AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I squeezed Abaddon’s hand, only to realize with rising dread that it was gone. One minute, his hand had been in mine. Now it wasn’t. I wasn’t sure where it had gone, or how it had slipped out of my grasp without my knowing, but as I spun around on the spot frantically searching for him, I knew.
I was alone.
I was lost.
“I’m here, Sara,” said Gadriel. “I’m here, now. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Abaddon!” I screamed. “Abaddon, where are you?!”
“He cannot hear you. He abandoned you. I’m the only one who can help you, now. Please, Sara. Here, just… touch my hand.”
Something cold caressed my fingers. I recoiled so quickly I slammed into a hard, stone wall. The shock, the sudden pain, was enough to give me a burst of clarity.
I ran.
I wasn’t sure what direction I was running in, or if I was going deeper into the labyrinth, or further out. Whether I was getting closer to Lucifer, or if I had just doomed myself to run around in this horrible place until my body gave out and I died silently and alone in some dark, abandoned corner.
But I ran.
And I ran… screaming for Abaddon until my throat was hoarse. I was sure something was behind me, chasing me. Icould hear footfalls, the pitter-patter of someone running on bare feet and gaining on me. I had to use my hands to feel my way through the dark, and that only made me slower.
Whatever this creature chasing after me was, it was definitely not Gadriel. That much I knew. What I didn’t know was how I was supposed to outrun it if I couldn’t see it? Where was I supposed to run to? And where had Abaddon gone?
I could feel my energy draining with every scream, with every step, with every frantic turn of a darkened, cold corner. I felt like my legs were ready to give, assuming my lungs didn’t burst first—that was when I saw it.
A singular Light in the dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
SARAKIEL
There weren’t supposed to be any lights down here. This was the labyrinth that led to the Pit—it was a damned place devoid of all warmth, of all feeling, of all joy. There was only pain down here, and suffering, and guilt.
But therewasLight down here; warm, bright, and inviting, and it could only have come from one place.
From one being.
Breathless I staggered towards it, trying to reach the Light as if it was an oasis in a desert, and I hadn’t sipped water in days.
The pitter-patter of footsteps at my back faded away. I was left with the sound of my own beating heart, hammering against the sides of my head and my neck. The light ahead of me was swimming, dancing, shifting slightly. I thought I heard the rattle of chains. I thought I heard voices. Was this another of the labyrinth's tricks?
I turned the corner and realized where I was.
I’d reached the Pit.
The ground rumbled, throwing me to my knees, stones fell from the ceiling, and the dirt floor beneath me cracked. From above the Pit shone a magnificent Light, the likes of which Ihad never seen, and would probably never see again. It was the closest to God I had ever felt.
I may have been screaming.
I may have been crying.
There was no way to tell.
The Light grew brighter and brighter as I crawled toward it, burning at my eyes and assaulting my ears with a buzzing that I could feel in my bones. There was nothing else in all of existence that mattered as much as this Light that enveloped me.
I blinked, trying to peer through the wall of Light. It was only a silhouette at first; dark against the all-encompassing glow that danced around me, and then wings—huge, feathered, wings.Fourof them, stretched out around the central body of this figure, so wide that they pressed up against the sides of the walls. The longer I stared, the more I started to see of this being.
Arms.
