Bad Influence (Seven Deadly Sins #2) ✅ Completed

Chapter Twenty: Dreams Unbound

Dreams Unbound

  

Chase was fishing off the dock, his six year old feet swinging low but not so low they actually touched the water. It would be at least seven years before he hit the growth spurt that would put him around six feet tall and eye to eye with his dad.

This tiny dock was one of his favorite places in the whole world and fishing with his dad was the best. They’d make ham and cheese sandwiches and packed them in their old cooler alongside cold cans of Coke and Diet Mountain Dew. Chase didn’t care for the diet stuff, but his dad never drank regular soda anymore. Whenever they fished with Brady and his dad there were always a few beers in the cooler next to the soda but not today.

Today they were all alone.

His dad sat next to him now, drinking one of his cans of Diet Dew and helping him with his line. Chase didn’t mind. He wanted to show he could do it all by himself but sometimes his line got tangled and he didn’t want to snap it. His dad would shake his head a little and laugh, putting his own fishing rod down to help him out. He never once complained. He’d just take Chase’s fishing pole and help him untangle the line from the reel or help him get unhooked from the occasional piece of driftwood in the lake. Chase knew from the old stories dad told about fishing when he was kid that his own dad hadn’t been so patient or helpful to him. It wouldn’t be until much later that he’d learn a lot of his dad’s patience and good nature came from his decision to be a better father than he ever had.

For now Chase just enjoyed the help and beamed whenever his dad ruffled his hair anytime he managed to catch something. Usually it was just a few small crappie but they might as well have been big old catfish or huge bass as far as his dad was concerned. Every catch earned Chase a pat on the shoulder and a big to-do about being the next Bassmaster (whatever that was).

Now his line twitched in his small hand – a sure sign he’d caught another one. Chase turned to his dad excitedly, but the figure staring down at him wasn’t his dad any more.

It was the boogey man.  

The boogey man smiled, his eyes glowing a fire engine red as Chase’s grin turned into a mask of horror.

He drew in a deep breath to scream.

 

*~*~*

Dante was staring out at the smoldering battlefield. There was nothing “great” about this war. It was bloody and painful and bordered on the cruel. He never got involved in the affairs of man but this war was different. It had offered him a chance to escape his enslavement.

Being Celeste’s errand boy was an exercise in both futility and madness – every year she was turning more and more into Asher’s creature. He could no longer glimpse the young, vibrant soul she’d once possessed. As a girl, her soul had shined like a bright flame in the middle of a dark cavern, but now it was twisted and black and resembled something that had crawled out of the pit alongside his brother. The Celeste he’d grown to care for so many years ago was long gone.

The Great War was a respite from his existence. Technically, strife and war were a part of his father’s dominion. Every war torn country, battlefield or ravaged frontline was a slice of darkness coated in blood, but what Celeste didn’t know was that it was also where Chaos made his home. Being anywhere near Chaos would weaken any binding – even Asher’s. He’d waited for the opportunity to enlist while Celeste was out of town and before she knew what was happening he was on a boat headed for Saint Nazaire, part of the first wave of American troops to join the Allied fight during the summer of 1917.