I gripped my scythe tightly. "Get ready," I said. I didn't know how much protection our scythes would give us, but they were the only thing we had at the moment.
Chip. Chip. Chip. It was a sickening cracking sound. A ragged line crept from the bottom of the glass to the top. A few more pecks and it would shatter completely.
"Help me!" Bram yelled as he tried to push the work table. Chase and Dorian went to his side and pushed also, but the table wouldn't budge.
Chase bent down and examined one of the table legs. "It's cemented to the ground!"
"Take cover," Bram ordered and we obeyed.
Naomi and I ducked under the old wooden work table. Dorian covered himself with a pile of blankets in the corner. Chase and Josh crawled under a counter against the wall. Bram stood in the open with his scythe pointed at the window.
I shuddered as glass hit the floor of the basement. Flapping and squawking filled the basement. Hiding under the table didn't give as much protection. The ravens found us quickly and attempted to peck at us. Naomi and I screamed, waving our hands wildly to shield and faces, and crawled from underneath the table. I couldn't see anything, just flashes of black fluttering around the room.
"My eye!" Chase yelled.
"Shield your faces," Bram said. I did that. I didn't want my eyes to be pecked out. I hoped that Chase was okay, but everything was moving so fast, I couldn’t even get a sense of where he was in the room.
"We need to get out of the house," Bram said. "Head for the door!"
With my head ducked down, trying not to scream from the constant pecking I was receiving, I felt my way to the door. Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door.
"Josh, where are you?" I called.
"Right here," he said from somewhere behind me. "I'm okay. Keep moving, Keira."
"Get out of the house. Everyone!" Bram yelled. He sounded so far away that I was worried. "Let's try to make it to the car."
I felt my way to the stairs getting pecked and stung every moment. I wondered how many marks this was going to leave on my body. I came to the staircase banister. I tried to make my way down , but ended up falling and rolling down the stairs instead. I got to my feet quickly and crawled my way to the front door. Someone rushed past me, then grabbed my arm and pulled me along with him. It was Chase.
Outside we were met with more ravens. I couldn't even see the vehicle. In a panic, I just kept moving. I couldn't tell where the others were. The attack had to be the work of Dunningham. Ravens rarely bothered others. They weren't angry creatures , and they'd never attacked Grims in Nowhere. I tripped over something and landed on concrete. Realizing that I was in the middle of the street, I crouched down covering my face, and stayed there. I listened for the sound of an engine roaring , but heard none , so I assumed that Bram hadn't made it to the vehicle. We had nowhere else to run. Ravens hovered for as far as we could see. For a long time I felt like someone was hitting me on the back. The constant squawking began to cease and the pecking stopped. The ravens were leaving. I stayed down just to be safe.
"Okay. I think it's okay now," Josh said.
I sat up to see the huge cloud of ravens flying away from us.
"Ahhh!" Chase held his hand over his eye and rocked back and forth.
Naomi crawled over to him and pulled his hand away from his eye. "Here, let me look at it." She winced at the sight. I stayed where I was, afraid to look at it.
I rolled up the sleeves of my hoodie to examine myself. Just as I'd expected, my arms were covered with tiny marks. I was sure the same marks were on my back and most of my body.
While Naomi tried to calm Chase down, I turned to my brother to see if he was okay. He stared, stunned and wide-eyed. I followed his gaze.
At the end of the block stood a line of Watchers. Ten altogether.
I stood, holding my scythe tightly in my hands. “Bram.”
He sat on the ground, his face also covered in marks. He followed my gaze. “Get ready. Remember what I told you. Don’t let your scythe leave your hands. Use it for defense. Swing for their necks."
The other Grims emerged from their homes and marched toward us with their scythes. Shiva yelled something at the others. We stood in the middle of the road in a group ready to fight. This would be a defining moment. We would either defeat the Watchers or they would take us back to Nowhere and Dunningham.
The Watchers stood there in a line. Not one of them moved.
“What are they doing?” Dorian asked.
Bram stood at the front of our group. “I don’t know, but don’t let your guard down.”
One of the Watchers stepped forward. Gideon, one of Dunningham's head Watchers. He wore shades as usual. He had no weapon on him that I could see, but Watchers usually carried a stun gun or something that could debilitate someone temporarily. He stopped about ten feet in front of Bram.
“Young Grims,” Gideon said in his deep, husky voice. “Mr. Dunningham has been very generous and patient with you. It’s time for you to end this foolishness and come home where you belong.”
“We are where we belong,” Bram answered.
Gideon looked at Bram over the rim of his shades. “That wasn’t a request. That was an order. It’s the last time you’ll be told. We don’t want anyone to get hurt, but that’s up to you.”
Before Bram could answer, an arrow shot from somewhere, grazing Gideon’s shoulder, tearing a hole in his perfectly pressed black suit. Gideon looked in the direction the arrow had come from. Several figures were crouched down on the roofs of our homes. Hybrids. I wondered how they'd got here without us knowing.
Several more arrows sailed down after that. One struck Gideon in the neck. He grunted and fell to his knees, pulling at the arrow. The other Watchers came running toward us full force. I held my scythe in front of me ready to swing.
Bram charged toward the Watchers and everything turned to chaos.
Bram and Shiva hit the ground almost immediately. Bram's body stiffened , and he yelped in pain. I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what.
Moor and Amaro lay on the ground beside me, writhing from the effects of being shot. A Watcher headed toward me with his stun gun aimed at my chest. I held my hands up and pleaded with my eyes for him not to pull the trigger. I couldn’t go back to Nowhere. That would undoubtedly mean death. I wasn't close enough to the Watcher to make a connection with my scythe, but he was close enough to stun me.
He took a step closer to me , and I knew that we had lost our chance for mercy. I prepared myself for the pain of being shocked and dropping to the ground. Before the Watcher could pull the trigger , an arrow shot through his arm. The stun gun dropped from his hand , and I took that opportunity to run back towards the house.
Inside, I slammed the door and leaned against it. Nokomis, Garnet, and a few other Grims were already inside.
Garnet shook her head as a tear rolled down her cheek. "I knew this was going to happen. We can have all the weapons in the world, we'll never beat them."
I moved to the blinds to get a look at what was going on outside. I had no idea where my brother was. "They caught was by surprise, that's all."
Outside, Grims and Hybrids dragged the fallen out of the road. No Watchers were left standing.
"It looks clear," I told the others as I headed outside.
Around me, Watchers were on the ground, some intact, some with parts separated from their bodies, some with arrows stuck in them and some with obvious scythe wounds. They had been grossly outnumbered , and I was sure they hadn't anticipated the Hybrids defending us or they would have been better prepared. Obviously, if the Hybrids hadn't been there, we would have been on our way back to Nowhere.
I knelt beside Bram , who groaned and rolled to his sighed. A cough came from the road. A Watcher stirred and Kuro marched over with his scythe. I turned my attention back to Bram. "Are you okay?"
He nodded weakly. "I'm just dandy." I knew after a few moments he would be fine. Shiva was already sitting up.
He glared at the Watchers in the street.
Relief washed over me, but only for a second. I knew others would come and Dunningham would only be more angry angrier that we’d injured his men, some beyond repair.
“What now?” Naomi asked, looking around at the men on the ground. The two women Bram and I had seen the other day ran past on the sidewalk, completely oblivious to the fact that a war had taken place on the street.
“We leave them,” Bram answered. “As long as they don't, we'll be fine. Nokomis, Moor, and Kage will guard them just in case.”
Colden walked over to us with a crossbow hanging from his left hand. “You can’t stay here, obviously. Not now that he knows where you are.”
Bram shrugged. “Where else are we supposed to go?”
Colden looked at me. “The compound. We have to find it.”
“Celeste won’t tell us where it is,” I pointed out.
“So we’ll follow her there. One night when she’s leaving the store , we’ll trail her to the compound and then we’ll speak to the leader ourselves.”
Bram looked at Colden and nodded. “Yeah.” I think that was the first time they had agreed on anything. “We’ll ask nicely—once. After that, we’ll do what we have to do.”
Part 3
The Interceptors
23
The day was spent nursing our wounds from the ravens: rinsing out scratches, applying ointment, and covering injuries with bandages if needed. I'd used gauze to create an eye patch for Chase. The eye that had been pecked by the raven was red and swollen. We sat in the parking lot of the grocery store waiting for Celeste and the heavy-set manager to close up and leave.
Bram, Colden, Naomi, and I watched closely. Colden and Bram had wanted to do this alone and insisted that we should stay back at the house in case something happened. That morning, according to our security detail, the bodies of the Watchers had simply vanished when the sun came up. I’d never heard of that happening before. We only travelled back and forth through the transportation chamber.
Anyway, Naomi and I had insisted on coming along for obvious reasons. Bram and Colden weren’t the most level-headed and reasonable people we knew. We feared they would do something stupid.
Naomi and I sat in the back eating gummy bears while Colden and Bram fought over the radio. Bram wanted to listen to some rock station and Colden wanted complete silence.
Finally the lights in the store went out. We were parked at the far end of the parking lot in front of a laundromat that was still open, so we wouldn’t look suspicious.
Celeste stood beside the door as the man locked it , and then the two of them crossed the parking lot to get into their cars. Celeste drove a small , red sedan. We waited a moment after she pulled out so we wouldn’t be noticed. Bram made sure to stay a few cars behind her.
We had been driving for almost an hour when Celeste took us down a dark single-lane road. There were no more buildings, no homes, and very few streetlights.
“You should turn the lights off now,” Colden said. “She’ll see us.”
There were no other cars on the road , and Celeste might get suspicious, if she wasn’t already. Bram turned the headlights off and continued to follow her. A minute later, Celeste’s headlights went off. I leaned forward. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything except for the low trees on the side of us that brushed against the windows.
“Dammit,” Bram muttered. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“Keep driving,” Colden said. “But slow down.”
Bram slowed to a crawl. We rambled along on the bumpy road until the car came to an abrupt stop. We had hit something in front of us. A beam from a flashlight came out of nowhere. We had bumped into Celeste's car.
I jumped when someone knocked on my window. Another man with a flashlight. I tightened my grip on the knife Bram had given me just in case. We each had one.
Bram rolled his window down. “Can I help you?”
“What are you doing back this way?” the man asked. He had an interesting accent that I couldn’t quite place.
“Just going for a drive. It’s a free country, isn’t it?” Bram asked.
The man frowned. “Not back here it’s not. This is private property. Didn’t you see the sign back there that said ‘No trespassing’?”
“No, we didn’t,” Bram said. “Can you move this car so we can be on our way?”
The man flung the driver’s door open. “Get out of the car.”
Bram laughed. “Really, unless you’re a police officer, I don’t think I have to do that.”
The man yanked Bram roughly from the car. Naomi and I gasped. To Bram’s credit, he didn’t fight back. He laughed again.
“Is this really necessary?”
Celeste appeared on the passenger's side. Colden rolled the window down.
"I told you all not to come here," she said through clenched teeth.
"We just want to speak to Marshall," Colden said. "That's all."
Celeste said something to someone behind her. All the doors of our vehicle were pulled open. "Get in the van," someone said in a gruff voice.
"It's all right, guys," Bram said.
I exited the car. A man in a baseball cap grabbed me by the elbow and led me to a large black van sitting on the side of the road. The back doors were already open. The back of the van was completely empty. There weren't even any seats.
"All of you in," said another man who was out of my view.
The four of us climbed inside , and the doors of the van slammed shut.
I rested my back against the cool metal of the van's side.
"Maybe this was a bad idea," Naomi whispered.
"No, it wasn't," Colden replied. "This is our only option. We need this place."
The van began to move , and it was a struggle to stay upright during the bumpy ride. I tried to time how long the ride was. After about three minutes we came to a complete stop , and the back doors of the van opened up. We were in front of a farmhouse that sat on acres of land. There were other houses around and a large barn off to the side. I heard nothing except for the chirp of crickets.
The men pushed us toward the house. I remembered the knife that I had tucked into my boot just in case. I wasn't sure what to expect.
We walked up the three wooden stairs that led to a wraparound porch. Celeste walked ahead of us and opened up the screen door.
In the living room , a man sat in an armchair speaking to a woman on the couch. For a moment he looked surprised to see us, then he stood.
His gray-blue eyes looked us up and down. "Who are they?"
"Trespassers," one of the men answered. "They followed Celeste home from the store."
The men lined the four of us up , and the man with the gray-blue eyes walked toward us. I hoped that neither Bram nor Colden would do anything stupid.
"They're Grims also, Marshall," Celeste said.
"Yes, I can see that." Marshall ran his fingers through his silvery hair. "But the question still remains—what are they doing here?"
I wanted to speak first before Bram or Colden could say anything. "We're in trouble. We need a place to stay."
Marshall eyed me suspiciously. "What kind of trouble? What have you done?"
I took a deep breath. Marshall made me feel nervous. "We haven't done anything—I mean, except run away. We can't go back to our colony , and we can't stay where we are now."
Marshall looked at Colden and Bram. "What makes you think I want you here?"
"There's only seventeen of us," Bram said. Colden began to say something but fortunately thankfully stopped. It would be a lot easier to sell seventeen young Grims as opposed to hundreds of hybrids. "We're not asking for a handout. We'll pull our own weight and do whatever needs to be done around here."
Marshall shook his head. "I'm sorry, but you can't stay here."
"Why not?" Colden demanded.
Marshall looked at him sharply. "I don't think I owe you any explanation."
"But we can help you," I said quickly. "Celeste told us what you do. How you prevent deaths. We want to do that also. Think about how many people you can keep from dying if you'd just let us help you. We promise we won't cause any trouble."
"Yeah," Colden said. "Do it for all the innocent humans." He didn't bother to mask the mockery in his tone.
Marshall rubbed his chin and looked us up and down. "Why'd you leave your colony?"
I nudged Naomi in her side.
She cleared her throat. "I was going to be executed. For the very thing you do—preventing death. I stopped a bomb from going off in a high school."
Marshall whistled. "That's the worst thing a Grim can do. I'm sure you were aware of how grave the consequences would be. What about the rest of you?"
"I was engaged to someone I didn't want to marry," I said softly.
Marshall rested his chin on his fist. "Well, you must have really hated him to risk your life coming here. Who was he?"
"Mr. Dunningham."
Marshall laughed at first, but then he stopped when he realized that I wasn't joking. "Mr. Dunningham? Your overseer? Well, you must be something special."
He looked at Bram next.
"Naomi's my sister , and Keira's my friend. I didn't want them to come here alone , and I was pretty tired of all the stupid rules. I want to make my own decision regarding my life."
Marshall folded his arms across his chest. "You do understand that we have rules here. You're not going to be able to do whatever you feel like doing, I don't care how old you are."
"Of course," Bram replied tightly, but I knew that wasn't what he really wanted to say.
"What's your story?" Marshall asked Colden.
"Are you going to let us stay or not?" Colden asked.
"Colden—" Bram began.
"No, he needs to stop playing games and tell us whether or not he's going to let us stay. Yes or no. If you're waiting for me to grovel , it's not going to happen."
"Okay," Marshall said. "Take them back to their car."
"No!" Bram shouted. "Don't listen to him. Please. We're kin , and you're the only one who can help us. Think about it. This can be a winning situation for everyone. Like my sister said, think of how many more lives can be saved. I promise we won't be a burden. We'll get jobs and pay our own way."
Keira Grim: The Final Breath Chronicles Book Two Page 17