by Amy Braun
Josh surged forward, but Kade kicked him in the face. Josh’s head rocked back, and then he went limp.
As much as I hated to admit it, there was nothing I could do for Josh right now. I had to find Maddy. If Kade or his Vermilions got to her first, they would use her as a tool to make Josh do or say whatever they wanted. Kade would have complete control over me. He would destroy her.
I couldn’t be in two places at once. So I made the only choice I could, and ran past the pillars to get back inside the Venetian. As soon as I was inside, I found a staircase on the left that led me through the Venetian into the adjoining building. As I ran, I looked out from between the arches of the bridge and saw two men chasing a girl through a restaurant patio and onto the street. One of Kade’s walls was in front of her, and she wouldn’t be able to climb it before they grabbed her.
I pushed myself faster, looking for the first staircase I could find and pretty much vaulting it.
When I made it outside again, Maddy was trying to scale the wall that had been erected eight feet above street level, blocking any view of the Strip. The guards were right behind her, weaving through the patio tables. Physically, I wasn’t going to reach them in time. But I had other abilities.
I came to a sharp stop and held up my hands. Thick black smoke twirled out of my fingertips and rocketed toward the guards. The smoke struck them in the back and caused them to pitch forward. They face-planted onto the ground, unable to move thanks to the minor cases of Landry’s paralysis I gave them. I manipulated the infection so it wouldn’t spread and cause permanent damage. It would keep them there for a couple hours, and then they’d wake up with pins and needles in every joint. But at least they would live.
Maddy jumped and tried to reach the top of the wall, but her fingers missed the edge and she slid down again. She cursed angrily, looking over her shoulder. She froze when she saw me. I approached carefully, holding out my hands, now free of smoke, to show her I was unarmed.
“Hey, Mads,” I grinned, using her nickname for the first time in far too long.
Maddy showed no emotion other than shock as I drew closer. I lowered my hands when I was a couple feet away.
“Look, I wanted to–”
I forgot what I was going to say when she punched at me. I leaned back and let the swing go wide, and needed to use my hand to block her second strike. I batted away Maddy’s quick, dirty jabs and kicks. She was well trained, and managed to drive her knee into my kidneys when I was sweeping her arms away. I growled, but didn’t make any move to hurt her.
Still, we were wasting time, and I didn’t want the girl I liked to kick my ass.
Maddy aimed a powerful roundhouse at my head, forcing me to duck. As I dropped, I swept my leg along the pavement and kicked the foot she was using to balance herself. Maddy started to topple and I rushed up to grab her so she wouldn’t crack her head on the pavement.
That of course forced me to land on top of her, and launch the air from her lungs. I pushed myself up to make sure Maddy was okay, which freed her elbow. It sailed toward my jaw, but I knocked her arm down and pinned it by her side.
“Get off of me!” she hissed, knowing that shouting would draw more attention to her escape.
I lifted myself up just enough so Maddy could breathe, but didn’t release her.
“You’re going to the Valley of Fire, aren’t you?” I asked.
“I said get off me!” she repeated, raising her voice. Her pulse was through the roof, her chest pounding against mine.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I answered.
Keeping my eyes on her, I rose to my feet. Maddy pushed herself up and scrambled into a fighters stance. She was human and didn’t have any weapons I could see, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.
No wonder I liked her so much.
“We can’t get over the wall like this,” I told her. “But I know another way.”
Maddy started to ask me how, then backtracked. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”
“I’m going with you,” I answered plainly.
“Like hell you are,” she growled.
I cautioned a step forward. Maddy’s fists tightened, but she didn’t back away.
“Kade’s planning to go there and kidnap any humans he can find. He wants to make his slave army bigger.”
Maddy’s anger turned into horror, then flipped back to disgust. “So why do you want to come? You planning to poison them out of spite first? Do you guys have some kind of murder competition going?”
I winced, hating that she would think that of me. But I shouldn’t have expected anything less. Now that she knew who I was and what I was capable of, all she would see was a monster. I didn’t think there would be anything I could do to convince her otherwise.
But this couldn’t be about my growing feelings for Maddy. I had bigger problems to deal with. Keeping my psychotic brother and a pack of vile demons away from a group of helpless humans was more important than impressing the girl I liked.
“Look, you can stand here and chew me out, or you can come with me. I’m betting Josh told you to run and he’d catch up with you, right?”
She flinched at his name. “Is he okay?”
I think I should try not lying for once. “The Vermilions caught him. I don’t know what will happen to him now. But Kade’s looking for you, and if he finds you, he’ll torture you. He’s going to keep Josh locked up for a while, but after we warn the people in the Valley, we can come back and bust him out. I promise.”
Maddy scowled at that. It didn’t look as cute this time. “What makes you think I’ll trust you?”
I could have given her a cliché, something like, ‘you don’t have a choice,’ or ‘I’m your only hope,’ some bullshit that wasn’t even true. Maddy was more than capable of taking care of herself. Instead, I took a knife out of from my belt. Maddy backed up when she saw it, but relaxed when I tossed it on the ground next to her feet. Her denim blue eyes met mine uncertainly.
“You’ll probably need that.”
Taking a very, very big leap of faith, I turned my back to Maddy. I heard her pick up the knife, but when it didn’t instantly sink into my back, I figured I was in the clear. Actual trust was virtually out the window, but at least we’d be able to work together without her attempting to kill me. For now.
I took a deep breath and focused on the corner of the wall connecting the shop to the sidewalk beyond. I held up my hands and called on the black smoke hiding inside of me. It answered my command, smoothing out into a foggy wall. I turned the smoke in my hands, spinning it around and splitting it into smaller fractions. Then wall began to buzz and hum, and soon my locusts were born.
I could feel the power soaking my energy as I released it. I was getting low, probably now at half the capacity I’d been at the beginning of the Tribulation. But the locusts were the most effective weapon I had. They could eat through anything. Stone, metal, skin, it didn’t matter. If I wanted my locusts to get through, they would.
The locusts buzzed eagerly toward the wall, and began dismantling it. I held them in place, letting them chew away the corner wall. They ate away concrete and scrap metal with their acidic mouths, creating a small crevice between the street and the building.
Sweat began to slide down my neck, but I concentrated. Kade’s men were on their way, and if he saw what I was doing, he’d rip the skin from my back with his bare hands.
Finally, the concrete crumbled until it was low enough to climb over. I called my locusts back to me, dissolving them into smoke so they could slide home underneath my flesh. A rush of dizziness hit me, and I slumped against the wall. I held myself up with one hand, shaking the daze away and blinking to clear my sight. I was fairly taken aback when I looked to my right and saw Maddy standing there with a look I could have sworn was concern.
It faded quickly, and she climbed over the wall without my help.
I followed her, glancing back to make sure no one was following us. It looked like we were
still in the clear, though I wasn’t sure how we’d get to the Valley of Fire from the Las Vegas strip. It was a sixteen hour walk, and I had no idea if any of the cars would be working.
A handful of Plagued roamed the streets, moaning at us with rattling voice boxes. There weren’t a lot of them, but it only took a few of them to notice you, and then you had a full blown horde on your hands. Not what I wanted to deal with right now.
I jogged after Maddy, about to ask her how we could get to the Valley, when I noticed a lone car sitting in the middle of the road. A car that was running.
The driver’s side door opened, and an unexpected face popped out.
“Hurry up!” Simon called. “This thing doesn’t run on hopes and prayers, you know!”
I couldn’t stop my laugh. I jumped in the passenger seat of the burgundy sedan, moving Simon’s bow and full quiver onto the floor so I could sit down. Maddy slid into the back. As soon as we closed the doors, Simon stepped on the gas. I lurched around the seat, suddenly recalling the last car accident I’d been in. I grabbed the seatbelt, strapped myself in, and looked at my brother.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Playing cabbie. Duh.”
I frowned at him. “I mean, why the hell were you waiting in an escape vehicle on the middle of the Strip?”
“Because you’re predictable,” informed Simon. “The moment I heard where the fire was coming from, I knew two things. One, Kade would go batshit. Two, you’d go looking for Maddy and need an escape route.” He looked in the rearview mirror. “Hey, Maddy.”
She didn’t respond, shrinking against the backseat and staring out of the window. Simon sighed.
“Great. This is going to be a long drive. Where are we going, anyway?”
I leaned back, feeling the machete press against my spine.
“The Valley of Fire.”
My brother sighed again. “I knew it. Like I said, you’re so predictable.” He glared at me. “I hate that, you know.”
“Just keep driving.”
I was grateful when he fell into silence and did just that.
Chapter 16
Even in the black of night, the Valley of Fire was a sight to see.
Illuminated by the headlights of the car, I could see the weaving highway road and the rock formations on either side. In the darkness, they took on a gold tone with light and dark ribbons of sediment wrapping around them. The sparse patches of yellow grass and green bushes cast circular shadows on the sandy floor. Everything looked haunting and creepy, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the bumpy horizon. The landscape outside my window was nothing more than hunched shadows pushing against a midnight blue sky.
“This Park is huge,” I said, turning in my seat to look at Simon. “Do you know where you’re going?”
Simon kept his eyes on the road as he answered me. “Yeah. I had a feeling you’d drag me here one day, so I looked around the Venetian for a map.”
I raised my eyebrow. “And you found one? How long did that take you?”
My brother glanced at me and grinned. “You have your methods, I have mine.”
I stifled a laugh. Simon continued driving. “It’s in the glove box, along with some flashlights I found.” He turned his eyes to me again. “We’re going to have to find a place to stash the car and walk to the Park,” he told us. “We don’t know who or what’s going to be out there. I don’t want the car to be stolen, or for someone to find it and know we’re wandering around.”
I nodded my head in agreement, looking out the front windshield. “Any ideas?”
“There’s a rock cabin in the Park. It’s pretty secluded, so we can ditch the car around there then follow the trails until we find the campground.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “It’s by Arch Rock, right?”
She’d been so quiet that I nearly forgot Maddy was in the car. Still brooding angrily, she gave Simon a curt nod. She never turned her head from the window. Simon sighed and turned the car around another bend in the highway.
“This is gonna be a fun hike,” he mumbled.
My thoughts weren’t much different.
***
About twenty minutes later, Simon used a crevice between two large boulders to stash the car. We got out and took a deep breath of fresh, cool mountain air. It was windy and chilly out here, but I loved the feel of night air in my lungs. I took extra long breaths, smelling cool sand, dry rock, and freedom. I looked at the rough, marbled rocks, nudged the thick sand under my boots, and gazed up.
Millions of stars dotted the inky sky, like an excited child had spilled a bag full of glitter over a black tablecloth. There were no clouds to obscure my vision, and I couldn’t help but wonder what my Bosses Upstairs were thinking. Did they see my brother and me with a human girl? Did they know what we were doing? Did they care?
I decided the answer to all of those questions was no. It was better to accept that they’d left us here. My brothers constantly accused me of having too much hope in our cause anyway. I only needed one firm hope to hang onto. Having more than that asked for disaster.
A blinding white light shone from my right. I turned away from the stars and looked at the car. Simon was handing a halogen torch to Maddy. She took it carefully, making sure not to touch his skin. If Simon was offended, he didn’t care. As Maddy clicked her torch on, Simon walked over and handed a third one to me.
“You’re not worried this will attract attention?” I asked. “It’s a big park. Who knows what’s here. Plagued or Soulless might see the light.”
Simon gave me an impatient glare, buckling the quiver of arrows to his back and draping his bow over them. “We can either see where we’re going and risk exposure, or we can walk in pitch blackness and let ourselves get lost. There’s no good scenario here.”
Accepting his point, I took the torch from him and clicked it on. Simon reached into his pocket and pulled out the map. I peered over his shoulder, getting the barest glimpse of it before he turned and started walking away. I didn’t try to stop him. Simon had enough self-confidence issues. If he wanted to take the lead for once, I was going to let him.
I followed him down the hill to the beaten trail. He paused once in the middle of the road to look at the map. I stood behind him, looking around for any kind of threat. I couldn’t see or hear anything. It was eerily quiet in the Valley. The beauty and serenity I’d seen and felt earlier was giving way to something more sinister. I didn’t exactly feel like I was being watched, but this was the kind of place where you were just waiting to hear a piercing scream echo through the canyons before it was silenced forever. This was the perfect place to kill someone, especially these days.
Simon muttered under his breath, probably not even aware that I was standing behind him. Once he made up his mind about where he wanted to go, he turned and started walking through the dark, rocky desert.
I looked over my shoulder to check on Maddy. Her body language was practically screaming for me not to talk to her, and I knew I’d crushed any chance of her seeing a friend in me, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to try.
Maddy felt me staring at her and slowed down. A flash of nervousness went through her eyes, but she hardened them quickly.
“The trail’s that way,” she stated.
Well. That answers that. I sighed, gave up on explaining myself, and walked after my brother.