Can't Escape Your Past

Chapter nineteen- Skylar's Life

There's something up with her heart, though. I know a thing or two about organs and it's not right. One half is completely black and covered in a thick, black mucus. While the other half is normal and red.

"What the fuck is this?!" I ask.

"I don't know," Wren answers my sort of rhetorical question.

"We should see if we can get Zalgo." I say.

"You're right," Wren admits. "He did tell us about what was wrong with her."

We wrap up Skylar in a blanket. I follow Wren to where she said she met Zalgo. She calls his name but it takes a few minutes for anything to happen. A human-sized creature appears in front of us.

It has no hair and long claw-like things for fingers. But the strange thing about it is that it looks neither human or animal; it sits like a dog but looks human. So I know exactly what it is right away: the Rake.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!" I ask the Rake.

"The child will be mine," it responds.

"Over my dead body!" I yell.

"With pleasure!" it says as is gets ready to pounce.

I pull out my knife as it jumps at me. "Wren! Get yourself and Skylar out of here!" I yell as the Rake pins me down on the ground.

"I'm not leaving you here!" she yells back at me.

Wren places Skylar on the ground about thirty yards away. She sprints back towards me as I stab the Rake in between the ribs. It screeches at me and bites at my neck. I'm able to kick it away and Wren starts hitting it over and over in the head with a large stick. The creature screeches again and lunges for her.

She jumps back just in time to avoid being mauled by the hairless beast. But gets a scratch on her right cheek. It's doesn't look deep enough to scar, but it starts bleeding like a bitch.

I jump back onto my feet and run at the Rake. I jump off of both feet pretty high into the air and stab it in the ribs again. It screams and swipes at me as I stand on it's back.

That moment, I hear some heavy boots sprinting down the trail. A dark figure of a woman with long curly hair jumps off of a boulder beside the clearing. She stabs the Rake in the back and now it turns to her and screeches.

After a closer analysis is see the woman is Clockwork! She looks at Wren and sees she's unarmed, she tosses Wren her pair of large scissors and takes a long machete out of the sheath attached to her leg.

All three of us go at the Rake. But when Clockwork and I are standing close together, it catches us off guard and pins us both into the dirt. Is this how I'm going to die? I ask myself inside my brain.

But then, Wren jumps onto the creature's back. She pulls it off of us and Clockwork and I just roll out of the way as Wren and the Rake come right back down onto where we were just laying. She stabs the Rake in the back over and over again.

"You will never have my baby!" she yells as she flips the creature onto his back. "And don't you ever think of standing up again!"

Wren takes the giant scissors and starts cutting and stabbing through the grey flesh of the Rake from the front now. It gets to the point where the thing can't even make a sound and you can't tell what it is anymore. The Rake makes gurgling noises as Wren continues to cut and stab.

I decide that that's enough. I run at Wren and pull her off, but she struggles. "It needs to die!" she screams.

"Look, it's immortal. You couldn't kill it no matter how hard you tried!" I yell as I'm pulling her back by her arms.

When we're a few metres away, Wren turns to me. Her lip quivers and she shakes. I pull her into a hug and she digs her face into my chest. I surround her with my arms and wrap her up in my leather jacket. We fall to our knees onto the dirt and Wren begins to just bawl her eyes out.

I look over at the Rake to see Clockwork taking slow strides towards him, holding her machete. She crouches down and says in his ear "your time, is up." She lifts her arm and brings the machete down through the Rake's neck. His head tumbles for a few moments and then stops. Now I can't find Clockwork. Where is she?

I hear footsteps behind me and turn around. There she is! She's holding Skylar and extends her arms. "This is yours I'm guessing?" she says.

I take the child and hold her in between Wren and I. Wren looks up at Clockwork, "thank you," she says.

Clockwork looks at us both, kindness in her green eye. "Don't mention it. We've all gotta look out for each other here." After that, she walks away up the path she came. Before she's completely gone, she picks up her pair of scissors off of the ground and is gone.

Tonight I have seen what a mother will do for her child. But this is Skylar's life; a life where killers will kill each other. A life where she will only have half of a soul. At least by now the baby has stopped crying.

"We'll be okay, y'know," I say.

"I know." Wren says.

We look at the mark on Sylar's chest. Now it's closed but is pretty red around the sides. I don't want my little girl in pain. Why did this have to happen to her?