The Grim's Daughter

CHAPTER TWENTY:

There was still a lot of shouting occuring in Dusk's room. Trying her best to stay quiet, Nevaeh creeped past the door, praying however, that Dusk would not open his door and see her moving against the wall. She feared he would hear the sound of her bating heart, or her slightest breath. 

A crooked door opened. Nevaeh could hardly breath. "Come on, Nevaeh!" she whispered to herself. "You can do this."

Nevaeh ran as quietly as she could into a cupboard. There were scythes behind her, but luckily she couldn't hurt herself on them since they were folded up, in their cases. 

"Spider," shouted Dusk. "Make yourself useful and fetch me my scythe!"

Nevaeh turned her head to find Dusk's name engraved onto a case. "Why me?" 

She looked about for a way out, but Spider was slowly walking toward the door. Before she knew it, the brass knob was turning on the door. Nevaeh started to sweat. One of the hell hounds barked from her room!

"Spider, get those hell hounds once you've done that. I have the impression the little brat is still in here, and I know her attachment to them beast; I think she'd turn up soon for them, finding them- well- injured, maybe dead?"

"One minute, this door is stuck!" said Spider. 

Nevaeh looked around, noticing a small door at the side of the room. "Well, it's a chance." She pushed all of the boxes out of the way and kicked the lock door open. It was barely wide enough to crawl through.

"I heard something in there! Open that door!"

"I can't, Dusk, the door's locked."

"Move out the way!" said Dusk, knocking Spider down. The door opened just in time for Dusk to see the edge of Nevaeh's robes. He tried to grab her, but she was already deep inside the tunnel that lay beyond the little door. 

"Go inside there!" ordered Dusk, throwing Spider at the tunnel. "I'll go around the house."

"I... can't," cried Spider, gasping for breath. "I can't fit through there."

Dusk ripped off the case to his scythe and unfolded it before pointing the sharp edge to Spider's neck, making his swallow. "Before you end up in the same situation as her when I get my hands on the girl!"

Spider pushed the scythe away from his neck and crawled inside the tunnel while Dusk stormed around the building.

"Nevaeh, run!" cried Spider when he couldn't hear Dusk anymore. "Get out of here, because if I get you, I'll have no choice!"

Soon enough, Nevaeh was out the tunnel and in the front garden, with Dusk chasing after her. He was faster than she had expected, but not fast enough to catch her. 

"You'll be back!" he shouted. "I know you will, but don't think you'll be going far after that!"

"I know I'll be back," yelled Nevaeh. "I'll be back for you! I know that you killed him!"

Dusk laughed with a grin on his face. "How long did it take you to realise, or did poor Luko tell you? Honestly, though, he's a reaper. And after all those things he's done and will carry on doing; are you sure you can trust him?"

"I don't trust anyone!" said Nevaeh, before shutting the gate. 

Nevaeh ran far out of Dusk's sight. "I know where you'll be," whispered Dusk, before he walked inside with a great smirk on his face. 

When approaching the cemetery, Nevaeh checked around, feeling that someone had followed her. She had came for her last time to set eyes of the beautiful grave, and the lonely bird that would be most likely to be resting upon the it's stone shoulder. 

Nevaeh kneeled down on the patch of grass and dirt beside her father's grave, admiring even the smallest details in the cracks of the angel. "I have to go," she said, gazing up at the angel. "I might not be back, but I need you to know, I will always love you. But I can't do this."

She pressed her fingers against her lips and pressed them against the grass. Nevaeh stepped up, realising something like blood stuck on her robes. Blood stained the grass and the grounf beneath it. "What's going on?" said Nevaeh. 

Only a few metres away from Death's grave lay a bird, it's feathers on the floor like they had been pulled out delibrately, with powerful force. Nevaeh gasped. "No, it's not him!" she said, shaking her head. "It can't be; I won't believe it!" But she knew as she wandered closer to the dying bird that it was indeed Thrindle. His eyes shone, calling for Nevaeh. 

Thrindle's left wing had been badly damaged, and the inside almost as bald as his other wing. He lay in what looked like his own blood, but Nevaeh could see no blood, but bruises on his small body. She placed the bird in her arms. "Your going to make it," she sobbed, "You've got to." Her dress was covered in Thrindle's blood and her lap full of his feathers. Soon, she couldn't hear his small breathing. "I don't want to let you go- please. You're really my only thing left of my dad!"

Thrindle's eyes started to close slowly, but it seemed all to fast for Nevaeh and before she knew it, his heart had stopped beating. "No!" she quietly gasped. Nevaeh moved him closer to her face so she could gaze at him. "I'm sorry."

Nevaeh took the necklace from around her neck and wrapped it around Thrindle's leg, but not too tightly. "Give him this when you get there."

Someone coughed in the distant part of the graveyard. "Who's there?" called Nevaeh, rising from the ground. 

"Is that ye, Nevaeh?" asked Beetle.

Nevaeh looked over the graves, noticing Beetle. She ran over as quickly as she could. "Who... who done this to you?"

"I was an idiot... to ever... trust 'im," he tried to say, clutching his side as he cried in pain. "Dusk, you liar! He said... he wouldn't hurt anyone else... aslong as I... left Luko, but look where that got me. Save... someone's life without 'em knowin' and... the world tries... to kill ya!"

"That's why you left Luko? To save him?" said Nevaeh.

Beetle nodded. He took hold of Nevaeh's hand with his good one. "You're the... only one who... can defeat Dusk!" he said. "You must become... a reaper."

"I will," she cried. "I promise."

Beetle smiled. "Tell Luko I'm... sorry. And, Nevaeh... you'll make... us all... proud."

Nevaeh smiled, noticing his head falling back onto the tree he was leaning on. "Beetle... Beetle?" She took one last look at him and then at the falling snowflakes. Nevaeh took her robes off and let it fall onto Beetle. "Goodbye," she sobbed, wiping her eyes until a smile came upon her pale face. "I know what I have to do." She turned away, looked around once right and then to her left, full with more bravery than she had came with.