With effort, he lifted his arm and let me rest my head on his chest. “Cuz if a shitton of coffins holding Chinese lepers suddenly washed up here, I wouldn’t be the least surprised.”
So it had been the same for him.
“I can’t believe I found you,” I said, staring at him in wonder.
His smile faltered, his brows furrowing. “I can’t believe you came to get me.”
“Of course,” I said and that’s all I could say. How could I even begin to explain what he was to me. I would go through Hell for him again and again.
I closed my eyes for a minute, hearing his heart beneath me. It was so steady, so beautiful. I wanted to luxuriate in this moment, in having my love back. I wanted to just breathe it all in. But we weren’t in the clear yet. There wasn’t a second in this world that we could take for granted. We didn’t belong here.
As if to make a point, the lighthouse, which was only half a football field away, started to rock on its foundations, as if explosions were ripping it apart. The top of it went flying off and the light bulb was now just a black hole, spinning violently while gold and black plumes of light battled for domination.
“We need to go,” I said. “We need to find the door.”
Dex sat up, carefully getting to his feet. “What door?”
He grabbed me by my arms and brought me to my feet just as the ground beneath us began to shake. From the lighthouse a crack formed, shooting toward us. The earth was beginning to split.
We exchanged a glance. Fuck.
We turned and started running in the opposite direction, toward the trees. I glanced over my shoulder to see flames starting to reach up from the open fissure and in the distance the lighthouse went down, swallowed whole. My eyes caught a stray beam of golden light as it escaped, jetting off into the ocean, and then I was tripping over a log and falling to the ground.
Dex hauled me up, pulling me along as I could feel the heat of Hell at my back, the flames racing faster and faster, the ground continued to split and shake. The millions of eyes in the sky were now red embers falling to the ground and settling into ash and dust.
“Is this it?” Dex yelled as the earth in front of us carved up into a cliff. It was sheer, rising up for fifty feet and impossible to climb.
I looked around for a door carved in the side, for anything, but there was nothing. Flaming embers landed on our arms, burning our skin and we whirled around to see the ground completely torn open, a jagged, gaping wound of fire. Black beasts were starting to appear in the depths, their horns rising first, then their eyes.
We had seconds left.
I grabbed Dex’s hand and kissed it hard and we stared into each other’s eyes, quick but deep. The look said it all. We were going down and we were going together. We didn’t win in the end, but together, we couldn’t lose.
“I love you!” I yelled at him, the growl of the demons and the thunder of the flames growing louder.
“I love you!” he yelled back. “Always have, always will. Always.”
I managed the saddest smile. He returned it.
We turned back to face our fate.
And the air in front of us shimmered and waved like a brilliant sea.
The door.
To walk through it would mean falling right into Hell. But we were half-way there anyway. The flames licked at our feet.
I looked at Dex and squeezed his hand. He squeezed it back.
Together we stepped forward.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I felt like I was burning alive. All I felt was the impossible pain of fire and numerous hands that grabbed at my ankles, calves, waist and wrists. I must have screamed and I only took in dust. The air around us began to warp and swirl and all sound was sucked away.
Suddenly my brain was squeezed into painful oblivion and my lungs and heart felt like they were being wrung out like a dirty dishcloth. There was a loud pop, like the cork off a bottle of champagne and I stumbled forward into the basement of his Dex’s old house.
The shimmer evaporated and everything came into color. Dex was no longer at my side but at my feet, slowly blinking life into his physical body, one hand at his throat, face twisted in pain. I wanted to drop to my knees, to help him, but I couldn’t.
We had come into the middle of a battle. While I couldn’t tell what had been going on from the other side, it was easy to see now.
I wished I didn’t.
There were giant spiders, at least a dozen of them, scattered through out of the room, some of them sliced in half, others just missing legs or heads.
And lying on his back at Dex’s feet was the large body of Maximus. In one hand was Dex’s sword. His other hand was missing. A slaughtered spider bleeding black goo was sprawled on his chest.
Maximus’s throat was absolutely ripped out, his head nearly severed.