Page 80 of Grave Mistakes
Only a dozen demons separate us now.
I feel talons rake down my back, making me hiss and cry out in pain as I spin and poof the bastard demon who just flayed me. My cry must make Jerif aware that I’m still trying to get to him, because his head snaps in my direction. His flame-filled eyes are pissed, but there’s also something else there, and it steals my breath.
He’s scared.
Andsad.
I shake my head as I watch defeat take over his face. I never thought I’d see that expression on the asshole demon’s face, and it fuckinggutsme.
Terror shoves me closer to him, but no matter how hard I try, demons keep us apart.
“Run,” he tells me calmly again, and I can hear his deep tone cut through the noise all around me like a knife. “Youhaveto run, Warrior Princess. Don’t let me die for nothing.”
Tears pour out of my eyes. His face softens as it takes me in. For a moment, it’s just us. Separated by nothing but our own damn pride. I suddenly have so many fucking regrets that it chokes me.
“Jerif, please!” I shout, my voice hoarse as the plea crawls out of my throat. This can’t happen. It just can’t be this way. An hour ago, we were fine...we were all together. How did it all go so fucking wrong so quickly?
I try to fight against the loss and pain that wants to take root in my chest and tell my mind what it refuses to accept. I can’t save him, and that realization makes my heart shatter as violently as Iceman’s ice did.
I scream and slash out, begging Jerif to just hold on, but I watch as another black blade is shoved into his stomach, and Jerif buckles to his knees again.
“NO!” I scream, my voice begging the universe to stop the brutality, to give me my demon back. I’ve been robbed of too much already. How could the world be so cruel to give me this future? To dangle Jerif, Iceman, Crux, and Echo in front of me, just to rip them all away? It’s not fucking fair.
But try as I might, I can’t get to him.
Don’t let me die for nothing.
His begged request repeats in my mind as sobs tear out of my chest. On my next blink, Jerif is covered. I can’t see him anymore. The demons have completely overtaken him.
Agony rips me open. I thought I could save him. I really thought I’d somehow be able to get us out of this. I thought I could save the day like the heroines do in the stories.
I stare at the pressing mass of demons—a never-ending sea of devastation.
I was wrong. So utterly, heartbreakingly wrong.
I pivot, desolation bleeding out of me, and finally do what Jerif asked me to do so that he doesn’t die in vain.
I run.
22
Demons scream behind me as I sprint with everything I have left inside of me. I can practically feel their acidic breath on the back of my neck, but if I can just make it to Unus, if I can get through…
I shove any doubt away, because Ihaveto get through. This can’t all be for nothing.
I try to focus on my pounding steps as I run down the path, but Jerif’s eyes and the look on his face before he was overrun smash through my insides like a wrecking ball.
I hate myself for leaving him. I should have tried harder. I keep telling myself that, but as I run for my life down the passageway, there’s another part of me that knows there was nothing I could do. There were too many of them. Maybe I could’ve turned this around if I had abilities other than the scythe that’s still gripped in my hand, but I don’t. I was too afraid of Hell and of being a demon. Maybe if I had accepted things sooner...
Tears drip furiously down my cheeks.
Their deaths are my fault.
I run faster, completely losing track of which Ring level I’m at. “Get her!”
I glance over my shoulder at the net-toting demons, and fear spikes through me like a Richter scale going off.
Pushing faster, I keep running, slamming my scythe into the few that reach my side. I race all the way to the end of the corridor, skidding to a stop as a smooth, metallic-looking portal sits serenely in front of me.
