Author's note: Sorry I've taken so long posting. This has been a tough chapter for me to write. Mostly because I was crying through most of it. I'm sorry to inform all of you that thought that last chapter's ending left you hanging. This chapter will probably put that one to shame. REVIEW PLEASE! Constructive criticism is great!
Disclaimer: I do not own Fablehaven. I do own a copy of all the Fablehaven books, the entire Beyonders series, Candy Shop War, (the 5th Fablehaven and 1st Beyonders is signed :) Several drawings of fan art drawn by yours truly, a Facebook page for a movie, my little cousin's old fairy wings from Halloween, and a homemade quarter communicator. (Quarter. Hairspray. Glitter. Ta da!) Does that amount to anything?
Kendra tried not to cry as the boy she had cared for and trusted maliciously mocked her as she lay helpless on the cold, wet, earth. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to escape the torment. She figured out a long time ago that she could not wake herself up, but she was able to shield a small sliver of herself. Her own little sanctuary in herself. A place where no one but her could reach.
In her little room, all her happy memories hid out of the reach of Navarog. Her favorite memories included first sampling the milk and finding herself surrounded by mystical fairies; Kneeling at the fairy queen's shrine, telepathically speaking mind to mind; Meeting Patton; Becoming a Knight of Dawn; She and Seth pranking their grandparents by shattering a fake unicorn horn from a gift shop; Rescuing Warren from the knapsack; Finding out that her Grandma Larsen was alive; Meeting Bracken; and perhaps her favorites of them all, watching fairies all around Bracken, vying for attention and knowing that he was listening to all she had to say; standing with Bracken underneath their gazebo, telling him that she was thinking of becoming an eternal, and lastly, sitting beside him as he held her hand intently. "Vanessa wasn't wrong."
Kendra could never stay there long. She was forced back into the nightmare when she felt a steel tipped boot rack her side. She cried out as she felt her adamant shirt's buckle break. If one more buckle snapped, her shirt of mail underneath her light green jacket would become almost useless, unable to stay in place to protect her vital organs. Tears streamed down her face in a cascade. Kendra looked up at the devilish face above her. Her eyes flickered beside her at the antique stick meant to call for rain. She knew there was plenty of rain, huge droplets splattered as it hit the unpaved trail. Kendra was considering the stick for a different purpose.
"Ha! You really are naive. To think of hurting me in a mortal state is daring, but in your own subconscious?" His tone was cruel as he mocked. "Oh! And you still hope? No puny fairy dragon will eat me this time!"
Kendra froze. Raxtus wasn't coming. She mentally hit herself for not knowing. The astrids should have come by now and the only reason they wouldn't was if...
She stared at her old friend. Realization slowly kicked in.
Navarog laughed in a way that Gavin would never let escape his lips. It was a dark maniacal laugh. "You finally catch on. It's just you and me this time. You and me."
Suddenly her head spun in pain. It seemed as a battering ram was trying to knock her down. Trying to knock down the walls to her room. To her sanctuary. In a panic she fought the intruder mentally. It seemed to slow the process by a bit but the intruder was persistent. Kendra tried to read their mind to find out what they were trying to do.
Instead she found who. The intruder was desperate and when she tried to listen, she heard a pained voice. "Let me in." a familiar voice asked. "Please, Kendra, let me in."
A wave of relief washed over Kendra. Weak from her efforts to read her friend, Kendra let her head drop. Navarog didn't hesitate to meet her lowered head with his heel. She didn't feel the blow as much as she felt the surge of emotion from her sanctuary's visitor.
"Don't. You. Dare." Kendra heard Bracken's voice in a furious whisper.
Kendra finally felt safe. True, she knew that the demon prince was before her, torturing her within her own mind; but she also knew that she had someone she could trust right there with her. Hopeful, she looked behind her, searching for Bracken's familiar face. There was none to be found.
She felt her face fall in disappointment. She was going insane! She just knew it. Making up a voice in her head to feel less alone. That's something that would throw her into an insane asylum. An old memory, nearly forgotten fluttered in her head. A playful mocking directed at her little brother. "All boys belong in insane asylums." Kendra laughed.
Above her, Navarog's brow was contorted in confusion. He had been torturing her for hours. He had taken all slivers of hope. He had reminded her of all the lives of loved ones he had taken. And the girl was laughing. Kendra was sure she was an odd sight. A young girl, soaking wet, with bruises and scrapes al over, her whole body conversing in shivers, laughing cheerfully. The thought made her laugh more. Tears streamed down her face in pain. Her ribcage was surely broken and Kendra was no doctor, but laughing with her injuries was not the best idea she's ever had. Kendra weakly stood up and grabbed the staff, instantly reliving when she revealed a first horn after Seth stumbled and broke the glass one, nearly giving Coulter a heart attack.
She swung the stick smoothly at Navarog's head, remembering baseball with her brother, the satyrs, Mendigo, and Hugo. Startled, Gavin dodged the blow. He looked surprised at Kendra's new ferocity. An entire wave of memories inspired her to keep swinging at stabbing at the monster in front of her. Kendra pieced together as she effortlessly evaded professional counter attacks, that she was not seeing these memories. Bracken was. He was able to enter her sanctuary and was exploring her secrets.
Suddenly nervous and scared, her form got sloppy, thankfully Navarog's was going downhill as well. In a quickened pace, she kicked Gavin to the ground and pointed her simple stick at his neck. She placed a single boot on his chest, pinning him down. She bent over and slid his own sword out of his sheath and traded the stick in her hands to the rustic sword. Navarog's eyes grew wide in fear. "Now, Kendra... let's not be rash..." Kendra was in a hurry. She hid away some of these memories for a reason. Mainly to keep Bracken from seeing the final few. What whould he think of her after seeing them? Would he think she was just another fanatic fairy that longed for him every second of the day? Or as a weak little girl who finds fairies when she was thirteen and thinks they're the most unbelievable things she'd ever seen before?
Kendra stared at the boy beneath her foot ready to separate his head from body. But she thought of Lena. Lena had died and Kendra was devastated. She knew what there would be none to mourn over Gavin Rose, traitorous murderer.
"He will not die if you kill him. You will. You would survive, but all your innocence and care will die with him. You will be mourned if he dies by your hands." Bracken's voice called desperately. "Everything that defines you will be lost. Everything that I love about you will die, with an empty girl, desperate to change her past in your place. Please. Please for me. You don't have to face this alone. I will always be here to help you."
"You. STAY. If you move an inch, you know what's coming to you." Kendra said, her voice cracking with new tears staining her face. She willed herself back into her sanctuary where Bracken waited.
"You- you heard me?" Bracken stammered. Kendra's eyes welled up. "I didn't kill him." She whispered almost inaudibly. Bracken waited silently. "It's been more than a year since Wymroost and all I wanted was to kill Gavin myself, to see the fear in his eyes, to keep him from betraying me." She continued.
Bracken's eyes widened. "Kendra... where are you going with this?" He said quietly, cautiously stepping closer.
Kendra looked up, all menace from her eyes melting. "I wanted to hurt him. To hurt him like he hurt me... Until I met you." Bracken smiled in relief.
He opened his arms, reaching for her to share an embrace. Kendra smiled and followed suit. Just before reaching him, Kendra shrieked in pain. Everything blurred as she clutched her chest, feeling warm liquid between her fingers. A blur ran up to her clutching her shoulders shouting, "Kendra! What's wrong? What's happened?"
Kendra gently lifted her hands from her chest, blood starting to bleed through her shirt. Kendra took a desperate breath, realizing that she was hopeless. She knew her body's limits. She had bent around that line before, but she knew all to well that she had overstepped. Her sanctuary's walls spun around her as she fell back into the trenches mouth, back into the thundering storm, back to find the stuttering wonder with new blood dripping down his sword. Kendra's own blood.
CLIFFHANGER! DUH DUH DUH!
