Age of Demons

Chapter 11 - Jace

Some days Jace remembered snippets from his past.

He had a hard time recalling everything before he was possessed. But some days they would come in a rush, almost blinding him. Snapshots of the world before it collapsed. Images of people he used to know but weren't there now.

The first memory he had about his possession was darkness, a slippery foreboding sensation. As if he was drowning in a pool of suffocating ink. There was something there in the depths, and if he reached out, he knew he'd feel it like the rough texture of a shark's skin, and he understood it was bad. He believed it was why he couldn't retain everything from before. Something had happened when he was first possessed, and now it was blocked behind a wall that oozed of dread.

Jace stood outside, breathing in the air as rain pelted his face. He was scavenging, doing his job, so he had to stay focused and on guard. But as he stared into the curtain of mist, the memory snuck up behind him and dragged him under.

Gray skies. Like smoke billowing in the air. A warm body pressed against his back. He glanced behind him at a woman with stress lining her face, shaded by dark brown hair. Beside them was a boy about his height and a smaller girl. The little girl had the same hair as the woman, and when she turned around to look at him, eyes as light as icicles pierced the gloominess.

A fire burned in the pit of his stomach.

He stood in a line that snaked to a building they demanded entry for. Men with guns were stationed at the entrance. There was a sense of paranoia—a sour stench coating the bodies that stood in line before him.

He hated them all. He hated the men wielding the guns, as if for their protection, but he had his own sense of doubt. He hated the people they were in line waiting with. He hated that the world was ending. An urge inside swallowed him whole, pushing against his lips to roar, to scream, to punch something. But—

The little girl's scream pierced the air. She stared off in the distance, her dark hair whipping wildly in the wind, blue eyes enlarged. He scrutinized what was behind them. More screams fell like hail. Bullets peppered and tore at the air. He knew it was too late, and he let out all his anger and hate as an echo to the first shrieks surrounding them.

Out of the screaming and gunshots and inhuman cries, he heard one voice above the rest. The woman behind him stared at him in horror, clutching his shirt in desperation, terror contorting her face as she screamed his name. And then nothingness.

In an instant, he was back in the present.

His hair stuck to his forehead as drops of water ran like tiny streams down his face. His clothes were plastered to his body, and he felt ten pounds heavier from the extra coat of rain soaking every inch of him.

He shook off the haunting memory and squinted through the sheet of rain at the large building. It was nearly as big as the safe house.

The man at the head of the group waved everyone forward. His name was Warren, and he was the oldest, his hair beginning to gray. He had been a scavenger for nearly six years. There were only two others beside him, Trevor and Julian. They were new, this being the second time they'd enrolled on. Most scavengers didn't survive. They made up Group C. Joel had three different groups of scavengers, and Jace's was the group where the newbies were recruited in.

Jace had been made a scavenger when he turned eighteen. It was more random selection than anything. But he didn't mind. He knew he couldn't be repossessed. He was more protected than the rest of them.