“Bring her to the front of the summoning stone once you’ve subdued her. She will make a perfect sacrifice to our Lord.”
The head mage’s words yank me out of my existential crisis about nearly being killed by an incompetent bully and I snap to attention.
I turn back to look at Charlie. He’s a few feet away and from the look of him he has no plans to leave. “Charlie. Get out of here. Warn Buffy, they're waiting for her. She has to know that this is a set up.”
“What? No. I’m not leaving you.”
“I’m not playing with you, Charlie!” I whisper-scream at my friend who’s doing his best impression of a paperweight and absolutely not hightailing it out of here like I asked him to. I kick at Charlie when he tries to grab my ankle again and roll to my feet. “Get to the trees. Run. Don’t stop until you hit Sweet Tooth. Tell Buffy what’s going on.” I give him a nudge but he doesn’t budge.
“Wait, what? What are you…” His eyes go round when he sees me square my shoulders and turn towards the mages. “Meadow, no.”
“Meadow, yes.”
“You can’t go out there.”
“This is a trap. I know that. Don’t you understand? Do you think I want to be sacrificed again? But they think I’m Buffy. I have to take her place to buy enough time.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to go along with it. She wouldn’t want you to give yourself up for her. You’re not supposed to be sacrificed. You already beat that.”
“Charlie-”
“No.”
“It’s going to be fine, I promise-”
“It’s not fair.”
I have to squeeze my eyes shut because if I don’t, I’ll cry. I can hear the anger in Charlie’s voice but I also hear the fear. I feel the fear because it’s alive and snapping in my chest. It’s trying to claw its way out of me. It’s screaming at me that I’ll never get away from this fate. My life won’t ever be my own.
I was always meant to die.
I can’t let myself even look at Charlie or I’ll crack and break, I’ll be eaten alive by this thing inside me. I have to live for as long as I can and I won’t do it scared.
“So what am I supposed to do? Run away and let them go after her?” I ask him and take a deep breath as I open my eyes. Iignore the tears I see shining in Charlie’s eyes. “You heard him. There’s a mole in the group that snitched on Buffy’s patrol. It’s Roy. You know it is. If I keep them occupied and you tell her what’s going on she can end it here. They won’t get away if Buffy knows they’re here. It has to end here. They’re just going to keep going after her and none of us will ever be safe. What do you wanna bet they’re responsible for the mini-demons?”
I’m making sense. I know I am from the look Charlie gives me. He’s torn on being a good friend to me and staying, and listening to me to do what we both know needs to happen.
“You have to tell Buffy what’s going on. She’ll know what to do.”
“But what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. Buffy will save me before anything happens. She always does.”
“Meadow, ple-”
“I’ll be okay. I promise.” I nod towards the trees and swallow hard. “Charlie, go. If you don't, no one is going to know what happened. I-I’m doing this for you too. Get out of here. I’ll be all right. I pinky promise.”
I hold out my pinky to Charlie to make good on my promise. Charlie hesitates and I know why. Charlie is a good guy. A real, honest to goodness, good guy. Not one of those weird fake ones that so many of the boys in town grew up pretending to be and not like the Outsiders who used to come to town for the day and throw their weight around. Charlie is a girl’s guy. A real friend. I’m glad pretending to be Buffy is going to get him out of here.
I wiggle my pinky at him. “Now, Charlie.”
He hooks our pinkies together and squeezes mine. “You’re a bad ass, Meadow. Give ‘em hell.” He tells me before he takes off for the trees. If there wasn’t a gaggle of mages waiting for me to give myself up as a sacrifice, I would watch him until he’s gone but I can’t because I do in fact have a gaggle of mages waiting forme to give myself up as a sacrifice to whatever deity it is that they pray to.
I step out from behind the rock fully intending to beat a mage, or at the very least flip one of them off, but the second I come out, they’re on me. One of the mages hits the side of my leg and I go down while another throws a loop of rope around me. They pull it tight, pulling my arms to my side and start working on tying a knot, or at least that’s what I think they’re doing. I can’t tell because a second later a burlap sack gets thrown over my head and everything goes dark.
Chapter
Ten
