Banshee Worm King: Book Five of the Oz Chronicles (17 page)

Lou and I worked ourselves free from his enthusiastic
hug.
 
We both searched for what to
say.
 
He was so happy, and we were so
unsure about just how boyfriend and girlfriend we actually were.
 
In a lot of ways, I was still a
thirteen-year-old kid trying to make it without my parents.
 
Years had passed since I actually was
thirteen, but I didn’t even know how many.
 

And I couldn’t shake the fact that we were in a story.
 
We always had been.
 
I didn’t know if I felt that way about Lou
because that’s how I really felt or because that’s the way the Storyteller
wrote it.
 
According to Tarek, I had
broken the Storytellers’ rules by getting involved with the Délons’ story.
 
That wasn’t my fight.
 
I had changed things.
 
So they rewrote it.
 
But it was possible that Tarek was
wrong.
 
That I’m doing exactly what I
want to do, and the Storytellers have no say over what I do at all.
   

The other fact that I couldn’t shake was Lou’s...
status.
 
She wasn’t real.
 
She wasn’t like me.
 
She was a thought in Stevie’s head. And I
didn’t know why he’d planted her in the story.
 
Everyone else was real.
 
Why
wasn’t she?
 
Why would he do that to
me?
 
He knew that if I ever found my way
back home that I’d never be able to bring her back.
 

He knew... my head started to spin.
 
Stevie did this on purpose.
 
This was just another way for him to get me
back for the way I’d treated him.
 
It
wasn’t enough that he took my parents away.
 
It wasn’t enough that I’ve had to fight to survive every day I’ve been
in this insane world.
 
It wasn’t enough
that he killed my dog.
 
Stevie Dayton
wanted me to chose between Lou and going home.
 
He wanted me to suffer even more.

We heard a loud moan coming from the treehouse.
 
Rushing inside, we saw Bostic and April
sitting at the counter, each with a large slab of meat in front of them.

April turned to us with a fork in her hand.
 
Grease was running down the corner of her
mouth and she was chewing slowly.
 
“Oh my
God,” she said.
 
“This is seriously the
best steak I have ever tasted.
 
You
should so totally have some.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I said.

Her eyes rolled back in her head as she swallowed.
 
“I am not kidding.
 
It’s like I have never eaten before.
 
I cannot describe to you how good this
is.”
 
She turned back around and
frantically cut into the steak.

Bostic looked over his shoulder chewing on a mouthful of
steak.
 
“Told you. You don’t know what
you’re missing.”

April slammed her hands down on the counter and roared with
excitement.
 
She stood and picked up her
plate.
 
“I feel like I could lift a
thousand pounds while running a marathon.
 
You have got to try this.”
 
She
skipped over to us and waved the plate in our faces.
 
“Have some! Have some! Have some!”

Wes grabbed her by the shoulders.
 
“Settle down, girl.”

She stuck her tongue out and then said, “No thank you.”

Wes let go of her and massaged his hand, “My hands.”
 
He shook them.
 
“They’re numb.”

Bostic snorted.
 
“Myrmidon meat will do that. Gives you special powers.”

“Yeah!” April said holding up her fork.
 
“Special powers!”

“Maybe you should lay off,” Lou said reaching for the
plate.

April growled like an animal and spun away from Lou.
 
“No!
 
Mine!”
 
She skipped back to the
counter and sat down.

Startled by the quickness of April’s movement, Lou leaned
into me and whispered, “We have to take that plate away from her.”

April growled even louder.
 
“No one is touching my steak!”

Bostic snorted even louder.
 
“That is definitely not a good idea.
 
No good can come from that.”

“Look here,” Wes said, “I’m growing less and less fond of
you the longer I know you, Bostic.
 
I
suggest you shut up and let us handle our own people.”

Bostic stopped mid-snort.
 
Smoothly and deliberately, he stood and approached Wes with a hateful
gleam in his eye. “Don’t think I forgot about that sucker punch back at the
Myrmidon camp.”

Wes puffed up and stepped forward.
 
“The only thing sucker about that punch was
who was on the receiving end.”

Bostic grinned like a mad man.
 
“I’m feeling all kinds of froggy now, fat
man.
 
I’m Superman, King Kong, and the
mighty Thor all rolled up into one.
 
That’s what Myrmidon meat does to you.
 
Warms your body up.
 
Sets you on
fire, but in a good way.”

“You call me fat man again and I’ll set you on fire in a
bad way!
 
You’re fat as me! Fatter!”

I wedged myself in between their bloated stomachs.
 
“Okay! Enough! Back off! Both of you!”

“Looky here,” Bostic said with a laugh.
 
“The kid’s coming to your rescue.”

“Nobody’s coming to my rescue,” Wes said.

They pushed against each other and nearly crushed me in the
process.

Ajax huffed from one side of the two men, and Ariabod did
the same from the other side.
 
They
flashed their imposing teeth.

I felt the weight of the two men ease off of me.
 
They backed away but remained locked in a
stare.

“Finished!” April said holding up her empty plate.
 
“You all can stop fighting now.”

“How did you eat that so fast?” Lou asked.

April smiled with a mouthful of the meat and said, “Did I
eat it fast?”
 
She stood up and we all
gasped at the sight of her protruding stomach.
 
Every bit of the huge steak she’d just eaten looked to be jammed into
her stomach.
 
She looked down at her
round gut and dreamily rubbed it gently like a pregnant woman. “I’m still
hungry.”
 
Bostic walked into the kitchen
and opened the wood burning stove.
 
“Still got a pretty good flame going.
 
I can cook you up another.”

“No!” Lou and I said in unison.

“There they go again, April,” Bostic said. “They’ve decided
to speak for you.
 
We don’t like that, do
we?”

She placed her hand on the counter and propped herself
up.
 
“No, we do not, Mr. Bostic.
 
I will most certainly have another steak.”

“April, I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” I
said.
 
“But you’re about to pop as it
is.
 
I don’t think it’s a good idea that
you try to eat another steak.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea that I try either,” she
said plopping back down on the stool.
 
“Losers try.
 
Winners do, and I am
a winner.”

“She’s gone out of her mind,” Wes said.
 
“She’s drunker than a frat boy on game
day.
 
Drunk on meat.”

Bostic went for the skillet on the counter, but I beat him
to it.
 
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Son, you do not want to get between me and my skillet,”
Bostic said holding his hand out.

“There’s something wrong with this meat.
 
It’s made you...”

“More alive, Ozzie-boy!
 
It’s made me feel more alive!”
 
He
moved around the counter.
 
“Give me the
skillet, or I’m taking it.”

“You don’t want to do that,” Wes said.

“What are you going to do, fat man?”

“Nothing,” Wes said, “but Ariabod and Ajax may have a thing
or two to say about it.”

The two gorillas had flanked Bostic.
 
The hair on their backs and shoulders was
standing straight up.
 
Their big brown
eyes were narrowed down to tiny slits under their thick brows.
 
They both shifted their weight from one side
to the other over and over again.
 

Bostic’s demeanor softened.
 
He held up his hand in surrender.
 
“Relax.
 
I ain’t interested in
tangoing with you gorilla fellas.
 
Not
one bit.”

The hair went down and they backed away a step or two.

“Kitchen’s closed, little lady,” he said to April.

She had dropped her head to the counter and was on the
brink of falling asleep.

Bostic walked back to the wood stove and stoked the embers
with a fire iron.

The gorillas turned and headed back to the other room where
Gordy had been quietly watching the drama unfold.

In a flash, Bostic spun around and dove at me with the fire
iron in his hand.
 
I stumbled back still
holding onto the skillet.
 
We both fell
to the floor.
 
Bostic landed on top of me
and nearly crushed me unconscious.
 
He
quickly placed the glowing hot end of the fire iron on my neck underneath my
chin.

I could smell my skin burning.

“Give me the skillet!” he said spitting all over my face in
the process.

I howled in pain.
 
The searing heat of the fire iron was unbearable.

“Get off him!” Lou said.
 
I saw her reach down and grab the back of his collar.
 
He threw an elbow towards her, and I heard it
connect with her head.

I howled again.
 
I
raised my hand to push him off and noticed for the first time that my skin had
a purple coloring.
 
That’s when I felt
cold needles running through my veins.
 
It was so cold it burned worse than the fire iron.
 
I placed my hand on his throat and squeezed
so hard his eyes started to bulge.
 
I
buried my fingernails into his skin and almost got giddy at the sight of blood
trickling down.
 

I heard Ariabod and Ajax charging towards us, and I
exploded with anger.
 
They were going to
pull Bostic off me before I had a chance to rip his head off.
 
I pushed him back and swung the skillet as
hard as I could.
 
Lucky for him, I only
grazed his chin because I would have killed him if I’d hit him square against
the side of his head like I wanted to.
 

He grabbed at the hand that was choking him and tried to
loosen my grip.

Ariabod reached us and attempted to pull us apart, but my
grip was too strong.
 
Frustrated, he
roared in my face.
 
I roared back.
 
I had drifted deep into my Délon side.
 
I had every intention of killing Bostic.

Suddenly, Bostic was ripped from my grasp.
 
I sat up, chunks of his skin stuck underneath
my fingernails, and watched Ajax drag Bostic across the floor.

“Bring him back, you usless gorilla,” I said.
 
“I’m not finished with him!”

Wes knelt down beside me.
 
“Pull it back, Oz. Pull it back.”

“I don’t want to!” I said.

“Yes you do,” Wes said.
 
“Yes you do.
 
You gotta calm
yourself.
 
This ain’t you.”

“This is me.” I attempted to stand, but Ariabod pushed me
down.

“Control it,” Lou said crawling towards me.
 
“Just take a deep breath.
 
Don’t let it take you over.”

“I want to kill him,” I said.
 
“Why won’t you let me kill him?”

“Because that’s not you,” Lou said putting her hand on my
shoulder.

It startled me at first, but looking at her I felt myself
calm down almost immediately.
 
I took the
deep breath she told me to take and felt the needles in my veins go away, one
by one.
 

Wes patted me on the leg.
 
“The purple’s gone.”