  "I didn't do it either," said Jason.

  I let this sink in. If neither Jason nor I had killed Jude, then someone else must have. Someone else knew about Jude.

  "Are you sure?" said Jason. "Because you've been drinking a lot, and maybe you blacked out or something—"

  "No, I haven't had a drink since before we found him," I said. I paused. "Maybe he did it to himself?"

  "Then where's the gun?"

  "Oh. Yeah."

  "This is not good," said Jason.

  "No," I said. "It's not."

  We didn't have any idea who would kill Jude. Could it be someone with a grudge against Jude already? Someone who'd followed him here? Someone who didn't care about us at all?

  That seemed too good to be true. We were concerned that the body of Jude was less about him and more about us. Maybe it was a message, letting us know that someone knew who we were and where we were. Whoever that someone was, he wasn't afraid of putting bullets in people's heads.

  Jason and I didn't know what to do. We couldn't leave Jude's body here. It would start . . . smelling at some point, and so we were going to have to try to get it out of here. We agreed to meet back at the old church after lights out that night. With trash bags.

  * * *

  At dinner that night, Jason seemed tense. He moved his food around on his plate with his fork, but didn't actually eat much of it. I squeezed his hand under the table, and tried to tell him with a look that everything was going to be okay. I didn't know if everything was going to be okay or not. But I wished someone would tell me that right now.

  Palomino and Chance didn't notice that the two of us weren't our usual selves, due to the fact that Mina chattered constantly, relaying our adventures in Milan, including how awed I'd been with the Duomo, which Palomino found hysterically funny. Chance defended me, saying that he thought it was pretty amazing too.

  Then Palomino launched into detailed descriptions of our dresses.

  "Wait," said Chance, "aren't we guys not supposed to know about these dress
es until prom?"

  "You're thinking of bride's dresses," said Palomino. "Grooms aren't supposed to see the bride before the wedding."

  "Oh," said Chance.

  "Azazel's dress is really pretty," said Palomino.

  "So is yours," I said.

  "Mine is slimming," said Palomino.

  I rolled my eyes. "You're one of the slimmest people I know," I said. "You don't need to be slimmed."

  Mina patted her still-flat stomach as if she was actually showing her pregnancy already.

  "Is this seat taken?"

  We all looked up to see who was talking to us. It was Fairie Weem. We exchanged a look. Why would Fairie Weem want to talk to us? No one said anything. Fairie seemed to take this as an invitation. She sat down.

  "Hey," she said brightly.

  No one said anything.

  "So how are you guys?" she asked.

  I looked around. "Where's the rest of them?" I said. "How does this turn into a big joke on us?"

  Fairie sighed, chewing on a celery stick. I noticed she only had low calorie foods on her plate. Celery sticks. Lettuce. Cucumbers. Maybe she was anorexic. "Look, I know we gave you guys a hard time at first, but honestly, it was all in good fun."

  "You said that I was on heroin and that I had AIDs," said Palomino. "How was that in good fun?"

  "I'm sorry," said Fairie, sounding defensive. "Geez. But, you know, I never said anything like about you two. Amy and Jeremy." She beamed at us.

  "Did George tell you something?" Jason asked.

  Fairie looked completely confused. "What's George got to do with this? Okay, Faruza's only banging him because he's got a really big dick. She might dump him anyway, if you guys—" she gestured at Jason and me "—think he's stupid."

  What the hell?

  "Look," she said, "a bunch of us are having a get-together tonight. Outside by the rec center. Starts around nine. Don't worry about curfew. It's totally taken care of. It'd be really cool if you showed." She smiled and got up. "Oh, Amy," she said. "You should totally wear that little black tank top you were wearing the other day. It's super cute."

  And she swept off.

  I felt like I'd just been hit by a bus. "That was weird," I said.

  "It is a cute tank top," said Palomino.

  "They hate us, though," I said.

  Palomino shrugged. "Well, I think we should go."

  "Are you kidding?" I said. "They'll dump pig's blood or something on us."

  Chance chuckled darkly. "I think they'll wait until the prom for that."

  "Okay," said Jason. "We'll go."

  I turned to look at him, astonished. "What?" I said. "But—" We have a body to dispose of tonight.

  He gave me a look.

  I shrugged. "Guess we're going."

  "Cool," said Palomino. "Party." She grinned, then frowned. "Damn it. I can't drink!"

  I made a sympathetic face. "I'm totally not wearing that tank top, though," I muttered.

  * * *

  Jason explained to me that he thought it would be easier for us to sneak out of the party to take care of Jude's body than it would be to sneak out of the dorm. Plus, being at the party meant that we could use the rich kids' curfew pass to our advantage. It made sense, but I was kind of frustrated with him because the clothes I wanted to wear to move a body were not the clothes I wanted to wear to a party. I tried to find a happy medium. Clothes that looked kind of nice but could get messed up, and I wouldn't care. This was really next to impossible, so I ended up in an outfit that I figured I was just going to have to sacrifice.

  We showed up at the party around nine, even though Mina protested that it was totally uncool to be on time. Jason and I wanted to get there early enough that we could make an appearance and then sneak off without anyone realizing we weren’t still there. We figured this would be easy, since we weren’t very popular at the SolSolisSchool. We didn’t know very many people, anyway. We were wrong.

  When we got to the rec center, about ten of the richest kids in the school were already there. They had set up a snack on the picnic tables under the pavilion. The picnic tables were covered in crimson tablecloths and set with real silverware and plates. It looked very elegant and innocent. Faruza and Fairie were there already, fussing over flower arrangements. When they saw us, their identical faces lit up, and they rushed over.

  "Hey!" said Faruza.

  "Hi!" said Fairie. "You came! I wasn’t sure if you would."

  Faruza shoved Fairie playfully. "I told you they’d come," she said. She linked arms with me and started to walk me over towards the picnic tables. I shot a terrified glance over my shoulder at Jason, but he was following, being led in a similar way by Fairie. Behind us, Chance and Mina trailed, looking confused.

  I felt confused too. This had to be a set up of some kind. People who hated you didn’t suddenly just get nice for no reason.

  " . . . so don’t worry," Faruza was saying to me.

  "Huh?" I said, trying to concentrate on what she was saying.

  "I was saying that all this stuff is just a show for the heads," she said. She meant the headmasters and mistresses of the school. "They usually show up to these things when we throw them and stay for about an hour or two. Once they leave, we break out the booze."

  I nodded. "And you don’t get in trouble for throwing parties on campus?"

  Fairie pulled close with Jason in tow. "Our parents donate a significant amount of money to the school," she said, smiling and winking.

  So I guessed that was what it was like to be a really rich kid. And the Weem twins were very rich kids who went to a school full of rich kids. They were the richest of the rich.

  Sure enough, within fifteen minutes, the heads of the school showed up. They got snacks and chatted with the students while sitting at the fancy picnic tables. Jason and I didn’t have a minute to ourselves. Faruza and Fairie yanked us around, introducing us to people who didn’t know us and asking our opinions about all kinds of ridiculous things. Faruza seemed very concerned over my thoughts on the pattern of the china which we were using. "Next time," she said, "you should totally help me pick it out or something, because I want to make sure you guys like it."

  Why did she care if we liked it?

  It got worse. "I told George not to come," Faruza told me as we munched on smoked salmon and crackers. "I know that you guys aren’t really very fond of him."

  "Um, I really thought it was the other way around. I thought you guys didn’t like us."

  "That’s just not true," said Faruza. "I mean, I think at first, I was caving to a lot of peer pressure and stuff, and I really want to apologize for that, because it seriously wasn’t cool. We think you and Jeremy are pretty much the most awesome thing that’s ever happened to this school."

  "Yeah?" I said. "Since when?"

  Faruza looked a little troubled for a second, as if she was thinking really hard. "Well," she said, "I want to say since always, but that doesn’t make sense, does it? Because I remember that I was, like, really mean to you. I remember that Fairie and I had the idea to invite you to the party last night. We couldn’t believe we’d left you out."

  "To invite Jeremy and me," I said.

  "Yeah."

  "But not Chance and Mina?"

  "Oh, of course, it’s fine if your friends want to come. It’s one of the things I admire about you the most. That you’re just so nice to everyone, even people like that."

  "Chance is my—" I stopped talking. I'd been about to tell her that Chance was my brother, but I couldn’t say that out loud.

  "No, no!" said Faruza. "I know that you four are all really close. That's awesome. And they should stay, because it's awesome. Seriously." She smiled at me, as if she were afraid we all might just bolt.

  Which was annoying, because that was exactly what Jason and I wanted to do.

  I searched the crowd for Jason. I could see that he was with Fairie on the other side of the pavilion. He was holding a plate filled with hors d'oeuvres and stuffi
ng them into his mouth as several people chattered at him. How were we going to get out of here?

  The night wore on. The heads left. The alcohol came out. This wasn't like a keg party back in Bramford, however, or even a party on the beach in Bradenton. There were fancy cocktails served in crystal martini glasses with glass stirrers. More of the Weem twins' friends started to show up and swarm me. They told me how much they liked my outfit. They complimented my hairstyle (a ponytail—nothing fancy). They wanted to know what stylist was doing my hair and makeup for the prom.