MALCOLM
I press my eyes closed as hard as I can as I drop to my hands and knees on the stony gravel. Though I can’t see a thing, bitter cold power envelopes my whole body like an unwanted embrace. The pressure builds on my back and then pushes me the rest of the way down. I fall onto my face with a grunt, and sharp pain ricochets through me. Without Max and Silas holding me down, I should be free to flee…
I pull at my arms, but they won’t move.
No, no, no. I have to leave. I have to run.
I can’t move even a hair’s breadth. My whole body is paralyzed under the frigid magic.
“Please,” I whisper. I’m not sure who I’m even asking. God? It’s too late for him to help me. The monster? Clearly, that’s a lost cause.
“Don’t be so sure,” a voice rumbles through the black abyss.
Darkness swoops over my head and wraps itself around my body. With a pop, the weight lifts.
I force my body into an upright position. Gravel sticks to the side of my face, but I don’t dare brush it off.
I try to blink my vision into focus to no avail. I must be close to the cave mouth, but I can’t see anything other than pitch black. I don’t even know which way is out.
“That way,” the voice says.
Somehow, I know he means to my left. I can’t see the being that belongs to the voice. The monster. The beast.
And I am his sacrifice.
I swallow and step back farther until my shoulders press against cold stone, eyes shut tightly.
I wish I could relish the thought that Andrew would get justice for this terrible death of mine, but I know better. I’ve experienced it firsthand. There is no justice in this world. Not anymore.
Once, our world had order. Murder was punished harshly. Not so much anymore. Well, it’ll be punished, but they’ll likely just choose a person at random to replace the real killer.
Large governments have dissolved leaving cities and towns to fend for themselves. For us, that means the strong prevails over the weak—or disliked. I am not weak, not especially, at least. But they don’t like me, those men that run the city.
They don’t like me because I know what they did to my father. I know the truth.
“Men,” a deep voice purrs through the darkness, “do not appreciate true power.”
Every muscle in my body is frozen in place. That voice. Panic rushes over me, my mind spins. Fear so thick and crawling rips the air from my lungs.
That voice—is not human. It’s not… natural.
“Oh, I assure you, I am quite natural.” A rumbling chuckle ripples from the depths of the cave. “I am simply… more. More powerful than man. Older than man.”
The rush of dark power makes itself known, like a flash exposing my surroundings and then settling back into nothing. It leaves me wondering if I imagined it.
I look to my left, where I now know is my exit.
“I can grant all that you wish,” the monster whispers gently. It wafts through the darkness like a caress. An offer, not a demand.
I swallow.
“You desire it. Power. Vengeance. Importance. I can taste it on you.”
I shiver. Run, you moron, I tell myself. Run while you still can.
“You may go, child,” the monster says. “But I will leave you with a parting gift because I know you. I see enough to know you’ll be back.”
“No,” I whisper. Like an illiterate fool, no is the only clear thought I can conjure in my panic.
The monster laughs and the walls around me tremble. I scream as a sharp blade—a talon—carves through my flesh under my collarbone.
“I have the power to save you,” the bodiless beast calls to me as he carves into my body. “I will give you but a taste of my power. When you are ready for more... you know where to find me.”
Pain so deep, so harsh and unforgiving, takes over my body until my vision turns black.