My eyes focus back on the one that narrowly misses Jude, and something slithers out of me with more force than I’ve felt yet.
The beast shrieks seconds before flames engulf it, and it roars that ear-splitting, thunderous sound once more, which only pisses me off again. I’m going to be deaf because of this stupid fucking thing.
The smell of charred monster can only be described as the most rancid, disgusting, putrid scent I’ve ever had to withstand in my short existence. It’s all I can do not to wretch as it crashes to the ground. I’m forced to roll out of the way because I can’t seem to go phantom no matter how many times I try.
“The Devil blocked it,” I say to myself, spitting out blood as I stagger to my feet, using the corpse of the flaming monster—that is still slightly jerking around like a detached lizard tail—to balance myself.
Master of balance my ass.
The flames simply pass over me, not hurting me the way it does the beast.
I glance over to see the twin beast falling down when all four of the guys use their power on it at once, channeling it through their new weapons.
Why is Lucifer doing this? It makes me question everything I thought we’d just figured out, and he’s now definitely back on the suspect list. I was just joking earlier.
Now I know better than to make jokes about that unpredictable, evil son of a—
Another make-me-cringe-and-piss-me-off slice of pain interrupts my inner rant so I can whimper a little and be a baby.
I lean back on the section of the beast that isn’t flopping around. Is it a severed piece?
Who knows?
Who cares?
Hearing is difficult, I hurt all over, and I can’t stand without wobbling. Glancing down, I see my knee at an odd angle, and my stomach roils. It’s just one more point of pain at this moment.
Closing my eyes, I mutter, “That’s probably the reason I can’t seem to walk.” Exhaling harshly, I loudly add, “Someone fix this before we have to run again and I can’t!”
Gage curses, and I startle when I feel hands sliding up my leg with a falsely soothing motion.
“This is going to hurt.”
“Observational too, eh?” I bite out. “Just get it over with, already. The waiting is the—”
My words end on a swallowed scream of pain that I barely manage to hold in, as the searing hot misery shoots through my leg, hitting every sensory nerve along the way. I think some new nerves are even created along the way just to maximize the agony.
Someone lifts me, and I don’t even argue as I wrap my arms around a neck and loosely cling to them, trying not to focus on the pain.
“What were those?” I ask, desperate for the distraction.
My head lulls back to see Ezekiel, my new favorite, as he glances down at me, carrying me quickly toward…hell if I know.
“Hell if I know,” he says, answering my question while also echoing my thoughts, and causing me to snort out a laugh that ends in a whimper when laughing hurts.
“She’s delirious,” Jude growls. “She took the brunt of the impact.”
“There was an echo joke, since echoes are a hell thing or whatever,” I explain distractedly, hearing something subtle in the distance. “Shhh,” I add before anyone else can say anything.
A buzzing sound nears, although none of them seem to hear it.
“What is—”
“Run!” I shout, slapping Ezekiel’s arm.
He takes off without hesitation, and the others follow. The buzzing lessens the faster we go, until we’re suddenly racing down a shallow trench.
“Cave over here,” Jude says in a hushed whisper ahead of us before disappearing.
Ezekiel carries me around the same corner, and we duck inside the cave. Kai takes me out of Ezekiel’s arms, assuming the task of carrying me, even though I’m positive my knee has healed.
I still ache all over, so I’m good with being carried like a doll for a change.
Kai lowers us to the ground, keeping me in his lap, as Gage and Ezekiel stand guard at the cave’s entrance.
“What the hell is going on?” Jude asks on a labored breath as they try to catch a little rest.
“Clearly the fucking Devil has an agenda,” Kai growls, hugging me closer.
I soak in the attention, not even caring that he’s not my favorite right now. Or is he? I’ve forgotten. I know it’s not Gage, because Chloe is—
“This really doesn’t make sense,” Jude says in a quiet, pensive way that draws me out of my errant thoughts once again.
I have seriously got to get a handle on this. It’s like I’m getting worse instead of better, and I desperately want to be serious and focused right now.
“I keep feeling like he’s trying to lure us into a false sense of security, and then…bam! Crazed monsters are suddenly trying to eat us once again,” I gripe, feeling like an idiot for trusting Lucifer.
“Never trust anyone in hell you don’t share a bond with,” Jude grumbles, as though they’ve forgotten the cardinal rule.
“Apparently, you have a bond with me, but you still don’t trust me,” I decide to point out, mostly because I need the distraction while my mind works in overdrive.
“We’ve trusted you with our lives since day one. Even though we didn’t realize how much,” Gage says dismissively, not even turning around.
“That’s not the same as trusting me. Besides, Ezekiel says you guys were questioning if you were ever meant to bond with me in this lifetime.”
I’m a little surprised when they all turn a glare on Ezekiel, whose head drops back as he groans up at the cave ceiling.
“You fucking told her that shit?” Kai growls.
Aww. His angry scowl makes him my favorite. Then again, the bar is set pretty low right now.
Ezekiel’s eyes meet mine. “I was pissed. It was just something I said in the moment to hurt you. I didn’t mean it.”
I hesitate, looking around at them and then him. “Are you apologizing?” I ask incredulously.
His lips tense as his eyes narrow. “I’m rescinding those words because I didn’t mean them.”
“Which is a Horseman’s equivalent of an apology, I’m sure,” I state dubiously.
I dart a wary glance at our surroundings.
“Is this cave leaking some kind of hell-slash-purgatory gas that makes you all delusional enough to act out of character?”
“You had just fucking died, destroyed us, and then went off to face the Devil on your own, while leaving us helplessly behind. And then you did it a-fucking-gain,” Ezekiel presses on, growing angrier.
“But you’re still apologizing?” I ask with a grin.
That neck-wringing glare of his is in place when he starts to speak this time. “For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to say—”
“She’s deliberately distracting us. It’s what she does when she decides in her head what’s going on and determines a plan of her own to deal with the situation,” Gage states, surprising me a little with his extreme accuracy.
I feel transparent—and in a different way than my ghostly-transparent form.
I blink at his back, since he’s still peering out of the cave’s entrance. If it wasn’t for Chloe, he’d be my favorite right now just because it feels like he gets me.
Jude and Ezekiel swing their gazes to me, and Kai starts essentially breathing down my neck as his grip tightens.
“Well?” Kai prompts from behind me.
It’s pointless to tell them, but I do anyway. “I feel like we’re being tested. I’m not sure why, but that’s the way I’m leaning.”
“Tested?” Jude asks skeptically.
“Yes, like in the trials. We’ve gathered a lot more information since then, guiding me to this conclusion. I feel like this is something we’re expected to just know, but without any memories, we’re flying blind. I’m just not sure what’s being tested and for whom.”
They all simply stare at me.
“And your plan?” Ezekiel pries.
“I’m still working on that. I figure we’ll just kill anything in our path until we figure out what they’re looking for,” I answer as I idly glance around.
“If we treat this like a trial, there’s an end-point we have to reach,” Gage says, eyes still on me.
“There’s no course. No instructions. No guidance at all,” Kai unhelpfully points out.
“Not to mention, we’ve never seen this section of purgatory. I think we’re in the crater lands—also unoriginally referred to as the wastelands,” Jude adds.
Kai reluctantly releases his hold on me as I push to my feet.
Addressing no one in particular, I say, “It’s all a freaking wasteland if you ask me. We can fight our way around until we prove whatever point it is we’re expected to prove. We’ve all recently leveled-up. I don’t find it a coincidence that we staved off a rebellion, got these weird new outfits, and then heard church bells before landing here.”
“Lucifer did mention something about another family reunion. Surely we’re not performing for his brothers…” Jude lets the words trail off as he frowns.
A slightly alarming, somewhat monstrous groan comes from the very back of the dark cave that sounds a little deeper than we realized.
“I vote we talk while we run before whatever that is fully wakes up,” Kai suggests as he bounces to his feet.
Jude’s hand snags mine, and we all quickly exit. My knee feels as good as new, which is good, since we’re running like we have a destination to reach.
Every time the earth rumbles under us, we all speed up and run that much faster, eyes open and looking around behind us too. I don’t particularly like knowing two monsters have already outsmarted us today.
A few lesser monsters scream and retreat, avoiding the Devil’s daughter.
After hours of aimlessly running, my legs are burning, my back is aching, and my sides feel like they’re splitting in two. I finally lean forward to whine and pant heavily, causing Jude to drop my hand during the abrupt stop.
“Can’t. Breathe,” I groan as I collapse to the ground a little theatrically, because I’m not used to having to be so physical in physical form.
Totally not as easy.
“We don’t need to be out in the open. There could be any number of things waiting for us,” Gage says as I heave for air, not bothering to even try to stand as I lie on the ground and wait for something to eat me and put me out of my misery.
“Get her,” Kai says to someone, ear toward the ground like he’s actually concerned something is literally going to eat me.
“Go on without me,” I tell them, limply waving them on. “Save yourselves.”
Jude snorts while leaning over me, and I groan in protest as he drags me up by my arm, forcing me to my feet.
When the ground gives a little tremble, I start running with a renewed sense of self-preservation, causing all of them to laugh when I begin moving even faster than them.