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Elijah didn't mean to fall asleep. He found himself in The Darkness, and a horrible feeling of angst gripped him. What happened last time still had him on edge; he didn't know nearly enough about this place to be wandering around, least of all getting too close to the things he saw. He didn't want to see that distorted man again, nor did he want to risk him seeing him this time.
But it was too late for him to try and wake up.
He heard the faceless man's echoing voice behind him.
With a cautious frown, Elijah turned to face the sound and set his amber eyes on a torn curtain which acted as a makeshift door in a crooked, cobwebby doorway.
"This is seven doctors now," the man said, sounding frustrated. "It's not a coincidence. It's him. He's coming, and he's getting close."
Elijah slowly prowled towards the curtain.
"Whether that's true or not, little one, you need to be patient," the same woman from before replied. "We have to be careful; we only have so many cards to play."
"Just let me kill him!" he insisted.
The woman snarled irritably. "Settle down."
Elijah reached the curtain and stared through a rip in its seams. The woman was sitting next to a burning fireplace, and the faceless man was standing in front of her.
With an angry huff, the man descended onto one knee, resting his arm over the other. "I can do it, Mother."
Mother?
"I know you can, my dear boy," she said as she patted his head, sending ripples through the distortion which smothered his face—but it didn't reveal any more than one of his black eyes. "But he isn't alone anymore."
The man scoffed. "That doesn't make a difference."
She frowned disapprovingly at him. "It does make a difference. That girl is still one of them. You must be very careful around all of them."
He scoffed again.
Elijah still didn't know who either of them were, but they were certain that they were talking about him. He'd killed seven of the Lyca Corp. doctors. And if they were talking about him, then they must also be talking about Zoe. But who was she one of? What were they talking about?
"Wait," the man then said skeptically and turned his head towards the curtain.
Although he couldn't see the man's eyes, Elijah knew that they were looking directly at him, and it sent dread spiralling through his tense body.
"Someone's...here again," the man said as he got up.
Elijah backed away from the curtain, but the man stepped out of the room and followed him into the dark. He didn't know how to react, and when he closed his eyes and tried to wake himself up, it didn't work. He was still stuck there, and the faceless man was moving towards him.
"I know you're here," he drawled.
The demon's heart started racing. A part of him wanted to attack, to defend himself, but he didn't know what that would do. He didn't know what interacting with someone he saw through The Darkness would do.
"I'm going to find you," the man said, still moving closer.
"Maverick," the woman called from behind the curtain. "What are you doing out there?"
Maverick? At least now Elijah had a name for this man, but that wasn't going to be of any use to him while he was still trapped in The Darkness with him. He had a horrible feeling about this man, and his instincts were telling him to run, but a part of him wanted to stay put and learn what he could. Maybe he'd find out why he was seeing him instead of the fragments he'd been investigating.
The man responded to his mother with a grunt and stopped prowling towards the demon. He looked around as if he'd lost a scent that he'd been following, and he snarled in frustration. "I'm busy," he snapped. "Stop distracting me!"
His mother didn't respond.
"Where the hell are you?" Maverick then growled, prowling forward again. "I know you're still here."
Elijah kept slowly backing up, keeping the same twenty feet between them. But he wondered if this could be another situation like that with the black-haired, red-eyed man. What if he needed to stop running from this guy? What if he had more to show Elijah? Could that be why he was seeing him and not the fragments?
He frowned in confliction, watching as Maverick edged closer and reached out his arm. Elijah felt hesitant, and his instincts were still warning him to flee, but the part of him that wanted to know more urged him to take the man's wrist. So he stopped backing off and lifted his arm, reaching out, too.
The demon waited, watching as Maverick got closer, but his instincts got stronger with each passing moment. When he last saw this man, he was talking about finding him, and just now, too. And Elijah hadn't forgotten the fact that it hadn't felt like a dream—this didn't feel like a dream. This man...didn't feel like a dream or a memory. It was something else, and whoever they were, what he'd seen last time convinced him that they might be working with Lyca Corp.
Whoever this man was, he wasn't there to help him.
Elijah pulled his arm away, but he was too slow.
Maverick abruptly lunged forward and snatched hold of his wrist, and as a maniacal grin stretched across his distorted face, he yanked Elijah forward.
The Darkness shifted; it rippled and shook around him, and wherever Maverick was standing in the world started to appear in broken flashes. Elijah's body felt a suffocating strain, and he struggled to take breaths as the man pulled with all his might. Elijah tried to pull back, and as they fought, The Darkness and Maverick's world collided.
"I found him," Maverick said excitedly, baring his two fangs as his grin grew wider.
Elijah grunted in struggle, trying to get away. It was like Maverick was somehow pulling him from The Darkness, and the longer he yanked, the more the distortion on his face rippled and revealed. He saw Maverick's black, soulless eyes, and his ear-length, wavy dark hair. He didn't recognize him and contact with him didn't show Elijah any fragments or memories at all. All it did was fill him with confusion and dread.
"Who are you?" the demon grunted, glaring at him.
Maverick didn't answer. His grin widened, and his scowl was thick with excitement and determination.
"Elijah?" then came Zoe's panicked voice.
"Who's your friend?" Maverick questioned slyly.
Elijah scowled as he tried to yank his arm free, but Maverick wouldn't let go, and the force of The Darkness colliding with his world was stealing his strength away.
Maverick laughed at his struggle. "You're not going anywhere."
He was pulling Elijah further from The Darkness; what would happen if he pulled him all the way out? Would he be transported to wherever Maverick was hiding? Or would it kill him? He didn't know, and he didn't want to find out. He needed to break free, and he needed to wake up.
"Elijah?!" came Zoe's horrified voice.
Maverick kept laughing, digging his claws into Elijah's skin.
Elijah gritted his teeth and summoned what strength he could, and then he lunged forward. He mercilessly sunk his fangs into Maverick's neck, and when the man screamed in both agony and anger, Elijah felt his grip weaken, so he yanked on Maverick, pulling him towards him. But just as he forced Maverick's arm into the dark, everything disappeared.
He opened his eyes and sat up with a panicked gasp for air; he could taste blood in his mouth, and his body was trembling. He frantically looked around, seeing that he was inside the jet, and then he saw Zoe and Jake, who both looked horrified.
"W-what is that?!" Zoe panicked, pointing at Elijah's arm.
The demon frowned and looked down at it. He was still holding Maverick's wrist...and the rest of his severed arm.
"Dude, what the fuck?" Jake drawled, holding his hand over his mouth. "Whose arm is that?"
Elijah snarled in disgust and dropped the arm on the floor, and then he wiped his mouth, smearing blood along the back of his hand.
"What happened?" the girl asked worriedly.
With a deep sigh, relieved that he'd gotten out of there unscathed, Elijah sunk back down into his seat. "I saw him again—that guy in The Darkness. His name's Maverick and the woman he was with last time is his mother." He used his sleeve to wipe the rest of the blood from his lips and then snatched a towel from the table to clean his hands. "He tried to pull me out of The Darkness."
Zoe's eyes widened. "Is...is that his arm?"
Elijah glanced down at it. "Yeah. I pulled him in just as I woke up."
She looked like she was going to be sick, and so did Jake.
The demon rolled his eyes and exhaled deeply.
"What...do we do with it?" she uttered.
He was going to suggest launching it out the window, but if Zoe's dads worked for the Caeleste government, then surely they'd have access to the equipment or people who might be able to identify Maverick. But did he want to risk trusting the wrong people?
"Can we like...put a towel over it or something?" Jake muttered. "It's creeping me out."
Elijah set his sights on Zoe. "Could your cousin or your dads take it and use it to find out who this Maverick guy is?"
She looked hesitant. "Um..." she drawled for a few seconds. "My cousin probably could...but he's not really the kind of person you want in your business, you know."
"Why?" he questioned, watching Jake as he took one of the other towels and covered the arm with it.
And then the pardus caught his judging gaze. "What? How do we know it's not gonna come alive and crawl about the place like those hands in Undead Walking?"
Elijah frowned confusedly.
"It's a dumb horror series he's obsessed with," Zoe muttered. "Anyway, Lucian's just...very nosey and can take things a little too far. And he's also very good at what he does, so he has a little bit of an ego and doesn't really listen to others because he's usually always right," she explained irritably.
The demon sighed deeply. He didn't want her cousin sticking his nose in, and he didn't want to have to drag another person around if he decided to show up in person, either. If Maverick worked for or with Lyca Corp., then there was a high chance that he'd be able to find out more about him through the Lyca Corp. servers. It seemed like waiting until he got to The Spear to get every answer that he needed to the questions that just kept piling up was the best thing to do.
He waved his hand dismissively towards the covered arm. "Just toss it in the trash or something, then."
"Like...in the garbage?" Zoe questioned.
"I don't think there's a garbage chute on board, man," Jake said.
"Then we throw it in the trash when we land, what the fuck ever," he grumbled. "How long until we land?"
"Um...." Zoe glanced at her phone. "Soon. Maybe twenty minutes."
He nodded and glared out the window. Despite escaping Maverick's grasp, he didn't want to end up back there, so he was going to have to avoid sleeping until he found out who he was or at least how to stop seeing him every time he went to The Darkness.
"Are you...okay, though?" Zoe asked worriedly.
"I'm fine," he muttered. "Just make sure you know what we're looking for when we land. We've taken long enough already."
She nodded and slowly sat back down.
"So...we're just...gonna leave that there? And we're just gonna ignore the fact that he just went through some like Dream Killer shit?" Jake exclaimed. "Like he pulled a fucking arm out of his dream, Zoe!"
"Enough with the horror movie comparisons, Jake" she complained. "This is serious."
"Okay, but he literally pulled an arm from a dream. What if it's like...the same? What if Elijah could pull this Maverick dude into his dream place? You could do that heart thing, right?" he said, looking at Elijah. "Maybe he knows stuff about Haru if he's working for Lyca Corp."
Jake actually had a point. What if Maverick did know about Haru? He should have gone for his heart. But he didn't have time to think about that possibility when he was in Maverick's grip. However, he felt hesitant about the idea of heading back into The Darkness and facing him again. What if he couldn't break free next time? He didn't want to find out what would happen if he was yanked into Maverick's world.
With a deep sigh, Elijah tried to relax. "I don't want to risk it. I'll just find out what I need to know once we get to The Spear." Until then, all he could do was focus on finding a way to get there and working out how he was going to liberate Haru from a maximum-security lab.
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