Grey IV - Chains

Chapter 1 - Awaken

Death wasn't cold like I expected it to be. Instead, fire ran through my veins, over my skin, crumbling me, covering me, consuming me. Maybe this was Hell? Maybe that's all there was for me - no oblivion, no peace, certainly no Heaven, just burning, melting flames. I knew I deserved it. But I could still think, so there was some sort of consciousness in death. And I could certainly still feel, so I must have something like a body. Could I move it? Could I get back to the Clan? To Kael and Malachi, to Ailech and Nevaeh -

to James.

His name sent a new wave of fire over me. My pain and anger nurtured the flames, raising them higher, stoking them hotter, stronger. James was gone. Dead. The memory played in my mind, again and again. The shock on his face, the disbelief, the hole in his chest, the color of his blood mixing with the black streaming down his face from his eyes. God, those eyes. The eyes I would willingly drown in if it meant I could see them one last time. But I couldn't. I never would again.

My pain at that thought quickly morphed, twisting and hardening into a living stone inside of me. It grew until it was perfectly shaped like a statue just beneath my skin, until I was filled with its unyielding fury. It was black and sharp, deep and endless, beating like a battle drum, a phantom heart. And it was hot, burning, molten and alive and bottomless and everlasting. A boiling ocean of black, swirling around me and within me.

James was dead. And that's why I was. And I wanted to be. I didn't want to find a way back to my life, to that damned world. I didn't want to be in a world without him. I didn't want to help a world that had killed him, to help a Heaven that had let him die. Everything he had done was for that Heaven. He had fought and suffered and bled for that Heaven, and they wouldn't even lift a finger to help in the end, to fight for their own fucking cause, the cause he had sacrificed everything for. I didn't want to be their hero, their savior, not anymore. They didn't deserve it. They could fight their own fucking battles now.

No, instead, I wanted to be the world's judgment. I wanted to see it all burn. I wanted to tear it down to the fucking ground and spit on its ruin, rip it apart with my bare hands in my grief, in my rage. I wanted to turn out the lights on the whole disgusting world, plunge it into darkness and shadows. Just as it had done to me, to James.

So I embraced the flames, over and over again, hoping the fire and my anger would burn me away into nothing.

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Hell wasn't hot like I expected it to be. Instead, ice encased me, bound me, trapped me. Maybe this was the cold touch of oblivion? Maybe that's all there was for me - no Hell, no punishment, certainly no Heaven, just cold, dark, nothing. I knew I deserved it. I had always only ever had one task, one purpose my entire life. And I had failed it. I had let down my family, the world. And not just let them down, my failure meant it would all burn. My failure meant my father would win, would rule. It meant my family would suffer unimaginably under him, if they even survived.

I hoped they weren't foolish enough to fight, to seek revenge for my death. I hoped they would escape and hide. Nevaeh would, and maybe she could convince Ailech and Kael too. I'm sure Malachi was already long gone, disappearing the moment I fell. And I didn't blame him. He had given us his allegiance for this one moment, one fight. That's all we had asked. And I had promised him he would be on the winning side. I had failed him too, yet again.

But Jordan - she wouldn't retreat, wouldn't hide. She would be reckless. She would want to die, embrace it, even. And that thought hurt more than the ice that overfilled and burst my veins, more than the searing cold or jagged numbness. That was the worst of my failures. That was what broke me.