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When Elijah found himself in The Darkness, instead of searching for the black-haired man, he focused on the things he'd seen when he grasped the man's wrist.

He chose the vision he had of Haru; the vision of him crying in the corner of an empty, dark room. And as he concentrated, the endless black around him faded, and the room where Haru sat formed.

The moment Elijah set his eyes on Haru, desperation struck him, and he rushed over to him, but when he tried to reach out and touch him, his hand faded through him.

"Haru?" he asked.

But he didn't respond. He sat there with his arms wrapped around his knees and his head down; Elijah couldn't see his face, but he could hear him crying, and there was blood splattered on his skin.

"Haru?" Elijah asked again.

Still, he didn't look at him.

"Haru?!" he insisted and tried to grab his arm.

This time, Haru looked up, revealing a fresh wound on the right side of his teary face. Blood trickled down his cheek with his tears, and as he frowned, he looked straight at Elijah...but he couldn't see him, could he?

Pain ensnared Elijah's racing heart as he stared at Haru's agonized face. He wanted to pull him into his embrace and tell him that everything was going to be fine—he wanted to tell him that he was going to find him; but this was just a dream, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

"Eli?" Haru asked sullenly.

Elijah's desperation intensified. "Haru?"

But Haru's confused gaze didn't meet his. The demon watched as Haru looked around the empty room as if he were trying to find the source of a scent or a sound.

"Haru, I'm here," he said, reaching for his arm again, but just like before, his fingers went right through Haru.

And then a loud clanking bang snatched both their attention.

Elijah sharply turned his head to look at the metal door, which creaked open, and the moment he saw the faceless doctors wielding their syringes and scalpels, he snarled ferociously and pounced. But he fell through them all and stumbled back into The Darkness. As his heart pounded, he turned around and tried to race back into the room as Haru cried and begged them to leave him alone, but the door faded like smoke on water, leaving Elijah alone in the dark.

"Haru?!" he called desperately, frantically looking around, but there was nothing but black for as far as his eyes could see.

He had to find Haru. He had to get to East Coast and get Haru's location out of Ronan. He couldn't waste any more time. Haru needed him, and he couldn't let those doctors hurt him anymore.

But when he tried to wake himself, he couldn't.

The Darkness remained...stretching on, its indefinite expanse beginning to feel like a cage.

A door. It appeared a hundred feet from Elijah, surrounded by a red glow all too familiar.

He hurried towards it, hoping to find Haru on the other side, but when he stepped through, he emerged into a dark laboratory.

But this one was different.

He'd never seen it before.

Lined along the left and right walls were ooze-filled cylinders; the liquid inside was silver instead of green, and where he expected to find abominations...he saw wings and horns.

Elijah frowned cautiously as he eyed each cylinder, but one in particular urged him closer. Floating in the ooze of the centre cylinder on the right wall was a black feathered wing; in the dim light coming from the computer screens, the feathers shimmered white...just like his own single wing.

He stood in front of the cylinder, staring at the wing. The longer he gazed, the greater the urge to reach in and take it became. He knew that it was his—it called to him, begging him to reclaim it, begging him to find it. He always wondered what the doctors did with his wing after they removed it, but why was it floating in a tank in a room full of cylinders that harboured parts of other Caeleste? Other wings, horns, and talons—there was even the carapace of a creature he couldn't name.

What the hell was this place?

But then he remembered what they'd found on Shaw's laptop. Lyca Corp.'s doctors had been using his DNA to create chimaeras; could they be extracting his DNA from his wing?

"Eli..." came a distorted voice.

Elijah turned to face the sound, and his eyes fixed on one of the computer screens. While the others were all white, the one in the centre showed him a blurred visage.

He moved closer, and the nearer he got, the clearer the screen became. Once he stood right in front of it, the distortion cleared, and he saw the small, green-eyed girl he'd seen in the fragments. Two small, black, feline claw-like horns protruded from her forehead beneath her hazel hair, and she adorned silk beneath her fur-collared coat, gold, jewel-encrusted earrings, and a small golden diadem.

Elijah didn't know who she was, but something inside him insisted that he did. He tried searching his memory—maybe there was something suppressed or forgotten, but he had no recollection of ever crossing the girl's path.

She looked upset like she was trying to hold back tears. Elijah watched as the hand of whoever's memory he was witnessing reached out and took the girl's hand.

But that was when he heard Zoe's voice.

"Elijah?" she called.

He felt her shake him from inside his dream. He didn't want to wake up, though. He wanted to keep hunting for answers, exploring the fragments in search of understanding because he still didn't know what any of it meant.

No, that wasn't true. Seeing his missing wing made him believe that Lyca Corp. was extracting his DNA from it to create chimaeras, and Haru...Haru needed him now. He had to get to him as soon as possible. No more diversions. No more setbacks. He had to get straight to Ronan and find out where Haru had been transferred to.

"Elijah?" came Zoe's voice again.

He fought his confliction; he wanted to keep searching...but he had to get back on the road. There'd be more time later for him to return to The Darkness.

Elijah focused on Zoe's voice, and then her aura. The dark faded away, taking the fragments with it.

He opened his eyes to find Zoe standing in front of him.

"S-sorry, I thought I should wake you up. It's 9 a.m. already," she said.

Elijah sighed deeply and sat up straight. He grimaced as the smell of mildew hit him, and when the scent of what was supposed to be cooking food mixed in with it, he felt nauseous. The sooner they got out of there, the better.

He grabbed his bags and stood up. "Let's go."

Zoe nodded, and as Jake silently opened the door, they left the room. They navigated the narrow corridor back to the reception area, and after handing in their key, they left the cramped building.

Elijah felt relief as he breathed in the fresh air—as fresh as air got in a mining town, anyway. He then eyed the streets; there were a few people heading in either direction, some wearing suits, others wearing mining gear. Several cars passed by, and a track carrying rocks and boulders left a trail of grey dust on the road as it headed towards the town exit.

"Should we ask someone if there's a car dealership in town?" Zoe asked, looking up at him.

The demon nodded and started leading the way up the street. When they got to a crossing, where a group of people were waiting to cross, Elijah examined each of their faces and auras. They were all human, and there was a chance that they'd refuse to speak to them; small towns like this were often prejudiced, so he prepared himself for insults, disgusted looks, and revolted responses.

"Um, excuse me," Zoe said to the woman wearing a pink suit. "Do you know if there's a car dealership around here? Or someplace we can get a car from."

Elijah watched the woman look Zoe up and down, clearly considering whether she wanted to reply or not.

But the woman said, "There's Marcy's on Eriss Street, just up that way." She pointed back down the way they'd come. "And then take a right and a left."

"Thank you," Zoe said.

The woman nodded in response, and then she followed everyone else across the road.

Elijah turned around and headed the way the woman said. He followed the given directions, and when he saw the car dealership at the end of the road, he picked up the pace a little. He wanted to get out of this town and to East Coast as soon as possible.

"This place looks a little...well, run-down," Zoe said as they stepped into the yard, which displayed a lot of rusted and worn-out vehicles.

"Most of these don't look like they'll make it out of town let alone to East Coast," Jake mumbled.

Ignoring the pardus, Elijah approached the office and pushed the door open. He was greeted by the barking of a Pitbull, and Zoe's dog started yapping in response.

Moments later, a tall, sleekly dressed woman stepped out of the room behind the counter. "Oh, good morning," she said with a pleasant smile. "Welcome to Macy's."

Her appearance didn't match the state of the dealership, and Elijah had seen enough places like this to know right away that it was an illegal business which specialized in selling to criminals. He didn't care, though. Buying a car from a place like this would make it a lot harder for Lyca Corp. to track him.

"I need something that'll last long enough to get me to East Coast," he told her.

She nodded and took a logbook from the desk. "Car, van, truck? We've got bikes and quads, too."

"Car."

With another nod, she flipped through the book. "Muscle, Pickup, SUV? We recently got two new Station Wagons in, too."

"I'd like to see what you've got," Elijah said.

"Sure. This way," she said as she put the book down and walked out from behind the counter.

"Uh...you got a bathroom?" Jake asked.

"Just around the corner there," the woman said.

"Could you seriously not go before we left the B&B?" Zoe complained.

"I didn't need to go then," Jake mumbled. "I'll just be a few secs, God."

Zoe rolled her eyes and followed Elijah and the woman out into the yard.

"Station Wagons are over there on the right, and everything else...well, everything's everywhere. Let me know if something catches your eye," the woman said as she stopped in the centre of the yard.

Elijah nodded and headed over to the Pickups. The four of them weren't in the best condition; one had plastic sheeting over two windows, another had oddly matched wheels, and the third one had differently coloured doors. The fourth one, silver with some scratches and scuffs, looked to be the better of them all.

"Should we...send Jake home?" Zoe suddenly asked.

The demon took his eyes off the car and looked down at her. "What?"

"I just...I don't know if I can trust him anymore after he did that."Bottom of Form

Elijah sighed deeply. "If I could get rid of him, I would. But the shitty reality is that sending him home is more dangerous than keeping him with us. He knows shit, and I'm not going to risk Lyca Corp. getting a hold of him."

"That's true," she said sadly. "I'm just afraid that he might do something else that gets us in trouble."

"I'll be keeping a very close eye on him," Elijah muttered. "Come on." He headed back over to the woman. "We'll take the silver Pickup."

The woman smiled. "Great. That one's a hundred and forty coronam."

Zoe's eyes widened. "For a used Pickup?"

"It's the guarantee, dear, not the car," the woman told her.

Elijah crouched and placed his bags in front of him. He opened the one he stole from the mechanics and started counting the stacks of coronam notes. There was well over a hundred in there. "Here," he said as he handed the woman the cash.

"Thank you," she said with a smile. "If you wait here, I'll go get the keys and a clean license plate."

As the woman walked off, Elijah zipped up his bag, stood up, and threw both bags over his shoulders.

"I'm sorry that Jake did that," Zoe mumbled. "Ever since he started working out and getting popular online, he's turned into a really selfish person, but I never thought he'd do something like this."

Elijah set his eyes on the pardus as he walked out of the office and towards them. The moment Jake reached them, the demon dropped his bags and patted him down.

"Hey, what the hell?!" Jake exclaimed.

"Shut the fuck up," Elijah snapped as he searched his pockets.

"Dude, I literally just went for a piss."

Elijah snarled and backed off; he didn't find anything, but he wasn't taking any chances. He picked up his bags and watched the office door, waiting for the woman to come back.

"Did you find a car?" Jake muttered.

Neither of them answered him.

The pardus tutted, crossed his arms, and stood there like a stubborn child who'd just been told no.

When the woman finally came out of the office, she headed over to them and handed Elijah a set of keys and a license plate. "Is there anything else I can help you with?" She leaned a little closer. "We've got climbing gear, weapons, safes, and explosives; anything you might need for whatever you're doing."

"No, thank you," Elijah said dismissively. He then turned around and headed over to the Pickup truck. "Get in, you're driving," he said as he handed the keys to Jake.

The pardus rolled his eyes and got into the driver's seat.

Zoe took the passenger seat, and Elijah sat in the back with his bags.

Jake started the engine, and then he adjusted the mirrors. "So, straight to East Coast?"

"Yeah," Zoe mumbled in response.

With a nod, Jake reversed out of the parking spot and drove out of the yard.

To Elijah's relief, the car didn't sound like it was on its last legs, nor did it give off any concerning smells or smoke. He just hoped that this car would get them further than any of the others had. He had to get to East Coast, he had to find out where Haru was...and he needed to get to him before the doctors could hurt him any more than they already had.

Haru needed him, and he wasn't going to fail him. He'd find the man he loved, and he'd give him the freedom they both dreamed of for years.

Nothing else was going to get in his way.

⊳⊱ ♕ ⊰⊲