Horns and Halos, page 22
Worried that we were too late, I called out into the night-shaded abyss, “Elijah! Elijah!”
Between coughing and stifled groans of pain, he replied, “Yeah. I’m here.”
My eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and I spotted him deeper inside. The hand gripping the weapon was limp at his side, and his free arm cradled his stomach. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. Seeing him made me call out his name, “Elijah!”
“I’m here,” he rasped.
I never ran to a voice so fast.
As I ran to him, I felt the streams of tears freely falling down my face. This was all my fault. I slammed into him and heard the machete hit the stone underfoot.
“Whoa,” Elijah expressed and laughed lightly as he wrapped the free hand around me. I could feel pain flare through my back and didn’t care. He was holding me. He was alive. Nothing felt better than his arms around me.
I heard Draki speak to me from the mouth of the cave. Elijah didn’t react at all, which meant he didn’t see or hear him. I turned just enough to see his snowy attire, skin, and hair surrounded by the pitch of the late evening. Yet his entire outline was doused in moonglow.
“Don’t forget your promises to me, Sia, because if I repay the favor—you won’t last a night without me—and Elijah will last even less than that.”
Not wanting to see him anymore, I screwed my eyes shut and squeezed Elijah tight. All the while I repeated over and over in my mind that this was my fault. Every cut and bruise, every fear, every pain, and every drop of blood lost ... they were all my fault.
It was all my fault.
Chapter 23:
The Breakdown
I wanted to surrender to everything I had tried to escape from since I started this whole journey. From day one, I wanted to fall apart, but I knew that tears wouldn’t save me, fix my problems, or keep me alive. There was no way to stop what had happened. I just needed to go on living and find a way to survive on my own. However, it was surviving that was slowly whittling me down. It was surviving that was a constant reminder that the life I lived was no longer available for me to go back to. Everything that brought me comfort and joy was miles away. I could only settle for shadows of those I loved, of those I left behind. A comb my momma made for me. A blanket my meemaw hand-stitched for me. A machete my daddy strapped to my hip. Reminders that I hadn’t made it all up and that I was loved and missed somewhere far away from this dreaded place. It echoed in my broken heart with a sorrowful melody until I shattered into a million pieces. In the darkness of the cave, in a young man’s embrace, I fell apart in a way I had never thought that I could. I opened my mouth to speak, but my soul had a song of tears to sing. My voice cracked, my body trembled, and I sobbed like it would mend every problem in my life.
I cried. I cried until my eyes burned, my head ached, my nose ran, and my throat felt raw. I cried until I didn’t think there was anything wet left inside me, and then, I cried some more. All the while, Elijah hugged me and didn’t say a word. He just let me scream and wail until I couldn’t produce anything more than whimpers. He let me open a floodgate and release everything I had been holding back.
Sniffles and soft hiccups filled the cave as I started to regain my senses. My head was throbbing really bad, but I felt lighter than I had in a long time. It felt good to just let everything out instead of pretending I hadn’t felt like weights were tied to me since the gates of my village closed in my face. I was tired of waltzing around in the Wastes ignoring the emotions that I had locked away until I could deal with them. Truthfully, I knew that my life wouldn’t slow down long enough for me to do just that, so I went through the motions of my day until I couldn’t escape it anymore.
“Feeling better?” Elijah asked in a soft voice.
A shaky exhale left me. Slowly, I nodded and wiped my face off on the sleeve of my army jacket. “Yeah,” I expressed with a raspy voice.
“Mind letting me in on why you fell apart?”
“I wasn’t falling apart,” I tried to lie and smirked even when I heard myself say it.
“Oh, right. This must be someone else’s tears and snot,” he stated, plucking at his very wet shirt.
“Obviously,” I muttered and pulled back just enough to inspect the damage that I had inflicted on his attire. It had become a deeply blotted mess of wetness. Mimicking him, I pulled at the edge of his shirt, and I laughed lightly while motioning to his clothing. “I’ll uh ... wash that later.”
“Yeah, well, let’s get somewhere a bit safer first. As charming as a cave covered in grunt corpses is, I would rather my clean shirt not take in their stench.”
Wrinkling my nose, I giggled and nodded in agreement. “Yeah. I suppose we should be heading out, shouldn’t we?”
“You need to stay put until I return. There is something that I need to handle,” Draki explained with very little room for negotiations.
I spun around to face him. “How long will that take?”
“Long enough for me to ensure that the cave will be protected in my absence, so stay put until I get back.”
“I take it your devil has given the order that further traveling is prohibited?” Elijah asked with an exasperated exhale.
As Draki disappeared from sight, I looked to the floor and sighed. “Yeah. He says we have to stay here until he gets back.”
“And I bet he didn’t say anything about an estimated time of arrival?”
“No.”
He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair as he looked at each body that lay lifeless around us. “Suppose I should clean up, and we should try to catch some rest.”
It was at that moment that I noticed the blood on Elijah’s arm. “You’re hurt!” Like the words were an incantation, I realized just how badly he had been injured. His arm was the least painful looking among them. There was a cut on his t-shirt exposing the torn skin beneath it caked in drying blood. There were puncture marks on his lower pant leg, meaning that there was sure to be a bite or two under the fabric. And, finally, on his forehead was a swelling knot that was accompanied by tiny claw marks.
I had been so absorbed in my own emotions that I hadn’t even noticed. And while I fell apart in his arms, hugging him and thankful that he was alive, I hadn’t even spared a moment to see if he had been injured. How selfish was I? How long was I going to carry out actions that hurt everyone around me? Why couldn’t I be better?
It wasn’t surprising that he looked at the wounds and smiled saying, “I’m fine.”
A lie he told me and himself, I’m sure. I pouted, displaying how bad I felt, and shook my head as I closed the little space between us. Taking his unharmed arm in my grasp, I pulled him over to a spot with the least amount of bodies saying, “Sit down and let me handle the cleanup. You’ve done enough.”
“Sia, I’m perfectly—”
“Injured. You’re perfectly injured. That’s what you were going to say, right?”
“Not exactly.”
“I don’t care what you were going to say, to be honest. I’m going to clean this up. You try to tend to your wounds until I can figure something out while I punt these grunt corpses off the ledge outside, okay?”
He laughed. “Okay, okay. You win, Sia. I’ll be a good boy and sit here while you handle the tough stuff. I don’t want you to punt me off the ledge too if I upset you enough.”
“Good, because I just might.” I pointed to the spot he was seated in. “Stay here and try to clean yourself up a bit. I’ll be right back.”
With that, I headed out of the cave with the first couple of limp bodies in my arms. I figured I could mull over ideas and think about a few things while lugging the lifeless demons around. I needed to keep my mind off of the way their bodies felt, the way their eyes stared up at me unchanging like they would come back to life and attack me. The way their gangly limbs flopped about as I toted them along was unnerving. It made my skin crawl, really. Anything that kept my mind off of these disgusting truths was more than welcome.
I thought about trying to head back to get the things from our old camp. If I went now—and there was anything left—it would cut down our traveling time tomorrow. We still needed to get a few hours of decent sleep (at least), and we needed to tend to any wounds that we had. All in all, it was going to aid us in mending, resting, and recouping but do nothing for our plans of reaching the faith city any time soon. That thought left a sour taste in my mouth. We were so close to where we wanted to be. We could stay here another night, but the pile of dead bodies that were stacking up at the base of the mountain proved that an evening free of roaming demons was less than likely. I tossed another grunt down and sighed. Traveling away from the cave and resting before our final travel was honestly the best idea, even if I didn’t like our journey being prolonged. I just hoped that there were medical supplies still intact with our belongings.
After I finished cleaning up the remaining gore, I gathered a few measly twigs and anything that could be burned. My findings were minimal, and I wasn’t brave enough to go to the base of the mountain to search for more. The fire would be small tonight.
There were whoops and chitters of excitement growing in the distance. Meaning that there were more grunts on their way. The heap of demons would be feasted on, that much was for sure. I knew that there was only safety inside the cave because of Draki. Still, I didn’t want any creatures spotting me.
With my meager findings, I headed inside our newest dwelling and called out to Elijah, “I’m back.”
He groaned while he stood up. “Welcome back. What did you find?”
I looked down at the small amount of wood in my arms. “Just some stuff to burn.”
“Fantastic. I’m cold and can barely see my wounds.”
“I thought you might say something like that, so I started gathering it after taking care of the mess.”
“Thanks for all of that, by the way.”
“You’re welcome.”
Slowly, I started to arrange the sticks and searched my pockets. Thankfully, Elijah still had the lighter on him. He produced a flame and held it up against the twigs and a few of the leaves. When the fire started to catch, I knelt down and started to gently blow on it until it grew and caught onto the rest of the piled wood. The glow instantly chased away the darkness that dwelled within. When I looked up, I was stunned by the scene my eyes rested upon.
Strange, white and black markings lined the walls, creating pictures that I couldn’t make out from a distance. I stood up and bent my brow in confusion as I inspected them. My feet found themselves walking closer as I studied each line.
“What is i—” Elijah’s question was quieted the minute he turned around. “Oh. Oh, I see.”
The both of us crept up to the drawings that covered the rocky surface. It looked like the pictures made a story. Around it were words written in letters that looked familiar, yet they didn’t form anything that I understood.
The pictures that were there looked both strange and alluring and resembled finger-paintings. Rough lines made images that I’m sure would have haunted me if I had been alive during the time that the world had fallen apart. The ground was split and jagged, and from the depths of it crawled out black drawings of demons in all shapes and sizes. It bled into towns that were ablaze with fires, and the sky was choked with smoke. From between the billowing clouds were things that looked akin to shooting stars falling down toward homes with people weeping. In the distance, at the far end of the cave where hardly any light could reach, there was a massive pillar of black that bloomed out into a dome. Just seeing it made my stomach knot. I followed the twisted images that told a tale that broke my heart and made me realize just how bad that day must have been. Within the midst of all of these things, there were people kneeling. Around them was a white light, and above their heads was a giant star. They were doing something foreign to me as they bowed their heads to the ground and married their hands. I stared in confusion as I got closer and tried to make out what was painted there. They seemed sad but ... protected somehow.
“They called it Armageddon,” Draki said from the mouth of the cave.
I looked over my shoulder to him. “What would you call it?”
His smile was quick and vile. “Deserved.”
The look that dwelled in his golden gaze would follow me to the grave. There were a thousand unspoken words drenched in hate and dripping with malicious joy over the fact that people suffered, that they were tormented. It scared me. I drew in a breath quietly, fearing that he would hear it and come closer to me. I needed distance from the devil, but my eyes couldn’t pull away from the image of him bathed in the moonlight that made his robes, skin, and hair all have an ethereal glow.
“Is there no one that is worthy of kindness in your eyes?” I didn’t mean to sound so pained when I asked him. It just slipped out.
The proud anger he wore melted away and was replaced with an inquisitive look. It slowly shifted into something softer. However, if Draki was going to say something, he never had a chance to before Elijah spoke up.
“Of course not. He’s a devil. In his eyes, no one is deserving of kindness without making a steep payment.”
The corner of Draki’s mouth plucked up, and he shrugged as if he had been caught red-handed, elbow-deep in a cookie jar. I rolled my eyes and went to feed the fire while asking, “So these are all pictures about what happened that day?”
“More or less,” he answered simply. He then gave a pointed look to the fire. “That’s pathetic.”
Scoffing, I snipped back with, “I couldn’t leave to search for firewood. It’s better than nothing.”
“I’ll go look,” Elijah whispered after he came to stand next to me.
“You’ll die is more like it. There is an army of grunts heading this way. They’ll feast on the remains down there and then head out. You’ll be an extra set of bones piled at the base of the mountain if you try to go out there now.”
“I can go,” I muttered.
“Are you crazy?” Elijah gasped.
“Oh, so you can go while caked in blood and littered in wounds, but I can’t?” I snapped.
“You’ve put yourself at risk enough already,” he countered.
“I don’t mind searching again,” I said.
“I mind,” Draki warned.
“What do you suggest we—” Elijah’s question was cut short with a wave of the devil’s hand. Wood magically piled up next to what I had gathered earlier. It would be more than enough to keep us warm through the night.
“I would suggest,” Draki began, almost mocking Elijah, “that you stay put for the night like I told you to. Rest up and get comfortable. We all know Sia won’t stay still for long once the sun rises.”
While Elijah stared in awe at the display of power, I was more focused on Draki as he made his way for the exit. I rushed over to catch up with him. Quickly, I reached out to grab at his robes and gently tugged them to get his attention. He stopped as soon as he felt it.
“Yes?”
“Where are you going?”
He gradually looked over his shoulder to me. “I told you. There is something that I must tend to.”
“Will you be gone long?” I couldn’t lie to myself, even if I wanted to. When he was gone, I was afraid. The world was full of beasts, creatures, and monsters ... but Draki? Draki was the biggest monster in the room. He was what scared the other nightmares away. He was as comforting as the fullest moon on the darkest night. He was what protected me through every evening. Every time he wasn’t there, bad things happened. I wanted him to stay with me.
As he looked at me, I saw something flash in his eyes. But that look was snuffed out quicker than I could depict what it was. “I’ll be back before morning.”
“I ...”
“Sia. I did what I needed to in order to remind you that we have a deal. I won’t put you in harm’s way again. Not as long as you stop avoiding the inevitable.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Right,” I whispered, feeling my heart sink.
He softly brushed my hand away from his robes and gave a pointed look to Elijah sitting by the fire. Drawing my lips into my mouth, I nodded reluctantly and headed over to him. I felt rejected, even though I knew he didn’t mean for it to come across that way. Where he was going, I couldn’t follow. Besides, I was safe in the cave, and Elijah needed my help with his wounds. We didn’t have much, but we could try to do the best we could with what little (very little) we had.
As soon as I turned around and took the first few steps in Elijah’s direction, I saw fading red smoke misting around my feet. Quickly, I turned, and I knew before I looked that Draki was gone. The mouth of the cave held the remains of vanishing crimson smoke and pools of moonlight. It felt empty. I felt empty.
I clutched the fabric of my shirt around my chest and drew in a sharp breath. I knew what was going on in my head, and I was making no attempt to stop it.
Maybe I was crazy.
Chapter 24:
The Burning Truth
Back by the fire, I had Elijah remove his shirt so I could inspect the deeper wounds more properly. The torn flesh looked angry and most of the bleeding had stopped, but the edges of the gashes were already red and puffy. Grunts weren’t exactly known for being clean creatures. If I didn’t want the inflicted areas to fester, I needed to clean and bandage them quickly. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the supplies to do it effectively until morning. All I could do for now was ensure that they were as clean as I could get them and covered with ... something. Even if I ripped my clothing, it wouldn’t be ideal. The fabric was dirty and covered in sweat and blood. It wasn’t something I could tear up and slap onto fresh wounds and not expect the worst to come from it.
