Chapter 43: Chapter 43
“Well, that doesn’t even make sense.” Lyric rolled her eyes. “If you’re in charge, then why do you have to do what someone else told you?”
Flint launched into a defense of his decision, but Ru shouted over him. “Flint! Look, the reason their numbers were so low at the beginning of the battle is obvious, isn’t it? It’s not because this portal doesn’t mean anything to them—it’s because it means everything to them. They’re not on the battlefield yet. They will come through the portal!” She had him by the shoulders, which caused him to jump backward, shaking himself free, and once Ru finished her statement she took a step back as well.
“What? No,” Flint argued. “They’re not going to send them through the portal. That would be suicide. They’d have to come through a small opening into enemy controlled territory.”
“Yeah, into a stream of five whole enemy fighters who cannot possibly hold them all off,” Rider reminded him.
“You have to close in behind us.” Ru spoke slowly and evenly, holding his gaze.
Flint let out a loud exhale, his nostrils flaring as he did so, and Ru thought perhaps she had his attention. “Fine. I’ll send a runner to Sky. That shouldn’t take too long. If she agrees, we’ll close in behind you. If not, well, I hope you’re wrong. I’m sure you are anyway.”
His tone didn’t sound too convincing to Ru, but she was sure Sky would answer in the affirmative. The only reason she could think of for keeping all of these troops so far back, knowing that the Blue and Purple forces were beyond them still waiting in reserve, was to try to keep them out of the blast zone. Flint seemed like just the sort of smug bastard who would want to keep his own ass safe. Ru was pretty certain it would make no difference, however. He was underestimating her strength; they were already too close to keep from getting knocked unconscious.
“How long will it take?” Ivy asked.
“Patricia!” he shouted. One of the angels fluttered over and was by his side immediately. “Find Sky. Tell her Alfred thinks there will be something coming through the portal to meet her. Ask if we should close in.” He made a signal with his hand, and with a streak of white light, the angel was gone. “Not long.”
Ru nodded. It seemed like that was the best they were going to get. “Thank you.”
“Good luck.” He gave her a curt look, and Ru honestly wasn’t even sure if he meant it.
She would’ve lingered, giving Patricia more time, but the pull of the portal began to tug at her insides again, and Ru stepped past Flint, through the line of troops, back into the dense woods, headed toward the siren that called her, though just like those sailors who met their fate bashed against the rocks, Ru wasn’t so certain her destiny would end any less tragically.
Cutter and the rest of them were on her heels, but she was out front now, walking more briskly than she had since they’d left the comfort of the van that had brought them all to the forest. “Ru, slow down,” she heard Rider say a fair way behind her. “Give that angel time to do her job.”
“I can’t,” Ru admitted, and even as the word left her mouth, she knew why. It wasn’t just the portal that was calling to her. It was him. He was there. Waiting for her. Waiting to claim her.
With each breath, each step, she could feel herself drawing closer to her destiny, her legacy, what she was supposed to leave behind for generations as her story. Would her fate be closing the portal and destroying Thanatos, or would she die today, valiant on the battlefield but not victorious?
Ru moved forward, her fingers trailing across the moss-covered bark, occasionally snagged on a branch or thorn. She felt nothing. From time to time, they’d come across a trail of tape that would lead off in one direction or another, left by someone entering the forest who actually wanted to get out. There were also remnants of past lives on the ground; an article of clothing, a discarded shoe, a scrap of paper, even a weathered doll. The ground was cracked in places and Ru imagined some of these people might’ve been swallowed up by the forest, one way or another. She didn’t dare look into the high branches above her for fear ghosts of the past might still linger there. It wasn’t the dead she feared, however. It was the feeling that was welling up inside of her, the same despair and darkness that likely drove these others here before her. Ru wouldn’t be taking her own life, but the idea that this might be her final resting place became more than a faint idea as she wound her way between the trees.
Thoughts that she might be leading her friends, those who had stayed with her all along despite having no true evidence that she could perform the tasks she was appointed to, on a march to their own deaths also filled her mind. Visions of her teammates falling at the hands of Reapers, or any of the hundreds of demons she’d studied the past week invaded her thoughts. Tears began to stream down her face, but she journeyed forward.
“Ru, seriously, slow down.” Cutter grabbed her shoulder, and Ru realized by the sound of his labored breath he must’ve been running to keep up with her.
She stopped dead in her tracks and swiped at the tears on her cheeks before slowly turning around. She couldn’t see the others. They were either hidden by the tangle of trees or too far behind her.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded in response to his question, the one he asked so frequently, ignoring the look of tortured concern on his face.
“Let’s wait for them to catch up.”
“I can’t,” she replied, turning back to face the forest before her.
“Why not?” His voice sounded exasperated.
Ru peered between two trees which were darker and more twisted than the others, their canopy crowned with leaves black and elongated with curled edges. A ripple in the air before her, no more than ten yards ahead of them, set between the trees, beckoned. Turning to look Cutter in the eye, she whispered, “We’re here.”