Chapter 29; Ghost powder
SPENCER'S POV
Consciousness returned not as a gentle dawn, but as a sudden, violent slap into reality. A stinging impact bloomed on my cheek, followed by a voice cutting through the fog in my head.
"Spencer. Spencer, wake up."
I gasped, my eyes flying open. The world swam into focus, and with it, a throbbing, nauseating ache centered at the back of my skull. It pulsed in time with my heartbeat, a deep, sickening rhythm of pain. Blinking away the blurriness, I found Wednesday kneeling in front of me, her luminous face etched with concern.
"Ouch," I winced, trying to lift a hand to my aching head. A sharp, metallic rattle stopped me. I looked down. My wrists were shackled in thick, cold iron manacles, connected by a short chain to a heavy ring bolted to the floor. I was sitting on a simple, rugged wooden chair, my legs free but useless with my upper body anchored down. I struggled for a moment, a surge of panic giving me strength, but the chains and the bolted ring didn't even groan. It was a futile effort.
I looked back at Wednesday, a cold suspicion creeping into my heart. "Are you the one who chained me up?"
She rolled her eyes, a gesture so familiarly her that it slightly eased my fear. "How could I? I wouldn't do such a thing. Even if I could physically hold chains, I wouldn't."
"Well, these look like your kind of aesthetic," I shrugged, trying to mask my fear with weak humor, the chains rattling with my movement. "Rusty, dramatic, and utterly inescapable."
"It's not mine, Spencer," she said, her voice dropping to a grave whisper. "You are in Spain's custody."
I laughed, a short, sharp burst of disbelief. But the laugh died in my throat as I saw the utter seriousness on her face. There was no jest in her luminous eyes, only a grim truth.
"Okay, tell me you're joking," I said, the laughter fading into a nervous plea. "This is a bad dream. A really, really bad dream."
She didn't smile. She didn't bite. Her spectral form seemed to solidify with the weight of her message.
"Okay," I finalised, the reality crashing down on me. "You're not joking." A new, chilling thought occurred to me. "Did I... did I die in the blast? Is this the afterlife? It's incredibly underwhelming."
"No, you're not dead," she said, shaking her head. "You collapsed after hitting your head. The hotel was coming down. Allen and I... we managed to get you out before the whole top floor gave way,well people died,cause the whole of Cambridge leveling hotel went down. We rushed you to a hospital." She paused, her form flickering with what looked like frustration. "But unfortunately, while you were unconscious, a woman came in. She posed as a nurse. She kidnapped you."
"Kidnapped me?" The word felt alien, dramatic. "Who? Who would kidnap me?"
Wednesday exhaled a breath she didn't need. "It was Megan."
The world stopped. The throbbing in my head, the chill of the chains, the stuffy air in the room—it all receded into a silent, ringing void. "What?"
"Your girlfriend," Wednesday repeated, her voice firm and clear. "She's been working hand-in-hand with Spain all along."
"No." The word was a reflex, a shield against an impossible truth. "That's not true. You can't say that. I left Megan in the hospital with a broken head! She was a victim in all this!"
"Well, she has since returned the favor," Wednesday replied coolly, gesturing at my shackles with a tilt of her head. "Leaving you tied with chains in this... place."
I finally took a proper look around. The room was small, windowless, and damp. The walls were unfinished concrete, and the only light came from a single, bare bulb hanging from a wire overhead. The air was stale and stuffy, smelling of dust and mildew. It was a cellar. A dungeon or sort.
"Help me," I said, my voice tight with a fresh wave of panic. "Let's get out of here. You can phase through walls, right? Just... unchain me."
"I'm not sure I can," she replied, her gaze fixed on the manacles. "There's something... wrong."
"Well, give it a try!" I urged, desperation clawing at my throat.
She exhaled, a shimmering, ethereal sound, and manifested her butcher's knife. The rusted metal seemed to absorb the dim light from the bulb. I stretched my chained hands forward as far as the links would allow. She raised the knife, aiming for a precise strike on the chain between the manacles.
"Wait... wait, wait, wait!" I yelped, pulling my hands back instinctively.
She lowered the blade, a flicker of impatience in her eyes. "What is it now?"
"Well," I began, managing a weak, strained smile, "do you mind not chopping my hands off together with the chains? Let's be honest, a lot of your aims are... how do I put this... disastrous? Or they end up being fatal. I'm rather attached to my hands."
"I'll try," she said, her voice dry. "Where I hit is where I have aimed. So keep still, or you will get your hands chopped off by your own fidgeting."
She raised the knife again, her form coiling with focused energy. The tip of the blade descended toward the central link. I held my breath, my muscles tense.
Just as the rusted metal was about to make contact, a powerful, invisible force erupted in the room. It didn't touch me, but it slammed into Wednesday with the violence of a wrecking ball. She was ripped off her feet with a sharp cry, thrown backwards across the room, and smashed into the concrete wall. She crumpled to the floor, her form flickering violently, a low groan of agony escaping her lips. The butcher's knife clattered to the ground and then dissolved into shimmering motes of light, vanishing into nothingness.
"What just happened?" I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Wednesday winced, clutching her spectral side as if it were real. "What's wrong?" I asked, horrified.
She looked at me, pain and dawning realization in her eyes. "Ghost powder..." she mumbled, her voice strained.
I looked down, truly examining the floor around my chair for the first time. There, etched neatly in a perfect circle around me and my prison chair, was a line of stark white powder. It wasn't chalk. It seemed to glow with a faint, malevolent energy of its own.
"Ghost powder?" I asked, my mind reeling.
Before she could answer, the heavy metal door flung open with a bang. The single bare bulb flickered and then blazed to full, harsh brightness, illuminating the grim room in all its depressing detail.
Five people entered. Three were hulking men dressed in tactical gear, their faces grim, their hands resting on the submachine guns slung across their chests. And behind them, looking like a king surveying his captured prize, was Spain. His arm was wrapped possessively around the waist of the one person I had desperately hoped was a hallucination.
Megan.
She looked pristine. Her hair was perfect, her makeup flawless. She wore a sleek, black outfit that spoke of money and power, not the vulnerable victim I had last seen in a hospital bed. The sight of her, standing there with him, sent a torrent of conflicting emotions through me—shock, betrayal, and a heartbreak so profound it felt like a physical wound.
"You son of a b****!" I growled, surging against my chains with a fury I didn't know I possessed. I wanted nothing more than to break free and drive my fist into his smug, smiling face.
Spain and his entourage simply laughed, the sound echoing cruelly in the small room.
"So," I seethed, my voice trembling with rage. "It's been you. All along. All the assassins, the chase... everything. It's all you?"
He shrugged, the picture of nonchalant evil. "Who else would be capable of masterminding such acts, little brother?" he asked, his tone dripping with pity.
The word hung in the air. Brother.
"What?" I breathed, the fight momentarily draining out of me.
"I have hated you, brother, from the very first day our father willed 89% of all his wealth into your name," Spain began, his voice taking on a conversational, almost confessional tone.
"What?" I repeated, stupidly. "You are doing all of this... because of a will?"
"Yes!" he snapped, his calm facade cracking for a moment. "I worked my entire life for that old man! I did his dirty work, I built his empire alongside him! And all he did was will a paltry 11% to me! Eleven percent!"
"My father did that because you were lazy!" I shot back, finding my voice again. "At 18, I began my first company! I earned my own ambition! I didn't rely on anybody's name or money, unlike you! That's why he thought I was the rightful heir to his legacy! I deserved it!"
"Is that the truth," Spain asked, stepping closer, his eyes boring into mine, "or is it just a lie you tell yourself to feel better?"
"What are you talking about?"
"He did what he did because I wasn't his real son," Spain said, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper.
The world tilted again. "What?"
"Yes. I'm your half-brother. Our mother's dirty little secret." He began to pace slowly in front of me, a predator circling his prey. "I was adopted by our parents because they believed they could never have a child. After your elder brother died, they thought I was a blessing. Later, we all discovered the truth. I was our mother's abandoned son. She got me through a sordid hookup, a moment of prostitution when she was young and foolish. She abandoned me because she wasn't ready for a child."
He stopped and looked at me, his eyes blazing with a lifetime of resentment. "Then, after I was adopted, she gave birth to you. The miracle child. Their true heir. The love and attention they once showed me was instantly redirected to you. I was abandoned all over again, left alone in the same house. But still, I never hated you then. You were innocent. We were close, remember? We grew up as brothers."
I did remember. Faint, happy memories of a older brother who taught me to ride a bike, who covered for me with our parents,who fought for me in school. The memory made the present betrayal all the more bitter.
"I watched how our father built his business. I learned everything from him. I set my dreams on becoming a tycoon in my own right. But my dreams were abolished. He made me his puppet. He made me suffer, made me do every dirty, unethical task he could dream up, all in return for a promise. He promised me 50% of everything he had. Laughable. I was a fool to believe him. I obeyed him for years. And when he died... I got only what my mother had left me before she died, too."
"Our mother," I corrected him, my voice hollow.
"I allowed you to take the 11%," I said, clinging to the narrative I knew. "I gave it to you! I didn't want you to feel bad! It wasn't my idea that he never gave you anything!" I told him
"SHUT UP!" Spain roared, his face contorted in rage. "Like father, like son! What is 11% when I can finally have all of it? Now that you are going to die, it all reverts to me as the next of kin. The last brother standing."
He laughed, a low, evil sound that had no joy in it. Megan grinned beside him, nuzzling his shoulder.
I turned my gaze to her, the pain of her betrayal a sharper agony than any chain. "YOU! I trusted you. I fell madly in love with you, you serpent! You traitor!"
I gritted my teeth so hard I thought they might crack. She simply rolled her eyes, a gesture of supreme boredom.
"Oh, please, Spencer. Cut the crap," she said, her voice dripping with disgust. "You were always so pathetically naive."
"Megan has always been the apple of my eye," Spain crooned, stroking her hair. "My most accomplished accomplice. She's exceptionally good at what she does. Your entire relationship with her was well-planned and meticulously fortified. And with her help, I got what I wanted most."
He nodded at Megan, who pulled a folded document from inside her jacket. She handed it to Spain with a reverent smile. He, in turn, gave it to one of his armed men. The man unfolded it and held it in front of my face.
It was my father's last will and testament. The real one.
"Sign it," Spain said simply. "Sign all of it, every asset, every share, every property, over to my name. Do that, and I might... consider... letting you leave this room alive."
Megan laughed, a light, tinkling sound that was now the most horrifying noise I'd ever heard.
"You are evil," I spat at her.
She grinned and walked up to me. Without a word, she landed a sharp, stinging blow across my face. My head snapped to the side, and I tasted blood in my mouth. I spat a crimson stream onto the dusty floor.
"That's for my head injury," she purred. "You know, you have always been pathetic and stupid. And that's precisely why you were so easy to get."
She smirked and walked back to Spain's side. I growled, clenching my shackled fists until the metal bit into my skin.
My eyes darted to Wednesday. She was still on the floor by the wall, visibly weakened, her form faint and flickering. The ghost powder circle was a moat she could not cross. I was the only one who could see her, and my only hope of escape was currently sharing in my helplessness.
I didn't want to sign the documents. Signing them was signing my own death warrant—Spain would never let me live. But refusing to sign was a quicker, more painful death.
All their eager eyes were fixed on me—Spain's gloating, Megan's contemptuous, the guards' indifferent. They were a pack of wolves, and I was the tethered lamb, waiting for the slaughter, with my only ally trapped behind an invisible wall of agony.
To be continued....