by Lana Kole
With their arms around her, she fell back asleep, not ready to think about the night ahead.
HOPE
“That was bullshit,” he complained when he arrived back in the holding cell with the others. It might have been dressed up like a living suite, but the trackers under their skin and the cameras in the room proved otherwise.
“How did it go?”
“Well it worked, if he’s anything to go by,” Betrayal grunted, lounging on one of the beds.
Hope shifted his gaze until it landed on Death, appearing to be asleep, but probably doing anything otherwise. More likely he was looking for Daria, and hopefully he’d found her.
Else Hope had just killed her for nothing.
Gods, he didn’t think he’d ever get the image of her out of his mind, lying there on the ground, limbs twisted at unnatural angles and a look of confusion marring her features.
“How was it?” Betrayal asked, a knowing glint in his eyes.
“I’d rather not talk about it,” he replied honestly.
Betrayal simply nodded, not the type to pry for emotions, and in the moment, Hope appreciated him for that.
With nothing else to do, Hope squeezed onto his own bed, lined up amongst the others. There were five of them, but two were empty, much to the cult’s disappointment. Hope didn’t know how Truth and Misery had both come to the nightclub unnoticed, but he was glad they weren’t stuck in here with them.
Gave them an opportunity to get them the hell out of here.
It irked Hope, this whole damsel in distress thing. Figures that the first time they’d been free in thousands of years, they’d be shoved right back into captivity.
He ground his teeth together in annoyance, knowing he was trying to avoid the real reason he was upset: the happenings at the club.
Not just murdering Daria, which was bad enough in its damn self, but… using his power. It felt good, sure, to release some of the Hope, but unlike Misery, he didn’t get a high from it.
No, the anxiety and guilt afterward were enough to deter him from doing it too often.
He hated his power. It was pure manipulation, and there was a perfect balance of hope in the world as it was. What he’d done tonight, what he’d unleashed—he didn’t think it was going too far to call it rape. Though he guessed them all having consensual sex with each other was better than offing themselves when he took every ounce of their hope away.
The point was they wouldn’t have done that without his interference.
It was a lose-lose situation.
They might get a few orgasms out of it, but when they woke up the next morning, their regret would probably be as strong as his.
But he’d had no choice. These fuckers worshiped the Chaos god, so who knew how far they’d be willing to go to make them obey. Hope cared about his brothers too much to risk them that way, and they’d all agreed to it easily enough. He wouldn’t be the cause of their suffering.
One could almost call it peer pressure.
But when looking at the big picture, running this little experiment for the cult wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.
No, that would come next, when they realized the scale of their powers and exactly how much damage could be done.
That’s why Daria had to die tonight—to get them the hell out of here before it got worse. He’d done what needed to be done, and Death would do his part.
And when they were all free? With Daria, Pandora’s proverbial jar?
He hoped with all his soul she followed in her mother’s footsteps.
DARIA
“Are you sure about this?” Daria turned to Truth and Misery in a familiar alley, but her gaze was trained on the latter of the two. Even though he’d never admit it, Daria sensed Misery was nervous.
Not about getting the job done. They’d both voiced just how confident they were that they could get their brothers out.
He hadn’t put words to what made him continuously wipe his palms on his dark jeans, but Daria could guess what it was. With the number of men in the chaopadós, they might reach a point tonight where he would have to unleash his misery to get them out.
When they’d first talked about it, he’d stiffened where he sat on the couch, then leaned forward and gripped the back of his neck as he thought about it. Grudgingly, he’d agreed, but Daria worried about him opening himself up to the… the high he got from it.
She’d tried to assure him that they’d do everything they could to avoid it, but his gaze was darker than usual. Whether that was him purposely distancing himself, or dread, she couldn’t tell in the darkness of the alley.
It was a Tuesday, The Beginning’s only day closed, but the alley was no less dark, the tension no less heavy. Daria reached out and grabbed Misery’s hand. “We’ve got you.”
And they did. Daria would do whatever she needed to bring Misery back to himself if he got lost in the depths of his power. She didn’t know quite what that would entail, but she wouldn’t leave him stranded.
“You ready, Boo?” Truth teased, and his familiar nickname eased her nerves a bit.
With a confidence she wasn’t quite sure how he mustered, Truth swung the door open.
It was dark inside and strangely quiet, which wasn’t surprising, considering they were closed. They stopped in the back hallway and listened for any footsteps in the main area, but none came. It wasn’t long though, before Misery would be put to the test. A man came around the corner from the main area and spotted them down the straight hallway.
“Hey! Who are you—” He didn’t even get a chance to finish his question, or completely pull out the concealed gun he’d been carrying. Misery took him down without pausing. As the man writhed on the ground in agony, Daria shivered at the coldness Misery radiated as they walked toward him. This wasn’t the Misery she cuddled with the night before, or the one who’d kissed her on the balcony of this very same club.
Was this the Misery before? Before Pandora locked them away?
The thought made her heart stutter and her breath catch, unease instantly setting in. Her steps faltered, but she was quick to catch up as Truth unarmed the guy and knocked him out with the butt of the gun. Then they moved on as if nothing had happened. Daria’s gaze trailed over the unconscious man as they walked by, before yells of alarm sounded all around them. Lights blared, the nightclub ugly in the full light instead of a foggy dreamscape of pumping music and flashing strobes. Arms wrapped around her from behind but she quickly picked her legs up before jerking her body weight forward and slinging the guy over her shoulders. He landed with an explosion of breath, and Daria instinctively brought a boot down over his face, knocking him out.
She might not have magic fucking powers from millennia ago, but she’d taken a self-defense class.
Which would be useful, if this were a one-on-one fight and she had the element of surprise. The thing was, once the other guys saw what she’d done, they would come at her more carefully, and she’d lost half of her effectiveness. Crouching down beside the guy she’d knocked out, she grabbed his gun from his holster, and found a knife in the other side of his waistband. She grabbed both before standing, tapping Misery with the hilt so he’d have a weapon too. He nodded, a gleeful expression already twisting his features, even though she could see the resistance in his dark eyes. When his hand slid against hers to take the knife from her, she didn’t shudder in barely concealed excitement. Instead, she stared hard at the deep, midnight gaze piercing hers, and finally, she saw a bit of the glee melt away into some resemblance of the demon she’d come to know.
He nodded at her, this time more coherently, and turned back around to face the small crowd that circled them.
The first guy to lunge at her, she fired, aiming for his shoulder but hitting him in the chest by accident.
It worked either way, though she didn’t relish the thought of taking a life, and almost let her panic well as quickly as the blood that seeped from his wound. Instead, she pushed it away—all of it�
��and focused on the demons they’d taken. Her demons.
These fuckers had killed her. Murdered her in cold blood in the back of a fucking alley.
A quiet anger seeped through her until her hands stopped shaking, steadying with the rush of adrenaline that filled her. Her next shot wasn’t quite so off kilter, but it got the job done, until another took his place.
They were quickly overwhelmed, until Daria ran out of bullets, and one of them rushed forward to grab her. In a motion powered by intuition and survival more than anything, she ducked and then quickly turned to kick the back of his knee in. He stumbled forward, and she took the gun and used it as a blunt weapon, knocking him in the back of the skull with it. The sound was uglier than it usually sounded in the movies, and she winced, a flash of horror rushing through her as she questioned what the hell it was she was doing.
Wouldn’t Mom be proud now?
Jerking back around before another could come up behind her, she noticed they cowered back in fear, and Daria faltered in confusion.
“Yeah, that’s right. You don’t know who you’re messing wi—”
Truth grunted behind her. She couldn’t waste time to turn and see what had happened, but a deadly growl rumbled from Misery, and she stiffened at the sound.
It was… inhuman.
Demonic.
Oh, that’s why they look so scared.
Because, truth be told? That sound scared her too.
MISERY
It called to him, whispering sweetly and violently all at once. He wanted to give in so badly, as he slashed and hacked and fought against the men surrounding them. The headquarters for chaopadós was in this building, and he was determined to get there and free his brothers.
Hopefully with his sanity still intact.
But the more he watched Truth have to fight, and heard Daria fire shots off behind him, the more it occurred to him that he could take care of everything, in only a matter of seconds. It would be so easy. But fear held him back.
Funny that, a demon fearing the thing he’d been created for in the first place.
A small cry erupted from Daria, and he turned in time to see her smash the butt of her borrowed gun into the head of a follower before turning back around to face off against the others.
Movement in the corner of his vision caught his attention too late and he growled, preparing to lash out with a dose of misery—but the guy fired his gun before he could focus quick enough to do it. It mattered not though, because his gun backfired, blowing up in his face and taking him out.
The growl had caught the attention of those in front of Daria though, and Misery gave in. This was a fucking waste of time when he could have already had his brothers back.
And a moment’s reprieve from the sweet whispers echoing in his head.
So he unleashed it. Not all of it, because they still needed to enter the facility, but enough to knock the rest of them off their feet. With groans loud and pain filled enough to give him a sigh of relief, they fell to their knees before curling over into the fetal position and covering their ears.
But it was no use—they couldn’t turn the pain off in the same way he couldn’t block out the voices. The thing was, everyone suffered misery at some point in their lives, that’s why it was so easy to tap in to. Why it called to him, begging to be amplified and brought to life louder than life itself.
Four of the men in the room with them lifted their guns and silenced it themselves—cowards—but Misery grinned at the win all the same. This was what he was made for.
By the time Daria and Truth dragged him from the room, he was already feeling a slight buzz from the release and he almost—almost, laughed.
There was time for that later.
Daria led the way, brave little one that she was, into the same room he and Truth had recovered her body from just the night before. He’d have to have a talk with Death and Hope about that little plan they’d come up with, but he guessed it was effective, if not a little... rude.
The curtains parted and all three of their gazes went to the ground—cement—that Daria had been painting a different color just twenty-four hours before. A shiver worked its way up her spine before she seemed to straighten her shoulders and march across the room, her feet tracing over what would have been her own grave.
Thank Dora’s box it wasn’t.
She stopped before the third control box from the left, and with no hesitation at all, pulled the second lever down. At first, nothing happened, but the lag didn’t last for long before a grinding mechanical noise crackled through the room. Their heads swiveled to the right, below the stairs that led to the skywalk, and the wall itself opened into... an elevator.
They shared a dubious glance before following the instructions Death had given Daria and climbed into the small box. Then it rocketed downward, the ride smooth but quick—efficient.
Misery barely knew they were moving before the doors opened into a bright, fluorescent-lit hallway.
It looked like a lab of so many movies Misery had watched through another’s eyes.
Wonder if any scientists are gonna come around the corner, he thought to himself.
As if summoned, a guard rounded the corner and as a group they stepped back into a defensive posture, ready to work their way through another group of cultists if they had to. Misery rolled his shoulders, the emotion and darkness within begging to be let out, twisting and turning inside himself like a ball of energy.
He would love nothing more than to let those tendrils loose to wrap around the nearest humans—breaking down their barriers of sanity until nothing but madness remained.
So, something like a normal Tuesday for him.
But the words the guard spoke threw them all for a loop.
“Ah, finally. Death told us you would be coming. Follow me, if you will, and I’ll take you to your friends.”
He promptly turned and continued the way he came.
Truth turned to them with an arched brow. “Well, he wasn’t lying. But that’s not saying much.”
No, it really wasn’t. For all they knew, their “friends” were in a torture chamber and they’d be following to accept the same fate.
But did they really have a choice in the matter?
He already knew the answer, but it was Daria who stepped forward.
“Well. Come on. We don’t have all night.”
Misery followed her lead and rushed to catch up with the cultist. His brain ran in every direction, trying to guess where the hell they were headed. He could just imagine it—how far had the cult gone to get his brothers to cooperate with their demands?
Hope sure as hell wasn’t a fan of his powers, he would be the last one to cave, and while he’d looked okay from the quick glimpse he’d gotten of him the night before, there was no telling what was going on within.
The fluorescent lights were bright and glaring overhead, the sterile environment feeding his suspicions even more. Their footsteps sounded soft over the tiled floor, and the guy led them with a confidence he shouldn’t have been able to muster, not with Misery gliding right behind him.
Fuck, what had they done to Death, Hope, and Betrayal?
They walked for what seemed like forever, the darkness inside him begging to get out, to avenge whatever they’d done to his brothers, but he called it back—just barely. He had to see how bad it was first. What they’d done.
Fists clenched by his side, they rounded another corner, the sound of rushing water growing louder. They had to be underground, so what the fuck was he hearing?
He turned to see Daria and Truth share a puzzled look, and Daria straightened her shoulders in defiance, ready for whatever may come. Her confidence almost made his lips curl up into a smile—then he brushed it aside. Misery didn’t fucking smile, and especially not a time like now.
Finally, the cultist leading them slowed, turning to the side and offering a hand out to motion them forward. With stiff shoulders, Misery followed his lead, half expecting to get b
ashed over the back of the head and knocked out, but the sight before him jolted him enough.
This was nothing like what he’d imagined.
Holy fuck.
DARIA
Daria blinked, convinced the sight before her was surely a trick of the mind as she came to a stop beside Misery, who wore an equally bewildered expression. She turned her head to Truth, to see if he was witnessing the same thing, or if she finally had truly gone crazy. He simply blinked before turning a shocked expression to her.
Surely they weren’t… no. They were. They most certainly were.
The harsh fluorescent light of the hallways had faded into a more natural light—as if they had access to the sunshine this far underneath the club. It was pitch-black outside, but here it looked as if the sun itself beamed down on the scene before her.
“What the fuck is this?” she seethed.
Several heads turned toward her, three of them familiar even though she’d only met each of them once.
“You’re here! Finally,” Death commented in answer to her outraged question. With a wave of his hand, he motioned to the guard—Slave?—beside him to pause.
Pause what?
Pause the back and forth motion of the palm frond he used as a fan.
Death, Betrayal, and Hope all lounged in what looked like lavish poolside chairs, with an artificial waterfall behind them. They were framed on each side by two cult followers, or at least that’s what Daria assumed. Although why the cult would be waiting on them hand and foot and fanning them, she had no earthly idea.
“I ask again, what the fuck is going on?” Her voice rose two octaves, the outrage clear in her tone.
“Yeah, guys, I think I have to second that,” Truth croaked out beside her.
She’d been fucking murdered by these assholes and here her demons were just… chilling. Hanging out with the enemy.
“Well?” she screeched.
Death winced before he stood and walked over to her. Hope had flinched at her tone but Betrayal, that asshole, just smirked and took a sip of whatever drink he had.
