Chapter 367: Sacrifice
Back where Belle was with her son, he couldn’t hear her desperate cries in her mind, begging him to return to the living world. Instead, he continued to poke and probe at the bind with his little fingers, occasionally lifting his gaze to look into her eyes as if trying to assure her of something.
Though Belle didn’t fully understand how she could feel it, but she could sense the other souls drawing closer to them and could scent Angel as a living person. If she didn’t do something quickly, her son would be lost as well.
Belle was about to shake her head to gain his attention when she suddenly felt the bind around her torso loosen. Her eyes darted downward, and to her shock, she saw a faint glow flickering in Angel’s fingers where they touched the cursed thing.
He was loosening it with fire! He had fire ability as well!
In no time, the entire bind began to slacken from around her body. At last, the part covering her face fell away, melting into the ground like sand. Angel giggled proudly at his success.
Belle hurriedly sat up and scooped him into her arms. "Oh God, why are you here, Angel?" she whispered breathlessly, pressing desperate kisses over his face and neck. Angel wrapped his small arms around her neck, smiling with the innocent trust of a child.
"Mama," he said with a soft sigh as he rested his head against her shoulder, as though suddenly tired and in need of her hold.
Belle knew she couldn’t waste even a second now that she was free from the bind. She gathered him more securely into her arms and forced herself to her feet.
"We have to find a way out of here, darling. They are coming for you, and I cannot let them have your body," she whispered fiercely into his neck as she began to run in the opposite direction from where she sensed the souls rushing.
The pain beneath her bare feet grew sharper with every step, but it only reminded her that she was still connected to her body. As long as she could still feel pain, there was still life within her, she just needed to find a way back. But first, she had to send Angel safely home before she could think of herself.
"How did you even get here?" she asked, breathless, as she ran with all her strength, ignoring the sharp sting of pain tearing through her leg. Her son’s life mattered far more than anything else now, even more than her own.
Angel babbled out how he had gotten there in her ear, but Belle couldn’t understand his baby language. He spoke happily as she ran, but no matter how fast she moved, she soon saw shadows racing in from another direction ahead of her. Souls. Dozens of them. The sight made terror and dread knot so tightly in her chest that she almost stumbled.
Oh dear God... how was she going to save his soul when this many desperate souls wanted a living body?
Belle veered sharply, changing her path, and ran in another direction, clutching Angel tightly to her. For one fleeting, horrible second, she thought about hurting him to wake him up, but the thought of causing him pain made her stomach twist violently. If pain was going to wake him, it wouldn’t be a little pain, she would have to hurt him enough that his body would feel it and wake.
’I don’t want to hurt him,’ Rohan had once said, ’but we have to hurt him a little to save his life.’
Those were Rohan’s words from the day he had tried to put the potion in Angel’s eyes to change them from black to red. The potion had burned, making him cry bitterly, but Rohan had done it for the boy’s survival and had told her it was a way to protect him. Now she realized she would also have to hurt him to protect him, even though she never wanted to cause her son any pain.
Before Belle could think of a way to hurt him to wake him up, a tall figure suddenly materialized before her. She stopped abruptly, her heart plummeting in dread as she stared at the Grim Watcher. His dark cloak trailed the ground, his hood shadowing his face except for the eerie red glow of his eyes.
Her stomach knotted into raw fear. She took a step back, clutching Angel protectively against her chest.
’It’s you,’ came the Watcher’s words, spoken in the language of the dead, but Belle understood them clearly. ’How are you here in this form again?’
Belle frowned, not understanding what the creature meant by those words. Was it trying to say she had gone from having the scent of a living person to that of the dead? She wondered, unaware that what the creature truly meant was something entirely different. At this moment, without her body, she was no longer the living girl he had been searching for, because he couldn’t recognize her as such.
To the reapers, all living people were the same, faceless and indistinguishable, until death claimed them and they became souls. Only then did they gain distinct faces and identities. Now, in this place, Belle had a face, a presence the creature could see and remembered from the past.
Even in her confusion, Belle did not let her guard down. When she saw the Watcher’s glowing eyes drop to her son, she tightened her hold around him protectively and began to walk backwards.
’You have returned after so many years,’ the Watcher continued darkly, ’and now you dare to bring a demon into our world.’
He raised his hand, and a jagged-edged rope appeared, writhing like a living thing. Belle’s eyes widened. She recognized it instantly, it was the same rope he had once tried to catch her with, the very one she had escaped by falling into the River of Souls.
"Please, don’t!" Belle pleaded, her voice cracking as she kept backing away. "You can have me, but not him. I will send him back, and then you can do whatever you want with me."
’I will have the two of you,’ the Watcher declared coldly. ’The elders have been searching for you for years, and now you dare to show yourself. I will take you to face the punishment you deserve.’
He unleashed the rope with a vicious swish. Belle’s eyes locked onto the weapon, her pulse hammering in terror. Instinct took over. With a speed she hadn’t known she possessed, she leapt aside, narrowly avoiding its jagged edges.
Before the Watcher could strike again, she turned quickly and darted in the opposite direction, clutching Angel tightly against her chest. The boy twisted in her arms, straining his head to look back at the Watcher with innocent curiosity, unaware of the danger that loomed so close and behind them.
She ran into a narrow alley between two ruined buildings but quickly turned back out, sensing the swarm of souls pouring from that way as well. The Watcher was right behind her.
Belle dashed to the side and burst through the broken doorway of a crumbling house to escape the creature enough to wake Angel. Blindly, she scrambled up the ruined stairs, not caring where they led.
The steps felt so fragile beneath her feet as she ran up them, the house nothing but a ruin like every other building in this world. She prayed desperately for them not to give way under her weight, but unfortunately, they did. It broke completely, collapsing beneath her, and her body plunged into the darkness of the hole it left behind.
Before she could fall all the way down, Belle’s hand shot out and she grabbed hold of the jagged edge of the broken stair with her left hand, clinging desperately while holding Angel with the other. Her whole body dangled inside the hole, the sharp wood cutting into her palm, but she refused to let go. If she did, she might end up killing her son, and she had no idea what waited in the darkness below that could hurt him enough to cause damage to his body in the living world.
She was already as good as dead without a body, but she would not sacrifice her son.
Straining with every ounce of strength, she fought to push them up with one hand, but it was impossible. Holding the weight of both herself and her son with a single hand was like trying to hold the weight of the world.
The chaos of the pursuing souls thundered closer, filling the air with dread, and above the din, she could hear the Watcher’s slow steps as he ascended the broken stairs toward where they hung trapped in the hole.
Belle looked down at her son. His glowing eyes gazed up at her in the dark.
"Mama..." he whispered fearfully, holding onto her neck for dear life.
Belle managed a trembling smile, though her heart felt as though it were shattering. "Don’t worry, darling. I’ll send you back, no matter what. I promise I’ll follow you the moment I find a way. But before then..." Her throat tightened, emotion choking her as she realized this might truly be the end for her. She might never return home.
"Listen to your papa. Be our good little Angel to him. I love you."
Before she could second-guess herself, Belle used the fingers of the hand holding him and dug them into his small stomach with force.
Angel cried out in pain, calling for her, but his voice suddenly grew fainter, more distant from her ears. His weight in her arms lightened as his form flickered and turned transparent. He faded like a flame being snuffed out, until he was gone completely from her arm.
At that exact moment, the Watcher reached the top of the broken stairs. Belle raised her eyes to him. Her lips curved into a bitter, defiant smile, and then she let go of the broken edge she had been clinging to.
She fell into the darkness below, her smile twisting into a bitter pull of her lips as a single tear rolled down her cheek, surrendering herself to the abyss.