BRAYDEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
It didn’t sit right with me to leave Lailah behind with only Jay to face down a Prince of Hell but Parker was right, we needed to take advantage of the element of surprise. When we arrived back at the warehouse, Parker skidded to a halt with Micah leaping out of the ATV before it was fully stopped.
“Cami, Blessing!” he bellowed. “Fuck, tell me you’re here.”
People were still pouring out of the facility downstairs, so I think it was a safe bet they were still here. They wouldn’t have taken off and left them on their own.
“What the hell are you doing back here? Is Lala okay? You didn’t just abandon her to face that fucker all by herself, did you?” Cami demanded as she stomped up to us.
I couldn’t help but grin at how she looked all pissed off, glaring at a man who was almost twice as tall as her. “No, we’ve come to help you out. There are secondary groups waiting off to the left and right of the campus and we need your help,” I explained.
Hearing all the commotion, Blessing joined us, a scowl on her face that could rival Micah’s. “What do you mean, how could we be any help? I’m willing to do what we can but I’m not sending my people on a death mission unless you tell me there is no other option.”
“That’s not what we want. Lailah and Jay are holding off the Dark Lord and his army while we deal with these smaller groups so we don’t get boxed in. They don’t know that Lailah sensed them so they wouldn’t be prepared for us to hit them first,” I expounded.
Blessing and Cami looked at each other and seemed to come to an agreement as Blessing gave us her answer. “Alright, but I’m only having my advanced fighters come on this mission and leaving the others here to protect the base.”
“Why not send them with the women and children?” Hudson asked.
“Because this is their home and they want it to stay that way. None of these people, fighters or not, want to give up anything more than we have to, to those fucking demons.”
Parker nodded. “Hard to argue with that. We’ll take what we can get and make it work. Blessing, you’re with me and Hudson. Cami, you’ll go with Micah and Brayden. You guys know how to work together as a team the best.”
The change that had come over Parker since he came back from the dead was astounding.
Yeah, it had only been three days but never would the old Parker have said something like that, or even considered it.
Hearing what he told Lailah before we left to face off with the Dark Lord told me that he truly understood what he’d done was wrong.
Not that I ever doubted he thought otherwise, but this time it showed in every action that he made.
He didn’t goad Micah and actively tried to be of value before being asked.
The man that Parker was finally turning into was who Lailah had seen all along, while the rest of us just expected him to live up to the standard we’d set for him.
If we made it through this, I knew without a doubt, we could find happiness and the friendship we’d always strived for.
“What’s with the dopey smile? We have a war to win,” Cami teased, punching me in the arm. “Come on, let’s do this.”
Blessing was working quickly to divide her people into groups of who would be going and staying, then splitting them again to give us about fifty people each.
Our best guess was the demons were hiding in the hilly groves on either side of the campus.
We didn’t want to use the ATV or other vehicles that might give away our location, so we were hoofing it and moving as quickly as we could in smaller groups so we didn’t draw attention to what we were doing.
I pulled on my powers and my Elemental Warrior armor appeared, along with my upgraded daggers that were more like short swords, flickering with a green flame.
Micah did the same, his curved blades glinting deadly in the fading sunlight.
Could it be that they were just waiting for darkness to fall before they struck us and boxed us in?
I didn’t have time to worry about motivation as we darted from tree to tree, trying to keep hidden as we got closer.
I could hear the sound of people rustling in the woods and low talking voices.
Without bothering to listen to what they were saying, I saw a large group of them arguing and opened the ground under them.
Shrieks filled the air as they were swallowed up by my power.
As our people converged on them, I knew I couldn’t use that trick again or I would risk killing them as well. Now it was time to fight head-on.
Micah dove into the thick of it, his blade moving incredibly fast along with sending out fire balls.
I scanned the area, knowing he would be fine for the moment, and saw a group of our people getting overwhelmed by a swarm of demons.
These weren’t demon-possessed people, these were straight-up lower-class demons with wings, dive bombing and trying to blind people.
With a flick of my wrist, I grabbed a bunch of pebbles and hurled them at the demons, scattering them.
Jay always had better luck with this type of demon since he could shoot them in the air but I switched to my smaller dagger, knowing they wouldn’t hurt the non-possessed people.
Then I heard the snarl of a higher demon as they skulked in the shadows, the sunlight too much for them to attack us just yet.
“Micah, we got trouble!” I yelled, knowing his fire was the best solution to deal with things quickly. He whipped his head around as I boxed the demons in with rock walls, which was our typical method.
Understanding lit up Micah’s face as he caught on to what I meant. I was trying not to freak out our people since the horror stories of the venomous higher demons were well known in the Elementi. “On it!” Micah answered and charged the rock prison I made, leaping up as I created an opening for him.
Leaving that to him, I returned to dealing with the lesser demons who were wreaking havoc and making it harder for our people to fight those they could win against. Fuck, this was worse than we thought. I hope Parker and Hudson are faring better than we are.