Chapter SEVEN
Landon
We were in a jungle. At least, I think it was a jungle. Dense vegetation surrounded us, thick canopies of trees hid us from the sunlight, and it was raining. Even if it wasn't a jungle, it sure felt like one.
"Do you think we lost him?" Charis asked.
We were sitting together behind the massive trunk of some tree or other, trying to catch our breath. We had managed to slip the wolves he had sent after us when we had fallen into a river and let it wash us downstream. I could still hear them howling in the night. I could hear him whistling.
"For a minute, maybe," I said. "But this is all part of the game. He's been toying with us for how long now?" I had lost track of how many times we had died. It had to be in the hundreds. At first, I had thought I would remember each one, but now I only remembered the pain, and the fear.
"I don't know. I've lost track." She sighed. "I don't want him to catch us again."
It didn't matter. We both knew he would. Maybe that was the point of this. Keep chasing us, keep catching us, keep killing us until we were nothing but broken souls. He wasn't just out for revenge, he wanted to destroy us - in heart, soul, body, and spirit.
"What do you remember?" I asked. We had done this every time, recapping what we could capture from our previous go-rounds in the Box. The memories had been coming faster for a while, but just when I thought we had them, they would ricochet away like a rubber band.
"I remember Clara," she said. "He gave us a daughter to torture us with."
That was the first memory. Somehow, he had discovered how much it had hurt me, and so Clara had been coming back, subjected to more suffering and agony, tortured in front of both of us. Watching someone torture a child was beyond disturbing. When it was your own, even if it wasn't real, it was the truest form of anguish I could imagine.
Charis was crying, her body shaking from her sobs. "I underestimated everything about this," she said. I could feel my own tears welling up, mirroring hers. We were both trying to be strong for the other, but the truth was that his efforts were succeeding.
We were breaking.
"What else? Think Charis. We put him in here. We're holding him in here. How? How can he have all of the control, if we're keeping him trapped?"
Those were the questions we tried to commit to our minds, to ask one another every time we came back. I knew there had to be an answer, that we should be able to do something against him. It didn't make sense that his power could be absolute, because if it was he would be able to escape.
She wiped her eyes and set her jaw. "Our power was his power. We don't have anything on our own."
"That can't be true. We're Divine. Diuscrucis. We have the blood of angels, demons, and humans in our veins. That has to count for something."
I heard barking echoes through the growth. They were getting closer.
"We were the only ones who could absorb his power," she said. "We were the only ones who could use it."
I nodded, my mind racing along that path. "So we should be able to use it, shouldn't we? It's the same power. We're just in a different place."
She smiled. "Yes, I think that's it. We need to remember that. Come on." She got to her feet and grabbed my arm. We ran through the greenery, pushing past thick, heavy plants and through brush and bushes. The snarling and barking of the wolves was getting louder.
"Why should we run?" I asked.
"We need to last as long as we can," she replied. "We need to remember."
His power was our power. We could take his power. We could use his power. I kept repeating the words like a mantra, committing it not only to my mind, but to my soul. An ingrained message, an instinct. We needed to do better than to run. We needed to be able to fight.
We pressed on, dodging trees, seeking another escape. The wolves couldn't be far back, and now I could hear the laughter carried on the wind. He knew we were running. He was amused.
"There," Charis shouted, pointing at a climbable tree. "It won't keep us alive forever, but it will buy us some time."
I followed her to it and we scrambled up, finding a resting spot in a branch thirty or forty feet off the ground. A minute later the wolves arrived, barking and growling, claws scraping against the trunk of the tree, six in all.
"The power," I said. My breathing was heavy from the run and climb. I closed my eyes and focused, trying to find that river of energy I had grown to depend on. It wasn't there.
"It isn't in Purgatory," Charis said. "It's here. It has to be. It's all around us."
I looked up, trying to find the sky behind the trees. Was there a sky here, inside the Box? Or was it all a trick, a lie? I kept my eyes focused on it, refusing to blink though they became dry and scratchy. Was it like those posters that seemed to be just a pattern of color, but turned out to be the Statue of Liberty, or a sailboat? Was the power out there?
"Oh, Lannnnndddoooonnnn!" His voice echoed loudly, and he appeared at the base of the tree.
I didn't look down at him, but I knew he was there. I kept my eyes on the sky.
"Helllloooo?" He put a hand to the tree, and it began to shake. It took immense effort, but I didn't let it break my concentration. I could see a spot of blue through the canopy, and as I stared, it began to fade away, turning towards a dark purple.
"I've almost got it," I whispered, hoping Charis would hear me, and the Beast wouldn't.
"Hey, kid! What gives?" He kicked the tree, shaking it wildly.
I grabbed onto the branch I was sitting on for balance, but I didn't shift my eyes. They burned and teared, but I refused to break again.
"I'm going down," Charis said. "I'll see you soon."
We both knew he was going to kill us again. The only question was how much we would remember. The further we got, the better we might do. I felt the tree shift as she jumped down.
"Hey, a*shole," she said.
"You're starting to like the pain, aren't you?" he said. "Have you ever been eaten alive before?"
The wolves snarled, and a moment later she was screaming, I could hear teeth smacking against bone.
"Landon, you really need to see this."
I felt his power, beckoning me to look. The sky had turned a deep hue of blue and red, and I could make out lines of power dancing along it. I focused there, like casting out a fishing line. I hooked one of the lines, and pulled.
I didn't look at him. I didn't have to. I brought my own power to bear, pressing it against his, and refusing him. Only then did I look down.
His smile was gone.
Charis was dead, her body a meal. It fueled my anger. I jumped down, landing lightly on my feet in front of him.
"That was faster than I expected," he said. He might not have been smiling, but he still didn't seem impressed. "Since you think you've got some balls now, let's see what you can do."
He stood there, hands at his sides. He eyed me calmly, waiting.
I felt the anger building, and his power with it. I felt it pouring into me, filling every cell of whatever I was in this place. I gathered it in, bringing it all to my hands. I held them out in front of me, and a ball of blue lightning began forming there, a bright ball of energy. His energy.
Ross waited, watching me with curiosity, but not fear. If I hadn't been so angry, I might have known better. If my heart hadn't been in control, I might not have made the mistake of throwing the lightning at him.
It launched forward, a solid stream of blue energy, arcing at him in a wide, round beam. It smacked into him, and vanished.
The laughter returned, deep and rich. He shooed a wolf away from Charis' head and lifted it up, showing it off to me. "It's still my power, kid. You can't hurt me with it."
He threw it at me. As it approached, the eyes and mouth opened, and a scream came out. I closed my eyes then, knowing it was over. The head exploded an inch away, converted to the lightning ball.
It washed over me.