Chapter 28 Perfidy
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
PERFIDY
Chaos erupts.
I stumble forward and fall to the ground, dragging Emily down with me. Feeders shove past us in a panic, and pain flares across my back. They step on me, forcing my head down into the corpses littering the ground.
A cry tears through my crushed lungs, and my hand breaks away from Emily’s as I try to push myself up, only for someone else to trample me, pressing my face into a dismembered torso.
My breathing becomes laboured, and I desperately claw my hands into the torso and drag myself out.
When I look up, dark blue eyes come into focus before I understand Jax is heading for me, shoving people away.
Grabbing my arm, he pulls me to my feet and reaches for my cheek, only to shove me back as a leathery blur leaps past and into the swarm of people at the wall of the courtyard.
“Cole?” I call out, whirling around and scanning the mess until I find him scrambling out from under a table. “Have you seen Emily?”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I see her on the ground. Blood seeps from her head, and wide, horrified eyes stare vacantly at me. Her face is twisted in horror, and the side of her skull is caved in.
“Let’s move!” Jax grabs our hands and leads us into the kitchen. When we reach the door, he lets go of our hands and pulls out a bloody keycard, pressing it against the screen. A red symbol appears, and “Access denied” echoes robotically throughout the kitchen.
“Fuck me dead and hang my balls out to dry,” Jax growls, pressing the card to the screen again, only to be met with the same message. “Why the fuck isn’t it working?”
My focus drops to the keycard, and I notice blood smears across the barcode. “Clean it. You need to clean it, Jax.”
His lip curls as he mutters a curse before spitting on the card and rubbing it with his sleeve.
“Saya.” Cole tugs on the sleeve of my bloodied gown.
I turn, releasing a shaky breath as I take in the monster at the kitchen door. It scrutinises us, its head tilted to the side, drool dripping from its slack jaw as it prowls closer.
Grabbing Jax’s arm, I say, “Don’t open the fucking door. This one’s smart. It wants to escape and is waiting for you to open the door.”
“Shit,” Jax seethes, handing me the keycard. “If I tell you to leave without me, open the door and get the fuck out. The only reason I was able to kill the other one was because I got the jump on it.”
I hand Cole the keycard and step in front of him.
Jax spins the stake in his hand and stretches his neck with an audible crack. When the monster realises we aren’t opening the door, it hisses and edges closer to us.
“Okay, motherfucker. Show me what you got,” Jax taunts.
The monster lunges, its clawed hands gripping the side of the oven to launch itself towards Jax.
It swipes a leather-winged hand at Jax, but he steps back as he jabs his weapon forward.
The creature hisses and recoils, seemingly scared of the piece of wood.
As it flinches away, the eyes on the creature’s shoulders lock onto us.
“Oi,” Jax yells, waving his arms to catch the creature’s attention, but it leaps over him and charges towards us.
A cool breeze sweeps across my back. Cole has the door wide open, and he grabs my arm, pulling me down to my knees as the creature leaps over us and makes its escape.
Jax appears behind us and says, “I’ll let my brother know, and the slayers will hunt it down. Let’s hope it can’t walk in the sun. Now, come on. We’re nearly out.”
I gaze in the direction the monster vanished, but my breath catches at the sight of the night sky.
Beyond the clusters of stars, the moon is dripping red.
The milky outline of a woman tenderly cradles the crescent moon, her body curving with it, naked and exposed to the red light.
Parts of her chip away, leaving blackened, cracked holes across her body.
“The red moon,” Cole whispers.
“Mother,” I murmur.
“Mother?” Cole says, looking away from the sky and toward me.
Jax grabs Cole’s other hand. “We can look at the moon later. Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
We make our way to the bent and twisted gate, as if a truck passed through when it was closed. My heart pounds in my chest as I step over the line marking the boundary between the Feeding Ground and the city beyond. The weight of what happened sits heavily on my chest.
Manni.
Emily.
Even Dan.
Their deaths could have been avoided. I could have accepted the nightwalker’s offering, and maybe they would be here with us, heading towards freedom.
I shake my head and look at Cole. I still have my brother to take care of.
His pale cheeks are flushed as he beams a weary grin. I’ve missed that smile.
My body is suddenly yanked backwards, my ankle rolls, and a jolt of pain shoots through the joint as I fall. Jax stumbles, and as I turn to my brother, I find Cole face down, blood seeping from his back.
“Cole!” I reach out to him when something looms above me. A creature resembling a nightwalker—complete with pointed ears and sharp, pointed teeth—towers over us.
The creature looks at Cole’s slumped body and then at Jax and hisses at him. Black smoke surrounds it, with bright red eyes and a wide grin that stretches from one ear to the other, revealing sharp fangs.
I grip Cole’s arm and drag him as I shuffle backwards. The creature saunters closer, a low growl reverberating in its throat.
“Jax!” I scream.
He jumps in front of me and thrusts the stake forward, but shadows crash into Jax’s torso and send him hurtling across the empty street. The stake falls, clattering to the asphalt, and rolls towards me.
I grab Cole’s arm and shake. “Get up! Please, get up!” He doesn’t move, and more blood pools underneath him. “Cole…”
The monster roars, darkness oozing from its pores as it stalks over Cole’s body. I seize my brother’s arm and drag him towards me again, just as the monster brings a clawed hand crashing down onto Cole’s leg.
Something ignites within me, and I curl my upper lip. “Get the fuck off him!”
“I see Saya Claymore as she should have been seen.”
Heat seems to blaze from my pores when the hand tightens on his leg, digging claws into my brother’s flesh. The burn intensifies, and as I rise, a white fire drips from my fingertips.
Words I’ve never spoken before slip from my tongue, and as I pick up the wooden stake, I say in vegodian, “Pra lir.”
Mind-bend.
The monster lunges at me, and for a moment, the stake floats in the air. I swipe my hand in front of me, and the weapon erupts into white flames, then shoots towards the monstrosity.
“Die, motherfucker!” I yell as the wooden stake drives into the creature’s chest. A guttural howl tears from its lungs, and the monster melts into dripping shadows. As it sinks, the ground cracks open like an egg.
Somehow, the stake clatters to the solid ground and hits Cole’s foot.
“Cole…” I limp forward, white flames still sparking. Cinders drip from my fingertips, and as I look down at my brother’s still body, his blood following like a river, my knees buckle. I grab Cole’s arm and flip him over. An explosion of power erupts from me, streaming into red ribbons.
“No, no, no. Please, Cole. Wake up!” Blood soaks his chest. I touch his cold face, and slivers of magik and flames shimmer out of existence, leaving me in still silence.
“Saya…” Jax limps towards me, only to be walking freely a moment later thanks to his biohuman rapid healing.
I try to lift Cole to his feet. Tears stream down my face, and I grit my teeth as I push through the pain of my injured ankle. “Jax, help me!” I twist, attempting to drag Cole onto my back. “We need to get him out of here!”
“Saya, he’s dead.”
I shake my head, hoisting Cole onto my back.
“Saya…you can’t walk on that leg,” Jax says as he leans down and reaches for a scrap of paper on the ground. His eyes narrow as he reads it, but I am too focused on Cole to care.
“No!” I spit. “You promised you would help Cole before me. You promised!”
A resigned look cuts across Jax’s face as he tosses the note aside. “Give him to me.”
Jax takes Cole, and as soon as my brother is off my back, I bend to touch my ankle. It’s swollen and already bruising.
Thump.
I look away from my ankle and at Cole on the ground at my feet. I blink, confused, and Jax wraps his arms around my body and says, “I need you alive, even if it’s kicking and screaming.”
“Jax!” I scream, thrashing, but he has me caged tight against his chest.
“We won’t survive carrying dead weight and your bad leg. I’m sorry, Saya.”
I lash out, Jax twisting my body around to drag me, when I start clawing at the face I used to kiss. “Get the fuck off me! Get off me, motherfucker!”
“I’m sorry.” He grabs at my shirt, trying for a better grip, but tears through it, exposing the shoulder with my moonflower tattoo as I try to get away. “I’m sorry, but I’d prefer you alive and hating me than dead. I prefer you with me than in the arms of that fucking bloodsucker.”
“Jax. I am one of those fucking—” My words cut off when pain pierces my chest. I slacken my hold on Jax, and my eyes fall to the blotch of red seeping through the fabric of my gown.
A man steps out of the darkness into the red glow of the moon, his gun aimed at me. “Get the fuck away from her, brother. Before she peels your skin from your bones!”
Jax presses his fingers to the bullet wound, but I don’t feel his touch. “What the fuck, Leon!” Jax slumps to the ground with me in his lap, and his warm tears drip down onto my cheek, turning to ice as I stare up at him through tired eyes.
“Jaxton, get the fuck away from her and help me!”
Warm hands caress my cheeks, yet a chill courses through my body. “Saya, stay with me, yeah? It’s not so bad.”
A whimper slips from my lips when Jax presses down harder on the bullet wound in my chest. I try to speak, but the words catch in my throat.
He leans down, his lips pressing against mine as he breathes, “It’s okay. Stay with me. Remember our dream? You and I, growing old together?”
I cough blood all over his unflinching face. There is no us, you putrid slayer! I will carve out your eyes so you never see my face again! You can roam Kepler with only a memory, fucker!
“Jaxton, leave her!” the other man says, but his words are fading.
“Fuck off! You didn’t have to shoot her! You didn’t have to!” Jax yells, but it’s like hearing him scream while submerged underwater.
“She’s a fucking leech of a vegodian. The moonflowers tell me all I need to know. Now get over here. We have a live one!”
A trembling quake shudders underneath me, and heat scorches my back.
“Fuck, we gotta move, but I can’t without sealing his wound.” The man lets out a frustrated exhale. “Shit, I have to give him some of my blood. Andrew, get my brother while I help the kid.”
“It’s illegal to give—”
“Now, Andrew! That’s an order! I will deal with the council when we return.”
“Alright,” the other grunts.
“Fuck off! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch—” Jax’s words fade away, and my body is rolled to the side, sticky and soaked in crimson.
Cole? The man who shot me has Cole’s limp body, while the other carries Jaxton. I try to move, but the heat beneath me grows unbearable, and I scream. A roar echoes around me, and the ground splits open, a thousand claws engulfing me under the eye of the red moon.
Rolling through countless bones that slice my skin, I sink into the Hellsgate.
When I stop, everything becomes unbearably cold.
Flames flicker brightly, and a warm, sticky heat drips down from above. I close my eyes, and if I concentrate, the clicking of insects stings my ears. They surround me now, swarming like bees in a frenzied hive.
I reach out, and my hand brushes against something cold. Confused at first, I realise it’s a hand curling across my knuckles. “There you are, kamai,” a soft, husky voice murmurs.
Nightwalker.
“The one and only,” he says, and whatever shred of life I cling to resides in icy arms.
“Drink from my wrist, kamai.” Cold skin presses against my lips, and I turn away. “Your brother is alive, but if you die now, he will stay in the hands of those slayers.”
Slayers? Jax…What will he do to Cole?
Saliva builds in my throat. As I turn to his wrist, my lips brushing against marble skin, I open, and I bite down with little hesitation.
Sweet, honeyed liquid burns like wildfire down my throat and burrows into sensitive flesh.
“I’d have given you my neck, but I’d rather keep my memories to myself. ”
My body convulses as blood streams down my throat in burning layers. An ache in my gums flares, piercing through the skin.
“Fascinating. Your glamour has completely shattered.” He adjusts me in his arms and lets out a sigh. “We should leave before the Hellsgate decides to close its doors and trap us here with the echoes of the past.”
The muted underwater sounds pop. An intense rush of low, hissing insects surrounds us. With all the strength I can muster, I open my eyes and finally look upon the man with deep red eyes.
Black hair falls forward, parting in the centre. He looks cold and pale—ashen but beautiful. Like a pretty corpse wreathed by flowers. He is dressed in a white, frill-necked shirt with lacing crisscrossing his chest. There is a speck of blood near where his dead heart should lie.
A screech tears my thoughts away from the nightwalker. A wave of unease churns my stomach as I survey the mountain of bones leading up to the crack I fell through. Creatures prowl towards us, blocking our way.
This is the Hellsgate?