Darkness & Light: Book 2: Shatter Our Hope

20 - Drecca

The chaos abates, and Drecca and Tiber go to scry for Hayley and Aldrea. Lilith joins them, handing the crystals to Tiber.

"Are the others all okay?" Drecca asks her.

She nods. "Okay is a relative term, but yes, most of us are alright. No one is dead, yet."

"Is that really what we've been reduced to? Not dead yet?" Tiber asks dryly.

"Yes," says Lilith, her own tone sharp and frustrated. She spins around and leaves the room, and Tiber watches her go with a strange look on his face.

Drecca smirks. "You like her."

"Uh, what? O - of course I do?!"

"No, I mean, like how I like your sister, Hayley," he says. Drecca chuckles as Tiber stares at him, shocked.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Tiber. But I will warn you... Indari has her eyes set on Lilith, too. So you may have some competition."

As the two of them descend into silence, and Drecca begins to work on his scrying, Tiber looks up at him with another strange look in his eyes.  Drecca turns to him, a slight amused smirk on his face.

Tiber doesn't notice as he says, "So, uh, Dax and Kieran? They're.... a couple now, I guess."

"Oh?" Drecca smiles at him. "They've been as such for a time now, and you just noticed?"

That's when the crystals begin to glow, indicating that they have found Hayley and Aldrea. Drecca and Tiber both lean forward, staring at the shining crystals. And then, Drecca realizes that the crystals are glowing hot. The quartz gems are hot to the touch, and Tiber looks at him, confused.

"What does that mean?"

"Go get the others," Drecca tells him.

"What? What's going on?"

"Just .... go get the others. We will need them," he says.

Tiber nods and hurries from the room. Drecca studies the gems, each of them still brightly glowing and hot to the touch. He knows that this isn't good. He just needs to find them, before Donovan does anything terrible to them.

Hayley had contacted him, told him about what happened to them, but now, he knows time is running out. Fast.

The others all pile in the room, and Drecca doesn't turn as he speaks.

"So, uh, time is running out, but the gems have indicated that they have found Hayley and Aldrea, and they're in Donovan's hellish realm. This will take all of us. We all need to work together to help them, because if we don't, if we won't find them in time."

"Uh, what ... what do you mean?" Tiber asks.

"All of us need to work together to find them, before Donovan does something to hurt them. When Hayley contacted me, she showed me the inside of the building they are in. He's.... he's taken them to a place where he used to torture me, when I was younger. I didn't realize it, but the crystals confirmed it. Guys, if we don't hurry, Donovan might start to torture them."

"Shit...." mutters Corvo. "So, what are we waiting for?"

"Indeed," says Indari.  "If we must hurry, we should go now."

Emmeranne and Atlas and Delta all step closer to Drecca as he rises, holding the handful of hot crystals. He nods once, and Lilith reaches out. She takes his hand and creates a portal that swirls around them, swallowing each of them all at once.

When they step through the other side, Drecca feels like he's been stabbed in the heart. Hayley. She's hurting. But, it's more than that. He's also realizing that he was hurt here, many years ago, and that is bringing back tons of awful memories.

He's gotta find Hayley and Aldrea.  He won't let all that happened to him happen to them, too. So, he shoves the quartz crystals into his pocket and trudges onward.