Page 138 of The Light Within
The vile man paused, looking up at Julien for a moment, clutching his nose. Blood pooled down his wrist as his brow furrowed, like he was lost in some distant, fleeting memory. “No. No, I don’t suppose she did.”
“I don’t know how you trickedMèreinto marrying you!”
“Oh,” he replied calmly, wiping his face with the black of his sleeve. “I had my ways.”
At this, Julien screamed.
His screams tore through the catacombs, raw and primal, echoing off the damp walls. His body convulsed with frantic energy as he thrashed against his wrist restraints, flailing his limbs wildly. He kicked out, striking one man in the shin, sending him stumbling. Desperation fuelled his strength as he wriggled and twisted.
Julien wasn’t deluded.
He understood the dark reality of his situation: there was no way he could possibly escape.
But he wouldn’t die like a meek lamb, trotting merrily off to slaughter.
The men struggled to pin him down, their hands clamping onto Julien’s arms and legs with grim determination. Julien’s breaths came in ragged, gasping bursts as he struggled to suck in oxygen in between wailing further abuse at his father.
Distantly, a small part of him recognized that Jonathan stood closer to the machine now, and the ominous whirring of theMachina Tenebrishad grown in volume.
Jonathan reached for the myriad of connectors, held them steady.
Julien’s vocal cords felt as if they were being torn apart, clawing painfully at his throat. But with his limbs restrained, and the two muscle-heads carrying him towards the looming needles, his screams were all he had left.
So, he screamed. Raw, desperate.
He screamed for young Julien, who could only watch as his mother unravelled before him, a tragic victim of her cruel husband.
He screamed for the teenaged Julien, burdened with the crushing weight of guilt. Crippling guilt. Guilt that would taint the best part of a decade of his life.
He screamed for his darling sister, whom he had vowed to protect and failed. He hoped she’d forgive him.
Finally, he screamed for himself, and all the possible lives he wouldn’t get to live now. All the love he wouldn’t get to share.
The point of a cold, sharp needle was pressed into his skull.
thirty-four
Cinn
Voices.
Voices up ahead, in the endless dark void of the tunnels.
A faint murmur of voices, carrying through the darkness like an unsettling whisper.
Cinn abruptly froze, flinging his arms out to grip the wall, steadying himself.
And was that the tiniest shred of light, a faint glimmer seeping through a crack in the stone?
With slow, tentative footsteps, he travelled towards it.
The light grew brighter as he approached, casting distorted shadows on the walls and promising a glimpse of something beyond the all-encompassing dark. His heart raced with a mix of hope and trepidation as he moved closer, straining to catch the murmurs.
The voices grew louder, the frantic urgency escalating until one voice erupted into a rapid, angry torrent of French.
Julien!
Cinn’s recognition of Julien’s voice was instant, but the raw fury in it was something new, something dangerous.
