Dawn Revealed

The sky was glowed bright pink with hues of gold and blue, shooing away the last of the darkness. Angel wrenched out of Lance's hold. The embrace was too personal, too close, too much of everything she'd ever wanted and was too afraid to accept. Kayla and Bryce left the bluffs arm in arm and very much in love. Kayla had her happy ending. And she'd given Bryce his. Kayla had always been the strong one, the more resilient of the two of them. And Angel was glad for her. That Kayla had found something good in all this bad.

Angel stayed on the bluffs. Watching the last embers fade. Everyone here had personal reasons for being here. For staying behind to watch what was left of Roark drift skyward on the currents of a morning breeze. She knew Lance was here enduring the dawn and the ash, for her. The Great Father, even after all the hell Roark had caused, he respected the man. She could understand that. And Keene, because maybe, he felt this was his duty. And he would see it through, in service to Roark one last time. She would stay here, rooted in this spot, until there was nothing left but a patch of black scorched earth to mark Roark's gravesite.

Lance dipped his head to Bryce and Kayla. Damn, he loved a happy ending. And Bryce had better ask him to be the best man. Acknowledging Angel's need to be alone with her thoughts, he stepped aside and left her to them. He knew for her the journey would be a long one. Roark had taken a piece of her to the grave with him. It wasn't his body she watched burn to ash in the pyre. But, the death of that piece she could never get back. She would need time to recover. There were parts of her that might never heal. He wanted to tell her that she belonged. That she could be whole, if she wanted it. Her long night was over. And finally she could awaken from the nightmare.

A cool wind gusted over the bluffs, scattering the ash and embers to the four corners. Cleansing the earth with an exhale. Roark was carried up in those autumn breezes, skyward, rising into the clouds. The ground below bore the scar from where he'd burned. Life would go on as if he'd never been at all. Winter was coming. And in her icy arms, the world would slumber for a time. But, in the springtime, there'd be new growth and fresh shoots of fragile green grass. There would be warmth and there would be light after the cold and the bleak darkness. And life would begin anew.

Epilogue

Roark shuddered as a jolt of awareness bored its way into his mind. He forced his eyes open, seeing nothing but thick, impenetrable black. He had no feeling or sense of smell. It was if his flesh didn't exist as if he didn't exist. He was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He'd expected to feel the pain, the anguish of the burning fires of hell. He expected to hear the agonized cries of eternally tortured souls. He expected the scent of searing flesh burning his nose and instead he got NOTHING! So, this was the afterlife, a great big ball of black nothing. NOTHING!

The lilt of feminine laughter cut through him like the fine, sharp edge of a razor. Lamia. Roark longed for the eternal torment of hell. Wished the inky blackness of nothing would swallow him whole and save him from his eternal damnation, this private hell of his own making. "Roark," she crooned in a seductive purr. "I've been waiting for you."

The time for payment had come and he had quite a hefty bill to reconcile. As her cold bony fingers slid along his flesh, a scream of terror caught and dried up in his throat. There was no one who would pray him out of this purgatory. There was no one who mourned his passing. Lying back, defeated, he surrendered his body to her cold embrace. There was no point to scream or plea for mercy. No one would hear him and more importantly, there was no one who cared.