Page 98 of Walking in Darkness
It was a flicker at first. So slight that I wasn’t sure for one second before it was there—the light.
It resurfaced within me and quickly began to glow. It seemed to gather strength as fast as the Kruen spun around the men.
The circle of men edged closer as the darkened clouds opened above us.
Lightning crackled, and I swore I caught a glimpse of Faydor.
More Kruen were taking shape, their monstrous forms dripping down from the blackened heavens as if they could reach out and control what happened below.
I was punched by incredulity.
By shock.
It was almost the exact same picture as the one I’d seen that day in the library when Pax and I had first discovered the paintings byAbigail Watkins. One that she had painted of Kruen reaching down and devouring the innocent below.
One that I’d thought had been part of her imagination. A metaphor for the evils they cast into the world.
Had she seen it? Had she known what was to come? Did she sense the wickedness that had been borne in her husband?
Did she possess this energy that seemed to howl beneath it?
Expanding and deepening, becoming something beyond anything I’d ever felt before?
It trembled through me, shivers racking through my body as I tried to hold it in.
My hands burned with the need to do something.
This need intrinsic.
It seemed to feed off the contact.
Off Dani and Timothy.
But even more so, off Pax.
Spurred by the calamity that raged overhead.
And still, something told me to hold it.
Harness it.
Pax flinched as he gauged the men who inched closer. Every muscle in his body flexed with hinged restraint. Violence skated along the surface of his skin, sparks of volatility, and the gun he held in his left hand trembled.
“There’s no good left in them,” he muttered as if he were giving us a warning.
As if it needed to be said aloud.
A judgment.
A verdict.
A penalty.
“I have to do this.”
He started to lift his hand to fire when the force inside me became unbearable. When I could no longer keep it contained.
Before Pax could shoot, I ripped my hand from Pax’s and Dani’s.
