Defying Destiny (Afterword Academy #3) - Katie May Page 0,47
he has stuck his finger in an electrical socket. But then his eyes flicker to Hadley, noting her pale complexion, and the fear dissipates from his gaze, replaced by something I can’t even begin to encapsulate with words. Something fierce and determined, better befitting Braxton than Preston.
“Yes. I’ll do what needs to be done.”
“Hadley?” I raise a brow at my beloved, who struggles to keep her eyes open. When she’s finally able to focus on me, I notice a white sheen overlapping her normally vibrant blue irises. “I need you to turn invisible, my beloved.”
“What?” she slurs, immediately shaking her head from side to side. The movement makes her wince, and she removes her arm from Karston to clutch at her scalp. “Ow.”
“Baby girl, he’s right,” Auston pleads, moving to stand directly in front of her. He lowers his head so he’s able to make eye contact, and though I can only see his profile, I’ve never seen such tenderness in his eyes before. “We need to know you’re okay. We won’t be able to fight if we’re constantly worried about you, okay? One of us could get hurt.”
It’s a low blow, pitting her love for us against her need to fight, but it’s a necessary evil. She’ll never agree to turn invisible otherwise.
Her tongue snakes out to lick her plushy bottom lip before she nods once, an uneasy expression marring her beautiful, perfect face.
“All right. If you think it’s best…” She waits, almost as if she’s hoping for someone to contradict her and demand she stay and fight. But when we all remain silent, Hadley gives a weary sigh and nods again. “I love you all.” She pierces all of us with a look—even me, causing my heart to bounce around like a grasshopper—before adding, “Stay safe.”
And then she poofs out of sight.
Despite not being able to see her, I can sense her presence like a tropical breeze that caresses my very soul, filling me with so much warmth, I’m afraid I’ll burst.
Swallowing the sudden lump emerging in my throat, I say, “Come.”
Braxton takes the lead, standing directly beside me with his sword extended. His eyes are bright and alert, surveying every hidden cranny as we travel deeper and deeper into Hell’s thicket. Auston is at the back of our ragtag group, bow already raised with an arrow nocked inside. Preston and Karston both have a dagger, but while the latter brandishes it with a familiarity that reveals his extensive training as a Ghost, the former stares at it as if it has two heads and a fucking tail.
And then the monsters come.
I know from my time in prison that there are hundreds and hundreds of monsters roaming this layer of Hell, but seeing it and experiencing it are two entirely different things. I’m forced to stand near the cave wall, helpless, as the brothers fight all of the beasts.
One monster appears to be twice as tall as an average human, ducking so that its head won’t hit the ceiling. Its arms are nearly as long as its body, its spindly fingernails caressing the ground. Sharp, jaundiced teeth, each one carved into triangular fangs, rest in a hideous, gray face.
Another monster is tiny, though just as terrifying, with serrated teeth curled into a circle on a face devoid of eyes or a nose. Instead, it’s as if someone had taken sandpaper to the monster’s features, distorting them until they’re merely smooth, red skin.
Words fail to describe every monster that rushes at us. Some crawl, pulling their slimy bodies forward like demented snails. Others run on two legs. Most run on all four, some with eight.
And they all charge at once, their ferocious growls and screams creating a macabre cacophony of music in the air.
Braxton begins to swing his sword with a fierce battle cry, slicing through monster after monster. Heads roll across the cave floor, littering the ground, but he doesn’t stop. Not even when disgusting green ichor sprays from the body of a particularly gruesome monster with tiny horns, green wings, and a swinging cock that resembles an elephant’s trunk.
Auston moves to stand on a slightly raised rock behind them all, firing arrow after arrow, always hitting his targets directly between the eyes.
Even Preston and Karston are holding their own, stabbing with their tiny daggers and ducking away before the beasts can retaliate.
I think…
I think we actually have a shot.
Until movement in my peripheral vision captures my attention, a familiar female flickering in and out of existence. She