Chapter 31 #3
“I can—I can help you!” I say, knowing there’s room for a couple more people. Wondering if I can break the necklace so more can use its light. Trying to keep her from choking me.
But it’s like she doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care. And there are far too many to even fit anyway. I hear the rest of them rushing forward, toward the bright glow.
The woman’s sharp nails scratch my check, and blood streams down my face. “Please stop,” I say, not wanting to hurt her.
She doesn’t. She reaches again, and I push her away, until her legs are out of the light.
And she’s immediately pulled into the ground.
A blood-curdling scream pours from her mouth, and she manages to grip a root, keeping herself outside.
I can’t just sit and watch. I lunge forward, trying to drag her out, but strong arms band around my middle, pulling me into the air.
My legs thrash as I’m lifted away. Raker.
He unceremoniously throws me over his shoulder.
“Let me go!” I say, watching from over his back as the woman disappears beneath the dirt in a spurt of blood.
Raker doesn’t. He’s running toward the cliff face.
“Climb,” he snarls, turning me in the air and hurling me against the rock with brutal force.
Ears ringing, head pulsing, I grip on to the stone and climb all the way to the closest ledge, a sheet of jutting stone with just enough room to stand, planning on helping the rest up.
On showing them the way. But when I turn around to help, Raker is there, pinning me to the cliff.
Screams pierce the night.
“We need—we need to help them,” I say, shaking beneath the cold of his armor.
Raker is silent.
“They’ll die!” I say, raising my voice so he can hear me through the yells for help.
He doesn’t move a muscle.
“Fine. Stay. I’m going.” I try to push against him, but he doesn’t budge. He’s as firm as the stone behind me. He’s pressing me against the rock face, his body shielding mine, not for protection … but to cage me. I can’t move without him moving first.
Their voices become more desperate. Their begging. My mind goes back to a time when I was helpless. Those screams are like knives through me.
“Please,” I say, my voice breaking on the word. Tears slip down my face, sliding against his armor. I can’t stand here and not help. I can’t live when everyone else doesn’t. I can’t.
Not again.
He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t move an inch. Not as I push. Not as I scrape with my nails. Not as I beg. He just stands there against me, body firm and all-encompassing and unyielding as the screams grow louder.
Then—
As they go quiet.
“Bastard,” I say, voice shaking in a sob. “Demon. You … heartless, merciless monster.” For hours, I call him every name I know. I curse him over and over.
But he seems to have endless armor everywhere, even over his heart, even over his feelings, because his body does not shift in the slightest. He is not moved. He does not move, even when I dig my nails into the skin of his neck, even when I plead.
Only when the sun rises, and all traces of the demons are gone, does he budge. He shoves off the rock and lands on the ground. I land in front of him, legs nearly buckling from exhaustion.
The forest is carnage. Skin hangs off the trees. Blood spatters the ground. I fall to my knees and retch.
When I finally look up again, he’s just staring at me, his hood and mask covering everything. But I imagine if I could see his face, it would be as smooth and expressionless as the cliff we just clung to for our lives.
I get to my feet and stumble toward him. I stab my finger into his chest and say with every smelted inch of my soul, “I hate you, Harlan Raker.”
He just looks down at me for a moment. His gaze dips to the finger still in the center of his chest and then back up at me.
“Good,” he finally says.
And then he turns around, back toward the path.
But I’m not fucking finished.
I really don’t know what I’m thinking. Maybe I just want to get a scratch in that spotless armor, maybe I just want to show him he’s as fallible as us all.
Blinded by my tears and fury, I unsheathe my blade as fast as he taught me and hurl it through his back.
Or I would have.
If he hadn’t unsheathed his sword so fas. It flies through his fingers, into the air—and then is caught behind his spine, perfectly blocking my hit, while the rest of him still faces the opposite direction. He sheathes it again in the same second.
Shit.
He turns in a flash, and then he’s right in front of me. Furious.
“You hate me?” he demands, spitting the words.
“Yes,” I reply, falling into my stance. The one he helped me perfect.
“Prove it.”
Then his sword is hurling toward my neck.
I lift mine, blocking it, the force of his hit nearly enough for me to drop my weapon, but I don’t. I spin, then lash out, slamming my steel against his, over and over, spilling my fury and sadness and rage into every single movement. He takes it, for just a few moments.
Then he meets me stroke for stroke, harder, forcing me to stumble back with every strike, my jaw clenching as his hits get rougher and rougher.
Our metals crash together, and I feel their joining in my teeth, it rings through my blood, ripples down my spine.
Raker isn’t even using a fraction of that famous strength, and it’s still nearly enough to bring me to my knees.
My body rattles as it takes another hit. My sweaty hands barely keep their grip on the hilt. Air rushes through my lips with the force of him.
He must see that I’m about to collapse beneath the weight of his strength, but that doesn’t make him back down, no. It makes him furious.
He swings his blade ruthlessly, snarling as I stumble, like this is a test I’m failing, like he wants me to fight back.
I try. I groan as I give him every bit of resistance he’s giving me, and he doesn’t hold back.
He pushes against my metal until I’m sure it’s going to break.
Until my entire body is shaking. He’s just a wall of metal, closing in.
Fuck. Him.
“I hate you,” I spit into his face, my bones screaming against his pressure, our swords clashed between us.
“Hate. Me.” He pushes against my blade. “Harder,” he growls.
Then his blade pulls back and slams against mine with such force, my back hits the cliff face. A gasp spills from my lips.
Our metals meet again, and this time he just stays there, pushing down, edge skimming mine, sinking toward me inch by inch, steel scraping, his masked face getting closer and closer. When he’s just a breath away, he thrusts hard, trying to make me fall apart. I almost do.
Then I bare my teeth and push against him with everything I have, my senses shredding at that sound, of two blades made of the very same metal, both refusing to yield. I manage to hold my own.
But he’s stronger. And his sword is getting closer to my throat.
He’s so close I can see those steel-gray eyes, buried beneath his mask. Hard and heartless. I glare at him with every piece of myself, every shard of my hatred, sharpened over many years, every unforgivable thing he’s ever done echoing through my mind. I wield it like a second blade.
And I guess I’m just as stubborn as my sword, because I don’t drop my weapon, I don’t admit defeat, even as my arms tremble, even as sweat spills down my brow, even as every muscle burns as he presses harder. Harder.
No. I spit in his face, and even though it lands on his mask, his eyes flash with fury.
He pulls back, to release his final blow, and again—I must really have a fucking death wish. Because instead of trying to strike him with my blade, I throw my weapon to the ground.
And launch at him with enough force that I actually manage to knock him down.
The air rushes out of his mouth as he lands hard, me atop his armor, and he could have his blade through my heart in a second, but I don’t care. I want to mark him. I want to rip his armor to pieces, I want to make him bleed, I want him to feel the fraction of loss and hurt that I do.
I swing at him wildly, pounding my fists against his chest, his mask, scraping and scratching, not even knowing if I’m reaching skin.
He lets me.
“They’re dead!” I scream, and all I’m doing is hurting myself, my knuckles going bloody, but I can’t stop. I don’t even feel my arms or hands anymore, just this growing hole of despair in my chest, and I—I can’t. I can’t keep it in any longer. It’s too much.
Any light that I found on this journey has been shattered and snuffed out, just like that orb. Just like waking up in a pile of ashes. I see flashes of it now, merging with the blood all around us.
Not again. Not again.
I’m breathing so hard, but I can’t get a full breath, and I can’t even see, the tears are blocking everything out, but I keep swinging, keep raging, until finally, he reaches up and takes both of my bloody hands in one of his, and says, “Enough.”
Just like that, the fight leaves me, and I collapse against him. And then I’m sobbing into his neck, trembling against his armor, and he doesn’t move. He remains very still, until finally, he gets up, me still atop him, has me retrieve my sword, and carries me out of this patch of woods.
Out of the bloodshed.