Don't You Come Crying When They're Rippin' Out Your Throats (Sequel to AsHollow)

15 - Look What You've Done You've Lost It

We were completely surrounded, and there was no clear way of getting out of this without fighting for our lives. The only clear thought I had was that The Cardinal wouldn't have these guys kill us - that would take all the fun away for him later, that just meant that we had to survive as long as we could out here. I looked around the bodies surrounding us - just seeing if any of them could be The Cardinal and trying to work it out from just looking at how they were standing, or any little nervous ticks that were happening, but nothing. He was definitely not here.

It made sense that the peace and quiet that was all over the forest wouldn't last - as if we were that lucky in life.

"You took ages to show yourselves again, thought we would have to come into that little hut and smoke you all out," the voice came again, this time coming from a man who was walking through the sea of Heartatack towards us, "The Cardinal doesn't like to be kept waiting, you should all know that."

"Gilbecc," Luke growled, drawing a pistol from his pack.

"Ah, ah, ah," he said, all the Heartatack moving forward and letting out low growls, "I wouldn't do that - they'd all be on you within a second, you wouldn't even have time to pull the trigger."

It looked like Luke had seen sense - there was no way he could take on all of them alone, so he let out another small growl and pocketed the weapon, glaring at them all.

"Now, The Cardinal would like me to extend an invitation for you all to join us."

"As if," Barrone scoffed, fingering the dagger that was strapped to his belt lightly, ready to draw it at any moment.

Gilbecc's featured suddenly darkened, "It would be wise of you to come along with us. No other boys need to go missing from Grandomina for you to listen to him, do they? I know how much the families are hurting... I'd hate to see their faces when the mutilated body of their children turn up."

"You bastard!" I snarled, stepping forward, "What do the children have to do with anything that's going on here! They're innocent!"

He grinned and let out a loud laugh that bounced off of all the trees, "Innocent?! No, not quite. Well, not the ones that we've recruited. You've even killed a few of them when they came to attack you - but you wouldn't have recognised them, they were after all hidden beneath masks and black suits. A little blackmail and threatening does the trick, then you can get the boys to do whatever you want them to. Even more if you have other brothers of them - little bit of torture goes a long way, boys."

I felt my face go pale but the anger inside of me stayed boiling on the surface. It all made sense in a way that that was what The Cardinal had been doing with the boys, and why his forces had seemed to be growing bigger - he was kidnapping boys who's minds would be easily manipulated for himself. It was actually a rather clever idea, I hated to admit it and no matter how much I tried I knew The Cardinal was thinking more and more bolder. He knew what he wanted.

"You're all sick freaks," Kier spat, pulling out a gun and shooting the Heartatack that was edging close to him point blank.

He crumpled to the floor and all the others started screaming, all scrabbling over each other to try and get at us, but Gilbecc stopped them with a simple wave of his hand.

"Now, now boys... They have still to answer our question. Are you coming to meet The Cardinal?"

We all looked between each other, the answer was simple and easy to see in everyone's eyes. We would all rather die than have to face him again. But no one wanted to speak up, for we knew that if we did the Heartatack would be set upon us.

It was Drew who stepped forward and spoke, "No."

As the word left his mouth, he lifted his firearm and aimed at Gilbecc before shooting at him. He screamed and a hand went up to his shoulder, his shirt quickly becoming red with blood that was spurting out in all directions through his fingers. The Heartatack screamed once again and started running towards us. It was now or never. Everyone pulled out the weapons that they were carrying and the fight begun.