Darkening Chaos: Book Three of The Destroyer Trilogy (31 page)

“That’s
not fair!” Drake yells. He moves toward her angrily with his hand ready to snap
around her wrist. A voice from the doorway stops him. Everyone in the room,
including me, turns toward the voice. One of the other team members, Phil, the
one who was with Drake, stands in the doorway with his weapon drawn. The
concern on his face is not for his commanding officer’s safety. It’s more about
the situation. Drake should have had this all taken care of a while ago.

“What’s
going on here?” Phil asks, creeping further into the room slowly.

Audrey’s
eyes latch onto Drake. “Please,” she asks quietly.

“Drake!
What’s going on? You’ve got the Cipher cornered already. Get this over with.”
Phil glances toward the back door of the cabin where the other two members of
the team are waiting.

“Just
give me the Cipher, Audrey,” he demands, and then in a quieter voice adds,
“I’ll give you a chance to run if you just hand him over.”

Audrey’s
teary eyes harden to stone. A swipe of her hand brings a knife from behind her
back. I gasp in surprise when I realize it’s a Guardian blade. She was a
Guardian! And she left. Somehow she managed to escape them. I can’t believe it.

“I
won’t give him up, Drake.”

“Audrey,
please.”

She
stands her ground. “You’ll have to kill me first.”

Drake’s
eyes widen in surprise. An internal struggle wild enough to best the strongest
tornado rages inside of him. Phil yells at him to do it. Drake knows Audrey has
no hope of surviving. There are two Guardians in the room with her, and if she
was once a Guardian herself, she must know there are more outside. If she
fights, she’ll die. Yet she doesn’t lower her weapon or show any sign of
wavering. She looks peaceful, in fact, like she’s accepted her death. I almost
get the feeling from her that she truly believes it will be worth it, though I
don’t understand how she can think that. The Cipher will be captured. What will
she accomplish?

Phil
is yelling at Drake again, fueling his anger at Audrey for doing what he could
not. “Stand aside,” he commands.

“No.”

Drake’s
whole body tenses in anticipation. He doesn’t see the way her face softens. He
springs, and whips his blade across her throat before he even realizes she
isn’t trying to stop him. When he does, the knife falls from his hand as he
catches her body. They both sink to the ground, her blood pooling on the
hardwood floor. He watches her hand fall limp, the blade rolling to the ground and
revealing the sacred Seeker emblem. Drake’s hands tremble as he stares at the
scarlet covering them. He turns back to Audrey in shock. She’s already too far
gone to speak, but her quivering lips find the strength to mouth one last
message.

“I
love you.”

Deep,
wracking sobs gasp from Drake’s body. Less than ten seconds pass before Phil
calls out to him. He has the Cipher in hand and wants to leave. I watch as
something inside Drake changes. His blood soaked hands pull away from Audrey’s
dead body. As he stands, she slides off his lap and drops to the floor with a
resounding thud. The blank, frigid expression I know so well slips onto Drake’s
face, never to leave again. He wipes the blood off his hands, touches his first
two fingers to his Guardian emblem in a promise to never think of this moment
again, and leaves the woman he loved to rot on the floor.

I
don’t follow them when they leave. My eyes are transfixed on Audrey’s body. Her
dark hair fans out in the blood that has painted a crimson halo around her
head. The most haunting is her peaceful expression. She died without a fight.
She died believing her sacrifice would mean something. Silent tears fall down
my cheeks because I believe she was wrong. She gave up her life for nothing. I
am about to pull out of the memory when a sound catches my attention and I
realize I’m not the only person in the room.

The
older Drake that I have tied up in the training house basement stumbles forward
to Audrey’s body. Shaking too much to stay standing, he drops down next to her.
He’s the same as me, just a figment of spirit. He can’t pick her up or touch her,
but the way his hands gently glide over her body, I almost believe he can feel
her. His own tears never touch her skin, but he sheds them with abandon. Sob
after sob makes his body convulse until he’s draped on top of her, crying and
saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over again. I watch the spectacle in
shock for a long time before finally understanding. I pull out of the memory
and back into my own body.

My
legs nearly collapse as soon as I’m back, but I grip the chair and force myself
to stay standing. The room is entirely silent except for the sound of Drake’s
crying. Steeling myself for one more fight, I grab Drake’s face and shake him
until he opens his eyes. He blinks and glares at me with such loathing it makes
me shiver.

“You!
Why did make me see that again? Why?” he cries.

“You
murdered her,” I say, my voice harsh with emotion. “You murdered the one woman
in this world that would ever love you. How could you do that?”

He
struggles to choke out an answer. “She betrayed me.”

“No,”
I say, “you betrayed her, and you know it. All she asked you to do was do what
you knew was right. You knew what the Guardians were doing, how they twisted
what people believed so they could control them. You were both Prime Seekers.
You both knew the truth, but only she was strong enough to turn away from the
lies and corruption.”

All
the emotion he bottled up years ago and refused to let anyone see comes pouring
out in a tidal wave. His body convulses with sobs, rocking him against the
chair. I have to tap my depleted Strength to hold on and keep standing. Drake
bawls out his agony and I let him. When he finally begins to quiet, I say, “She
was a Seeker, Drake. She could see the future, we both know that. What I
couldn’t understand about the way she let you kill her …”

Drake
breaks up my words with another shuddering sob.

“…
is what she thought she was accomplishing. You took the Cipher anyway.” I stop
as my amazement at her sacrifice becomes too much.  I have to fight to hold
back tears. “But when you showed up next to me, it all made sense.”

Drake
stares at me through red streak eyes, not understanding.

“She
saw us meeting, Drake. She knew that one day you would have face to what you
did to her, and you would be forced to admit you were wrong.”

“No,”
he cries, “no, that can’t be true.”

“Why
else would she let you take her life so easily? She was a Seeker. She could
have fought you if she wanted to. Maybe she would have even won,” I say, “but
she saw this moment. Audrey knew you would have to choose between continuing to
fight me and following in her footsteps. You wouldn’t listen to her then, so
she gave you the only thing she could, her life as a testament of how much she
believed in what she was doing. She’s begging you one more time to help her, to
make the right choice.”

Drake’s
whole body crumbles in on itself. He looks at his hands still tied to the
chair. He stares at them as if he can still see the blood that stained them
decades ago. Maybe he can. Tears splash down on his legs. He doesn’t look up when
he speaks.

“Audrey
was right about me. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I wanted the glory
of being a Guardian too much. She was strong enough to escape. I wasn’t. I let
her go,” he says, stifling his agony, “and then I killed her.”

He
can’t go on for several seconds. It gives me a moment to gather enough of my
frayed mind to realize he’s actually able to talk about the memory. I actually
did it. I destroyed his Guardian Promises completely. All that is left is the
Oath I felt buried deep inside of him. My mind quiets at the realization,
joining the silence of the room. When the stillness becomes too great, I ask,
“If you knew she was right, why did you stay with the Guardians after that?”

“Because
I murdered her!” he screams. “What did I have left, then? I couldn’t go to her
friends after that. I was the beast she was afraid I’d become. I didn’t think
there was anything else I
could
do. I was too weak to just kill myself,
so I took the only option left. I promised myself I would never think of that
day again and threw myself into my work. I was already the worst kind of
monster. There was no redemption for me.”

His
head falls again, and I know he is broken forever. That’s why he sent Braden
after me. He knew personally what killing Braden would do to me. The cold and
vicious man I met months ago in Braden’s front yard is dead. The boy I saw
making promises to his first and last love has returned, but instead of being
filled with ambition and purpose, he is consumed by regret. No wonder that memory
was layered so thickly with resolve to never think of it again. He knew it
would destroy him. I pulled him into it, made him relive it all over again. I
have dug up the worst moment of his life and put it on display. I haven’t
destroyed him completely, though.

Lowering
myself enough that he can see me eye to eye, I say, “What if you were offered
redemption now? Would you take it?”

“What
do you mean?” he asks slowly.

“Audrey
is gone, but you can still become the man she wanted. Help me, Drake.” They are
the same words she spoke to him. I chose them for exactly that reason and Drake
knows it. His will to fight leaves him completely.

“I
can’t,” he whimpers.

“Yes,
you can.”

“No,
you don’t understand. My Oath … after I killed Audrey, I gave my Oath to the
Guardians, to serve them for the rest of my life.”

I
interrupt him. “It doesn’t matter, Drake. Trust me. You can change. You can
make Audrey’s death worth something. You can make her sacrifice worth the high
price she paid.”

One
emotion I never thought I would see in Drake’s eyes is hope. Yet it shines back
as me as he asks, “How?”

Letting
go of the chair and standing on my own power is more than challenging. My left
hand is shaking as I push my sleeve back and give Drake his answer. He stares
at the second row of diktats on my arm and his eyes grow huge. I’m sure he’ll
say no. I prepare to leave and turn him over to the others. His eyes close, and
I pause. Grief and sadness pour out of him, and I know he must be thinking of
Audrey again. A tear slips down his cheek and the emotions slowly change to a
tentative brand of happiness, maybe for the first time since losing her.

“Do
it,” he says suddenly, “do it for Audrey.”

I
slip my hands over his. We’re both shaking, but I gather my talents and say,
“I’ll do it for both of you.”

Everything
I have left is released in a rush.

Chapter
25

From Truth

I wake up groaning in
pain. Uncomfortable heat throbs in my wrist and I curl my body around it. The
moment without thought ends abruptly and everything I learned from Drake comes
rushing back in. The prophecy, the creatures, Audrey. The last, Audrey, hurts
the most. Flashes of red dart through my mind, morphing from her blood to
Braden’s as I am caught in the panic of what might have happened. If I hadn’t
found a third option at the last minute, his blood would have bathed me in the
poison that consumed Drake. Imagining myself turning into a cold-hearted
monster pushes me over my limit. I bury my face in the blankets and cry.

The
sound of a door opening and closing reaches my ears, but I can’t react to it.
Too much has been drawn out of me. I think I will lie here forever, sobbing
like a child, until a firm sense of peace wraps around me. “Libby, honey, are
you okay?” Braden asks as he sits on the bed next to me.

His
voice pulls me out of my thoughts. I turn with lingering tears on my cheeks and
reach for him. He doesn’t resist. Braden lies down next to me and cradles me in
his arms. The questions he must have all wait patiently. I can’t answer any of
them yet, and he understands that. Looking into Drake’s memories was hellish, a
glimpse into how dark a person’s soul can turn. I feel tainted by his vileness.
Love and kindness are what I need, and I soak it up hungrily as Braden holds
me. As the pain begins to subside, my need for Braden’s love grows deeper.

My
hands slide up his body and stroke his cheek before my lips come up as well. I
kiss him, but he pulls back. “Libby, are you okay?”

I’m
not, but I know how I can be. “Kiss me,” I ask him.

“Libby,”
he says, “stop. You’re still recovering. Just lie back down.”

“No,
Braden, please. I need this.”

“You
need to rest.” He tries to push me down but I won’t let him.

I
huddle against his chest, and say, “Braden, you don’t know what it was like in
his head. He’s done so many horrible things, and I had to watch them all. I
just … I need to be reminded that no matter how bad things get for me, I’ll
never turn into him.”

I’m
crying again by the time I finish. Braden pulls me up and kisses me, but only
lightly. “Libby, whatever you saw, you aren’t Drake. You never could be.”

“You
don’t know that. Drake killed the woman he loved and he tried to make me do the
same thing when he sent you after me. What if I had done it? I couldn’t have
lived with myself. I would have turned as black as he did. I still may. You
don’t know. You don’t know.”