Chapter 4
Three months later
Ryven
Joey shakes with nervousness beside me as we stand in a line outside.
It is early, around five in the morning.
The moon is still high in the sky, and the temperature is below freezing.
But the leaders have us all standing in formation in only our shorts and shoes.
My breath fogs in front of my face, and my toes feel so numb that they may fall off.
“As you can see here,” our leader motions to the five naked people with hoods on, standing in front of us.
They’re barefoot, skin blue from the cold.
Their ribs are sharp beneath their stretched flesh.
One of them sways on their feet. Another’s legs tremble like they may give out at any second.
“These will be our sacrifices today. Each squad will be required to catch their sacrifice and have them displayed, ready to be given over to our king by the end of the day.” He looks at every single one of us as we study our targets. Not targets…
Prey…
The word sits wrong in my chest. Sacrifice… not criminal. Not murderer or child molester, just… fucking sacrifice. Like they were never people to begin with. Like we weren’t supposed to see them that way anymore. They are just a vessel for the Dark One now.
But we don’t have the luxury of knowing their crimes at our level. They could be the worst type of humans. That’s the lie I keep telling myself so I don’t succumb to the mindless killing like some of the rest of our members.
“Run!” the leader yells at the five people, and they all take off in a sprint. Their feet slap against the frozen earth.
Can they even see through their hoods? Or are they just running blind into the forest and hoping for the best?
“Go!” our section leader roars, and we take off into the woodline after them.
Thick branches whip my arms and face as we bolt through the trees. Our sacrifice is almost out of sight by this point, so I push myself harder to catch up to him. I can see the rest of my team ducking and dodging tree limbs as we all push in a line after the guy.
Westley is the first to reach the naked man and lunges for his waist, knocking him to the ground.
The man gives it his all, attempting to escape.
He scratches and kicks furiously with the hood still tied around his head.
He tries his best to get free but it is no use.
The rest of our team is on him before he has a chance, and we all pin him to the hard forest floor. His screams are raw and animalistic.
We were instructed to hunt our prey, tie them up and bring them back to the compound for the ritual. I grab the rope from one of our members and begin tying the man's feet while he continues to flail around.
“Someone fucking hold his legs still!” I growl.
These idiots don’t know what they’re doing. Half of this team is new to the faction and half just don’t give a shit about any of this anymore. But that doesn’t mean we have the option to fail at anything. If we fail, we die. I have to make it back to Rory…I promised
By the time we get back to the edge of the compound, my legs feel like they’re about to give out beneath me. Every fucking step through the woods was a fight.
Branches tore at my skin, snapping back against my arms and face as we dragged the guy between us. The ground was so uneven and slick with mud that more than once, I nearly went down with him.
He didn’t stop fighting the entire way. I have to give him that. Even with the hood over his head, he kept clawing, kicking and screaming. Even after his voice turned raw.
The worst part is, we lost control of him more than once. One second we had him pinned and the next he was slipping through our hands and scrambling across the forest floor like he still had a chance to escape.
It took us all piling on him again to get him back under control.
But that only lasted a few minutes before he started thrashing again.
So I did the only thing I could think of doing to make this easier for everyone else.
I grabbed a rock and cracked him over the head with it so he would shut the hell up.
I sling the man’s body onto the open area just past the trees and sink to my knees beside it. I’m so exhausted.
Joey comes to stand beside me after a moment. He’s too quiet. That’s the first thing I notice. His shoulders are tight, his arms hanging stiff at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them. And his eyes are locked on the altar ahead of us.
My stomach turns. I’ve never seen him look like that before. His eyes look… vacant. Like something inside him is trying to catch up to what we just did and what we’re about to do.
Is he cut out for this? This is what he wanted. Hell, this is what he begged for and now… I think he realizes what he’s gotten himself into.
We haul the man’s body up onto the pedestal. He wakes up the second the restraints bite into his wrists and begins thrashing and screaming. “Wait!” he shakes his head. “No! I didn’t do what they accused me of!”
I’m supposed to make the first cut but I hesitate. What if he’s telling the truth? What if we are just killing him because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Our team leader snatches the knife from my grip and makes the first cut. It’s a long one from his shoulder down the outside of the guys arm.
The man screams in agony and tries to pull away but the restraints keep him in place.
We all take turns, filleting each aspect of the man as his screams echo around the woods.
Someone cuts a finger next, cutting from palm to tip. The man’s hand spasm once but shortly after goes limp. Each piece of skin is torn from his bones to make him immobile. Calf. Thigh. Shoulder.
Joey flinches next to me when I drag the blade across the man’s torso. But he stiffens a moment later to mask it. But I saw it. I watched the way he pulled away from what he was about to have to do.
I hand him the knife, wiping the blood from my brow as he stares at the blade. His head begins to shake. “This isn’t right. We don’t even know what he did to deserve this.”
Panic wells in my stomach. “It doesn’t matter what he did. We do as we’re told.” I try to remind him.
His eyes widen and he takes a step back. “No, this isn’t right.” His hand shakes as he drops the knife to the ground and all eyes turn toward him. Something in him snaps and I watch it like it’s happening in slow motion.
“Shit,” I mumble.
Our squad leader realizes what is happening just as Joey makes it to the tree line. “We got a runner!” he yells over the radio.
My heart sinks. Everyone will know now. There’s no getting him out of the consequences of running.
Fuck fuck fuck. This can’t be happening. The only reason I’m here is because of him. The only reason I chose this fucking path was to stay by his side. And he just… ran.
This is all he wanted. All he ever talked about. All he ever dreamed of. Yet, when the time came to do what had to be done, he ran.
My eyes widen as troops rush around me toward the woods. They are going to catch him. There is no other option for him.