Chapter 13: Freedom

 

       Lucifer woke up at about sunrise the following morning. He didn't have much of a comfortable sleep because he was too worried about Haven's well-being. After the incident that occurred the previous day, Haven had been rather quiet. The spiky-haired man sat up and looked towards Haven, who was staring off into space. Exhaustion was showing in his eyes; it was obvious that he didn't get much sleep last night, but Lucifer couldn't really blame him since he had to experience something like what he did yesterday.

       The older male stood up and walked over to the boy before kneeling down in front of him. Haven broke out of his trance and looked at Lucifer, who was smiling at him. He gave a weak smile back before feeling the other's hand caressing his cheek.

       “You alright?” asked Lucifer.

       “Yeah,” Haven said a little quietly, giving a small nod to give further confirmation.

       “Good.” Lucifer wrapped his arms around the smaller male, who hugged him back. He could tell that Haven wasn't completely all right yet, but at least he didn't appear to be as bad as what he did last night. “I love you.”

       “I love you too,” the brown-haired boy replied.

       Lucifer pulled away a little before kissing the other male on the lips. Haven kissed him back before Lucifer slowly broke it. He gave the youth a smile before slowly standing.

       “C'mon, let's get goin',” said the dark-haired man.

       Haven nodded before getting to his feet. Lucifer wrapped an arm around his shoulders before they began walking in the eastern direction. Unlike yesterday after the battle, the two talked a little. It alleviated Lucifer's mind a little as he became a little more certain that Haven was doing all right now.

       The two walked for about three hours before the town the docks would be in came into view over the horizon. Both of them smiled upon the sight as joy began to fill them. They would be free soon. They wouldn't be able to be bothered by the north and its foolish laws. It wouldn't be long until they wouldn't have another worry in the world.

       “Wait,” Haven said a few seconds later as he slowed down to a stop, realizing something. “How are we going to get a boat when we don't have any money?”

       A look of sudden realization swept onto Lucifer's face when he heard the question. “I guess I never thought about that,” he said. “Damn it!”

       Their hopes began to crumble and both of them sighed in a defeated manner. There was a moment of silence.

       “Well, there is one thing we could do,” began Lucifer. “We could steal a boat.”

       “But we can't do that!” replied Haven. “It's illegal to steal!”

       “Yeah, but what other choice do we got? We don't have any money, so our only option is to steal. Either that or we keep on runnin' for the rest of our lives. If you ask me, I think stealin' would be better.”

       “But I can't do something like that,” muttered Haven. “It's just . . . wrong.”

       “Yeah, I know it's wrong, but we gotta do it. Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures, right? After all, it's the only way we're goin' to be able to live peacefully.”

       Haven sighed as he thought it over for several seconds. “All right, we'll do it.”

       When they arrived at the small town, they headed straight for the docks. Once they finally reached them, they spotted Marcus and a few other mercenaries standing there. The two slowly came to a stop so there was about three yards in between them and their enemy. It seemed that they wouldn't be able to escape without one last fight.

       “Damn it,” Lucifer muttered.

       “Oh, so we didn't come here too late after all,” said Marcus, a smirk spreading across his face. “I may have lost the past few times, but this time I'll assure you that your lives will end!”

       Marcus and the other mercenaries quickly unsheathed their swords before charging towards the two criminals. Haven mentally cursed at this as the event that occurred yesterday played through his mind. He didn't want to see someone else die. Hopefully another mistake like that wouldn't happen again.

       When one of the mercenaries were growing near, Haven tried to have his staff appear in his hands, but nothing came. The youth became puzzled by this, but he didn't have much time to ponder over it as a blade was swung towards him. He took a leap backwards to create a good space in between him and the mercenary before he tried to mutter the chant for Flash. When it ended though, nothing happened.

       It was then when it hit him. Deus only blessed people with the ability to use magic if they were trustworthy. Maybe he broke that trust by killing Lucas? But that was only an accident. No, perhaps it was something else. Maybe it was because he was about to steal?

       Suddenly, Haven heard a battle cry from behind. He quickly spun around to see a mercenary right behind him. Before he had a chance to react, the blade impaled him in the heart and his eyes glassed over a second later.

       “I did it, I did it!” the mercenary shouted victoriously.

       Lucifer, who had been busy trying to fight two other mercenaries and Marcus, quickly looked towards the other mercenaries like the others did. His eyes widened and time seemed to stand still. He could feel his world crumbling around him and rage quickly began to consume him.

       “YOU B*****D!” yelled Lucifer furiously. He quickly grabbed onto the sword-wielding hand of the mercenary that was to the right of him. A sickening crack and a yell of pain was heard as the man's wrist was snapped before Lucifer yanked the sword out of his now useless hand.

       After slashing at the man to injure him severely, he charged towards the mercenary that had murdered the one he loved. His face held terror and he gave a yell of fear as the criminal approached him. Frozen in place, the mercenary had no chance to avoid the impalement. Lucifer quickly removed the blade and slashed at the mercenary a couple more times as if the stab wasn't enough to kill him before the corpse fell to the ground.

       The other two mercenaries had quietly got behind Lucifer during this time and they slashed at Lucifer, giving him deep gashes in the back. Not a single sound of pain escaped the dark-haired man's mouth as the blood quickly oozed out of the various slashes. He spun around on his heels and beheaded the men before charging towards Marcus. The fear showed in the male's eyes, but unlike the mercenary, he was able to fight back. He tried to block the muscular man's slashes, but there was too much force behind them for him to be able to hold his ground while doing so. The slashes, however, were random and left Lucifer open plenty of times. Marcus saw this and he tried to throw in attacks whenever there were openings. The dark-haired man was hit by them, but it wasn't enough to stop his rage. After receiving a fifth slash from Marcus, Lucifer managed to give a fatal stab to the brown-haired man.

       Lucifer's rage slowly died down and the effects from the blood loss were beginning to catch up to him. He dropped the sword out of weakness and he turned to look towards Haven's corpse. His vision blurred as he tried to walk over to it, stumbling every so often in the process. When he finally reached it, Lucifer let himself collapse onto his stomach next to Haven.

       “I'm sorry, I failed to protect you,” apologized Lucifer weakly as if the male could hear him while he outstretched his hand to caress his cheek. “Too bad . . . I won't be able to see you . . . in the afterlife. . . I won't be going where you are. . .”

       A single crystalline tear rolled down Lucifer's cheek, and that was the only one that was permitted to fall before his eyes closed up and his body grew limp.

Author's Note

I wasn't exactly sure what to title this chapter, so the title may change if I at some point think of a better one. I'm also not sure if I created the ending as well as I wanted to. Is it good enough though? Is the dialogue okay? And is Lucifer's rage conveyed well enough?

Reviews

[Eidolon Michael]

Awww, that was sad :-( I had hoped for a happy ending. Or maybe see Haven use something along the lines of Judgement *evil cackle* Great book ^_^ I loved it!

[Amund Schofield]

it's all conveyed very well.. but you don't always have to kill your main characters... it's kind of depressing.