Darren's entire body started to shiver uncontrollably as the others slowly climbed down from their platforms. He balled his armored hands into fists, tried to keep himself from shaking like a leaf on a windy day but to no avail. His eyes still felt dry and burning, the tips of his incisors dug painfully into the soft skin on the inside of his mouth if he tried to close it. The voices of the werewolves were gone, silent and contained to whatever place they went to when they weren't being used. Yet the hunger was still there. Underneath the panic and the confusion and the guilt, there was still a part of him calling out for death and blood.
His spine jerked when he felt small, gloved fingers on his face, the cold metal of Kayla's finger armor scraping lightly against his skin.
"Darren, your teeth," she said and she sounded worried, almost desperate. "Your eyes."
He didn't know what was wrong with them, didn't want to. He wished she would take the metallic nails into the sockets and rip them out instead.
Vivien was right behind her, taking his chin in her hand to turn his face to her. Darren kept his gaze down at the inspection, not daring to face her.
"Look at me," Vivien commanded sharply.
Darren felt his breathing starting to get shallow and faster and swallowed hard to try to dissolve the lump in his throat keeping the air from flowing. It didn't work. He only managed to stop the airflow for a few seconds, making himself more desperate. He gulped down a lungful, forgot what he was supposed to do with it and held it in too long rather than releasing it.
"Darren," Vivien's voice was softer now. "Breathe."
She put a hand to his chest, pressed gently and he exhaled. After he inhaled again, she pressed his chest again and kept going at regular intervals, until his breathing had slowed and steadied.
"Now, look at me."
He finally did.
Darren didn't know what he was expecting, whether it was to find disgust stamped on her features or to simply get a slap to the face. He found nothing except curiosity. Vivien peered into his eyes, turned his face this way and that to get a better look at them from different angles, then let go of him.
"Your eyes are glowing," she finally said. "And I guess you know by now that your stupidly sharp incisors are even bigger and sharper. Has this ever happened before?"
Darren shook his head silently. He knew that if he were to speak, his words would come out fully sung. Vivien nodded and crossed her arms over her chest, kicked away the arm of a Flowerhead that was too close to her foot. Darren flinched and looked back down. He knew what was coming but he didn't want to face it. Kayla's arm wrapped around his waist, pulled him close to her and half of him wanted to push her away while the other wanted to desperately cling to her and beg her not to let go, even if he didn't deserve it. He flinched again, harder and more visibly this time, when he heard Joshua sigh and saw his booted feet coming his way.
"Guess we killed the Flowerheads."
It sounded like a death sentence. In a way, it could be. They didn't know what Aries did to the people who failed the trial, after all.
"No point in checking dead blood to at least try to prove my theory right, either," Vivien said.
Darren wanted to curl upon himself, bury his face in Kayla's chest but he was petrified, unable to move a single muscle. Forcing himself to, he licked his dry lips.
"I killed them," he corrected. "I'll tell Aries it was me..."
"Like that matters, Darren," Vivien interrupted.
She didn't snap at him, her tone was simply matter-of-fact, but he still trembled at her response.
"Maybe we were meant to kill them," Kayla said. "I mean, what they were about to do..."
She let the words hang in the air but it was enough to fill Darren's head with images of the Flowerhead undressing Hector, bringing the knife to his chest to butcher him for their sick feast. Something between a moan and a sob welled up from his chest and he hid his face in his hand for a second before his body started moving by itself. He broke away from Kayla despite her protesting, walked towards the table to look at the child he had sent off to die. He had to make sure Hector hadn't been further defiled, that he had managed to stop that at least.
Hector's skin was pulled taut over his frame, a sickly grey color to it. His face seemed like that of an old man, halfway mummified, his lips cracked and peeling. Luckily, his eyes were closed. But there were no cuts made by Flowerhead's knife on his chest, the skin was still intact. Darren ran a hand through it softly to make sure he hadn't missed a small cut or nick, found it untouched. The relief he had expected to feel didn't come. Instead, only more guilt filled him at seeing the boy that had come to him asking for special training after being beaten by one of his peers dead after an inglorious journey. One he had spurred him to undertake.
Darren looked away from Hector's face, made to pull away from the table but something on the boy's inner elbow caught his eye. It was a small black orb, hanging from his skin like fruit from a tree. Darren frowned, looked at his right arm, around which the chain with his key was wound. There, resting against the crook of his own elbow, sat a similar orb, black with a faint green light to it and two needle-like protrusions opposite to each other.
"Viv," he called and motioned for her to come over.
When she reached him, he pointed at the orb. Vivien pushed him aside slightly to take a better look. She picked up one of the spoons on the table, used it to lift the orb and inspect it.
"It looks like..."
"The ones on our chains, yes," Vivien finished for him.
Kayla and Joshua approached to take a look as well. Vivien picked up a knife, used it to move the skin where the orb was growing from. There was a small wound there and she pried it open.
Darren regretted looking inside. The orb was connected to a black cord nestled deep into the flesh of Hector's arm. Vivien's eyebrows furrowed and she tried to gently pull it out but it didn't budge. It was connected to something.
"Interesting," Vivien murmured as she fumbled with her pouches, looking for something.
Darren couldn't watch anymore. He kicked himself away from the table, stood with his back turned to it.
"Do you have to do that, Viv?" he asked through gritted teeth.
He hated the sound of unshed tears on his voice, the fact that he was getting mad when he was the one who might have just ruined all their chances on the first trial. But desecrating Hector's body after everything that had happened to him already didn't sit well with him.
"It might help us," Vivien said. "I understand your guilt but...
"You what?"
Darren turned around to face Vivien, teeth bared and eyes flashing again. He felt a growl forming deep in his chest and he almost pounced at her, shoved her against the table and demanded she take that back. She had no idea about what he was feeling. She and Joshua had simply sat around with their hands clean while he got people killed to get them out of the city.
Vivien faced his angry stare, her expression blank.
"I understand your guilt," she repeated. "It wasn't fair of us to put the weight of sending someone off to die solely on you, Darren. I'm sorry."
Darren's anger dissipated into nothing, leaving only sorrow in its place. A black hole inside his chest, numbing down everything else that he might have been feeling. He looked at Joshua, who nodded.
"I'm sorry too, love," he said.
"Yeah, whatever," Darren said, turning his back on the table again. "I fucked up, so I guess we're all even."
Darren took a deep, shaky breath, scrunched his eyes closed in a vain attempt to get rid of the burning feeling. Behind him, he could hear Vivien and Joshua discussing whether or not taking Hector's body back for an autopsy was viable, going over theories on whether the human meat could be the cause of the sickness. He was trying his hardest not to listen to their words, yet it seemed to make them all the clearer and louder, their meaning all the sharper. He didn't hear Kayla approach him until she was right by his side, touching his arm.
"I can take it away," she whispered.
She didn't need to say what. Darren knew she was referring to his feelings: the guilt, the sadness, the despair. He smiled at her, petted the back of her head.
"Nah," he said. "Even if they hurt like hell, they're still mine. They remind me not to mess up again."
Kayla nodded silently, squeezed his forearm.
"We'll take the orb, at least, then," Vivien finally said, seeming to end the discussion going on behind them. "And some of the cord as a sample."
"We can't leave the body like this," Darren intervened, looking back over his shoulder at her.
He wished he had waited a little longer to do that. As it was, he watched as she cut the cord inside Hector's elbow and plucked the orb. Darren swallowed back the bile that rose to his throat, reminded himself that this was necessary, this could help them.
"Should we bury him, love?" Joshua asked, looking at Darren.
Kayla and Vivien followed his gaze as well. The decision would be Darren's alone.
"Can you burn it?" he asked Kayla, his hand on her cheek. "Burn this whole fucking room down to cinders?"
Kayla nodded, her expression hardening.
"Great," Darren said and squeezed her face lightly. "Thank you."
He then turned to the cat, crouched down to get his face level with hers.
"And you," he said. "Can you get us to the map? Gimme a smile if you can."
The cat bared her fangs, lips lifting up and curling into the unsettling grin she had shown them earlier by the stairs.
"Atta girl," Darren said and petted her head. "Guess we're done here. Let's go, losers and wonderful grinning cat."
The cat trotted out of the room, through the entrance the Flowerheads had used and the group followed her. Kayla stayed behind, her eyes surveying the mockery of a human banquet hall before she held out her hands, palms facing forward and sang the word for fire in God's language. The room erupted into flames that caught everything within it. Black smoke rose from it, the smell an unbearable mix of cloth and wood and meat burning together. Heat and light both emanated from it immediately, warming and illuminating the space around the exit. Darren scoffed as he saw the lined up tombstones, the fresh roses lying on each one.
"Give me a fucking break," he murmured under his breath.
On the other side of the cemetery, a dilapidated cathedral rose. It seemed older still than the rest of the ruins, not because it was more run down or due to the architecture or any other logical reason that Darren could put his finger on. There was simply an ancient air to it as if you were to walk inside and find the tomb of some old god and his treasures lying inside. Old god or not, Darren was tired of this place. He was ready to take the map and go home. He didn't dare think about what would happen if Aries decided they had failed the trial for killing the Flowerheads. Worse, if she decided that he alone, for having done it, couldn't undertake the Pilgrimage and the others would have to go on and leave him behind. He might have to start getting behind Joshua's idea of killing her and stealing her key if that happened. She might have helped them but that meant little to him if she was to try and separate him from the others.
But that came after. One thing at a time. For now, he had to make sure they got the map without getting themselves killed, either by any enemies or each other.