IT wasn't long before Angelica entered the cave, and Neve tensed up. But Angelica didn't give her the pissed glare she'd been expecting; instead, she said, "Get up."

While Neve was sure she literally couldn't get up, she also wasn't about to let someone - especially someone like Angelica - order her around. She gazed at her, the corners of her lips twitching up in a fake smile.

Angelica reached down to her—to which Neve was more than embarrassed to say that she flinched—and pulled her up by the twigs digging into her arms. Neve could barely stifle a pained gasp as the points on the twigs pierced more of her skin.

"Stop!" Neve hissed through grinding teeth. "Fuck, that hurts!"

Angelica rolled her eyes. "And here I thought demons were pain resistant."

"I'm not a demon, you fucking lunatic!"

"Alice told me you were denying it." She shook her head. "There's no point."

"I don't care! Just take these fucking twigs off of me!" Her face had reddened from the pain.

"Not happening. Who knows what you'll pull next?"

Just imagining walking beside the girls with thorns pricking her skin made Neve want to collapse. "Please just take them off. I promise I won't run away or anything. Please." It was hard to force the words out.

Angelica only turned away, gesturing for her to follow. "We'll see."

“Please!”

Angelica turned back after a moment, shifting on her feet. Her eyebrows furrowed, eyes narrowed in contemplation. Then the awkwardness disappeared. “I don’t care how you feel! Just. Follow. Me!”

She didn’t wait for an answer, stalking out of the cave. Tears built behind Neve’s eyes, fingers clenching and unclenching against the pain in her arms. She took a deep breath and shuffled forward.

Neve kept her eyes on the ground as she trudged behind Angelica, Alice behind her. She didn’t know how long they’d been walking, but it had to have at least been an hour. Her arms were heavy and fingers numb, and she felt like collapsing on the ground.

“Do you guys really not know where you’re going?” she said.

Alice’s feet hit the back of Neve’s legs. “Shut up.”

“It’s an honest question—if you don’t, then can we just sit down or something?”

“No, we don’t know where we’re going.” Angelica turned around. “But you probably do, right?”

Neve rolled her eyes. Angelica had asked her this question more than a few times in the last hour. “You already know the answer to that.”

“No, because you keep lying to me!”

“I'm not lying!”

“If you're not lying, then why are we in this situation in the first place?”

Neve hesitated, and that was all the confirmation Angelica needed. “That's what I thought. When you're ready to tell the truth, we'll sit down.” Angelica faced the other way and continued to walk.

Neve smothered a groan. She was almost positive that The Obscurity was behind this and the strangling situation earlier. But it hadn't spoken to her - not one peep. And either way, Neve wouldn't tell the two girls about it. If she did, she was pretty sure Angelica would… kill her, as she'd said before. Neve's heart pounded just thinking about it.

She hunched forward, trying to alleviate the pain in her back. She felt like she was choking, sweat running into her eyes. It was stuffy and humid, clouds above so condensed that it could rain any minute.

Uncomfortable didn't even begin to describe how she felt.

But she kept onward, ignoring the slight sting in her arms, ignoring the strain on her legs, ignoring the blurriness of her vision, ignoring everything.

Then she was on the ground, Angelica's back pressing on her chest. She was about to yell at her, but she noticed the thing above her.

All blood drained from her face.

Angelica struggled against a hairless and pasty humanoid thing. It had no eyes, only a mouth on its bald head. The head bobbed up and down, nearly smacking Angelica in the face.

Through her shock, Neve wondered if it couldn’t support its own head.

Angelica cried out, and only a second later, Neve felt a warm liquid seep through her jeans. A part of Neve couldn’t care less about how Angelica felt and just wanted to get out of this frightening and uncomfortable situation, but the sympathetic part also forced her into action. She shoved Angelica to the side with her body, then she rolled in the opposite direction.

Good thing too, since the creature’s hand stabbed into the ground exactly where she’d been.

She couldn’t help the noise that left her throat when she stopped rolling. The thorns had stabbed into her arms more. And they wouldn’t stop. The thorns cut into her skin further every moment that passed, and she couldn’t get up. She couldn’t get up!

Struggling only proved to further her pain, so she laid there, still.

Even as the bald creature pounced at her. She could only stare in terror as its previously human fingers melded into a sharp, skin-clad point aimed straight at her face. By the time she remembered to scream, she should’ve been dead, but the humanoid thing leapt away at the last second, revealing Angelica, whose hair had turned a gleaming white. She held an iron dagger splattered with a brown substance.

Neve trembled, though it hurt, heart banging against her chest. What the hell was going on?

Her mind lost that train of thought when hands pulled her up by the twigs. She spewed out curses, angling her head to see who it was—Alice. Her head snapped back as Alice ripped the twigs out of her skin, arms screaming.

“Come on,” Alice said, grabbing her hand. “We have to get out of here!”

Neve gaped at her. “But—um—I—”

Alice yanked her in the direction she started walking in. “I don’t have time for your brainless self to comprehend everything that’s going on, so just follow me.”

Neve tripped over her feet trying to keep up with Alice, but once she met her pace, she dug her heels into the ground. “Let go of me!” She snatched her hand away. “Where are you going, and why the hell are you dragging me with you?”

“Anywhere but here!”

“But what about…” Neve trailed off, scowling at herself.

“What about Angelica?” Alice said, fingers bending in quotation marks. “She’ll be fine. And if she’s not… then I guess she wasn’t cut out for it.”

Neve quirked an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Alice crossed her arms. “None of your business. Now, are coming willingly, or do I have to beat you into submission?”

Neve flinched and stepped back. What was wrong with this girl?

“If you just follow me, violence won’t be needed.” When Neve didn’t do anything to indicate that she would follow, Alice stepped closer. “Unless you want me to beat the shit out of you, you better come with me. And don’t even think about running away.”

This time, Neve heard the truth in her words. And so, faced with no safer or rational options, she followed Alice.