Retribution (Redemption Series) (19 page)

"I'm here."

Chapter 20

When all else fails, look for the light.

~
Bezaliel
~

My hand came up to cover
Marcas
' against my face, and I sighed before throwing
myself against his chest, my cheek against his grimy, hole-ridden t-shirt. It
was the best feeling in the world.

His hands moved to my back, and we
didn't move. His heart was beating too fast, his breathing ragged, and I was
still hiccupping from shedding too many tears, but it didn't matter. Each
ragged exhale, each gulped hiccup, each gritty, sandy feeling against my cheek
meant we were alive. We were alive and we were together. It was enough. It was
just enough.

And then there was darkness. The second
trial was over, and we were headed for the final test.
Darkness.
There was darkness. But, even in the dark, I could feel
Marcas
'
arms around me. Even in the dark, I could him whisper, "I'm here."
And in the shadows, shadows that hid emotions tested and frayed, his heartbeat
started to speak to me. It said, "We can do this." And I believed it.

I believed it. I believed it because
anything else was unacceptable, and I listened to his heartbeat, listened to
its slowing
thud, thud,
thud
until the darkness around us began to lift
revealing a scene that had haunted me for most of my life.

We were sitting on brown green grass,
the blades dry from a summer that hadn't seen enough rain. I was still in
Marcas
' arms, and I pulled away from his chest, my hand
coming to rest where my cheek had been as I stared at my childhood home sitting
beyond the lawn where we rested.

This childhood home was different from
the one we had left behind with the others only too recently. This childhood
home was lit up, lights shining in windows even though it was midday, the sun
hot, the air humid. Mom had always hated the dark. Even in the brightest part
of the day, all of the lights in the house were kept on. I shuddered.

Marcas
' hands moved to
my arms, and he looked into my face.

"You recognize this?" he
asked.

There was the sound of a door opening,
and I nodded as I watched my father exit the house behind a red-haired
ten-year-old child.

Bezaliel
pointed at a
spot beyond the yard, at the low white clouds in a sky too blue to be anything
other than beautiful.

"Dayton?"
Marcas
asked.

My eyes moved to his face.

"This isn't real," I said.
"It's a dream."

Marcas
' gaze moved to
Bezaliel's
figure standing patiently in the backyard, his
large hands coming up to cover the little girl's eyes.
My
eyes.

"Then you know how this one
ends,"
Marcas
stated simply.

I could feel the tears pricking the back
of my eyes. Yes, I knew how this one ended.

Marcas
sighed and
stood up, his hand taking mine as he pulled me up next to him, our eyes on the
scene.

“You have to
close your eyes, Day,”
Bezaliel
whispered to the
child, his hands closing over her face gently but near enough her lashes
brushed up against his palms. Butterfly kisses. She fought the urge to giggle.

“What am I
looking for?” I whispered next to
Marcas
, drowning
out the little girl's voice as she asked
Bezaliel
the
same question.
 
Marcas
glanced at me from the corner of his eye, his hand tightening on mine.

Bezaliel
leaned in closer to the girl, his breath fanning
her neck as he bent even more to accommodate her height.

“The light, Day.
Always look for the
light."

The girl
squirmed, and I knew what she was thinking. She wanted to please him. She
wanted so very badly to please her father, to see whatever it was he wanted her
to see, but no matter how hard she squinted against his hands, there was
nothing.

“I can’t see
anything. There’s only darkness!” the little girl cried.

Bezaliel
didn’t move, just grew very still in that scary,
statuesque way of his.

 
“I’m sorry,” the little girl whispered when
her father didn't immediately respond.

Bezaliel
didn’t remove his hands. The silence stretched.

“There is
always light in the darkness, Day,” he said suddenly.

I almost
jumped as his voice boomed around us, and
Marcas
pulled me into his side. I clung to his t-shirt.

“You need to
learn to look past the dark. If you don’t, it can consume you,"
Bezaliel
told the girl.

That
ten-year-old version of me didn't understand him, didn't understand what he
wanted her to do. She had been fascinated with his hands instead.
Bezaliel's
large, glowing hands.

In the scene,
those same hands dropped, but he still held her away. The sun was setting
behind them, and their shadows loomed large against the ground, his monstrous
one looming over her smaller one. The little girl looked close to tears,
hunching in on herself as she watched
Bezaliel's
broad shoulders lift in a sigh.

“Don’t worry,
Day. It’s not your time yet,” he said.

His hand came
to land gently on her small shoulder. A myriad of emotions flooded the little
girl's face. I knew it well. She felt like a failure.

“I never get
it right!” she cried, stomping her foot before pouting.

Bezaliel
moved around her then, his face stone-like and
solemn.

“Day
—
”

 She
stomped again anyway. I had always been good at throwing fits as a child.

“Amber always
gets everything right. Always!” she whined.

Bezaliel
studied the child a moment before kneeling down in
front of her.

“Amber is . .
. different,” he said slowly, as if carefully weighing his words, “And it’s
good that you two aren’t alike. You are special, Day. There’s a fire in you no
one else can see. Not yet, but it’s there."

She squinted
up at him. I hadn't understood what he meant then, but I did now. If only then
I had known Amber and I didn't share the same father. If only then I had known
what kind of blood ran through my veins. But I hadn't known, and the
ten-year-old version of myself stomped her foot again just as the darkness
came. 

My hand
tightened on
Marcas
', and I looked up at his face as
the scene changed. The day, so bright before, darkened.

"A
storm," I said to
Marcas
, and he nodded. I think
he was aware of my dream. I'm pretty sure he knew as well as I what was about
to happen, but there was nothing we could do to stop it. 

It was
sudden, the rain, and I felt it pelting my bra-clad body unmercifully as the
clouds came tumbling one over another—thick, black, and ominous. Lightning
flashed in jagged lines across the sky and mud started to slide in large
avalanche-like chunks as water piled on top of water. The rain hurt, digging
sharply into my skin, and I gritted my teeth.

“Run, Day.
Look for the light,” I heard
Bezaliel
yell to the
little girl, but when she turned to look for him, the space behind her was
empty. The rain was coming harder, more brutal, like fingers trying to peel
away the skin.

“Run. . .” I
heard myself whisper to
Marcas
, but neither of us
moved.

The younger
version of me was gone, vanished, leaving us in a dream I knew all too well.
There was no point in running. The dream always ended the same way.
 

Mud was
suddenly sucking at our feet, and when I held out a hand to look at it, I
wasn't surprised to see blood. The rain was too hard, tearing at skin that had
already been battered by a cruel sun in a wasteland where we'd been left to
bake alive.

In the
distance, I heard the younger version of myself screaming for my father. It was
only a matter of time now.
Marcas
opened my hand up
with his and entwined our fingers.

"Don't
let go," he said.

I nodded as
the earth began to tremble beneath our feet, bucking and rolling until fissures
began to open up along the ground, widening until a large hole had materialized
in front of us. There was nowhere to run.

“Daddy!”

The little
girl's sobbing scream echoed throughout the scene, the sound eerie as the earth
gave way beneath us, and we fell. It was dark. So very dark, and I held my
breath waiting for the end.

In the dream,
my father's voice had come to me again begging me to look for the light. But,
in this reality, in this messed up version of my nightmare, there was only
darkness. And this time, I wasn't alone. This time,
Marcas
'
hand was in mine, and he was following me down to whatever end awaited.

And when the
darkness finally opened up, it was illuminated by hellfire.
The
pits of Hell.
I had been there before. But this time, neither
Marcas
nor I had powers that would protect us from the
flames. And just like in my dream, when I realized this was the end, I finally
found the voice to scream.

Chapter 21

My daughter is a
Naphil
, a half-human child sired by an Angel.
Nephilim
have long since been considered the insane, blood
thirsty offspring of Angels who desired human relationships. My daughter is
different. She was born to a mother with blessed blood. But, in the end, no
matter how different, my daughter is still a
Naphil
.

~
Bezaliel
~

One moment I was screaming, the next I
was hanging in mid-air over the fire pits of hell, the heat so intense it took
my breath away. Tortured souls enveloped in flame reached for me, my legs dangling
close enough the figures below had gathered to welcome me to their misery. I
choked down a sob, the pull on my hand a sudden reminder that I wasn't alone.

"Dayton,"
Marcas
called, and I looked up, my eyes alighting on his strained face.

He was standing on a ledge near the
gateway that led out of the pits, and I tightened my grip on his hand as hope
sprang anew in my chest. His grip never faltered, but his eyes shifted, and I
felt the same flicker of hope dwindle and then die. There wasn't enough room
for two people.

Marcas
reached down,
his other hand lending support to the hand already entwined with mine. How he
kept his balance was beyond me. I shook my head, my eyes skirting the souls
below me before meeting his gaze. There was fire reflected in his pupils.

"He's not going to let us both
survive."

As I said it, the truth of it hit me
squarely in the chest. It had been too easy. Lucifer had let me go, had let me
endure the trials with
Marcas
only because he knew,
in the end, only one of us would survive. And with my death, he could say that
Marcas
had failed the trials. It was a brilliant plan
really, and I had given him the ammunition to carry it through. I had
volunteered to go with
Marcas
.
 

Marcas
stood balanced,
his stance proof of how comfortable he was in Hell. Even without his powers, he
knew this place well. His gaze held mine, his jaw tight.

"It's a test,
Blainey
.
Just a test.
We just have to wait it out."

He was wrong. I knew, without a doubt,
that he was wrong. It made too much sense. Lucifer had been trying to eliminate
me from the beginning. Without me, there would be nothing standing between
Marcas
and his place at Lucifer's right side. I was the
hindrance.

It's amazing really what will make a person
smile in the oddest moments. I smiled now, not because I knew I was going to
die, but because I knew
Marcas
was going to live.

"Let me
go," I whispered.

I wasn't bound
to
Marcas
anymore. Lucifer could throw me into the
fire pits of Hell, but in the end, my soul would go to Heaven.

"No,"
Marcas
said, his voice firm, final.

A soul from
below jumped, and my ankle was suddenly on fire. The pain was too much, and I
screamed. There is nothing worse than a burn. Even after the fire is gone, the
pain lingers, intensifies, and I could feel tears fighting for release as my
ankle throbbed.