Tales of a Shifter (P5) The White Mountain

Chapter 16 - Fault/ Guilt

Chapter 16 – Fault Over Guilt

Brandon didn't remember much after everything went dark.

Some small sensations trickled across his mind. The feeling of movement and of long warm arms cradling him. And Pain. Something worse than the hunger of the Flame, but far less pointed. This pain spread all around his body, his soul. He felt like something deep inside of him had been beaten with a rod. For a week.

Wards. Brandon knew this feeling the second it settled over him. The feeling of having every ounce of his strength and his will broken in two. It was utterly frightening that his father and now the other alchemists' had exercised this total dominion over him.

Brandon fought to stand up but everything was second to the Wards. The hot Alchemy that had been placed inside of him lashed his strength and senses leaving him barely functioning. The Flame...the Flame seemed to have been smothered by it.

Brandon was sickened by his own ignorance and inability to turn away from the pain that their Alchemy had induced in every inch of his soul....the Flame was a useless cinder barely burning inside. Its powers well beyond his reach....and even if Brandon could reach out he knew he couldn't control the Flame in any real capacity.

The horrible events that had just transpired....the loss he had suffered, it all left him spinning.

For one second Brandon held onto a grain of hope...Hope that he could get to Ezekiel. That he could somehow save the Guardian and bring him back from his injuries.

But hope crumbled like his heart as the hot pulse of Ezekiel's life faded away inside of him...and all Brandon could feel or sense was the harsh acidic burn of the Alchemy in the air and in his core tearing him apart.

Now it was too late. Ezekiel was dead.

Ezekiel was gone.....and Brandon knew that not even his strange power could revive the dead. The second his lover slipped away....Brandon knew it was over.

In the confusion and pain and helplessness Brandon struggled to find reason. He struggled to understand just how his world had been dismembered. But with two little words Brandon was rooted in the stark reality that.....there was no reason in this place. In this hell.

"Lil One...?" Came Jacobs's soft voice from somewhere above, igniting nothing but sorrow and disgust as Brandon realized that it was the Lion that had him in his arms. The Lion that had just taken everything from him.

Somehow Brandon lifted his weary eyelids and with a small shock his eyes connected with the bright yellow glare of the Shifter...and the fresh streaks of blood that painted Jacobs face sent a sickening jolt to Brandon's heart.

Ezekiels blood.

Words started to pour out of Brandon's mouth faster than he could breathe. Most of it was useless pleas for Ezekiel. But Brandon didn't know what he blubbered at the man....he couldn't really think without wanting to break apart...and in the end nothing he said seemed to matter to Jacob.

Emotionless yellow eyes broke contact and a moment later Jacob just placed a silent kiss to his forehead. Brandon wanted to rip out his heart, but he didn't even have the strength to pull away from the Shifter. And a moment later Jacob was moving.

In a mental funnel comprised of hollow confusion, Brandon was powerless to do anything but be totted forwards deeper into the unknown, but horrifyingly familiar home that he had escaped only a few years ago. The Base.

Featureless white walls and multiple glass doorways flashed across Brandon's waning consciousness as darkness and awareness fought for supremacy in his mind.