Descent - Tara Fuller Page 0,31
he finally nodded, and a fierce look crossed his face. He grabbed the blade from me and hacked through the vines, slicing and grunting. The screams grew more brutal. Louder. Closer. The heat at our backs felt like flames, demanding we turn around and give in to the pain behind us. Soon there would be no escape. Only this artificial world created to destroy the man at my side. I collapsed against the wall, unable to block the chaos out. The need to turn around and take their pain, to give them relief, was more than I could resist.
“Don’t give up on me, Red,” he breathed. “Not yet.”
“I’m not.”
Easton growled and swung the blade one last time. The vines withered and fell away. He grabbed my hand and shoved me through the small opening that was quickly weaving closed, then climbed out behind me.
I dropped to my knees in the dark, stony corridor, exhaustion taking over my body. Easton’s blade clattered to the ground just before he sank down beside me. He stared blankly into the dark, eyes on fire.
“What was that?” I asked. “Did that really happen to your sisters? To you?”
He didn’t answer.
“It did…” I looked back at the cavern, which was once again a deceptively peaceful escape. The vines were gone. A blue light rippled out from the cave’s mouth. “Is that why you killed those men? Because they hurt your sisters?”
He looked up, his face hopeless, haunted. “Does it matter? It still got me here.”
I slipped my hand over his, marveling at how hot his skin felt against mine. At how my fingers fit perfectly between his. His sorrow and regret flowed just under his skin, pulsing against my palm. I didn’t take it. How could I when he didn’t even want me to know it was there?
“It matters to me,” I said.
He stared at our hands for a moment before inhaling sharply and pulling away, severing our contact. He balled his hand up into a fist, flexing his fingers as he looked away from me.
“It was just a nightmare, Red. Don’t worry about it.”
“A nightmare? Don’t you have to be a asleep for those?”
“Not here.” He watched the cave entrance we’d just escaped. He looked like he was reliving it all over again. “Hell digs deep. Finds what you’re most afraid of. The thing you’re hiding from. And then brings it all to life.”
“And the man in the water?” I asked, inching closer. My thigh pressed against his, and he didn’t move away.
“Dietrich,” he said, flatly. “His name was Dietrich.”
“You’re afraid of him?”
He looked at me, and I’d never in my existence seen someone look so hollow. “I’m already dead, Gwen. What’s left to be afraid of? Everything I was ever afraid of losing is already gone.”
Dead? Is that how he saw himself? The man I saw was anything but dead. He was fierce and brave and stubborn and beautiful. Dead was rotting flesh, and brittle bone buried deep in the earth. Not this. This…was just another kind of life. Perhaps a twisted, dark kind of life, but life all the same. Death was a moment. A vehicle to get you to the other side. Didn’t he see that?
I grabbed his hand before he could push me away and pressed it to his chest. I knew he could feel the heart beating under his palm, because I could, too. It thudded like a drum, pulsing through my veins, making me feel awake and alive.
“Does that feel dead to you?”
“It’s not life.” He looked down at our clasped hands and swallowed. “You look at all of this, eyes wide with wonder, like it’s some kind of gift…”
“It is a gift.”
“It’s a loophole,” he said. “A way to inflict the maximum amount of pain a soul can feel. This body isn’t a gift, Gwen. It’s a curse.” He pushed to his feet and holstered his blade.
“Have you ever known anything but pain?” I asked, climbing to my feet, refusing to let him dismiss me. “When you were alive, surely there was someone, something that brought you joy.”
He stopped, eyes fixed on the ground as if he were a world away, and a wall of sadness erected itself around him. He’d lost so much. I could feel it. If I could only—
“Don’t dig for things you know nothing about, Red.”
He turned and strode into the shadows that wove themselves around him like chains. He wanted me to be afraid of him. Wanted me to leave him to exist