Eternal Hope (The Hope Series)

The pounding in his ears had slowed to almost nothing, but the rain exploding off the concrete increased exponentially to make up for it. He could hear nothing else, just this: the thunder of a thousand individual raindrops slamming down to earth with a determined force. The roar of it stole the sounds of the other things he knew he should hear, like the creak of leather boots; the singing of a blade being scraped along the length of another, its exact replica; his own screams.

It had taken them three days to catch up with him. That was surprising in itself. For three whole days he had flitted from one place to another, finding different crowds to hide amongst, and yet they had still known where to find him in the end. As if there was anywhere he could hide. It was almost crueller that they’d left it so long. Because after three whole days of waiting and wondering when it was going to happen, a tiny spark of hope had blossomed in his chest. Maybe they wouldn’t find him after all. Maybe the choice he’d made had been the right one. Maybe they would let him go now.

Such a fool.

They’d found him in a teahouse in New Delhi and dragged him here, to wherever this new hell was. All he knew was that it was someplace wet and cold. And he was fighting for his life. The Interrogator stepped forward in the torrential rain, Pax blades glinting in both hands. This guy knew knives; knew how to use them. He was quick. When he rushed him, Kayden barely had chance to dodge to the side. The Interrogator was lithe, like a snake. There was no reading him at all. He scissored the metal and the cold steel flashed in his eyes. Cold blue eyes. Like ice.
Blank.

Kayden had only met one other messenger like this guy before, one other who had chosen his own path. The only way to tell he was different was by the way the Catena, the tattoo chaining his neck, was unmoving. It was beautiful as well, intricate and decorative. Kayden’s own Catena was like most messengers’: harsh, striking and ever-changing.

Normally this would have been the time his Catena flared brilliantly in the darkness. He would have been able to use the vast stores of power within him to defend against this cold, calculating killer. But that was before. Before they’d cast him out. Now, he was facing his opponent alone, entirely without backup. Weaponless.

The Interrogator feinted to the left. Kayden leapt backwards, knowing it was a bluff, but this guy was way too smart. He tucked and rolled through the puddled water collecting on the concrete, tinged pink already with blood. The Interrogator struck upwards as he rose, sweeping the blade’s edge across Kayden’s stomach. The sickening burn spread like acid across his skin. Just another slice. There were already so many, but this one was deep. He could feel the darkness seeping into him as the poison worked its way a little deeper into his blood stream.

How long would it take? The muscles in his arms and legs were already failing. That was where the majority of the cuts had landed and the poison was at its strongest. He wouldn’t be able to stand much longer, and once he was down on the ground…

The Interrogator flashed his stony gaze over Kayden, picking him apart. He anticipated Kayden’s every move before Kayden even knew himself. It was almost pointless trying to get away, and maybe once upon a time he would have given up. Everything had changed now, though. He had reasons to live…wanted to see them through.

When the Interrogator leapt forward like a coiled panther, Kayden managed to dart out of his reach. The guy was unbalanced for a moment, and Kayden saw his opportunity. He struck out and blocked the Interrogator’s right hand, twisting it back and angling the wrist in a lock he knew to be agonizing. The Pax blade clattered to the floor, and he had just enough time to stoop and snatch it up before the Interrogator came at him again.

He had a weapon now, but it still wasn’t a fair fight. The fact that Kayden had managed to momentarily immobilize him seemed to enrage the Interrogator, his fury evident in the dangerous narrowing of his eyes. Kayden crouched and held the knife out ready to defend himself.

The Interrogator came at him like a whirlwind. His arms moved too quickly to pre-empt, and Kayden could feel the cold, sinking pain of each and every cut that slashed across his skin. One on top of another, on top of another, on top of another. Too many to count. He held his ground for a moment, getting a few lucky strikes in, but the Interrogator didn’t even flinch. He just kept coming. Kayden lunged forward in a last ditch attempt to plunge the curved edge of the Pax blade straight into the Interrogator’s stomach. But he was clumsy and slow. The poison flooded his mind, casting everything into a murky darkness. He didn’t feel himself drop to his knees, but he knew it had happened. It was like he was watching everything unfold from outside his body, watching as the Interrogator straightened to wipe his sodden hair from his face. He took his time walking around Kayden’s numb, kneeling body.

This would have been the moment to move. To prevent what was coming. But he couldn’t. Kayden tensed as he waited for the paralyzing pain of the knife thrusting into his lower spine. And yet he didn’t feel a thing, just a mildly uncomfortable pressure that twisted through his body, forcing him forward onto the ground.

A fractured thought entered his mind as he lay with his cheek pressed into the gritty concrete. As he watched the occasional raindrop rebound slightly redder than the rest, he thought perhaps this actually
was
hell. After all, there were some amongst them who could pull those kinds of strings. Maybe that was the reward for meddling in the plans of those privy to ‘The Bigger Picture’.

But occasionally, when the rain eased for a less than a heartbeat, he caught sight of the moon reflected in the pooling water around him. There probably wasn’t a moon in hell. He didn’t have any real reason to believe that, but something in his gut told him that was the case.

So he was somewhere in the world, and it was raining, and he was dying. There had been no warning. No questions. No admonishments. Just the silent creak of boots. The silent scrape of metal. His silent screams.

He was somewhere in the world and he didn’t know where.

He was somewhere in the world and no one was looking for him.

The shouts were loud enough to wake the dead, or at least Farley, who usually slept as if she was. A thin knife of silver moonlight sliced through the curtains into the room, cutting away some of the dark. It took a moment to realize why she had woken up. Another to realize where she was.

Home.

A second low shout echoed up through the silent house. In an instant Farley rolled out of bed, somehow landing on her feet, and pulled on her jeans and a shirt. She threaded the buttons into the wrong holes, but that didn’t matter. She was already moving, hammering down the bare hardwood stairs.

He was asleep on the sofa, twitching restlessly, blankets kicked back.

“Daniel, wake up. Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay…” Waking him too sharply was probably risky. She allowed her hand to rest on the smooth skin of his bare shoulder. He was burning up. Another nightmare. Both of them seemed to suffer them on a regular basis; her mother w
as usually the star of Farley’s
- blackened teeth, filthy nails, white eyes and all. Who knew what Daniel dreamed about, though. His body went rigid for a second before he tremored and fell slack, the nightmare apparently falling away. When he opened his eyes, he cringed.

“Hey you,” she whispered.

“Hey…”

“You okay?”

He nodded, his messy black hair, slightly wavy from the crushing humidity of the night, falling into his face. Farley swept it gently out of his eyes.

“What were you dreaming about?”

“I… ” The word cracked, his voice thick and broken from sleep. He cleared his throat.

“You wanna talk about it?”

It was no big surprise when he shook his head. He never wanted to talk about it. There was still so much she didn’t know about him, still so much she couldn’t figure out. Like why, when they had returned to her house in Monterey Hills three weeks ago, he refused to sleep inside. And why, after having finally convinced him to move indoors, he insisted on sleeping on the sofa and not in one of the spare rooms
Tess and Oliver hadn’t taken.
Or in her half empty, king size bed for that matter.

It was strange that he would rather sleep here, in a room cluttered with the relics of lives that did
n’t exist anymore
- a stuffed Kermit the Frog she used to love; a broken record player that had only ever played UB40, because it was the only record her mother owned; a fake stuffed moose head that scared the crap out of you by singing Christmas songs you forgot it knew. The room was filled with a whole ton of things that were irrelevant now but remained to bear testimony to a time when everything was normal and everything was other.

“What time is it?” Daniel’s eyes, startlingly green even in the dark, roved over the mausoleum of her past and eventually caught sight of the clock on the mantelpiece. “Nearly five? Ugh…” He dug his knuckles into his eyes, groaning.

“You wanna go back to sleep?” Farley asked, battling the slow realization that he was wearing nothing but his boxers. Suddenly concentrating on anything but that fact seemed impossible. He caught her looking and gave her a tired smile.

“Hey. Where’s your head at?”

“In the clouds,” she replied, dragging her eyes reluctantly up to his face.

“Good. For a moment there I thought it might have been in the gutter.” His small smile spread to a grin and he grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her down so that she fell across him. His lips found hers in the dark. He tasted like sleep, but not in a bad way.

Farley snuggled down into the crook of his arm and lay her head on his warm chest. She listened to the slow draw of his lungs, punctuated by the lazy throb of his heartbeat beneath her temple.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“What for?”

“Waking you.”

She shook her head against him in a silent refusal to accept his apology. She didn’t need it, not when it meant that she got to come a
nd be here with him like this.
It was a selfish thought considering he had just woken from a nightmare, but Daniel couldn’t be made to do anything. If he wanted to talk to her about it, he would. She would just have to be patient. In the meantime, she got to be happy here, wrapped up in the warmth and smell of him.

Happiness had been such a foreign emotion lately. She still wasn’t used to the idea that this small part of her life truly existed, and it was only these quiet, stolen moments that made everything else bearable. Her mother’s death. Aldan’s death. Agatha, Beatty and their other friends disappearing. Even being back in this house filled to bursting with memories of her mother was okay so long as he was in it, too. Not that they were staying for long.

“Are you ready for today?” he whispered as he nuzzled his face into her hair, breathing her in.