AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Drink some of the vitaeilem. Just a small bit, yeah?”
Breathless, I nodded and reached down into the satchel at my hip, and pulled out the vial. After uncapping it, I tipped back just enough of the angel’s blood to send a tingle through me. When I lifted my hands again, the blackness moved back toward my fingertips.
56
FARRYN
We exited through the door, and I grabbed another lantern hanging from its bracket. Holding it up to the door showed 445.
“We’ve moved farther.” I twisted around to Vespyr and the boy, who I just noticed wore threadbare clothes, his bones sticking out through his skin. “What’s your name?” I asked, marveling how much he looked like a young Jericho to me, perhaps only eight years old. It troubled me to think that he was trapped inside the labyrinth alone. And for how long?
Gaze lowered, he shook his head.
Perhaps he couldn’t speak. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.” I turned toward the corridor again, searching for the next door.
“Elyon,” he whispered.
Something struck me as familiar about the name, about him, and I twisted back, marveling at the bright blue of his eyes and the black raven hair. “How did you get here?”
He looked around and lowered his gaze, shrugging.
“Is your mommy or daddy here?”
The look he shot me, chock with confusion, made me wonder if he had parents, at all. Perhaps he wasn’t real outside of this place. A dream, like everything else. One that would crumble to dust, a thought which saddened me. “It’s okay.” I smiled, stroking a hand down his hair.
We began our trek down another stretch of gray walls and floors, my head spinning with all the possibilities of what could’ve possibly happened back at that hovel. How I managed to single-handedly, according to Vespyr, mutilate the widow.
“Did you know that there’s a word that exists specifically for ants?”
Frowning at Vespyr’s interruption, I glanced back at her. “What?”
“Osiris taught me the word. It’s the positive interaction that ants have with other species. Like butterflies. Beetles. Plants. It’s calledmyrmecophily.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Smiling, she shrugged. “Because I’m still a little rattled from having been at the mercy of the spider woman. But also, it’s kinda cool when you think about it. They have these relationships with others that help them thrive. Wouldn’t it be cool if humans were more myrmecophilous? With other humans, I mean. Not ants.”
“I think the word for human myrmecophilia is compassion,” I said over my shoulder, watching for another door. “And by the way, this is a little weird to have this conversation right now. No offense, but I’m not appreciating ants very much at the moment.”
“What if there’s something that’s helping us in this place, though? Like a force that ensures that we survive?”
I glanced back and smirked. “It’s surely not sparing us much, is it?”
“No, but we could’ve died back there. Yet, we didn’t. Because something wants us to survive. To succeed. It’s like a myrmecophilous aura. Gah! Could you imagine? If more humans were that way, abuse wouldn’t exist. Because we would all want one another to succeed. So we would tend to each other. And be kind to each other.”
“Yeah, and unicorns would prance across the skies, shitting rainbows down on us.” The moment I said the words, I regretted it, as I glanced back and took in the disappointed expression on her face.
“Are you always so cynical?” she asked.
The answer wasno, I hadn’t always been. There’d always been a glimmer of hope inside me somewhere, but life had gotten heavy and complicated in recent months. Hope had begun to feel silly, a frivolous luxury that I no longer had the energy to entertain.
I paused my strides, allowing her to catch up, and slipped my arm in hers. “I’m sorry. I’ll be yourmyrmeco-whateverant.” I reached my hand back for the boy’s, and lowering his gaze, he stared toward my fingers as if reluctant to take it. With a shaky hand, he finally grabbed mine, and a shiver ran up the back of my neck on feeling his soft skin, which somehow carried the overwhelming familiarity of having threaded my hand in his before.
“I want to be a butterfly,” Vespyr prattled on beside me. “They’re my favorite.” Smiling, she glanced over her shoulder, and my stomach twisted, watching the mirth drain from her expression. “F-F-F-Farryn?”
I turned, swinging the lantern around to the direction from which we’d come, and I nearly dropped it.
My heart leapt into my throat on seeing at least a dozen of the creatures in the hallway, eyes glowing red, their bodies shifting with impatience. “Oh, fuck.”
