How did we go from winning to losing so fucking quickly?
I wonder what the hell these demons are waiting for as they continue to hold me still, keeping me pinned to the ground, but then I see it through a gap in their limbs.
The fucking net. The same one they tried to capture me with in the Vestibule.
A new surge of panic pumps adrenaline through my body, and I squirm and writhe for all I’m worth, managing to knock one of the demons off my left arm. It’s not my scythe hand, but it’s something, and I don’t waste it. I lash out, punching my fist out and catching one of the demons over my right shoulder directly in the face. It staggers back, and I opt to let go of the scythe so that I can wrench my right arm free.
I start hammering down my fists left and right, getting bites and scratches in return. By sheer will alone, I throw the demons off and wriggle out from under them, kicking off one of the two demons holding my scythe. As soon as it goes flying back, I dive for the scythe, wrestling it from the second one.
The demon shrieks at me, its tiny, sharp teeth covered in frothy spit as it tries to keep hold of my weapon.
Luckily, I manage to jerk the scythe up, making the straight bottom blade pierce right through his chest, ashing him on contact. I look over my shoulder at my wings. “Let’s go!”
The purple feathered appendages immediately spread out, and I am so damn grateful for them in this moment as my feet leave the ground. They flap, and I internally promise them that I will never say another bad thing about them if they can just get me in the air.
I pick up my feet, pressing my knees to my chest, dodging the demons on the ground who are trying to make a grab for me. I get ready to shove my scythe between my legs and straddle it broomstick style, but before I can really start to soar, a winged demon crashes into me from behind.
I’m barely ten feet off the ground as the demon latches onto my back, and the sudden weight throws me off balance, so I go pitching forward, nearly doing a flip.
“No flying for you,” the demon hisses in my ear, and the next thing I know, it’s grabbing the top of my right wing in its hands and snapping.
I scream as I plummet to the ground, the pain so overwhelming that I can’t see or think.
The only good thing is that I land on my back, crushing the skull of the demon still attached to me.
Vomit is at the back of my throat, my stomach lurching from the intense, shocking pain of not only my broken wing, but also my entire body from the fall.
Get up, Delta, I tell myself, but the agony is making me see double, so fierce that I can’t even draw in a full breath. I know that if I get pinned down again, I won’t be getting back up of my own volition.
I clutch the smooth wood of the scythe, force myself to roll over, spitting up bile as I go. My right wing sags crookedly at my back, the other one pulling in tight against my spine, like it wants to bury itself beneath my skin and hide.
I use Jerif’s earlier push when we were running to the graveyard to ground me. I push aside the pain and focus on his words to move it, dig deeper, don’t stop.
With tears blurring my vision and acid eating away at my bile-coated throat, I spin, letting my body’s momentum and the scythe do the work. Puffs of gray dust surround me as the blade cuts through the demons circling me, until they’re nothing but a pile of ash.
While I nearly spin myself to the ground, another winged fucker above me attacks, going right for my weak spot. The demon kicks my broken wing, making me scream out in pain.
The demons carrying the net take full advantage of my inertia. Faster than I can even blink, the net is tossed over my body. I get knocked down to my knees with the force of it, but I don’t have time to try to get up, because I’m being plucked up by the giant, held upside down by the ends of the net. My body goes rolling, and