Age of Demons

Chapter 12 - Ashlyn

Deliverance Safe House

It was quite ironic, really. Clouds haunted the sky. The air was as green as sickness, the premonition of rain as heavy as the black clouds.

No, I'm not dying today. Jace has a plan, I kept reassuring myself. Yet he never specified what would happen. He told Ley and me to steal as much food as we could, which was a difficult task since we were being watched.

The next step, he said, was to wait.

"Wait for what?" I had asked.

Jace stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking a little sheepish. "I'm still working out some of the details, but it's all happening the day of the ceremony."

"But shouldn't you include us in the plans? Why do you have to come up with it on your own?" Ley had argued.

Jace had been quick to answer. "It's not just me. There's another, like us, Ashlyn. We've been planning this for a while."

Now, as I stood by the window, those words returned. "There's another, like us." His words taunted me. Just finding out about Jace had rocked my world. For years, I had believed myself to be the strange one, leading me to question if it really was my path to die for everyone there. But now there were two others like me? I couldn't quite believe it. Not to mention that I hadn't met this mysterious person yet. It had been a week and a half, and I'd only seen Jace once since our last conversation about the ceremony.

He was a scavenger, and Joel was sending them out like crazy. Carter was gone nearly every day too. We had already lost three people because if it.

As the days had counted down, the ceremony nearing, Joel unwound like bandages hiding the gaping wound underneath. The previous night, he was a skeleton as he raved about preparing for the ceremony. His cheeks had sunk in, giving his skin a grayer cast. Veins spidered his arms, stretching all the way up to wrap around his forehead. The whites of his eyes dominated his iris and pupil. It scared me, and I wondered how nobody else seemed to notice. When I had scanned around, mouths hung open. Many sobbed. Devotion oozed through the crowd by how they hung on his every word.

I closed my eyes. I could just picture standing on the stage. Would I be bound? Joel would be next to me, his large hand gripping my bicep, pinching it so hard he'd cut off my circulation. And in his other hand there would be a knife. Or a gun. I had no idea. I only knew that Joel was going to kill me and then poison everyone else. The people knew it, though, yet they still conceded.

Would he die with everyone too? Or was this one big ruse so he could have all the food and resources to himself?

Behind me, the door shuddered under the force of someone knocking.

I opened my eyes. The storm clouds still sat fat and heavy on top of the sky. Except now a cousin of those black clouds came to life on the ground. Patches of darkness curled off its body, gliding and flickering away like embers. The demon stalked along the barrier of the fence. I couldn't tear my eyes off it even though it set off a reaction of confusing emotions throughout my body—at first fear and panic, and then a sense of curiosity. As if I were at the zoo, looking into the cage of the fiercest of beasts and speculating over its thoughts, its defining features, rather than about how fast it could slaughter me without bars.

The same pattern of knocking rattled my door. I forced myself away from the window and opened the door to reveal Leyla waiting impatiently.