by Tara Fuller
There was never a question of if danger lay ahead in Hell. It was merely a question of what and when. And Easton seemed intent on not taking any unnecessary chances. I understood that this was the smart way to proceed, but I couldn’t stop my mind from playing out every possible horrendous outcome. If Easton were hurt out there because of something I’d caused, I wouldn’t be able to live with that. I willed his violet eyes to appear. He didn’t. I finally gave up and leaned against the wall at my back, taking comfort that there was at least one building in this place devoid of torture and pain.
“What’s taking him so long?”
Scout leaned against the wall beside me and folded his arms over his chest. “He probably just wants to be sure. He’s not going to take any chances with you, Gwen.”
“You know you don’t have to babysit me,” I said. “This would probably go faster if you were out there helping him.”
The truth was, I didn’t like the idea of Easton being out there all alone. I’d seen the naked fear in his eyes when he’d mentioned the Meat District. I’d felt it.
“If I left you alone, your boyfriend would do unspeakable things to me,” he said. “And if anyone is going to do unspeakable things to me, I’d much rather it be someone like your angel friend.”
I flushed in response to hearing him refer to Easton as my boyfriend. Despite my better efforts not to give in, I smiled. As for him doing anything with Sky? If only he knew. She wasn’t one to be handled. And that’s exactly what Scout wanted. Someone who would bend to his will, compromise their beliefs, and tumble headfirst down the rabbit hole with him. Too bad for him, Sky’s will was made of steel.
“You obviously don’t know Sky,” I said. “She’s not like me. She doesn’t make mistakes.”
“Ouch.” He chuckled. “Mistake, huh? Is that what I’d be?”
I raised a brow, unable to think about anything other than what it must have been like for Tyler to be dragged here against his will. To think this was the fate he’d been given after a life full of pain. If Scout compromised Sky…she’d fall. Just like I was going to. “For Sky. Yes.”
He stared off into the dark, jaw clenched, seeming to think about that. After a few minutes of stony silence he spoke again.
“I’d take it back if I could,” he said, almost too quietly for me to hear. “I wish I could take it back.”
He didn’t have to say who or what he was talking about. I knew.
“Did he say anything?” I asked. “Did he fight you?”
“That’s just it…he didn’t. I mean at one point he said something about this not being right, but they all say that down here.”
I thought about the Tyler I’d found in the hospital, held together by stitches and wires and tubes. That Tyler would have been resigned to Hell. That Tyler would have accepted it. To think he’d reverted so quickly tore at my heart and filled my chest with pain. All that work. All that time.
“I’m sorry,” Scout said beside me. “I am so sorry.”
I didn’t know if he was speaking to me or Tyler or simply the darkness ahead of us that held our uncertain future. It didn’t matter. The regret rolling off him in waves crashed into me, showing he was telling the truth. I stepped in front of him and touched two fingers to the creased space between his brows. Closing my eyes, I peeled the regret and hurt away from him in layers until the suffocating feeling was mine alone. He inhaled a sharp, deep breath and grabbed hold of my shoulders as I pulled away.
I blinked up at him when moisture filled his eyes. “What did you…what was that?”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “You didn’t deserve to feel that way. So I took it.”
“What do you mean, you took—”
At the sound of approaching footsteps, I jumped away from him and turned to find Easton stalking toward us. His violet eyes burned through the dark, zeroing in on me. He shoved his blade back into his belt, looking back and forth between Scout and me.
“Everything okay over here?”
I smiled and wrapped my arms around my middle, praying Scout wouldn’t tell. Easton wouldn’t have liked it. Someday, if we ever got out of this place, he’d have to understand I needed the act of giving joy and taking away pain just as much as the souls I helped. Assuming I actually got that chance again. The harsh reality was, I might never get to enjoy the simple of act of bestowing joy again. If I fell…if they took my wings, however metaphorical they might be, I’d be nothing more than another misplaced soul.
“Other than freezing our asses off, fine and dandy,” Scout spoke up behind me. “How is it looking out there?”
Easton grabbed the back of his neck and cast a wary glance over his shoulder. “We’ve got company this time. Three demons at the door. No telling how many inside. I want to see if Gwen gets anything before we take that on.”
He looked down at me and reached out to touch my cheek. I leaned into his alluring warmth, unable to resist.
“I can take you around back,” he said. “It’s clear there.”
I nodded, and he laced his fingers through mine and pulled me through the shadows until we stood in a dark alley. It was different than it had been in the city. The streets here were barren; the silence that filled them seemed like a looming, dangerous thing all on its own. Scout walked ahead of us, blade drawn and glistening. After a quick scan, he looked back at me and raised a brow.
“Getting anything here, angel?”
“I didn’t feel anything at the last four places,” I said. “What if I lost the connection? What if he…”
What if he wasn’t Tyler anymore? What if the careful threads that bonded us together had been broken, because the boy I’d been connected to was gone? I couldn’t bear to say it out loud. Saying it out loud made the possibility seem all too real. Easton placed his hand on the small of my back, drawing my attention away from the wall.
“Try,” he said, simply, softly.
I stepped up to the wall and closed my eyes, stretching my hand out until my palm made contact. The jolt of pain caught me off guard. I shuddered as it rushed through me, an angry, desperate thing, dragging its claws along the inside of my skin. Easton’s arm banded around me in instant support when my knees went weak.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“I…I don’t…I don’t know.”
I squeezed my eyes shut tight and pushed, searching through the writhing bodies inside, emitting a kind of hopelessness that tasted like poison. There were so many here, their torment potent and cutting. A sharp stabbing sliced through the space between my shoulder blades, impaling me. I choked on the sensation, on the cold enveloping me, suffocating me. And then there it was…
There he was.
Like a weakening pulse, his essence faded in and out, in and out. It wrapped around me like a tether and pulled me forward. I slid along the wall, afraid to lose the connection. My lips moved of their own accord, a pleading prayer conveyed in urgent whispers. Easton moved with me, keeping his hand on the small of my back. I caught him exchanging a wary look with Scout before returning his attention to me. When I couldn’t stand any more, I pushed away from the wall, severing the contact, struggling for a pain-free breath.
“It’s him,” I breathed, looking up at Easton. “He’s here.”
Chapter 22
Gwen
“I don’t like this,” Easton grumbled, peeking around the corner, fist wrapped tightly around his blade.
“You have a better idea?” Scout raised a brow and I tried to calm the nervous fluttering in my chest. For once the fear surging through my veins wasn’t from anyone but me.
Easton looked down at me, lips pressed into a hard line. Cold, choking fear radiated from him, slamming into me with a force strong enough to take my breath away. I grabbed his hand and forced a soft stream of comfort to pulse from my palm and into his. Slowly, his shoulders relaxed and he exhaled harshly, closing his eyes.
“Red…this is not the time.”
“You’re about to us
e me as bait,” I countered. “I think it’s exactly the time. You need to be calm. No mistakes, right?”
He reluctantly nodded and allowed his walls to come down. I gulped in a deep breath, attempting to rid myself of Easton’s apprehension as well as my own. They were going to kill the demons guarding the door. They hadn’t said it, but I’d once been assigned to a human who loved old mobster movies. I’m pretty sure getting the job done was lingo for killing. I didn’t know how I felt about that. The guards were demons. Awful, terrifying, soulless demons, but it didn’t make disconnecting the idea of them as living creatures any easier. And I was going to play a part in their end. It went against everything I was.
“Time to do this, guys,” Scout murmured, peering around the corner.
Easton grabbed me by the shoulders and reeled me in with his intense gaze. “Stay at least six feet away from them. Don’t get any closer. And if this goes badly, get out, hide, wait for me. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay, as in you’re actually going to listen to me this time or okay, you’re going to throw caution to the wind and do the opposite of what keeps you safe? Again.”
I sighed. “I’ll be safe. I swear.”
“Good.” He didn’t look good. He looked as if he wanted to throw me over his shoulder and haul me back to my father. Back to the confined safety of my little box of a world. I didn’t give him the chance. I turned and darted around the corner, exhaling a long breath as I stepped through the shadows and into the glow of light coming from the lit torches hanging from the doorway to the building.
Ahead of me, two demons took turns passing what looked like a piece of flesh back and forth between them. They snapped and growled and cursed. And I was willingly walking closer. Sky was right. I’d lost my mind. A gust of brutally cold wind slapped my face. I coughed, and their yellow eyes snapped up, zeroing in on me in a second. I froze in place. How many steps away was I? Ten maybe? Yes. Ten. Four more. I hesitantly took one step closer, and one of the demons sniffed the air. A crooked, wicked grin slid into place on his face as he hobbled a few steps closer.
“What have we here?”
“She smells delicious. So…fresh,” the second demon hissed, eyes lighting up with hunger. “She smells like him. But better. So pure…”
Him? Oh God…they were talking about Tyler. They really did have him. That fact alone gave me the courage to step closer into the light.
“I’m lost,” I said not knowing what else to say. It wasn’t a lie. I’d never been so lost. I wasn’t sure I’d ever find my way back from Hell. Back to a world of light and joy. Back to the Gwen I’d been meant to be.
“And now you’re found.” The demon grinned and licked his lips. “Oh, your pain will taste sweet. I can tell.”
They moved forward like a pack of wolves, practiced and predatory. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Easton cutting through the dark, followed by the glint of his blade. He blended with the shadows, melting into them as if he were made for darkness. As if he were made for this. Scout slid around the corner, watching everything that moved.
In a flash, Easton leaped from the dark and a scream ripped through the night. A demon’s head toppled from his body and rolled across the cobblestones. His counterpart hissed and spun to see Easton strolling casually into the light. He wiped his blade on his pants and glanced down at the head.
“I’m no doctor, but I’m thinking he might wake up with a headache tomorrow.”
In the glint of torchlight, I could see Easton’s cocky grin. Scout inched into the swell of light, eyes darting around frantically.
“There were three,” he said. “Where’s the third one?”
Easton twirled his blade and raised a brow at the remaining demon. “How ’bout it, sweet cheeks. Want to tell us where your boyfriend ran off to?”
The demon hissed, and tiny thornlike points broke through his glistening red skin. His yellow eyes seemed to be split between the two reapers closing in on him.
Easton stopped a few feet from him. “Strong and silent type, huh? Oh, well. I suppose we’ll find him soon enough.”
A slow smile spread across the demon’s mouth, all sharp teeth and black drool. He laughed, but it sounded wrong, taunting and hungry. Easton’s gaze narrowed on him and he gripped the handle of his blade, tensing.
Behind them a pair of yellow eyes shone through the darkness, and the missing demon leaped at Easton, a feral growl tearing up his throat. Easton spun around a second too late and the demon’s claws sliced into the flesh of his arm. The sharp pain ripping through Easton flowed into me. They toppled to the ground, grappling for control before the second demon joined the effort to overpower him.
“No!” I screamed, heart pounding so violently I wasn’t sure I’d survive it. I clutched the blade in my hand and started forward—
Scout grabbed me by the arm and shoved me against the brick wall. “Don’t move. I mean it.”
Before I could argue, he was gone, blade drawn as he jumped into the fray. Don’t move? Easton was being overpowered by the kinds of creatures that fueled humans’ nightmares. Tyler was on the other side of the wall, suffering, dying over and over again. And Scout expected me to sit still like a good little girl and watch everything fall down around me? No. That was what my father would want. That’s what the old Gwen would have done. I wasn’t that Gwen anymore.
Down the alley, claws scraped against stone and feral growls rumbled up through the dark. There were more coming. The sounds of the fight must have been drawing them in. Fear rushed through me, cold, vital, overwhelming. Back against the wall, I slid closer to the door. If I stayed out here, we’d never get Tyler and we’d all be trapped. I looked on in horror as one of the demons sank its fangs into Scout’s arm. Easton got control of his blade and sliced through flesh. He was putting up a good fight, but at this rate, with more coming, they’d never make it through the door. Not here. This place was designed for us to fail. To die. To rot.
That wasn’t going to happen. Not to Easton. Not after all he’d already been through for me.
Heart in my throat, I reached the door and prepared to run. “Hey! Did you forget about me?”
Creatures began to melt out of the shadows, and both of the guard demons looked my way, instantly salivating for the light inside me. Scout emerged from the darkness and crumpled to the ground, coughing. Easton stumbled as he stood on shaky legs. He didn’t waste any time, taking advantage of the demons’ distraction and cutting them down with two clumsy swings of his blade. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the menagerie of freakish animals closing in, then returned his attention back to me, eyes wide, pleading with me to run and hide, to save myself. I held my arms out and bit my bottom lip to stop it from quivering.
I had to fix this. Moving into the dark, I ducked through the doorway.
“Gwen, wait!” Easton’s voice was a mere echo trailing behind me. An obstacle to finding Tyler. The now-familiar pain hit me hard and fast, just like it had outside. I reached out, searching for anything to help me regain my balance. My fingers brushed something firm and frozen swinging from the ceiling.
I grabbed hold of the object, and a gurgling groan drifted down. The frozen thing in my hands twitched. Two vacant eyes stared back at me through the occasional flicker of a distant trash can flame, pleading. It was a person, a soul, impaled on an enormous hook. I cried out and stumbled back. He looked as if he wanted to speak, but his lips were blue and frozen. Instead, a moan vibrated his throat as he swayed on the squeaky hook. All around me, hooks began to creak and muffled moans filled the room. Oh God…they were everywhere.
“What’s that I hear?” A sandpaper-rough voice drifted through the dark. “I think someone’s hungry for more.”
A heinous laugh slithered through the shadows, and heavy footsteps echoed across the cold concrete floor. The soul above me made a distressed sound, and his eyes went wide with terror. I glanced back at the stack of metal barrels behind me. I needed to hide
. I needed to help him. I reached up to touch him and someone grabbed me around the waist, jerking me back. I opened my mouth to scream, but exhaled in relief when Easton’s lips touched my ear.
“Do me a huge favor, Red,” he whispered. “Shut. Up.”
He dragged me behind the stack of barrels and sank down, allowing me to use his lap as a seat once we were hidden. I looked over my shoulder where Scout sat on his heels. He grinned and held up a finger to his lips. I nodded as the footsteps grew closer. Easton exhaled a shaky breath and rested his forehead on the back of my head.
The footsteps stopped on the other side of the barrels. I squeezed my eyes shut as if that would make the threat go away. Easton pressed his lips against the side of my neck, just below my jaw. Not kissing, just touching, keeping me calm, still. He knew what was about to happen. He knew I’d feel it. Oh God…I didn’t want to feel it.
“What’s the matter?” the voice rumbled. “You feeling neglected? Well, let’s fix that, shall we?”
The shrill sound of a chain saw ripped through the warehouse, and a wave of violent fear washed over me. The demon cackled, basking in it. The soul grunted and moaned. The hook creaked, and the sharp bite of the point seemed to wriggle through him and into me. I tensed, waiting for the slice of the motorized blade. Easton cursed against my neck and moved me to the floor beside him. He shot me a look that said stay put and pulled his blade free from his belt and disappeared around the corner.
“You might want to stop,” he said coolly. “Fair warning. I’m not in the best of moods today.”
Scout crawled forward next to me, weaving his arm through mine as if he thought I’d run away. The sound of the chain saw died, and silence stretched around us.
“Little far out for a delivery, aren’t you, reaper?”
