FicWad

Chapter Eighteen

Jared followed Tomislav down a darkened alley with a bit of fear growing inside of him. He had never been so determined to do something in his life, having agreed without getting any details of what he was about to do. Nothing about it scared him, it was just what had to happen. Tomislav said he would be able to help Miranda and now Jared was merely blindly trusting him.

"In here." Tomislav's voice seemed to echo up at the damp stone walls as they turned a corner and met a splintered wood door.

Jared followed him inside, feeling a chill raise the hairs on his neck and race up his spine. He wasn't sure where he was but he abandoned his natural instinct of fear.

They came into a square of a room, no windows, barely any light, and there was a draft all around. Jared looked about himself, used to poverty but not to absolute desolate seclusion.

"Where are we?" Jared asked, settling his eyes back on Tomislav curiously.

"Does it matter?" Tomislav's voice was devoid of emotion.

Jared barely shook his head and ran his and back through his dark hair. Something was rising up inside of him, a nervousness. A voice screaming at him to turn back, to find help for his daughter another way. He played it off as fear, swallowed it down, and tried to lock it up. Of course it remained like a nagging wound inside the pit of his stomach but it was, in a way, easily ignored.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Tomislav rested back against the wall and held Jared's gaze calmly.

"I want to help my daughter....I'd do anything." Jared could hear the desperate fear in his own voice and he almost resented it. He hadn't told anyone what he was doing or where he would be. What if something happened to him? What would happen to Miranda then?

Tomislav nodded and then very slightly pushed at the wall beside him. It opened a little revealing a hidden compartment. He pulled out a bag that he set on the ground and knelt down to it.

Jared watched him pull out a small box which when open revealed chalk, candles, and a book. He swallowed harshly, hating that it was all starting to look a lot like magic.

"I don't believe in black magic." He said, hoping that he didn't sound ridiculous.

Tomislav looked up at him with a small smile on his lips before looking back down to the contents he had taken from the bag.

Jared watched him work, the chalk drawing up almost unidentifiable shapes on the swollen floorboards, the flame causing a spark on the wick of the candle, and the book laying open on the ground. He couldn't help the nervous fear raging suddenly inside. How was he supposed to ignore it?

"Sit." Tomislav ordered firmly, gesturing across from him. He watched Jared until he obeyed and then lifted the book into his hands. "I have a child too..."

Jared heard the words like they had been entirely misplaced. "Do you?"

He nodded. "He's dead."

Jared swallowed harshly over how grim that had sounded in the dark amidst the unknown he was sinking into. "I'm sorry."

"Will you help me too?"

"How?" Jared questioned, confusion mixing with the fear.

"By telling me now that this is what you absolutely want. By telling me you'll do anything at all to save your daughter. By telling me that you won't stop me no matter what happens...that you love your daughter and saving her is the only thing you want."

Jared processed the words, took in how definitive and intense they were, and nodded. "Yes of course...I wouldn't dream of going back. Not until she's helped."

Tomislav nodded to that, pleased by his response. He lowered his eyes to the book in his hands and slowly he began to speak. He touched the shapes on the floorboards, ran his fingers through the flames of the candle and gestured Jared to do the same as well. His words were a mystery, indecipherable to Jared. He shut his eyes, placed his hand firmly on the weathered page of the book and let out a single whisper of "Now."

Jared didn't feel anything but a heavier draft entire the room at first until it came upon him almost viciously. It was nearly painful as he sat there, trembling, grasping at himself to make it go away. It was like a hundred frozen daggers had lodged themselves into his skin. Like everything on the inside, on the outside had surrendered itself entirely to the pain of this cold. He fell backwards, the tears falling from his nearly blinded eyes, and he let out a breath escape his lips in a cloud of smoke. He clutched at his chest, his breathing becoming ragged and hollow. He heard and saw everything but he couldn't feel a thing.

He looked up and saw Tomislav looming over him, a small smile painted across his face. "Thank you..." He said softly, honestly.

"What did you do to me?" Jared demanded, struggling with the ability of actually talking.

"You gave your mortality, your life to your daughter..." He paused, letting what he was saying process for a moment, "...and you gave your daughters life to my son."

Jared tried to swallow, tried to breathe properly. "You said you would save her."

"I did. From living in the same impoverished life you were giving her. You saved your daughter, Jared...And you've gained immortality."

Jared felt a numb fall over him, something he hadn't noticed at first until the cold no longer existed. "Immortality?" He questioned through labored breaths.

"Forever lost to living in the darkest shadows, no feeling, no love, no life. Bound forever to the clutches of lifelessness and torture...Thank you for saving my son."

Jared wanted to get up. He wanted to rise up and kill the bastard looming over him but his body refused to obey anything he was commanding.

He watched as Tomislav bent down and took up the candle in his hands. He threw it down on Jared's body, catching the articles he was wearing on fire. The last thing Jared saw of Tomislav was that wicked smile through the flickering flames that caught around him. Those flames he could see himself enveloped in but couldn't feel at all.