Descent (Kissed by Death) - Tara Fuller Page 0,75

had left, and saw Gwen, fierce and beautiful, standing across the room, a shard of metal in her fist. Dietrich turned slowly with a confused look on his face.

“You know this girl, Easton?” he asked, walking toward her.

She stumbled back a few steps, then seemed to think better of it and lifted her chin, standing her ground. I wanted to tell this hallucination of Gwen to run, but I couldn’t speak. My tongue felt too big in my mouth, and the coppery tang of blood trickled down my throat.

“Let him go,” she said.

Dietrich laughed and looked back at me, amused. “Did you hear that, Easton? She thinks I should let you go. I think this one cares about you. Maybe we should play with her instead.”

I forced myself out of the haze and tugged at my restraints. Why did he seem so surprised to see her? If she was his special creation to torture me, shouldn’t he know who she was? I swallowed back a mouthful of blood and the thick, consuming fear boiling in my gut. This couldn’t be Gwen. Not my Gwen. Not here. Not now.

“Gwen,” I managed to choke out. “Get out. Please, get out.”

She looked over at me, eyes glistening, and shook her head. She took three purposeful steps forward and pressed her palm against Dietrich’s chest. He gasped and stumbled back, staring down at her, wide-eyed and afraid. She followed him back, eyes screwed tight, and the pulsing, gilded glow in his chest grew brighter.

“Wh-what are you doing?” he choked out. “Who are you?”

Gwen didn’t answer, and Dietrich scrambled for the sword at his hip. I jerked on my restraints again, hard enough to hear my shoulder pop. Pain exploded inside me, and a brilliant rainbow of colors swarmed my vision. The chair I was tied to toppled over and busted apart under my weight. I looked up from the floor in time to see his fist wrap around the hilt of his sword.

“Gwen!” I dragged myself across the floor, leaving a bloody trail behind me. “Wait!”

An inhuman sound erupted from Dietrich. The light grew brighter, swallowing them in a bath of sunshine. His face grew pale and hollow. His skin thinned like paper, deteriorating and tearing before my eyes. Tears streamed down Gwen’s cheeks and she trembled, her legs wobbly and unsteady beneath her. Jesus…she was draining him. Only she wasn’t giving him anything good in return. She was taking everything evil and wrong inside him and locking it into herself.

“Jesus, Gwen!” I scrambled to my knees and grabbed hold of her wrist. “Stop! Stop!”

In a brilliant flash of light, Dietrich exploded into a cloud of dust and ash. The force of it seemed to suck the air out of the room, out of my lungs. Gwen cried out and collapsed before me.

Suddenly the room was too quiet. Too dark. All that existed was Gwen and my broken body trying to hold it together long enough to pull her against me with my one good arm.

“Red, wake up,” I pleaded. “Please, wake up.”

She blinked at me with bloodshot eyes. She reached out and stroked my face, tears streaming out of the corners of her eyes. Part of me wondered if this was all just part of the twisted illusion set up for me. I was terrified that any moment she’d disintegrate beneath my fingers. That Dietrich or Cyril or some other horrific creature would come in to start tearing me apart all over again. I clasped her hand against my face. She felt real.

“Please be real,” I whispered.

She seemed to gather her strength and sat up on her knees, cupping my face in both of her hands. “I’m real.”

She leaned in to press her lips to mine. I didn’t care that I was bloody or that it hurt like hell. I came back to life under the weight of that kiss. I slipped my good arm around her waist and pulled her as close as I could get her. She whimpered into my mouth and I pulled away, pressing my forehead against hers.

“Jesus, Red…what the hell were you thinking?”

“I told you I’d never leave you,” she whispered, sounding tired and empty.

“You should have,” I said, not letting myself think about what could have happened. “You should have left me.”

She pulled back, and the look in her eyes would have brought me to my knees had I not already been there.

“I told you I wouldn’t leave you,” she said. “I couldn’t. Leaving you felt like