Page 33

My heart shatters so quickly, so harshly, that I almost see tiny pieces of it scattered on the floor.

Women, men, children: all stripped of their clothes and their dignity, caged like wild animals.

I try to release the air in my lungs, but my body doesn’t comply. Here I stand on an estate owned by humans, run by humans, staring at a mortal graveyard.

A tear dampens my cheek when I finally let out a breath, my hand coming to my mouth to quieten the sob. The smell of soot and iron stings my nostrils, and I pinch my nose to block it out.

The cages are stacked one on top of the other, organised into rows and aisles like some twisted kind of grocery store. Crumpled figures sit in some of them, but others are empty, presumably leaving room for more trophies to add to the collection.

I take slow steps down the aisles, scanning every face, every body. Taking note of every cry, every plea for mercy. I will myself to say something, to tell them that I’m here to save them and that I mean no harm. No sound comes from my mouth other than my shaky breaths.

What good is the promise of salvation if I can’t fulfil it? Even if I were able to free them all from their cages, they’re weak… and there are hundreds of them. How would I lead them to safety? How would I defend them against the army guarding the property?

But can I really leave this place without them, knowing what I’ve left behind?

I trail down every aisle, letting the heartbreak wash over me, all the while scanning for one face in particular. One blonde-haired man who has been missing for nearly three days now.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spy something familiar. A tinge of golden hair that sits in waves atop the head of a hunched figure caged to my left.

“Jeremy?”

The whispered word is the first to come out of my mouth in a long while, my voice croaky. I take a few timid steps, both hope and dread unfurling within me.

Would it be a relief to find him here, knowing that this is what he’s been subjected to while I’ve made my way to him?

Would it be a relief to not, and to hope that he’s faced a much better fate than one as horrid as this?

The man stays hunched over. Dirt covers his skin, shadows lining his figure.

“Jeremy?”

Slowly, he turns, shaking ever so slightly. My heart stops.

A pair of deep brown eyes hooded with fear meet mine.

Relief, anguish, guilt, sorrow, and heartache all take their turns coursing through me.

It’s not him.

But if he’s not here, then where is he?

“I’m sorry.”

It feels pathetic even as I say it. What is an apology going to do if I can’t save him?

The man turns from me again, returning to his cowering position in the corner of the cage.

The sound of footsteps is the only thing that saves me from the spiral of guilt that threatens to pull me under. I whirl around, ducking low and stepping backward into the shadows.

Three guards stroll into the room from a door on the opposite side to where I entered. They participate in joyful conversation, laughing, teasing, as if there aren’t hundreds of strung-up mortals surrounding them and begging for their lives. They ignore it all.

My sadness boils into anger, and anger burns to hatred at the sight of the traitorous human lackeys. Mirabelle said that the darkness had taken her fear and infected her like a disease, but that others thrive on it. I watch the way they smile and laugh at the suffering innocents. They taunt and torture them, and they enjoy it.

One guard takes a sudden step towards a cage, growling at the woman inside, who curls into a ball and sobs.

That’s what does it. That’s what flicks the switch in my brain. They aren’t being controlled, not in the same way as someone like Mirabelle. She has been infected by the same darkness as them all, but I see no cruelty in her.

This is who they are. Who they choose to be. And they all deserve to die.

Blades are in my hands before I know it, and my body moves quicker than my mind. I leap from the shadows just as they pass the row of cages I hide within. My sickle blade slices deep across the abdomen of the guard who taunts the prisoners. Blood spurts and splatters in all directions. She falls to the floor, her blood staining my boots.

The other guards curse and reach for their weapons, but it’s too late. They don’t move quick enough. The blade in my left hand meets the other woman’s chest as I swivel, and the other drives into the man’s stomach. Blood pools at my feet, bodies either side of me.

The woman falls to her knees, readying herself to stand again, but I dig the knife deeper this time, my hand on the hilt as I twist, my eyes narrowed without remorse.

That’s my girl.

The archangel’s voice echoes through my head so quickly and quietly that I wonder if I imagined it. I look around, expecting to see him standing behind me, but find nothing but hundreds of dirty, shocked faces, watching me closely.

Three dead humans at my feet. A hundred tortured around me.

I wished to not have to kill a human. I’ve enjoyed the peace between us since the war began. Oh, how naive I was.

The peace was a farce.

“You!”

The shout comes from my left, the same doorway the others appeared from. I turn slowly, my gaze glued to the bodies at my feet. My eyes flick up when shadows cloud the bloody floor. There are more than three guards this time.

“What have you done?”

The woman who leads them grits the words out with disgust, as if I’m the unjust one in this room. As if they deserved to take another breath.

“Me?”

An unfamiliar laugh bursts from me. I gesture to the cages around the room. “What have I done?”

I take a step towards her, only now taking in the number of guards who stand at her side. I count them, stopping in my tracks. Ten men and women sharing the same dark veins crawling up their necks. Ten men and women complicit in this crime.

“Look around the room. Look at the people caged like animals, begging for their lives. Look at the way they cower. Look at the plea in their eyes.”

I take one more step, careful of the way they grip their weapons. “Then ask me again what I’ve done.”

“He’ll want you to die for this,”

the woman says.

My jaw ticks. Him. He is to blame. He is their leader. “Then you tell him to come and kill me himself.”

They all chuckle along with her, their tone and timing in tune, as if someone else is pulling their strings.

“Oh, dear, I’m already here.”

I spin, scanning the room for Vince and his false smile, but the words came from the woman’s mouth.

“Wherever they are, I am. Wherever I am, they are. We are one. We are hers.”

I fight a shiver. “Too scared to face me yourself? I thought you wanted to dance.”

The guards straighten, their eyes pinned on me, their mouths snapped shut, except for one. The woman tilts her head, her eyes glassed over, her mouth twitching to the left. “Save me the last dance, will you, dear?”

Then her blade slices through the air in front of me, missing me by only an inch. Red blurs my vision. My veins boil yet again.

“Have it your way. Death for you all.”

The woman chuckles, the white film coating her eyes dissipating. “Do you really think you can kill us all?”

I flip my blade over my wrist and glance down at the bodies beneath my feet. At the pool of blood that paints my boots red. “All of you? Is that supposed to be a lot?”

Bodies fill the room, piled one on top of the other. The cement floor is painted with the lifeblood of many. The woman can no longer move. Her legs are covered in deep slashes that spurt blood over my pants. Her arms twist in directions they shouldn’t.

I don’t pity her enough to not look her in the eyes as I finish the job. To not watch the life drain from her face. I revel in it, and as I do, I wonder if this is who I’ve always been destined to become.

I’ve killed before, in a war that would have me pinned as the villain if you asked the right person. Though I never found joy in the act. I always felt the shame, the guilt that came along with it.

I wonder what has become of me.

I wonder if I’ll miss the woman I was before this war.

Or if I’ll thrive as the woman I’ve become.

I don’t feel guilty for the massacre I’ve just committed. I can’t let myself feel anything until he’s dead.

My hair clumps together, blood sticking to it like paste. Strands cling to my face, down my neck, all of which is damp, the smell of iron strong. My boots squelch with each step through the river of blood coating the floor. The caged prisoners look more afraid than ever as they watch me. Though as they stare at their captors on the floor, some of them begin to smile.

I can’t help but smile back.

I pull the key from my pocket, understanding now what Rosemary wanted. “Take this. You’ll know what it’s for… I will be waiting between the willow trees that hold no green… Tell them to meet me there.”

She wanted me to free them and lead them to her. She’s going to save them. This is what has kept her here all this time. She couldn’t leave them behind.

I approach the nearest cage slowly, careful not to scare the girl who huddles in the corner. I place the key on the bottom of the cage and slide it in closer to her. “Free yourselves.”

She looks up at me, and I remember what I must look like. My skin is coated in blood, my hair matted with red.

“I’m not going to hurt you. There is a woman waiting between the only two willow trees that have no green left. She is going to help you all escape.”

The girl looks me over carefully, but she doesn’t move from her place in the corner of the cage. I look around at the mess I’ve left, bending over the corpse closest to me and taking a dagger from the guard’s belt. I walk back over to the girl’s cage and pass it to her, hilt first.

“Take this. Once you’ve freed the others, tell them to take as many weapons as they can from the fallen guards. Then run through that hall and up the ladder. Find the willow trees. Find the woman. Find your freedom.”

I back away slowly, watching as she hesitantly reaches for the key.

“Be quick. More will come.”

Then I turn and run in the other direction.

The door the guards funnelled through is thick, another frosted window in the centre. Something deep inside of me pulls me towards it; leads me away from the mess I made. Something takes control of the rope around my torso and tugs me forward. Warmth spreads over my skin as it guides me through the dimly lit halls of the underground torture chamber.

The hallway is lined with white doors along either side, each one fitted with the same frosted window as the next. I turn to look at them as I walk past, but I don’t enter. The warmth around my waist pulls me further. Deeper into the flickering lights, deeper into the den of the enemy.

I stop in front of the door at the end. The only thing that differs is a soft glow that bleeds out from under it. A bright light accompanied by a warm breeze. The warmth pulls me inside, and I let it.

The room is dark, the only light coming from the feeling that led me here. The walls need fresh paint, stained with liquids that I would not wish to identify. There is no furniture, no cages – nothing but a man sitting on the floor, his elbows resting on his knees and his head hung low. Large white wings dusted with silver grow from his back, resting on the floor as if too heavy to hold high.

The archangel looks up at me weakly, the silver in his eyes hard to see.

“Slayer.”

His voice is shaky as he speaks, his eyes fighting to stay open. “There you are.”