The Fallen Ones

by Katelyn Campbell

CHAPTER 25

   

  Ephraim:

  The room around me is dark and cold, I wonder for a moment if this is the Oasis I have finally reached. Hundreds of years of roaming and death, all I wanted was peace and I wonder if this might be it. As the thought forms in my head I realize this can’t be peace, this can’t be death. My body is aching, I feel like I have been hit by a truck and then the realization of all that’s occurred hits me. I think of her desperate and lying on the ground while they do everything they can to violate her I scream and struggle to get up but then recognize the all too familiar burn of iron digging into my body holding me in place. I stop struggling for a moment and try to figure out where I am when I hear a small cry from another room “I never thought it would get this far. I know he didn’t mean any harm. I am so sorry, this is just who he is. I don’t think he can help it!” Alya. Her feeble protests and weakness disgust me. She’s defending me as though I am guilty to the murderers that she has aligned herself with. I listen as her voice comes closer “Come now, Alya. It’s not your fault. He is an abomination and we never should’ve allowed him to exist in the first place. It’s not even his fault who he is. It’s in his nature. Not many of our own kind are nearly as smart or as open to seeing the truth as you are…” at that I hear a door open and see the lights flick on.

  I am unsurprised when I look over and see Alya trailing in slowly behind Guinevere. I can barely hold back my disgust. My own sister won’t even look me in the face, a sure sign that she knows she screwed up. “Well, well! It looks as though sleeping beauty has awoken.” I refuse to respond to Guinevere’s jabs at me. I have gone on countless missions and spent years of my life in service to this traitor only to be held captive by her. There is water dripping down from the cold, dingy stones that make up the ceiling above me, I can tell that we are below ground by the smell of earth that overwhelms me. “Do you have nothing to say to your elder, boy?” I spit in her face. “You are nothing to me.” I yell at Guinevere but somehow can’t seem to peel my eyes off of my sisters face as the words slip out of my mouth. I see the tears welling up in her eyes and Guinevere catches it too. “I should probably leave you two alone, it looks like you have a lot to talk about.” She turns to leave the room and Alya grabs the back of her dress like the weak idiot she is. Guinevere brushes her off and continues to leave “He can’t hurt you now, Alya. Speak freely. He won’t be walking away from this one.” The door slams shut behind her.

  Alya remains with her back facing me for far longer than I would’ve thought and just as I think she is going to get up and walk out too. She turns around to face me, her body is trembling and tears are streaming down her face as she addresses me for the first time “Brother, I am so sorry to see you like this, I never wanted you to get caught in the crossfire! How could you just side with someone you don’t even know over our own elders?” I stifle a laugh, annoyed by the idiocy of all that she is saying “Our own elders, Alya? You mean the ones that came to the caves to exterminate an 18 year old girl who just so happens to be the first Nephilim we have seen in centuries?” she looks down at her hands as the tears fall and I continue “The same elders, that turned on Marcus, and placed him under lockdown, god-only knows where, because he wanted to throw a girl a party when she found the missing family of our original counsel? The same elders. That used Levi, me and apparently you, as their own personal slaves, answering every time they call, placing their comfort above our own happiness and health? How could I possibly have chosen to side with the strongest, least embittered Nephilim I have met in my entire life…”

  She wrings her hands and begins to speak barely above a whisper “Don’t you see, Ephraim?” she steps forward and brushes the hair out of my face, her touch disgusts me. “There is so much more to it than good and evil or who’s siding with who! Guinevere is trying to strengthen us, form allegiances where we never had any. Have you ever seen the demons answer to a Nephilim like that answered to her in that cave? I admit, it struck me as strange at first too. I didn’t like hearing of Marcus in prison or Ilyana being sacrificed. But, it’s all for the greater good!” I don’t even know how to respond to her, it’s as if she actually believes the words that are coming out of her mouth. “Ephraim, you were the one they sent to retrieve this girl, because all the destruction that was left in her wake, can you imagine how many thousands of lifes were lost because of who she is? Guinevere is simply trying to stop all that! I really wanted to be her friend, you know that. I was there for her, I tried to make her feel at home, but I always felt so uneasy around her and it was for good reason! She’s a murderer – you’re my brother, this is just as much about protecting you as it is about forming new alliances”

  I look at her and wonder if she can detect the hypocrisy in her own words like I can. “You are a coward and a hypocrite, Alya. I am no longer your brother and you will no longer address me as though you are my sister. We are not on the same side and you are dead wrong and have lost your mind if you seriously believe any of the words that just came out of your mouth.”