Don't Let Them Catch You

29? Redemption

Had he been in a more comfortable position, and had his arms and wings not been bearing the weight of his body as he lay on the ground, he wouldn't have even minded.

Everybody has kinks but at least make it more accommodating.

He took it as a compliment really. They couldn't afford not to take precautions with tying him up, not when their own lives were at stake. He was too dangerous.

Through the cloth binding his lips he couldn't help the positively serpentine grin that stretched his cheeks and glinted in his eyes.

"Why is this taking so long?" A female voice hissed. Its sound was deep and husky, her accent cracking her words.

"It's because we went the wrong way." Retorted another, her voice was younger. Sweeter around the edges. "We all saw that blasted bird, we wouldn't have been able to get passed it."

Ah, Amos thought to himself. The pheonix.

He caught a glimpse of Tanya approaching Aura before he gave in to the darkness.

Tanya was too drawn to her friends pain to notice his kidnappers until it was too late, otherwise the witches could have very easily have had a different outcome. In a burst of panic they must have focused on getting far away, regardless of which direction.

The direction didn't necessarily matter, as hell could be reached from either end of the continent, south of the compound just happened to have the nearest exit.

Determined and stubborn to keep his back on the compound, Mammon naturally would have refused to turn back, and instead decided to use this as an opportunity to prolong Amos' inevitable suffering by giving him a prelude that he knew would come once the demon was aware he'd woken up.

They must have stopped somewhere in the continents endless forest after hours of travel to rest.

Even demons get tired.

Despite it all, Amos' stomach ached with real hunger. He was more worried about getting a mouthful of demon tendrils in his digestive system than he was about the torture that could make a man wet themselves.

It was his stomach that gave him away. He knew the sound carried across to the witches the moment they stopped bickering between each other.

A leather bound foot stopped beside his head, toed with the crown of his head, before booting into his skull.

The angel slammed into a tree.

He bit back a groan as his body slid back down the roots in a way that could have been humiliating to anyone else. Instead he savoured the moment and forced his features into a smirk as he craned his neck in Mammon's direction, determined to show he wasn't taking any of them seriously.

Amos looked him dead in his blank, white eyes.

I wonder what they taste like.

"To believe you were once beheld with great esteem." Mammon scowled, crouching to his level. At this close Amos could see the tiny scars that glittered across his skin among the obvious more blatant ones.

I still am. Amos thought, just to the other side. Now I'm your nightmare.

Mammon could put up a stubborn show, but the angel was observant. He caught his attempts to hide his discomfort in the too taut muscle of fingers, the stiff angle of his neck— the flinch in his gaze that he tried to cover up.

For a moment Amos' eyes flashed obsidian, a white slit appearing in the center before they returned to regular storm grey.

It didn't get passed Mammon, and it unnerved the demon, just as he knew it would.

"Scum." The creature spat a bullet of saliva on the ground by Amos' shoulder, hatred blooming in his eyes in attempt to mask his fear.

The angel quietly tucked away the bubbling rage that simmered beneath his guise at the obvious display of disrespect, and made sure to stretch his smirk into the type of grin that would slither into your bones with cold slimy fingers.

He didn't miss Mammon's flinch.

Gagged and restrained, not a single sound had slipped from his mouth since he came to, he could be disgraced or strung like a slaughtered pig but it didn't matter. Mammon could tie him up for his own peace of mind, kick him to impose 'dominance', but he knew he was merely a cat biting the ankles of a tiger.

This time, when the demon sent his boot flying into Amos' skull, the darkness welcomed him again.