I couldn’t stand to have my heart stomped on, and I didn’t know how to tellhimthat.
Didn’t know how to tell him that the memories I’d worked hard to bury for so long were spilling forth all the time now and at a more rapid rate. Each new memory left me feeling as if it had stripped my skin away to expose my raw nerve endings. I couldn’t try to figure out what Corson wanted from me, or defend myself against him when I couldn’t stop the flow of anguish cascadingthroughme.
The scent of my mother’s perfume had returned to me in the tunnel. The lavender aroma of it had been so intense that for ten steps it had been more real to me than the mineral odor of the rocks. I’d nearly been driven to my knees when I recalled the way my father slapped his knee when he released a good belly laugh. Tears had burned my eyes when I remembered how I would often find them embracing each other as they danced in thekitchen.
There had been so much I’d succeeded in forgetting, but now it was all pouring forth like lava from a volcano. No matter how I tried to shut them down, the memories kept coming until I felt as battered as a ship in ahurricane.
There’s nothing left of metogive.
Forcing my eyes away from Corson, I searched the woods around us and tuned all my senses to our surroundings. Over the years, I’d learned how to detect the subtle differences in separate areas of the Wilds. Unlike at the wall, and from what others had told me of the towns beyond it, the wild animals here weren’t so brazen in their movements. Like the people who lived in the Wilds, the animals had become morecautious.
At the wall, the squirrels running through the trees and the singing of the birds had been much louder. The birds, squirrels, foxes, deer, and numerous other animals in the Wilds were far more subdued than they’d been when I was achild.
I’d barely noticed their actions as a kid. Unless it was something exceptionally cute, they were the background noise and sights of my life. Then the gateway opened, and I didn’t see a bird again for almostaweek.
After a while, they’d started re-emerging and singing once more, but it was never the same. As if they somehow sensed the melancholy hanging over the wilds, a sad hesitance had found its way into theirsongs.
“Where are we going?” Corson asked, pulling my mind away from theanimals.
“There’s a town a few miles ahead. If we keep following the sun, we’ll betheresoon.”
To my right, a squirrel ran halfway down the trunk of an oak tree and froze. At first, I assumed our presence had caused it to hesitate, but its head turned toward the woods ahead of us. Its nose twitched, and its black eyes bulged as it lifted its tail over its back and gave it a shake. Soundlessly, the squirrel spun and fled upthetree.
My hand shot out. Gripping Corson’s arm, I pulled him to a stop. He glanced at my hand before his eyes met mine. His eyebrows drew tightly together over the bridge of his nose as I placed a finger against my lips. Releasing his arm, my hand slid to my knife and I pulleditfree.
Then, to my left, a stick cracked and a footstep sank into the leaves. Corson’s head shot in that direction. He stepped forward to stand slightly before me as a lower-level demon emerged from the shadows of thetrees.
The demon resembled what some had imagined the devil to look like. He had two, foot-long black horns curving toward the center of his head, a broad chest, red skin, and the legs of a goat. The penis hanging between his legs was impossible to miss and would have made a horse jealous. Its cloven hooves dented the ground when it steppedcloser.
“Corson,” it greeted in a guttural voice slurred by his snake nostrils and lackoflips.
“I’m at a disadvantage here,” Corson said with a smile that would have made any sane living thing tuck tail and run. The demon didn’t move. “You know my name, but I have no idea who you are. However, I have to admit I don’t care what it is, and you probably won’t live long enough totellme.”
The demon’s yellow eyes narrowed on him before sliding to me. My hand tightened on Corson’s arm when a forked tongue slid out to lick over the demon’s grotesque face. “Lovely,” hehissed.
* * *
Corson
My talons slid free as the lower-level demon’s gaze raked Wren from head to toe again. I watched his eyes as I determined to tear those out of his head first for looking at her in that way. I knew exactly what he would do to her if he got the chance, and for that, I would make him pay. If Wren wasn’t with me, I would have been on him by now, but I couldn’t take the risk of him somehow getting by metoher.
Wren’s head tilted to the side as she mimicked the lower-level demon’s perusal of her. “And you’re an ugly…” her voice trailed off when her eyes landed pointedly on his cock, “bitch, I’mguessing.”
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at her as the demon stomped one of his cloven hooves. I knew well how Wren could bait someone into action. She knew exactly how to get this demon to react with recklessabandon.
“When I shove it in you, you’ll know,” hesnarled.
“Shove what in me, honey?” Wrentaunted.
The lower-level grabbed himself and wagged his dick in the air. “This,” he declared as if it could bemissed.
“Oh, that little thing, I’ve seen bigger dipsticks on the wild dogs roaming through here,” Wren replied with a dismissive wave of her hand, and the lower-level stomped his feet again. Any demon with half a brain would know she was trying to goad them into doing something stupid, but most lower-level demons didn’t possess a quarter of a brain, never mind halfofone.
“It will tear you in two,bitch!”
“This guy is original,” Wren said to me. “Do they have someone who teaches them all the samelines?”
“Those are the only ones they can remember,” Ireplied.
