Page 3 of Till Death

Anger spun inside me, mostly at myself for failing him.

The fear I saw on his face as he fell…it would haunt me forever.

I ducked as a winged Halfling swooped from overhead with a piercing scream. It distracted me for a millisecond too long because another next one leaped onto my back, slamming my face into the ground. Its massive weight pinned me down and was quickly cutting off the flow of oxygen to my lungs.

Gripping Bertha tighter, I tried to crawl out from under it, but a clawed foot stomped on my wrist. I screamed as the bones shattered and immeasurable pain rocketed up my arm. I couldn’t even move as the Halfling kicked my sword out of my hand. Her light flickered out as she popped out of existence.

Sharp needles stabbed into my calves followed by a rush of warmth and wetness. Blood.Myblood.

Again, I did all I could to buck the monster off my back and kicked out wildly to dislodge whatever was on my legs, but neither were giving up. I attempted to call on my power, but the pain in my wrist was stunting me. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

“Bertha!” I shouted against the pounding in my ears, but when the spot in front of my hand only sizzled and flashed, I knew I was in big trouble.

Heart hammering, I summoned my power again, felt it build at the center of my chest, but then petered out, unable to take form.

Another Halfling kicked me hard in the side with its clubbed foot. Sputtering and coughing, tears sprung to my eyes.

I’m going to die here.

With that thought, something inside me pulled inward, tugging at my very soul, before it exploded out in a burst of light and energy. My eyes burned—shit,everything burned—as I went from laying in complete darkness at the mercy of Hell creatures to being in an endless room of blinding white light.

Everything came to a sudden halt.

Then, nothing. Only vacuum silence and emptiness.

The Void.

I knew where I was—the place dead things go when they reached their end. Where all things ceased to exist. And that meant one of two things. Either I had really,reallydied this time, or…

“Jade.”

I peered up to see tiny sneakers standing a foot in front of my face. They definitely hadn’t been there a second ago.

I huffed and slowly pushed myself up to my knees. Lucky for me, all my broken bones, bruises, and wounds couldn’t hurt me here, but that relief was quickly overtaken by dread as I stared up at the little blond boy Hank still held the shape of.

He frowned at me as if disappointed to be seeing me again. And, of course, he would be—I was supposed to be fighting the apocalypse for him at this very moment as his chosen Archangel warrior or some shit.

Instead, I was here. Dead.

“You’re back so soon,” he said, his voice mimicking the child’s and successfully creeping me out just like the first time he’d shapeshifted in front of me.

Pushing to my feet, I rolled my wrist to find it completely mended, not even tender to touch. All the Halfling blood was gone too. My jeans, tank top, and boots were spotless.

Fresh as a newborn baby.

“I—uh—ran into a little trouble,” I said.

He shook his head. “I believe what you meant to say, Jade, was that you ran straight into a Hell pit.”

“You saw that, huh?”

He didn’t answer, only stared at me with disappointment lingering in his eyes.

“Ah, yeah, well, I had a good reason. Cole—”

“Jade,” he snapped, cutting me off. His disapproving gaze didn’t waver, and since it was coming from a child no older than six, it irked me even more. What happened to the smiley old hobo I’d met when I first came here?

Then again, during my last visit, we hadn’t really parted on the best of terms. I had called him a few not-so-nice names.

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