Chapter 13: Chapter 13

An unfamiliar smell invaded her senses as Ru tried to remember where she’d been and what she had been doing. The ringing in her ears was almost intolerable, matched only by the pain in her head. The smell of scorched earth was not a familiar one, but she recognized it as she slowly sat up.

Everything came rushing back to her all at once. The portal. The demons. Her father. The Reapers. Her team. Ru turned, bracing herself for what she might see. Behind her, crumpled bodies littered the ground. No one was moving. Ru cried out in anguish, wondering if closing the portal had somehow caused her to kill everyone, including her friends.

As tears poured down her cheeks, she managed to pull herself up off of the ground, digging at the earth with burned palms as she found her footing. She realized someone else was moving, however, and she wiped the tears from her eyes to assess the situation.

At the top of the ravine, across the way, a figure stood. He, too, had difficulty clambering to his feet, but Ru knew instantly it was Nat, even before he turned to face her. His eyes were not as vibrant as usual, and Ru recognized the whole world was off-balance. It was as if someone had taken a watercolor painting of the woods and soaked it in water, washing away the vibrancy before letting it dry. She shouldn’t have been able to see in the dark without her Light, but she could. The sun seemed to have come up while she was lying on the forest floor, but rather than lighting the forestscape in its normal palette, everything was colored in drab shades of death.

Nat’s mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear him over the ringing. Ru shook her head, trying to make it stop. His head slowly swung back and forth, as if he was in disbelief, and then he snapped his fingers. The ricochet seemed to disturb the air around her head, and the ringing ended abruptly. Fear and dread overwhelmed Ru as she took in the scene around her, but she didn’t fear the man who dropped to the ravine floor and slowly walked toward her, even though he was supposed to be her enemy.

“What did I do?” she asked quietly, trying to control the trembling in her hands.

“You did what they told you to do,” he replied, an air of defeat in his voice. “You did what you were supposed to do.”

“But… are they all dead?” It was difficult to even let the last word escape her lips. She didn’t think she wanted to hear the answer.

“Unfortunately, no,” Nat replied. “Just unconscious. Well, some of mine might be dead.” He kicked at a crumpled body dressed in black just a few feet from his boots. An arm flopped free, revealing a shattered rib cage and copious amounts of blood soaking the entire left side of the man’s body. Ru wondered if he had fallen from the tornado.

“I didn’t know they could… die,” she said.

“Of course we can die,” Nat answered, dumbfounded. “We are half human, Ru.”

She opened her mouth to answer but didn’t know what to say. Everything was so confusing. She thought Reapers could only be destroyed or sent to Hell through incantations.

“You know what you’ve done by closing that portal, don’t you? You’ve simply trapped us all here until we can reach one of the two remaining ones. Which means any Reaper that had been using this portal will be forced to kill his or her way back for more instructions. Even compliant Reapers might not know who is marked and who is unmarked now, thanks to this.”

Ru wasn’t sure what he was saying. It had never occurred to her that Reapers who were actually doing what they were meant to might need the portals. “I thought… I thought they received their directions some other way. Or… bodies literally had marks on them. I didn’t know….”

“There is much that you don’t know, Ru,” he replied, running a hand through his dark hair. “And if you continue to listen to them, you’re going to end up hurting many more people than you can help. Haven’t you figured out yet that in this story the good guys don’t wear white?”

Ru opened her mouth once more, trying to formulate some sort of a response, but she was so confused at this juncture, she had nothing to say.

“Ru, please, consider all that has happened recently. They are using you. Your mother, Ru. They promised if you’d find her, they’d leave her be. Where is she now?” Ru hesitated, her lip quivering. She didn’t know how much he knew. “Where is she?”

“She’s, uh… she’s…”

“Sky took her, didn’t she?” Ru nodded. “Don’t you find it odd that within a week of your father finally escaping, your mom is found and then captured?”

Once again, Ru had no words. Tears were streaming down her cheeks now.

“And now you’ve closed the portal, but do you think they’ll show up and give you a medal for that? No, I guarantee you, they’ll find something that you did wrong instead.”

Looking at the bodies of her friends lying unmoving on the ground, Ru thought that might very well be the case. Ivy was still bleeding from her side, and the rest of her teammates looked battered and bruised as well.

“Ru, please. Before you go running off looking for more portals, consider what I am saying to you.” Nat took a step closer to her, and she turned to face him. Gently, he lifted his hand and brushed back a strand of her blonde hair. “Ru, I know that you feel this, too. It’s not because you have me confused with Kyle. You and I… there’s something there. Stop pushing it away. Stop listening to what they’re telling you, and make up your own mind for yourself, please. For once in your life.”

Staring into his green eyes, it was easy to think his words were true, that there really was something between them, something potentially as powerful as what her parents had had. The kind of love that made a person choose burning in Hell for two and a half decades over denying its existence. The kind of love that made someone give up everything she’d ever known, family, friends, her calling, everything, to give that love a chance to prove itself to the world.

A noise behind her drew Ru’s eyes away from his intense emerald stare, and she turned to see Cutter struggling to regain consciousness. His eyes were still closed tightly, but she could tell by his expression he would be back with her shortly. A wave of relief washed over her, knowing for sure that he was at least alive. The idea that without him, she wouldn’t even know where to begin filled her mind. As much as she’d denied or ignored the truth, her pull to Cutter was every bit as strong as the spell Nat had cast on her, even when he’d pretended to be Kyle.

Turning back to face him, she said simply, “You should go.”

Nat inhaled sharply through his nose and then nodded, withdrawing his hand and taking a step backward. “Just think about it Ru, especially after you’re reprimanded for all of this.” He gestured at the mess around him.

“I will.” She said the words not to give him hope but for the sheer fact that she wouldn’t be able to keep from thinking about his proposition, even if she had no intention of entertaining it.

As Nat walked away, a question popped into her head. “Nat!” she called, taking a step forward. He turned, his eyebrows arched. “The other night, on the beach. Who was that? Who was chasing you?”

He stopped and tipped his head to the side inquisitively. “You don’t know? Of course you do. The same person who told Sky where your mom was.”

Ru held her breath for a moment, trying to control her emotions. She had suspected as much. “But who was it?”

“I just told you. You already know.”

“Please, Nat. Just tell me. You saw the person, didn’t you?”

“Yes. And so did you, Ru.”

She took a step forward. “I need to know. Can you just tell me?”

“You tell me. Who was it, Ru?”

There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in her mind now. Gritting her teeth in anger, Ru let the name escape her lips. “Cinder.”

Ru heard someone calling her name from a distance, but she couldn’t open her eyes to see who it was. The voice sounded faintly familiar, though she couldn’t place it.

It wasn’t Liddy Brown, of that she was sure. How many times had she been startled out of a sound sleep by the sound of her adoptive mother’s voice ricocheting off of her brain? Bedroom lights flipped on, blankets torn off. Or better yet, a slap to the face for some transgression she hadn’t even known she’d been guilty of when she’d gone to bed the night before. Ru settled into the relief that whoever was calling for her, it wasn’t the wretched Liddy Brown.

Now, there was shaking, though, and the voice’s persistence intensified, as if the person could annoy her awake. Reluctantly, Ru strained to open her eyes, pushing up with her hands as she did so and making contact with the shaker. Her muscles felt stiff, and as her eyes flickered, she realized the bed she was sleeping in was unbelievably uncomfortable. She was cold and sore. Her head was pounding and there was a slight ringing in her ears.