Knight kneeled, pulling Lana’s body off the grass. Beast wanted to say something to console him, but there were no words to repair what happened. Knight took a deep breath as he stood up, already stained red wherever her body touched him.
“I’m… I’m sorry brother…” Beast trailed off when something passed right in front of him and hit the ground with a dull thud. A black apple laid at his feet.
Shadow let out a strange, toneless shriek and darted off, disappearing into the smoke as if he evaporated and joined the fumes, but two seconds later, the pulsing beating against their feet whenever they got close to the tree picked up rapidly, and several more apples descended from the branches, even though there hadn’t been any fruit on the tree when the event started.
Beast squeezed Laurent’s hand, cold all over. “Marcel. We need to get him away from here,” he said but the ground shook beneath their feet, and fleeing from the tree became too important to wait for an answer.
“I’m sorry,” Laurent uttered. “I didn’t mean to yell.”
But their argument could have only been a drop in the flood unleashed by murder and wrath. Black apples, swarming with worms, were like hail, and when one nearly dropped on Laurent’s head, Beast pulled him close and took the hit.
“Knight, come on! We need to go.” Laurent pulled on Beast’s hand as the ground not only shook, but rumbled as if it were a giant’s hungry stomach about to open and swallow them whole.
Knight remained still even when several fruits bumped off his head, and Beast felt his heart bleed. “Knight! Snap the fuck out of it. Get to Elliot. Lana wouldn’t want you dead!”
But Laurent was already tugging him along as the tremors under their feet intensified. Beast might have gone back, but the ground between him and Knight cracked open like a pomegranate, scattering rocks everywhere.
Time for thinking was over if he wanted to get Laurent and Marcel to safety. Beast sped up, all but smashing his body into their car once they reached it.
Marcel was safe in the baby seat, but he wouldn’t remain this way for much longer if Beast couldn’t do something. But first, he needed Laurent in the safest place during the oncoming catastrophe.
“Get to Magpie.”
Laurent stilled, staring at Beast as if time had stopped. Beast hadn’t even noticed when the blue sky had turned gray, but the first drops of rain hit his skin, as if they were messengers of the apocalypse.
“But… Beast. You cannot stay here.” Laurent squeezed his hand even as he opened the car with the other. His brown eyes were wide with fear so intense Beast was close to getting behind the wheel and driving off. But that was out of the question. Each of them had a job to do, and his was here.
The earth roared, and the sound exploded through a crack that ran from the tree and cut the ground between their feet. Beast’s throat closed up, choking him, and he met Laurent’s gaze again. This time, he was certain what needed to be done.
“I trust you. Take Marcel to Magpie. I will do what I can here.” Every fibre in his body longed to go with Laurent, but in the end he just gave him a kiss that felt so final Beast’s heart was raw when he leaned back. No matter how much Beast wanted to run to the other side of the world in hope of Baal being unable to reach them there, he had to depend on his husband.
Let him drive. Let him take Marcel. Let him leave the harbor.
Despite the chaos, Laurent’s attention was on Beast, as if trying to remember every detail of him, in case this was the last time they spoke. But then something cracked, and it wasn’t the ground under their feet. They both looked at the egg. Beast’s heart could have as well stopped when a line appeared on the ruby red shell.
The last time Laurent was so pale, so torn, so desperate, was when he’d told Beast about his pact with Baal, thinking he was signing his own death sentence. Beast’s only solace was that Laurent wasn’t going up in flames and smoke like he had back then.
“Please, keep a cool head, and stay as safe as you can,” Laurent said with tears already welling up in his eyes. He pulled on his tie and opened a few top buttons of his shirt to reveal the tattoo they both shared.
The path to Paradise begins in Hell.
“No matter what happens, we will meet again,” Laurent said, but took a step closer to the open car.
Beast gave him one more kiss and ran into the smoke with determination roaring in his chest.
Chapter 24 - Laurent
Laurent stomped on the gas pedal when the crack in the asphalt overtook the car, speeding straight for the clubhouse like a lightning bolt. He’d never driven at over thirty mph, but the risk of crashing meant nothing in the face of the death and destruction behind him. Perhaps this wasn’t Baal’s doing? Maybe God’s wrath for making all those pacts with a being so evil has caught up with them, and there was no way to stop the doom? Laurent clenched his teeth and let the machine carry him forward at a speed that felt unnatural for a couple of heartbeats.