She falls to the bottom of the glass box and weeps heavily. I tell her I’m sorry this is happening but that I will get her out. She looks up at me and tells me she’s okay.
I’m okay until I spot that her fingers are now a morose blue-black color and blood is dripping from her nose to the front of her shirt.
“Read,” she begs me. I pull myself together and reread the riddle. Emmy thinks hard and replies:
“Okay, okay. The mother gave two of her children away. Which one would she have held on to? Is it the Angel? Or the Demon?” she says.
“I would say the Angel but then again, we have to consider who’s asking the question. It’s from a Demon so in his eyes, the child that should be kept is the Demon, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Emmy, we can’t guess! We only have one shot. If we’re wrong…”
The timer reads five seconds.
“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s the human?” she says.
“They’re all five-letter words. It could be any—”
The timer is down to zero.
She didn’t even have time to put the stick in her mouth before the bastard turns the electricity back on with the Loop. Immediately, Emmy’s body violently jerks around like a fish ripped from the water and flung onto a fisherman’s boat.
A small river of blood leaps from her mouth onto the floor of the glass box. I smell urine and searing flesh. Emmy has lost control of her bladder and there are welts all over her. The girl I love is being cooked within her own skin.
The timer starts up again and gives us two minutes.
“I’m gonna tell him we’ll do whatever he wants. I can’t let this happen to you,” I plead with her.
She crawls up to the glass and whispers something to me.
“Are you sure?” I ask her. She nods yes.
The timer gives us five more seconds.
I do as she says. I go up to the key pad and press the keys that spell out:
“No one”
The timer goes off. Nothing happens. Emmy had the right answer.
Kairo stands up and is livid.
“How the hell did you guess that?” he demands.
“Get her out of the damn box!” I scream.
He uses the Loop and the glass box disappears into the floor.
Angry, Kairo gets up from his throne and takes a step closer toward the force field. Then he uses his powers. He can move things like Ameana can but his ability is far more advanced. He lifts Emmy into the air with just his index finger and without touching her, he is able to force her to spread her arms and legs out wide so he can examine her. He rotates her three hundred and sixty degrees.
“What are you?” he shouts.
I yell at him to put her down. He warns me if I interfere, he’ll kill her on the spot. Then with the slightest move of his little finger, he slices Emmy open.
In complete horror, I gasp her name.
“Relax, she’s in suspended animation. She can’t feel anything. At least not until I begin the third game.”
“Put her down!” I demand.
“I just want to see if she’s really human. She has freaky eyes and she’s been able to withstand more than most. And she knew the answer to a riddle that no one else was able to guess.”
Kairo slides Emmy’s heart, lungs, and kidneys out of her body and over a few feet to the left. It’s like he’s playing some bizarre touch-screen game where he can add or remove organs from his victims as he sees fit. Emmy’s eyes are open but she seems frozen.
Moments later, Kairo puts all her organs back inside her body and she falls to the floor. I rush to her side.
“How did you know the answer was ‘no one’?” he asks her again.
Then Emmy does something so strange, at first I thought my girl had truly lost her mind. She starts laughing at the son of all things evil. Her laughter is hysterical and filled with delight.
“You dare laugh at me? I will break you human!” Kairo vows.
She laughs harder and whispers to me to get ready. I nod although I’m not really sure what’s going on.
“How did I guess your stupid little riddle?” she asks in a small, cracked voice.
“Tell me!” Kairo orders.
“Marcus told me to think about the person telling the riddle. That’s when I remembered that this is all about you. You’re nothing but a mama’s boy,” she laughs again.
He walks even closer towards us. And now I understand what Emmy is trying to do: lure Kairo closer so I can use my powers on him.
“What did you say to me, human?” Kairo asks venomously.
“You’re a mama’s boy. All this is about you missing your mommy. You called the castle ‘abandon.’ I thought you were talking about leaving hope behind. But that’s not it at all. You call it that because Lucy made you then discarded you like trash. She abandoned you.”