Falling Darkness: The second book in the Falling Awake Series

by T. A Richards Neville

  “Take a look at him, before I kill him,” Sabre said, shoving my face in Caleb’s direction. His fingers dug into the back of my head and Caleb watched me with cool eyes. He didn’t even flinch.

  “I want to show you something first.” Caleb stood up.

  “Consider it your last dying wish,” Sabre said sarcastically. A dark smile ripped into the side of Caleb’s mouth and he crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s outside, and if you don’t mind, I’d really like Pria to be there.”

  The first ever look of doubt I had seen, flitted over Sabre’s expression and the hard features in his face sharpened into a deep frown. “You go first. Pria comes with me.”

  Caleb nodded and walked past us out of the cabin. Sabre leaned over me to untie my wrists. “If he tries anything, you are dead. Remember that.”

  “What about the lance,” I asked, knowing he was never going to kill me before he got what he wanted.

  “Shut up,” he hissed. He was frustrated. The stench of it was all over his tense body and his voice was thick with it. He wasn’t his normal, self-absorbed self and it gave me a little bit of hope that Caleb had something that might be able to get me out of this.

  Caleb stood waiting in the drizzle of the unyielding fog. When Sabre stepped out of the cabin with the barrel of a gun pressed tightly to my head, Caleb’s eyes flicked down to me briefly before settling back on Sabre. Caleb had given Sabre one tiny reaction, but it was enough and I knew Sabre was smiling, again.

  “This guns just for effect,” he said, pressing it harder into the side of my head. I pressed my eyes closed, sucking in my howl of pain. “I can kill her with my bare hands. Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned Caleb. “But just in case you do, it’s loaded and I’ll shoot you last, after I slowly dissect this one, slowly right in front of your eyes that will be glued open so you don’t miss a moment of it. Understand?”

  Caleb said nothing and put his back to us.

  We walked around to the back of the cabin and Sabre sighed in irritation when there was nothing there but the forest. “What the fuck is this?” He shouted to Caleb. “Get the fuck back inside, now. I’ve had enough of this shit. MOVE,” he bellowed, removing the gun from my temple and shooting it up into the air. I ducked when the bullet escaped sending a thunderous explosion into the trees. Sabre marched me back around to the front of the cabin, this time with the gun pointed at the back of Caleb’s head. I knew he couldn’t kill Caleb, but he could wound him enough to put him out of action for a while. What was Caleb playing at, pulling something like that? He was wasting everybody’s time. Mellissa was out there, somewhere and she could be dead for all I knew. And he was pulling stupid crap like this? I didn’t understand it. I was scowling when Sabre shoved me back into the cabin with his hand wrapped around the top of my arm. The pain from my wrists was so bad, I could no longer feel anything from my shoulders, downwards.

  “Surprise,” Caleb said, who was already inside. His eyes were gleaming, and I looked behind him to see the witch doctor with a gag over his mouth, being held by Ressler. The witch doctor was supposed to be dead from the crushed cave and here he was, solid and here in the same room as me. Two ghosts back from the dead in one night.

  “There’s a knife, millimeters from puncturing his skin, so if you hurt Pria, your immortality is dead and so are you.” Ressler said calmly to Sabre.

  “I will kill her first,” Sabre threatened and the gun reappeared against the back of my head. “I will blow her brains out right now. Don’t you dare threaten me,” he roared. “You do not threaten me.”

  “What do you want with the lance?” Caleb asked him.

  The witch doctor whimpered and stumbled forwards. “Oops,” Ressler said. “My hand slipped.” He switched the blade to his other hand and wiped red blooded fingers over his jeans. “So the lance?” he said. “You were just about to tell us what you want with it before I accidently plunged this knife into your friend’s back, and almost killed him. And you.”

  I was glad I couldn’t see Sabre’s expression. They were pissing him off and I could very well be the one he takes his anger out on.

  “You are both fools,” Sabre said. “There will be hell on earth before you stop me.”

  “The lance?” Caleb said, stepping closer to us.

  “Do you have any idea what great power comes with the holy spear? It is the greatest mystery on earth, and the most overlooked and underestimated. I want the power that comes with it. There, happy?” Sabre snickered behind me. “You two know nothing.”

  “No one knows where the lance is,” Caleb said. “What makes you think Pria knows where to find it? She’s just a girl.”

  “Her mother knew. She was the keeper.”

  I pictured my mom with the black and gold spear, raising it high above her head and it shattering to pieces. I heard the footsteps charging through the Cape trail. She was being hunted for the lance, and now so was I. I might die for something I had no knowledge of. “I don’t know where it is,” I heard myself whisper. “I swear.”

  Caleb took another step closer. “Let her go and you won’t go back to hell. Not today at least. We both know it’s no fun down there. Not even for you.”

  The pressure of the gun eased itself and I didn’t waste any time in running forward, hitting Caleb’s chest. His arms came up around me and I took a breath of relief.

  I was still alive.

  “Leave now,” Caleb instructed. “The witch comes with us, until we are off this land.”

  “We will meet again,” Sabre said, and a chill seeped up from the floor, wrapping itself around me and I knew that he was doing it. He was trying to scare me, and it worked every time. I would always be afraid of him. “And next time, you will lose.”

  “Until then,” Caleb said, ushering Ressler forward. Ressler moved quickly with the knife still pressed against the Witch doctors skin and left the hut. Caleb moved with me still buried into his chest and we were outside. I never looked up, but I knew that Sabre hadn’t followed us. He knew better than that. As much as he wanted me for himself, he would never give up his own life for it. He wanted too much and he would never reap any benefits of his cruel deeds if he was dead.

  We moved quickly through the forest, the witch doctor being urged forward with the tip of Ressler’s blade. He walked surprisingly fast considering he was barefoot. The sky blackened overhead and thunder ripped free from the sky.

  “Sabre,” Caleb mumbled.

  A bolt of lightning lit up the forest, cracking loudly. A fir tree further ahead fell victim and a loud creaking and moaning sound filled my ears. It was going to drop down right in front of us. Caleb broke into a run, sweeping me up off my feet and bolted under the collapsing tree just before it crashed into the ground with a deafening thump behind us. An earth shattering roar bellowed through the storm and I pictured Sabre seething in the hut. He was going to make us pay for this. Of that, I was certain.

  Caleb broke out of the forest, right behind Ressler and the witch doctor and sped through the monsoon that was going on around us. The foggy and drizzly morning had turned into a battering from the heavens. When we rounded the corner, leaving the forest at a safe distance, we were on the marina and as we neared the docks I saw Sully’s boat suffering the attack from the heavy rain. I was surprised it could even stand it. The drops were so large and heavy they splashed holes into the sea every time one landed. Then I realized, we were leaving. We were leaving and we didn’t have Mellissa.

  “Wait,” I pleaded with Caleb. “Mellissa. We need to find Mellissa.” When Caleb didn’t answer me, just kept his head ducked against the onslaught of rain that had now turned into hale, I thumped on his chest, hard, crying out in pain. We stopped at one of the slips, and I could see the inn from here. What if she was still in there somewhere? We couldn’t just leave. “Caleb,” I screamed.

  We reached the boat, and the motor was already going, churning up the water. Just as it was about to pull away, Caleb jumped onto the ladder that
hung over the side and the next thing, Drake was grabbing hold of me from inside the boat.

  I was crying uncontrollably. “We can’t leave,” I said to him. I knew he would understand when no one else seemed to be listening. “Mellissa…”

  “She’s here,” he said, wrapping his jacket around me. “She was at the inn, unconscious on the balcony. But she’s gonna be okay.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “It’s a tiny head wound. Sabre just wanted you to think he had her, so he could get you.”

  I hung my head in relief that she was here, and the tears came thick and fast.

  “Hey come on,” Drake whispered in my ear. “She’s gonna be fine.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “If I never brought her here… this is all my fault.”

  “Save that for Caleb.” Drake smiled at me. “I’m gonna go check on Mellissa.

  I watched Caleb standing by the railing of the boat with Ressler. The Marina was nothing more than a tiny spec of land from here, we were going so fast, and right there, in front of me, Ressler hurled the witch doctor over the edge and into the thrashing waves. His pleas were heard by no one but us and he vanished under the rush of water that was spat out by the boat. I wasn’t sorry to see him go but my eyes widened in shock, anyway. Caleb turned in my direction. To say he didn’t look happy would be understatement of the year. Ressler, picking up on his foul mood, left us alone. I wondered how long we would stand out here on the deck staring each other down in the howling storm, when he came over to me and wrapped his arm around my waist, taking me downstairs and into a cramped lounge and kitchen area.

  Caleb banged around in a few overhead cupboards and pulled out a medical box. He carefully wrapped each of my wrists up in bandage while I sat there quietly gritting my teeth in pain.

  “By the time we’re back on the Island, these will have healed.”

  “Are they broken?” I asked, watching his reactions carefully.

  “More like crushed.” He tied up the end of the last bandage. “There.”

  I couldn’t take this dodging around what I had done any longer, I had to get it out there. “Caleb-”

  “Don’t apologize,” Caleb cut in. “It was my fault you were put in that situation. I pushed you away. I don’t blame you for what happened.”

  “I shouldn’t have dragged Mellissa into this.”

  “You probably shouldn’t have, no. But what’s done is done and all I really care about is that you’re alive.” Caleb started packing the medical kit away, locking it in the cupboard.

  “I’m not really sure I understand exactly what happened tonight,” I said to him. “The lance, the witch doctor. What’s going on?”

  “The witch doctor was the one who brought Sabre back to life. He was the one who made Sabre what he is in the first place.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “He sold his soul to the devil and through that he’s tied whatever soul Sabre had in him to himself, connecting them. The witch doctors dark powers are stronger and more evil in someone like Sabre who is stronger anyway because he is fallen and already rotten on the inside.”

  “But I thought they both died?”

  “Sabre did. No one hung around long enough to see what actually happened to the witch doctor. We thought he was dead, but looks like he managed to escape. He brought Sabre back. As long as he lives, so does Sabre.”

  “And we just let him live?” I asked in disbelief.

  “And so did you.”

  “He’s gonna come for me. Again and again until he gets what he wants.”

  “So we find it before he does.”

  “The lance?”

  Caleb shrugged. “Our only option.”

  “I sure as hell don’t know where to find any ancient relic, do you?” My voice was getting higher and higher from my agitation. Caleb was acting like this was no big deal, just an everyday puzzle to be solved and all we were missing was one tiny piece that had gotten lost in the box, somewhere.

  “We have no other choice. We have to find it before he does or there’s a good chance we’re all gonna be dead. I don’t know a hell of a lot about the lance, just stories. But if Sabre will be as powerful with it as he believes, then that’s something I’m not about to sit around and just let happen.”

  Sabre with more control and power than he already had was not something I wanted to see, either. The world wasn’t ready for him. He was an abomination and I dreaded to think how much worse he could possibly get. There was nothing else for us to do other than stop him. He was going to find me again, regardless, so it looked like I was all out of more appealing options. There was one thing that still didn’t make a lot of sense to me. “How did you connect the dots, Caleb? Sabre, the witch doctor?”

  “It wasn’t hard. I was on the reservation when I just happened to catch the witch doctor. I knew him being alive and there, where all this started was no coincidence, and I was right. He was practicing dark magic and then I got my answer when I followed him one night and he met up with Sabre. I knew then why Sabre is the way he is, and before I could get Leah and pull the witch doctor in, Sabre saw his opportunity to make his move on you.”

  Matoskah was right, Caleb had been on the reservation and without me.

  “But, I thought you were-”

  “Sleeping with Tamara every chance I got? “Because that was what I wanted everyone to think. With me pretty much out of the picture and with a solid alibi… that left you wide open. It was the only way to catch out whoever was after you.”

  “You were faking a relationship?”

  “Not at first. I was turning into an asshole, and Tamara had a slight appeal about her. Then the more time I spent around her, the more I realized I could use it to my advantage. She pretty much done everything I told her to, and I was free to find out what I needed to without anyone knowing I was there. I couldn’t see it at first, but then I could feel myself changing. It was the witch doctor. He turned all the feelings I had for you into a slow, burning hate. I know now it was so you would lose your protection, and so that was what I let them think. That I wasn’t around and didn’t care anymore.”

  I could feel my pulse pounding under my skin, forcing the blood angrily through my veins. This whole time, he had been making up an entire relationship. I was in pain over something that I didn’t even need to be.

  “You could have given me a heads up, Caleb.”

  “I tried.”

  “When?”

  “On the cape trail, I tried to explain and you just cut me off. You didn’t want to know and I thought, well, more believable this way. If even you’re in the dark, then no one can find out. It was the only way I could help you.”

  “By hurting me?” I wasn’t sure if I was crying or not. My skin was still soaked from the rain and I felt numb. “Did Drake and Ressler know this?”

  “They knew I was around. They didn’t know the truth about Tamara.” There wasn’t one thing about Caleb right now that told me he was in any way sorry for what he had done. Everything to him was a job and he just did what he had to do. It didn’t matter who he crushed to get it done. We were never, ever going to be on the same page and I was going to have to find some way of getting that through my stupid head.

  “So what now?” I was going to try and not turn this into an argument, and just get on with whatever had to be done.

  “We find the lance.”

  “Until then, I’m going to see Mellissa,” I said, scooting up out of the bench at the round, wooden table.

  “You should sleep,” Caleb suggested, stepping in my path. “You’ve been through a lot. The quicker you get your energy back, the quicker you can start to heal.”

  “I need to see my friend,” I said to him. He was right, as always. I was tired and sleep was screaming my name, but I had to see Mellissa for myself and make sure she was okay. “Get out of my way, please.”

  Caleb looked down at me. I was melting under his stare. His intense, misty green eyes were hypnoti
zing and I needed to look away. Look anywhere but at him. This was the wrong time to crumple and give into him. I had to be stronger than that. Eventually, he stepped aside and I rushed from the room as quickly as I could.

  I found Mellissa in the main bedroom, tucked under Drakes arm.

  “You’re awake,” I said, coming into the room. There was a desk lamp on and the room was cast in a grim, yellowish glow. Mellissa climbed out of the bed and ran over, throwing her arms around me. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said.

  “Sorry I can’t hug you back.” I looked down to my bandaged wrists.

  “Drake told me what happened.”

  “He did?” I looked over nervously at Drake. I didn’t think it was safe to tell her everything, but when he nodded, I said to Mellissa, “Everything?”

  “I know about Drake, and Caleb and Ressler. I know you’re in trouble. You should have told me.”

  “I was trying to keep you safe.” I laughed in irony. “Look how well that turned out, huh?”

  “I’m not going to force you spill every last secret, but I’m always going to be here for you.”

  “We didn’t want you involved,” I explained. “And now you’re hurt and it didn’t need to happen. This is not your fight.”

  “Your fight. My fight. Best friends. I’m sure it’s in a clause somewhere.”

  “You don’t know how hard this going to get.” There was a small bruise on her forehead along her hairline, and I didn’t ever want to see another mark on her because of me.

  “I’m fine as long as you are.” Mellissa rubbed her thumbs over my bandages. “Your hair is a mess. I’ve seen dogs tail’s look prettier.” I laughed as she brushed her fingers through my mangled locks.