"So what do we do?"

Raven, the strange demon boy who has agreed to at least attempt to help me, turns to look at me. Those dark eyes wide with uncertainty he shakes his head. "I don't really know." He admits. "Hiding a lost soul from the reapers has never been done before."

"Those aren't great odds."

"No." He shakes his head. "No they aren't."

He sticks his neck out into the darkness of the realm I will never forget, if I even get the luxury of forgetting Hell. According to Raven, I might just be stuck here as a tortured soul for all of eternity. My whole body shakes just thinking of it.

"What if they find me?" I agonize the details. "What will they do to me? I can't get stuck here, I've got people who need me, and I want to go back to the Hub and I need to rescue Tawny and Mags somehow. Plus I never even got to finish training, I-."

Raven's hand slaps over my mouth, pulling me back against him and keeping me from speaking. "Shut up." He whispers close to my ear, pulling me further back into the cave.

Maybe it's the fact that I've already been blindsided by a murder attempt within the last twenty minutes, or maybe I've just never been a fan of being told to shut up or being man handled, either way, my body snaps into control.

I jut my elbow back into the soft part of his stomach, holding in the cringe when that part isn't soft at all but hardly muscled, then when he caves in I twist his arm down from my mouth, trying to bend him into the hold I've used on so many before, but he doesn't budge.

"What are you doing?" He looks down at where I'm holding his arm and trying desperately to break it. He's doesn't even really look that annoyed. "Hide over there and don't say a single word. Don't even breathe too hard, or think about anything. Try to minimize yourself." I'm so taken aback by the turn that I just stare up at him. I've never been stumped on a maneuver before. He jerks his head towards the mouth of the cave and then back to me, pushing on my shoulder. "Go, you can try to kill me again later, but not if you get caught right now."

He pushes a little harder and I go over to the side of the cave, taking a wide berth around the lava pond that's already tried to melt me once today, and I duck behind an awkwardly shaped boulder. For good measure I close my eyes and try to make myself feel small like Raven had said. I gulp hard once and then focus on being anywhere but here. I don't want to think or draw attention to myself but the moment I hear footsteps approaching the cave I want to vomit and my heart is beating so fast I'm afraid someone might hear it.

Someone like a bad demon or a reaper, which I assume to be one of those scary ass shadow things out there. I try to keep my eyes shut, but the not knowing is just as bad while I hide.

"Do you feel that, boy?"

I hold my breath as the deeper than seems real voice booms into the space.

"I do, father." Raven comments, less enthused.

Father? This cannot be good.

The man chuckles and I imagine he looks as evil as sin itself. "The reapers will be giddy at this added hunt. You know how bored they grow." He pauses and I hear him moving again, with a shock of fear I realize it's in my direction. "My, it is potent." He sounds like he's sniffing the air. "It smells so sweet it burns me, yet it's so...enthralling?"

"Yes, father." Raven says formally again. "Very appealing."

His father laughs again. "Appealing?" His laugh cuts off sharply. "Get your head on straight, boy. You should be out there, enjoying the fun. The souls of the dammed are raging this hour. They too can feel the pull. It smells like freedom to them. Go out with the other tempests and whisper."

There's a long pause that makes my pulse quicken before Raven speaks again, closer now. "Father, I'd rather-."

"YOU'D RATHER WHAT?" I hear the scuffle and then the gasping noises coming from Raven. "You've been weak since the moment of creation, I killed the bitch who birthed you to me. Maybe I should have killed you too? It would have saved me the trouble of dealing with your moods."

"Fa-father I-I..." I could hear the limited air supply and my joints ached to move.

"You think I don't know? How you hide out away from the others. Why don't you whisper? Why don't you want your birthright you worthless piece of shit." His father's anger rolls off of him in palpable heat. It's amazing that I can even notice it with the lava so close, but I do feel it. It fills me with terror, but it also pisses me off. "You disgust me." He snaps and I hear the scuttle of Rave's shoes barely brushing the ground.

I can't help myself, I peek out from around the boulder and see where the huge man has his back to me and his son pinned to the wall two feet in front of him, gasping for air. He isn't holding him with his hand though. It's only outstretched towards him, but Raven's handsome face is contorted with pain as the light seems to be leaking from his eyes, the veins in his face and neck standing out starkly under the reddening skin.

I can't stop.

I can't stand by and watch this happen to a person who just saved my life.

I wouldn't be able to stand by if the person was even more of a stranger to me than Raven is already. I'd have to do something, just like I have to right now.

I muster all my strength and courage and grab the boulder to my other side, roughly the size of my head. I ease it up into my grip, getting a good hold on it before I silently as possible stand from my hiding spot and ease out into Raven's view. His eyes widen a half second before I bash the boulder over his father's head, just as he was turning towards me.

He goes down with a huff and a thud, completely knocked out.

I don't waste much time looking at him though. I rush to Raven's side where he's collapsed on the ground on all fours, gasping for air and coughing loudly. I drop beside him, pulling him half up.

The white of his eyes are bloodshot, but he looks ok, no ghost hand marks on his thick neck. "Wh-what did you just d-do?" He coughs.

I fumble to pull him to his feet, knowing dear old dad won't be out for long.

"I think I knocked him out."

"You have no idea who he is." Raven rubs at his throat, looking at the pile of the man on the ground before him. "He's our ruler. As is, Lucifer."

I shrug my shoulders and roll my eyes. "Yeah well he may be a big baddy bad, but he was about to kill you."

Raven shakes his head at me. "You didn't do it only so I'd help you." He says. "You'd have done that for anyone." I nod even though he didn't pose either statement as a question. My breath hitches as he lifts one massive hand to the side of my face, brushing my hair away from where it fell in waves all around me. "What are you? I have to know."

It takes a second to get my head back on straight, but I do it. "Right now I'm pretty sure this isn't the time or place to be discussing this." I point out and he stands, taking a step away from me. "Where do we go?"

Raven steps carefully over his father's body and looks into the dark again. "We run," He says. "Right now they're searching to the East. Some of the lost souls know you're here, but as of right now, they aren't telling."

"You're going to have to explain this all to me," I sigh. "None of this was in the info packet."

"You're not making it any easier to table this conversation when you keep saying things like that." He tells me, the reaches out to grab me by the side of my shirt, pulling me to his side at the mouth of the cave. Just looking back out there freaks me the heck out all over again. Everywhere I turn is darkness and spits of fire just waiting to devour me. "Stay close to me, follow my steps, keep your mouth shut, and try to keep your soul quiet too."

"Wait, wha-."

I don't get to finish before he's dragging me out into the darkness. My feet slam into the hard hot ground over and over but I try to keep pace with Raven even though his strides are about twice as wide as mine. This realm is truly amazing, if terrifying still. As far as we run, nothing seems to change around us. It's like running in place, nothing but flat expanses of landscape around us, fires, and the occasional small caves that all look the exact same. If it weren't for Raven at my side I'd be sure I was losing my mind and trapped inside of a never ending dream where I run as hard and fast as I can but never really go anywhere.

"Stop." Raven whispers and I turn back to where he's halted suddenly. His face looks conflicted and I'm instantly anxious. What if he's changed his mind about helping me? He could leave me out here and I'd die for certain.

"What is it?" I ask, barely an audible whisper back. "What's wrong?"

He glances up at me, and then back towards a fire pit. "I-I can't explain it..." He says. "I feel like I need to..."

"Need to what?" I ask. "Run way faster and get out of the open like this? Because that I'd agree with."

He takes two steps forward, but then two steps back, his gaze drifting back to the fire. "I just...hang on." He turns quickly, going to the fire and then beyond my belief and to my horror, he shoves his hand down into the hole that spouts out fire. It's dead when he sticks his arm in, down to the elbow, but then it shoot flames up ten feet into the air, blasting into Raven's face and upper body. I can't hold in the tiny shriek that escapes my lips as his hair blows back. He doesn't seem effected by the flames in the slightest though, digging his arm down deeper into the hole until he clutches onto something, slowly bringing his arms back out.

"Holy Gods." I gasp, covering my mouth when his fist comes back out of the hole and he opens his hand to me, revealing the glowing green stone set into a thick leather wrapped bracelet. My mind runs a million miles a minute as I stare at it. "Y-you're like me. You're one of us."

"What does that mean exactly?" Raven asks, clutching his bracelet firmly in his fist protectively. "I just had this overwhelming need to stick my hand in that hole to get something and that's not normal."

I go to answer him, but the ground beneath us shakes. "What just..?"

Raven grabs my upper arm and starts running again. "My father just woke up."

His words light the fire under me and we run faster than I've ever run before.

Finally the horizon shifts and I see a downward angel coming up. We slide down the slope and then turn to the right where another cave is dug out, but this one is even more cramped than the others and thankfully doesn't house a fiery pond of death inside. It is however, so dark that I can hardly see in front of my face. If it weren't for the green glow from Rave's wrist, we'd be blind in here.

Both panting we fall to the ground, heaving for breath and my sides feel like they're on fire. I haven't run like that ever. But I guess I've never really run for my life before after all.

I feel the faint shake of the ground beneath us again and the source makes my body go still. "What will he do?" I whisper, Raven's worried face cast in shadows.

"You don't want to find out." He says. "You've got to get out of here. With an essence as strong as yours it won't take the reapers long to hunt you down, and not you've pissed off Lucifer too. There's no good new here. You have to leave. However you came, go back, but tell me what you are first. I can't live out the rest of my life without knowing."

I pull my knees up to my chest and drop my forehead onto their tops. "You don't get it." I sigh, feeling the walls of the cave closing in on me. Any minute now they'll find me and I'm done for. Which means Tawny and Mags are done for, and I'm never going to see my other friends again either. "Oliver, the boy who tried to kill me, was the one who brought me here. I don't have the capability myself. You have to have this special thing that lets you jump from realm to realm."

"You're losing me again." Raven comments, the light shifting around the cave floor telling me he's admiring his bracelet again.

Just like that it clicks into my brain and I snap my head up.

"That's it!" I cheer, then quickly cover my own mouth before Raven has the chance to do it for me. "That's it." I repeat again, but quieter as I point to his bracelet. "This is our ticket out of here."

Raven looks between it and me in bewilderment. "What do you mean?"

"They'll come for you." I tell him. "When you find your stone, your group comes to collect you. When they get here they can take us both back to The Hub."

"The what?"

As fast as my lips will allow me to talk I jump into the story of how I came to be united with my stone and then all of the craziness that ensued afterward. He didn't interrupt like I would have, stopping me for questions or insisting that I was lying. Instead he nodded along as I told him all about the Custodes and our duty, hoping I wasn't breaking any rules by doing so. I whispered to him stories of the other realms and of my friends back at the hub that would be waiting for me. By the time I was finished, he only sighed.

"Wow." He murmurs.

I take a deep breath and nod. "I know. But you're one of us. You can leave here, leave your dad, be your own person."

He swallows hard. "That all sounds nice and all but..."

"What?"

"When are they going to come?" He asks. "Because we've got all of hell hunting us by now and it will not be much longer before someone sniffs you out."

I wish I knew the answer to that one. I really really did. But sadly I had no clue when it would be, or if they'd be able to find us hidden like this when they did come. It was a bunch of unknowns.

"I can't tell you when they'll get here." I admit after a second. "I only know they will come."

"For both our sake's I hope it's soon."