Don't You Come Crying When They're Rippin' Out Your Throats (Sequel to AsHollow)

18 - The Boy's Say It's Fear

We had been looking around the city and in the forest for three days now, but there was still no sign of Laurence anywhere. In fact the whole of Grandomina had been quiet, no sign of any Heartatacks or bandits roaming around, not even The Cardinal had made an appearance.

I wasn't going to lie by saying that the whole thing and the whole atmosphere of the city was making me slightly on edge, a little tense when I moved from street to street. And the fact that I knew The Cardinal was somewhere, probably watching our every move, made it even worse. I didn't like knowing, or thinking, that he was looming over us and laughing as we failed to get anywhere without Laurence. I couldn't even bring myself to think about what he was going through right now because I was scared that I might start crying, and I didn't want that - not right now.

It was clear that some of the people in the group were becoming a little disheartened by the whole thing, thinking that there was no hope in keeping on trying. Some of them were clearly thinking that he was gone, that The Cardinal had murdered and left him somewhere for someone else to find and deal with in some other way, that he didn't care because he had had his revenge on Laurence and that was that.

But I knew that he wasn't really dead. It wouldn't make any sense for The Cardinal to kill Laurence then just leave him somewhere. No, he would make sure that all of Grandomina knew about it and he would gloat like there was no tomorrow. There would be no stopping him and he would rule the city without anyone trying to stop him... Not without Laurence leading anyone to fight like last time, people would be too scared for their lives.

I wasn’t sure where as I was going as I walked through the streets, looking for any sign of where Laurence could be being held but so far nothing was standing out and the whole place still looked as baron and bleak as the other hundred or so times that I walked down it, still looking for the same things. I wasn’t having much luck, and just like the others in the group I was starting to lose faith a little bit in if I would even ever find him.

We had decided to split up into groups so that we could cover more things together – half of the team went looking for Laurence and the other half all sat down and tried to plan out what The Cardinal might be planning and if there was any way that we could try and prepare ourselves for what was to come. So far we had come up empty handed all over the place.

I guess it was working, but so far I hadn't heard from any of the other half which I didn't know if that was a good or bad thing, but seeing as I was feeling optimistic I would take it as a good thing until I was told otherwise.

People in Grandomina were being a little on edge, with good reason I suppose since their children were still going missing and people were being murdered more and more frequently now, and some were avoiding us - whether or not they thought that we were bad luck or not I didn't know - Hell, even I was thinking that we just had an aura of bad luck swarming over us. As I turned to walk down another street a woman who was outside sweeping looked up at me, glared then hurried back inside, slamming the door as I walked down. Guess I wasn’t welcome here.

“Kier!” I turned round to see Drew and Barrone jogging up to me, but they didn’t look very hopeful either.

I sighed, “Anything?”

Both of them shook their heads, “Not to do with Laurence or Gilbecc-“ Barrone started.

“God damn it!” I said, turning away again.

“BUT,” Drew continued from where his boyfriend had left off and reaching out to grab my arm before I stormed off once again, “We did find some Heartatacks and we took a note of where they were heading when we left.”

I spun back round, pulling my arm from his as my eyes went wide at the fact that we could have potentially found where they were keeping Laurence or at least those inside would know if he wasn’t there. News travelled fast between those parasites, they would let something go.