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Chapter Fifteen
poisoned heart
Crunching my way through the cave, I grimaced as I realised that the once pristine white soles of my maroon Vans would be no more. I mean, it was definitely the least of my concerns, but these shoes were brand new.
Trudging behind me was Bartosz, Beck and Zacharias. Magnus was next to me, and Ulrich was just ahead. Franziska, Jonas and Martha had promised to search the nearby woods for the elusive priest. The rest of us, well, we were going back to 1986.
"Did we head in this far when we were snooping?" Zacharias asked
"Yeah, I don't think so." Beck retorted, looking at his surroundings "I didn't even know the cave went so far in this direction."
"Well, it does!" Bartosz snapped, tired of listening to the two past teenagers argue with each other.
Pushing in front of Ulrich, I kept walking until the beam of my phone flashlight hit the same wrought iron door that Magnus and I had found yesterday. "Here it is" I murmured, taking a picture of the iron engraving.
Stepping back to make enough room for the door to swing open, I tripped on my shoelace. Falling backwards, my descent was halted by none other the Ulrich Nielsen. The boy wrapped his arms around my midsection to slow my fall, 'accidentally' brushing his hand against the underwire of my bra through the plaid shirt I was wearing. Magnus was not pleased.
"Dude, watch your hands." Magnus grumbled as Ulrich helped me back to my feet, checking to make sure I was alright.
"Dude, it's fine. Doesn't it screw up the space time continuum if I screw a girl form this century?" Ulrich scoffed
"The toxic masculinity in here is suffocating." Bartosz groaned
"At least it's not me this time." Zacharias laughed
"Can all of you shut up?" I threw up my hands in annoyance "This is stupid. Let's just get inside the damn passage and do what we came here to do, okay?"
Pulling the door open, I once again felt the claustrophobia wash over me. I never did well in small spaces, or dark spaces. It had been a fear of mine since I was a small child. I grabbed onto the arm of Magnus' bomber jacket, anxiety rising in my throat.
"Hey." He whispered, reaching to intertwine his fingers with mine "I've got you."
I nodded slowly, the two of us creeping into the passage. I insisted on leaving the door open behind us, even though we had no idea if it would work that way.
"How do we know if it works?" Beck asked after about five minutes
"Haven't seen any blue sparkles yet, bro." Ulrich said, looking up at the ceiling
"Just wait for the ground to shake." Magnus piped up
I buried my face into my knees, hoping to quell my anxiety. I tried to ground myself to the situation, noting how the material of my shirt felt against my arms, the sensation of the wind from the cave mouth, the scent of Magnus' semi-expensive cologne. The senseless chatter from the time-travellers.
The ground began to shake, and I braced my body against that of my boyfriend. What I would honestly give to be a normal teenager right now.
After the dust had settled and the floor stopped moving, I was the last to get off the floor, still feeling uneasy. Magnus took my hand and we followed everybody out of the cave.
"You okay?"
I nodded "Fine. Just don't pick any fights with Ulrich, please."
The blonde boy grimaced "Liese, I didn't like the way he was touching you!"
"You're crazy if you think I'm going to leave you to go back to 1896 and screw your dad when he was younger." I stopped in my tracks, moving to stand in front of Magnus. "It's the two of us against the world. Bis zum Ende." Until the end
He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. "Bis zum Ende
Running to catch up with the rest of the group, we wandered through Winden. Nothing much had changed. Turning down Eisenhower, or progress was stalled when Zacharias ran up the driveway of a small brick townhouse.
"What the hell is he doing?" Bartosz wondered aloud
"Grovelling. Claudette is pissed with him right now." Beck smirked "It's gonna be entertaining as hell."
"Claudette Gabor?" I asked, looking at the dark-skinned girl my uncle was arguing with "The judge in Bartosz's murder case?"
"Gabor? Her last name is Landers, but she did talk about going to Berlin to study law next year." Ulrich offered.
The lover's quarrel was becoming a big show, and Claudette wasn't happy.
"No, Zacharias. You've been gone for three days! I called, and Prudence said you weren't home, you haven't been at school. You went back in to those goddamn woods right after I said I wasn't comfortable with that!"
"Claudette, just let me explain-"
"No, Zacharias! We're done. Don't try and call." Claudette turned on her hell and stomped back up the driveway. Zacharias was a wreck as he rejoined the group
"Dude, are you going to cry?" Beck sounded concerned
"You should take that to the Tonight Show, because it was funny as hell." Ulrich laughed
I punched the time-travelling Nielsen in the shoulder "What is wrong with you? Can we just get back to the reason we're here in the first place?"
"Yeah!" Zacharias perked up "Let's do that!"
St. Christopher's hadn't changed a bit. Every part of the old church was exactly like it looked in 2019. Someone wasn't slacking on the upkeep. The wooden steps creaked under the six of us as we crept up the stairs to the door.
"Who's going in?" I asked timidly.
"He killed Heidi!" Bartosz shouted "Let me have a piece of this loser!"
I extended an arm to stop his progression forward "Hold on a minute, Diego Hargreaves. We can't go in there guns akimbo, otherwise we could all get ourselves killed."
Ulrich took a shaky breath "I'll do it. He may have had something to do with what happened to my brother. I need to know where Mads is."
I nodded "Alright. Let's do this thing."
Readership for both this story and Auslander (my louis hofmann fic) is declining, sadly :(. I am hoping to wind down both stories by November, though Auslander may take a little longer, and then unfortunately I may need to let go of the DARK world for a little bit. Thank you all for your support and I hope you like the last however many chapters this ends up being.
