Kassandra had an arrow notched in her bow as she and the others surveyed the grove of trees by the river. This was the only vegetation she had seen ever since she came to Hell, though the grass wasn’t green, but a pale white. She wondered if it was edible. It wasn’t like they were lacking in food, but eating nothing but meat was not doing their bowels any favors.

  The others, too, had their weapons at the ready, but they hadn’t seen or heard anything so far. Then just as she was about to relax, something twitched on the edges of her vision. A monstrosity that she could only describe as a demonic chicken came for her.

  She had just a moment to Identify it.

  [Kreezor (Exiled) - ?]

  It screeched loud enough to make her want to cup her hands around her ears, but she couldn’t make that mistake. She waited for the chicken demon to get a little closer before she let her arrow fly, but the demon deftly jumped to the side.

  She reached into her quiver to get another arrow, but the demon was on her. She dropped her bow and reached for her dagger, but then a beefy hand grabbed the demon by the neck and lifted it clean off the ground. With his other hand, Sergei crushed the demon’s head, killing it on the spot. The demon’s flailing stopped immediately.

  “Dinner?” Sergei asked, or maybe proclaimed. It was hard to tell.

  Kassandra shrugged. “Sure, big buy. And thanks.”

  He nodded in return, but his eyes lingered on her for a moment too long, making Kassandra want to reach for an arrow. But then he looked away when he noticed Kassandra staring at him.

  They had kept him along. With Rey gone, they needed the extra firepower, and besides, it was Sergei. The man who had willingly condemned himself to save the rest of them. They couldn’t just ask him to leave, just because he had turned into a demon.

  Because of Rey…

  No matter how much she tried not to think of him. That idiot always thrust himself into her thoughts.

  “All clear on this side,” Ajay called from behind her.

  “Clear here as well,” Kassandra said. “Looks like we can camp here.”

  With Rey gone, she had become the leader of their small group. Just when they had needed him the most, he decided to leave them, all because he thought that he couldn’t change everyone’s fate. If only he had talked with her about what he was going through, she could’ve helped him. But no, he had to do everything himself.

  She found her anger bubbling, and it took a lot to get her angry. She let out a sigh and decided to focus on something else, like helping others set up their camp.

  Ever since they had entered this place with the craggy ground and the dark sky with rivulets of lava overhead, they had hardly found any trees. When they had seen this river by accident, they had been overjoyed. They had followed it as they marched deeper into this strange land, and the demons were something else entirely. They were much stronger than they had seen back at the castle.

  The average demon was rank 4 at best. If they weren’t together, they would’ve all ended up dead by now. Thanks to the demons' higher ranks, they were all Rank 4. She was sure she was close to hitting Rank 5, as were the others.

  They set up camp quietly and cooked the demon that Sergei had killed. Thanks to Ajay, they didn’t really need any wood fuel, but today, since they had it, they decided to use it. It took them minutes to erect a large bonfire.

  “I hate to say it, but this chicken demon does in fact taste like chicken,” Kassandra stated.

  “You will not hear any arguments from me,” Filomena stated.

  “I only wish we had something to season it with.” Kassandra took another bite of the slightly charred meat.

  “Oh, that would be the best,” Bahar replied. “It’s like I’m forgetting the taste of what salt tasted like, let alone the other spices.”

  “I’m with you on that,” Ajay agreed.

  Segei ate in silence, as he usually did, but tonight his eyes were not on the food, but on everyone else. Kassandra had been watching him, and he had been doing this more and more lately. She didn’t know what was on his mind as he hardly ever talked, unlike a certain someone who never used to shut up.

  Sergei finished chewing on the piece of meat and threw the bone away. “I have a declaration.”

  The conversation quieted as Sergei stood. “My demon side getting bad. It…It asking to kill you…eat your soul. It getting hard to control. You my friends. Sergei never hurt his friends. So, I leave now.”

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  The only sound in the camp was the cracking of the burning wood. So, that’s why he was staring at me.

  She had been thinking of other untoward things. That Sergei was staring at her because of something else, but this man had literally condemned himself to death, knowing that Unokir would eat his soul, and he had done so without even thinking about the consequences. He had almost volunteered when Rey had told them about the third gate. She was ashamed of herself and immensely sad at what had happened to him.

  “But where will you even go?” Filomena asked.

  He shrugged. “I do not know, but I will not hurt you.”

  After Phill, the others knew better than to argue with that. Phil had so readily given in to his demon side, and here was Sergei, who was choosing to walk away before he turned full demon. Rey had said the hunger for a soul would get maddening, especially if he stayed amongst all these souls.

  “Can you at least stay with us for one night?” Kassandra asked. “You can leave tomorrow. I’m sure you can control yourself for that long.”

  She smiled at the gentle giant, who nodded. “One final night with friends.”

  After that, everyone lost their appetite and moved to sleep, and Kassandra took the first watch. It was always mostly dark in this place, yet still very hot, thanks to the lava overhead. So, having this large body of water was a godsend.

  She found a large boulder just outside the grove where she took up position. It wasn’t large enough for her to see for miles, but it still gave her some sense of the surrounding area. She had her eye on a skill called the Archer’s Mark. It allowed her to see over great distances. She was waiting to rank up so she could get it. That was her next pick.

  She heard movement behind her. She whirled around, arrow notched and bowstring pulled to her chest. But it was only Ajay who held up his hands. In one hand was a small waterskin.

  “Sorry if I startled you,” Ajay said. “Fil noticed you left without a waterskin and asked me to give this to you.”

  She reached down and took it. “Thanks, Ajay.” Then she raised an eyebrow. “And Fil? You two are getting awfully close.”

  He blushed a little as he always did when someone teased him for anything related to Filomena.

  “You know, you two might as well just announce to everyone that you’re together. Everyone knows it.”

  “Wh-What?”

  She didn’t know he could get any redder, but he did.

  “What else am I supposed to think when you blush so hard?” Kassandra chuckled.

  “Can you please speak a little softly?” Ajay hushed. “The others might hear, and no, we’re not together.”

  “What are you so afraid of? It’s not like Rey is here to tease you about it.”

  Then her smile faltered, and she looked away. Rey was a taboo topic amongst the group, especially when it came to Kassandra. No one talked about him openly with her as if he had died in a most gruesome manner or as if he was never here, and was just a figment of their imagination. But mostly it was because they knew she was angry at him for killing Sergei and then abandoning them.

  “You miss him, don’t you?” Ajay said.

  She didn't say anything for a long moment, then gave a single, almost imperceptible nod, not wanting to say more. However, having held everything inside her for so long, the words just spilled out.

  “It’s been nearly three weeks since he’s been gone, and I miss him so much. He was my first friend here, and then in the end, he just left like we didn’t mean anything to him.”

  Like, I didn’t mean anything at all to him. But she left that part out.

  “I like to think it is the opposite,” Ajay said. “He had a premonition of all our deaths and couldn’t bear to witness them for real. You saw how broken up he was about Sergei’s sacrifice.”

  “If he was going to end up leaving, then he should have just done so from the beginning,” Kassandra said, anger making her words sound harsh. “He didn’t need to stay and…”

  “Become friends with us?” Ajay asked. “Would that really have been better? Tell me truthfully, would you have really wanted that? Not known him at all?”

  Kassandra sighed. “No, but why did he have to leave?” She couldn’t stop the tears from glistening in her eyes. “You know, from time to time, I still think he’s going to pop out from behind one of these trees, and crack one of his idiotic jokes with that stupid grin plastered all over his face.”

  Ajay smiled. “Okay, go ahead and make one of his jokes at my expense.”

  She frowned lightly. “What?”

  “You heard me. It could be about anything you want.”

  “Okay...Mr. Garam Masala is getting too hot to handle with our Italian friend.”

  Ajay stared at her for a moment and then burst out laughing. “Oh, that was so bad, and not even close to what he would’ve said. He would’ve been more like Mr. Butter Chicken wants to get intertwined with Miss Spaghetti or something along those lines. Though if it were just the two of us, he would’ve said something far worse or tried to blackmail me.”

  “About you sleeping with the succubus?” Kassandra asked abruptly.

  The color drained from Ajay’s face. “N-No, that’s not t-true.”

  “Relax, your secret is safe with me.”

  “But how did you know?”

  “That Rey was lying.” She got a faraway look in her eyes as she pictured the loveable idiot. “Because he always made it a point to tell that story to someone when I came around, as if that would push me away. It worked for the first few times, and then I got suspicious. I don’t know why, but he always tried to push me away.”

  She had a feeling why, but she wasn’t going to say that out loud to anyone.

  “Well, you heard him, your death is or will be the worst one out of us all,” Ajay said. “I guess, he didn’t want to relive that or any of our deaths.”

  “I just hope wherever that idiot is, he’s fine,” Kassandra said.

  “I’m sure he is, Kassandra,” he replied. “Besides, he can see the future. He’s not going to be easy to take out. Who knows, we might run into him one day or another.”

  She nodded at that. There was a part of her that badly wished that to be true. However, it wasn’t as if she could see the future.

  She smiled and motioned to the camp. “Go, your Fil is waiting.”

  She took a swig from the waterskin and was left alone with her thoughts once more, which were occupied by Rey, but not for long.

  To her right, she heard a deep growling that raised all the hairs on her arms. In the blink of an eye, she had an arrow notched in her bow and ready to fire, as she turned towards the low growls that were like a vibrating rumble that was crawling along her bones.

  Then she saw the yellow glowing eyes among the trees.

  How did they get past me?

  “Wake up, everyone!” was all she could manage before the monstrosities attacked.