Soundtrack: Panic Switch - Silversun Pickups
THE TOUCH OF THE DARKNESS
Sweat drops trickled down the side of Drakes forehead.
Fucking Howard had given away his place of hiding behind Sams burnt hole in the wall at the power plant. Caine was going to kill him for pulling the trigger before Jack gave him the signal. The sociopath had already threatened him quite a lot ever since he got back to normal - although the definition of that phrase was exposed to quite different circumstances at the moment - and he didn't feel like being thrown into any more walls at the moment.
The lack of food and water was getting to him for real now and the only thing making him still able to do his job was thanks to the adrenaline pumping along his veins at the sound of yet another gunshot coming from his machine gun.
He fired again in the direction of Dekka, and a wheel came flying at him bringing him to the ground with unbelievable force. The air was knocked out of his lunges and he coughed painfully as he got back onto his feet.
Through the hole, he could see Edilio and Sam emerging from an SUV, running towards Dekka to aid her needs and he knew that the time was closing in. He hoped for his own sake that Jack had gotten the fuel rod ready and that the other three Coates kids where running off already; because Orcs clenched fist appeared in his vision, his stony knuckles closing the distance with Drakes face missing by mere inches and Drake could do nothing but to fire blindly and run.
Lana was changing. In and out of her own body, hardly able to processed any of what was happening and or what had happened during the past 12 hours. She had briefly attempted to fall asleep only to be woken by the Darkness and not before long, the rest of her restless night had been spent in a car with Albert, Cookie and Quinn.
Quinn.
She hadn't wanted him to come. It would only make it harder for her to get to the mineshaft without being followed, yet she had somehow managed to fool both him and Albert, only bringing Cookie along simply because he was as loyal - and dumb - as a dog.
Wasn't Quinn loyal, though? He had always been nice to her, and a part of her thought that if she had commanded him to wait for her at the top of the mineshaft, he would. Yet she kept asking herself wether he would do so because he trusted her when it came to making her own decisions, or because he was still dreading the thought of being hurt.
She shook the thought out of her head. It wasn't the first time she had been having second thoughts about Quinn. Questioning his loyalty, his trust, his supposed bravery. She hated herself for thinking that way. He had been nothing but a friend to her since day one. A shoulder to cry on if she needed, though she had never given in to that temptation.
Not in front of him, anyways.
But what would he do, when he realized that the girl he had been spending his previous three months on befriending was not only anxiously paranoid and isolated from society, but straight out unstable with a commanding voice filling her head at all costs, torturing her despite her will to fight back.
She closed her eyes, letting the stabbing knives against her brain ease the slightest as she opened to the pain. The flickering image of poisonous hands reached out to her now, the same way they did whenever she closed her eyes to greet the chilling darkness that surrounded The Darkness.
He wouldn't stick with her then, would he? He'd think she was schizophrenic, that's what he would think. And would he be as interested in staying by her side then?
Would Cookie?
She shook her head again, but the thoughts clung to her as if they were carved into the brain tissue of her Limbic System. The only ones that could possibly stick to her when she turned completely insane would be those who were harmed as badly as she was and that still stayed to fight.
Drake.
The only one who could possibly more off track then herself. He seemed willing to stick with her, yet maybe not. What had been going on between the two of them had lasted only a week. It had been three months since they saw each other last. What was taking him so long? She couldn't possibly mean anything to him anymore. She hadn't known him before the FAYZ, met him mere hours before he kissed her for the first time.
For all she knew, he could be off with another girl, a Coates girl who had been sent there due to her sadistic tendencies. For all she knew, it might be his seventh girl since her. For all she knew, he wasn't just an insane sadist, but a very experienced player. He wouldn't be coming for her.
And she should be feeling relief, but it was impossible when his face kept appearing inside her head whenever her thoughts faltered. When she could almost feel his touch as she lied in bed by herself. When she fantasized about him being on the other side of the hotel door everyday Quinn came knocking at it.
She hated herself for thinking like this. It made her feel weak, drained, almost dead inside. There was enough to deal with, just having the Darkness keeping her mind held hostage. Daydreaming about a psychopath wasn't really an issue she felt like adding to the list of things she needed to rearrange in her life.
Stubbornly, she continued down the mineshaft, glaring daggers at the emptiness before her.
'Is this what you want?!' she yelled into the void, stopping in her tracks. Her voice echoed, slowly decreasing for each repeat, yet there was no reply. 'For me to loose my sanity, my friends, my sense of rationality! For me to spend my life obsessing over a psychopath who will never be civilized enough, sane enough to even treat me like a proper human being?'
Come to me...
She continued walking.
I'll take care of Sam.
That's what he had told Caine. That's what he'd convinced himself of. He'd take care of Sam, and then he'd come for Caine. He'd take the sociopath down, once and for all, and then... Then he'd be the only one left in control.
He'd show them, he'd show them all that he didn't need a power to take down either of the powerful twins. He didn't need a power to take control of the town. He didn't need a power to be the one everyone feared in the end.
Sam had feared his psychotic mind enough to finally give in. Out of fear that Drake would actually let everyone inside of the dome die from radiation, he had given himself up for Drake to torment. It was a good choice. Drake didn't doubt that he was sick, yet he still didn't really want to die. Especially at the hands of Sam, who had attempted to burn off his arm, causing utter humiliation and misery.
No, this was definitely much better.
His unsettling laugh harmonized with the blaring gunshots of his pistol, Sams agonizing shrieks and the roaring siren in an orchestra of hysteria. It was a show of madness and Drake couldn't possibly enjoy it more. Not until...
'Hey, Drake,' Brianna said. 'I heard about your idea for cutting me up with wire. Clever.'
Sam was still on the ground, sobbing at the pain of his blown flesh, bullets and blood covering his every limb. Only a foot away from the deeply damaged body, laid Drakes pistol, held in the dead grip of what used to be Drakes right arm.
He was about to collapse on the ground as well, screaming out in pain and terror, but no. Instead he let go of the remote, he turned, and he ran.
Lana closed her eyes. Tried to shut the nightmares out of her head. But they weren't nightmares; they were memories. The sight of Edilios body collapsing before her was set on replay. She drew her legs up to her chest and rested her back against the solid stones of the shaft.
Come to me...
'But I'm already here.' she mumbled in a soft whisper, seeing the green light of her master through her watery eyes. The monster only laughed hurriedly at her and replied with the trademark voice that'd haunt her forever.
Hungry in the dark...
She shuddered.
Drake climbed the hill in a hurry and stumbled across the road in the direction of where the mutilated Escalade was parked. Caine alongside Diana and Jack had all been waiting for him there for the past minutes. Diana was the one to notice his presence closing in, and she was just about to send him a snarky comment, when her eyes fell to something in his hand. Or at least where his hand was supposed to be.
'What the hell happened to you?' Diana asked, making both Jack and Caine turn their attention towards the retreating psychopath.
The two other boys noticed as well and Jack couldn't help but gasp at the sight of Drakes bloody elbow. Even Caine was having a hard time keeping his face straight when Drake closed the gap between him and his allies and they saw that his arm had been chopped off just above the shoulder.
He didn't answer, only let out one single, human sob, before picking himself together and getting into the car.
'So much for taking care of Sam,' Diana mumbled when everyone were seated and they had driven off in the direction of the mineshaft.
'I did take care of him,' Drake snapped back at her. He looked paler then usual, blood staining the right side of his t-shirt now. 'I shot him to the bone. Many times. He's done for.'
'Then how did you get all...?' Diana asked, gesturing with her hand at the bloody mess that was left of Drakes arm. It looked like a rag doll, that had been attached to the back of the mutilated Escalade the day it was made, and he'd been dragged around it ever since whenever someone drove it.
'Brianna.' Drake choked on the name, his voice a low and wiggly mutter. No one were sure if it was because of the pain of the open wound, the shock of the sudden turn of events, or the rapid rush of fury that seemed to spread across him when he realized that he had just lost a limb. No one bothered asking.
Hadn't it been for Drakes sky high superiority and distraction, he might have bothered showing the slightest sign of appreciation towards Caine as he tore off a strip off his shirt and wrapped it around the still bleeding limb. Caine couldn't care less about Drake, but he knew that the psychopath was one of a kind in his own twisted, demented way, and he wouldn't let that go to waste. Not until Drake decided to go up against him.
Drake turned his head to take a look at what was left of his arm for only a second and he felt ashamed by the pain surging through him, the sudden urge to cry rushing through his head. It had been his right arm, the same one he had always used when he was shooting with a gun, the same one that had been roasted three months earlier by Sam, the same one that Diana was going to saw off, the same one that Lana healed for him.
That time he had cried. Even as Lana healed him, he had cried because the pain was unbearable and even beneath her cool, relaxing touch, he felt himself tense up because the pain was still there. Even as she healed an inch of skin and 5 percent, 10 percent of the pain subsided; it was still there, and it was killing him.
This time he wasn't going to cry, though. This time it was manageable, he had suffered way worse before. He'd live. Yet the whole atmosphere was sucked down into a pit in hell as they drove off in the direction of the mineshaft.
'Lana'll heal it for you, Drake.' Caine stated almost reassuringly, as if Drake had been saying his thoughts out loud.
He looked up, interested now. Not just because he'd see Lana again, or that he might get his hand back. This was the first time any of them had mentioned her in front of him over the past three months. The few people that knew of his short interference with her were stupid, yes, yet their idiocy failed them when it came to wether or not they should bring the topic of the girl up.
Caine had said it, of course. The person who could hold him back with his stupid powers.
The pain surging through him from his lost limb, blood loss and the mention of her name was all to much, and the only reply he was able to muster was the slightest stiff nod as they continued on their way to the mineshaft to feed the Gaiaphage.
I'm sorry that this was such a hurried chapter, but I'm tired of basically writing the same as what is said in the book and I kind of just want to skip to my own part, which if I remember correctly starts off in the next chapter, maybe in two. Not sure.
Anyhow, thanks to Kei-Kat and IsaBELLa for reviewing!
In the next chapter, Lana and Drake will be reunited again. I'll try and update right away, so make sure to come with a motivating review as well for me to go through with it! ;)