So we exchange one long look among the three of us before squaring our shoulders and heading toward the cavern, where the clanging continues to grow louder and louder.
Not going to lie, I’m terrified. Terrified of what awaits us in that cave—I mean, what kind of monster uses chains to fight?—and terrified of what we have to do. I’ve never deliberately killed anyone or anything in my life （I even relocate bugs outside when I see them）， and the idea of coming all the way up here to kill this monster and take a heartstone it clearly doesn’t want us to take—when it has done nothing to me or any of my friends—doesn’t feel right.
But what’s the alternative? Leave my friends to continue alone? There’s no right answer here, nothing to do but forge ahead and somehow hope that everything turns out okay, though I don’t know how that’s possible right now.
Jaxon looks at me questioningly, but I just nod. And then the three of us walk toward the cave and the Unkillable Beast, whatever that might be, heart pounding in my chest. Palms sweaty. And a sick feeling growing in my stomach that something truly horrible is about to happen.
The cave is dark as we approach, and we’re all on high alert, waiting for something to attack us. But the closer we get to the cave, the harder it is to ignore the clanging sound, to not focus on that to the exclusion of everything else.
Add in the low, husky growls that have started coming from deep inside, and it takes every ounce of courage I have to keep going—and that’s before I look down at the ground and see the plethora of bones lying around. Some long and in perfect shape, others broken clean in half, but all recognizable as human bones.
People, I can only imagine, who had come before us and failed to do what we have to do.
When we get to the entrance, Jaxon holds a hand up to stop Xavier and me, then takes the first step into the cave himself. The chains go wild, but nothing else happens. Even the growls seem to have quieted.
Jaxon takes another step into the cave. I follow right behind and Xavier follows me.
I shine the flashlight on my phone around the darkened cave, but I don’t see anything—and neither does Xavier or Jaxon, apparently, because seconds later, their flashlight beams follow mine.
We look around, though there’s not much to see. I don’t know what I was expecting, but not this barren cavern. There’s nothing here, just rocky walls and bones scattered all around—skulls and leg bones and rib cages still intact.
“Where is it?” I whisper, because there are no rocks in here, nothing at all for a monster to hide behind.
At first, I’m afraid that there are more rooms, that the cavern extends the way the Bloodletter’s does. But more sweeps of our flashlights reveal that this is it. This one room, with rocky, bloodstained walls and a rough dirt floor.
And huge, thick chains anchored into the ceiling and the back wall.
“I don’t understand,” Xavier says. “I know the noise came from here. I know it did. So where the hell is this thing?”
Finally, another low growl sounds, and we spin into a protective circle, our backs together as we sweep our flashlight beams all over the cavern.
The voice inside my head warns. Leave, leave, leave.
I can’t leave! I tell it. It’s too late.
Way too late.
Seconds later, another, louder growl sounds as the chains in front of us start to clank. And the wall itself begins to move.
101
Heaven on My Mind
“What the fuck!” Xavier exclaims, stumbling back, as the wall seems to come alive.
It growls once, long and low and loud, and the chains all but scream as it launches itself straight toward us.
Jaxon grabs me and shoves me behind him as he blasts out with every ounce of telekinetic power he has. It stops the thing—whatever it is—in midair, for a moment or maybe two. And then it just keeps coming, landing on all fours in front of us.
As I get my first good look at the beast, I can’t help thinking it’s like something out of a fantasy novel straight from hell. It’s huge—the hugest creature I’ve ever seen in my life—and made entirely of craggy rock that’s sharp and broken in a ton of different places, moss growing haphazardly all around.
Its eyes glow red and its teeth are vicious in a mouth that looks like it could swallow all three of us whole in one gulp. And it’s advancing on us, one slow step at a time.
Jaxon lashes out again, throwing everything he’s got straight at the monster. But all that does is make it angry, and it retaliates by striking with one massive hand （paw?） and sends him flying against a stone wall so hard that the cavern shakes.