Page 137 of The Light Within

His brain had been tirelessly working in the background to make connections that he now fought to suppress, unsuccessfully.

The bundle of thick wires his father held were arranged in a cruel arch. Julien traced their path, horror growing by the second. Three port-like attachments, with needles sharp enough to pierce skin. Skin and bone.

“No,” Julien whispered, a full-body shudder passing through him.

“It will be quite painless, once we’re past the initial installation. You’ll become comatose.”

As if on cue, Jonathan Steele materialised from the shadows of an adjoining tunnel, his face set in a grim line. Without looking at Julien, he walked behind the machine, to focus intently on something unseen.

“This outcome benefits all. With your body to power theMachina Tenebris”—Julien almost choked—“the planet’s equilibrium will settle. The calamities will reduce to natural levels. The umbraphages will be no more.” A sneer curled on his father’s face before he pinched his lips in distaste. “This way, your preciousfriendCinnamon remains unharmed.”

If Julien had his hands free right now, he’d use them to strangle the crazy old man. He’d slam his father’s skull into the stone again and againuntil it shattered. Press his fingers against his windpipe until it collapsed. Push his eyes against their sockets until they popped.

“Ready when you are,” Jonathan quietly said. Then he moved around the machine to face Julien. “He’s telling the truth, Julien. This really will fix everything.”

Julien didn’t stop his jaw from dropping. “Fix everything?Fix everything, with the caveat, I live out the rest of my days sealed in the catacombs, as a vegetable plugged into a machine?!”

“What’s one life compared to all those currently suffering?” his father asked, quite seriously.

Breathe.

Julien forced himself to inhale the stale air, his breath unsteady.

“I’m your son!” he eventually got out. “Your last surviving family member.”

“Since when have you cared about that?” His father sneered at him, as if he were a piece of dirt. “Your entire life you’ve barely treated me with respect, let alone anything close to love.”

“Because you were a fucking abusive prick who mistreated every one of us!”

The words hung heavy in the cold air. For a long moment, the only sound was the soft hum of the machine. The oppressive silence of the catacombs swallowed Julien’s voice, leaving nothing but the weight of his words echoing against the stone walls.

Anger glistened in his father’s eyes, and he opened his mouth, where daggers undoubtedly waited to be thrown.

Julien was twelve years old all over again, hiding under the dining table, watching his father lift his mother off the floor by her neck.

“I know you killed them!” Julien screamed, before his father could offer any sort of pathetic defence. If this was the end, he wanted some shred of resolution. To hear his father say the words.

“Killed them? I fear you’re mistaken. It was your actions that brought the church walls crumbling down on your mother.”

The guilt that Julien had lived with for the last ten years surged like a tidal wave, shattering the dam Cinn had laboriously built, with his steadfast words of reassurance. It crashed over him anew with a force that left him breathless.

“As for my beloved daughter, well, she aligned herself with the wrong people and paid the price for her dangerous choices.”

Beloved. He made a mockery of the word with his tone.

“You murdered her with this!” Julien nodded down to the locket around his neck. The side where the metal touched his skin warped from amplifying excessive motepower. “Her locket! Of all things! She burned to death! Her flesh melted!”

“Bring him here.”

The two silent men pushed Julien forwards, and Jonathan raised the trio of needles, readying their position. Another shove, and Julien was mere inches from his father, the man he’d detested throughout his entire living memory. The man who’d killed his biological family, and tried to harm the one he’d built for himself.

Seizing his chance, Julien threw his head forward with all the force he could muster. His forehead collided with his father’s face with a sickening crunch. The old man staggered back, his nose bursting with a violent stream of blood. He stumbled into the side of the machine, swearing under his breath as he clutched his face. The two men, momentarily thrown off balance, struggled to regain their composure while Julien’s breath came in harsh, ragged gasps, his heart pounding with a fierce surge of rage.

“You’re going to rot in Hell, you selfish monster!” Julien snarled.

His father wasn’t religious. It still felt good to shout.

“Mèrenever loved you, and neither didwe!”

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