Thunder Road (Rain Chaser Book 1)

by Sierra Dean

  This was where things got tricky.

  “I have an idea.” Leo surprised me by speaking, his voice enough of a shock that sparks flew from my fingers in a small arc. Cerberus snarled at the sight, having no fond memories of the last time I’d shown off.

  “Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

  “Because between the two of us we’re really remarkable at coming up with bad ideas.”

  Point taken.

  “Touch it,” Leo said, as the head lowered closer. “Pull the energy out of me like before, and touch it.”

  The suggestion bounced around inside my mind as I tried to rationalize it. In a world of endless possibilities, putting my hands on Cerberus ranked dead last in the things I wanted to do. I was pretty sure any part of me that touched the dog would be a part I wasn’t getting back.

  But there was something simple to the plan, if inelegant, that sounded completely logical. I thought of the way the power had charged through him to me and made us feel tethered and connected, sharing the strength and agony.

  If I could make all three heads feel the same thing, perhaps we’d have a chance.

  “If I lose my hand, I’m going to be so fucking mad at you.”

  “You’d lose the rest of your body that was attached to the hand too, judging by that thing’s mouth. I think I can deal with you haunting me.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Liar.” He smirked even as the monster’s head dipped and its snout aligned perfectly with my face.

  Cerberus breathed deeply, sniffing at me, probably memorizing my scent for later torture if I ended up stuck down here. Peachy.

  It was now or never.

  I hoped to Seth this plan worked.

  I pressed my fingers hard against Leo’s sternum, and the invisible tether binding us together pulled taut so sharply I heard an electric snap. My vision blurred, going pure white and blotting out everything around me. I could only sense Cerberus’s presence as a shadow on the edges of the light.

  Making my best guess of the dog’s head from where it had last been, I shoved my hand outward and made contact with coarse, wiry fur. My fingernails dug deep, breaking skin, and suddenly I was the center point in a circuit. Electricity shot through Leo, burning up inside me and punching through my hand into Cerberus.

  All three heads howled in unison, and the middle one tried to jerk free, but I dug in, refusing to let go. If I had to feel this terrible, the three heads of Cerberus were sure as fuck going to feel terrible right alongside me.

  Leo was breathless, short, whining pants emerging from his mouth as I drained everything out of him. I wanted to stop but found I was unable. How wrong I’d been to think I was in control of this. The storm was my master, even here.

  A scream ripped through me as the lightning ate away whatever was holding my lung together. Pain suffused every cell in my body, and as I struggled to catch my breath, the taste of blood coated my throat.

  This was killing me.

  A million tiny deaths rioted through my body, shredding the very foundations that made me, undoing the bits and pieces that animated me. I was sure if this lasted a second longer I would simply cease to be, vanishing in a mist of nothingness, forgotten by even those with eternal memories.

  Cerberus’s animal yowl matched mine, and Leo was the first to break, ripping my hand from his chest.

  My vision cleared instantly, and the electricity died just as fast. I’d been unplugged.

  Tears poured from my eyes, and my hands were shaking. Blood caked all of my nail beds, and I couldn’t tell if it was mine or if I’d drawn that much from both Leo and the dog.

  I coughed onto the back of my hand, and blood coated my skin.

  No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t catch my breath. I panted, and all I could hear was a rattling wheeze. I gave Leo a desperate look, but his gaze was locked on Cerberus. All six of the dog’s eyes had gone milk-white, the tongues lolling from three mouths. A low, guttural whine emitted from the dog’s belly, and it teetered drunkenly.

  Leo had more wherewithal left in him to see what was about to happen than I did. He grabbed hold of my belt, obviously avoiding any skin-to-skin contact, and threw me past him, to the place where Charon’s boat had landed us initially. Between my deflated lung and the uneven surface beneath us, I lost my footing and hit the ground.

  The whole valley shook violently with the power of an earthquake.

  I didn’t think I weighed that much.

  “Tallulah.” Leo crouched next to me, and the bare worry on his face warred with his hands, which still seemed unwilling to touch me. “Can you hear me?”

  “Did I earthquake?” The words in my head did not equal the words that came out of my mouth.

  He hesitated, then wedged his arm under my back and lifted me onto my feet, but not in the same effortless way he had before. We both winced from the exertion, and when we were standing, neither of us looked particularly well.

  But neither did Cerberus.

  The epic crash had been the dog hitting the ground, where now all three heads were resting motionless.

  I briefly thought we might have killed it, but one of the heads chuffed, and a groggy wheeze emitted from the creature’s belly. The beast was down, but it was impossible to know for how long. We had to take advantage of this window to get to the door.

  “Can you climb?” he asked.

  “Do I have a choice?” Each word was a Herculean effort, using up breath I didn’t have to spare. If we managed to get past the hellhound and out that door, I was getting myself to the nearest hospital and hoping to gods I didn’t find myself right back here in a couple days.

  “Come on.” Leo was almost as wobbly as I was, and we made a slow climb up the bones towards the dog.

  I saw immediately that if we were going to reach the door, we would need to do so by scaling Cerberus itself.

  Super.

  Each step we took I half-expected the thing to wake up, growl once, and eat us alive. However, by the time we reached one of the animal’s necks, it started to snore. I had drained almost all the life force and energy out of myself and Leo, and what had I done?

  Put the guardian of the underworld down for a nap.

  If I wasn’t so relieved the thing was asleep, I would have been deeply offended by how little my power had done to it. I certainly didn’t think the task Hades had given me was easy anymore. Leo paused at the animal’s neck, waiting for me, then stooped low so he could give me a boost. While I wasn’t too amped up about the idea of climbing on the back of a three-headed dog, I also had no intention of sticking around long enough to come up with a different plan.

  Once I was settled, I reached down and helped Leo. His weight and decided lack of vigor threatened to pull me back to the ground, but after a minor struggle and probably some new internal bleeding, we were both up on the dog’s back.

  Getting to the door was easy. So easy I thought for sure we would open it and find ourselves right back at the beginning, or Cerberus would awaken and devour us before we could pass through, like one last cruel joke from Manea.

  Yet the door opened without a lock, and we just needed to climb up a few feet to get through—a huge relief since I doubted either of us could have managed more.

  Leo pushed me across the threshold first and clambered through after me, shutting the door firmly behind us.

  It was only then we realized we’d locked ourselves in complete darkness with no idea where we were.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The darkness was so complete and in such stark contrast to the flaming sky of the underworld, I actually believed I’d lost Leo. He was right beside me, yet the cold shell of night encroaching on me made it feel as if I were inside a solitary oblivion.

  It was like being trapped inside a dream from which there was no waking.

  “Leo?” My breath hitched up, edging on panic, and a white fog billowed out in front of my mouth. The sweat that had coated my body from the unbearable hea
t of Hades’s kingdom was now a layer of ice covering my skin, making me shiver uncontrollably.

  “Are we out?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Decades of training at the temple under the careful tutelage of the best and brightest minds hadn’t taught me anything about this. I knew all the varied names of almost every god. I knew who had the most power and who not to cross. I knew where all the designate temples across America were located.

  But this was a mystery to me.

  Probably because this was a bleak nothingness, and nothing could have no name.

  “Are we out?” a chipper voice mocked.

  “Out where?”

  “There’s no out. Turn back, turn back.”

  Three childish voices, echoing inside my skull. The fucking Keres were back.

  “I bet you bitches are here to tell me you told me so, now that I’m in the underworld.” Though I wasn’t sure this space had tangible form, I struggled to my feet all the same and found that I could stand.

  Of course, since I couldn’t see anything else except the white condensation of my breath, I didn’t take another step for fear I might free fall off a cliff. They did seem to love their cliffs around here.

  “Us?” one Keres asked. “Mock?”

  “We would never.”

  The voices fell silent, then a giggle vibrated the air around me. “Though if we did, we might say we warned you.”

  “If the last test is listening to you guys for longer than five minutes, I’d rather go back through the door and let Cerberus use me as a chew toy.” My head throbbed and my lungs felt like two plastic bags full of fire, melting from the inside out.

  “What door?”

  “No door.”

  “No going back. Not until you’re dead…again.”

  “Super-duper looking forward to that.” I fumbled in the darkness, trying to find Leo. My toe nudged him first, then I groped around until I touched his shoulders and then his hair. “Can you stand up?”

  “Yeah.” He moved slow, but soon the warmth of his big body was against my side, like he needed to keep touching me in order to believe I was real. Instinctively I took hold of his hand and laced my fingers between his, giving him a firm squeeze.

  We’d come this far, there was no way I’d leave him behind now.

  “So sweet,” one of the voices mocked.

  “But don’t look.”

  “Yes, don’t look.”

  “Whatever you do you mustn’t look.”

  A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Leo asked. “It’s not like we can see anything anyway.”

  “Pick a leader.” Their voices were so bloody cheerful it added an extra level of insult to their mockery. “One must lead, one must follow.”

  “Pick. Pick.”

  “What are they talking about?” he asked.

  A response formed in my mind, but it took a long time for the words to come out. “Orpheus and Eurydice.”

  “Huh?”

  I squeezed his hand harder, debating with myself what the best way to do this was. The story of Orpheus escaping from the underworld was so oft told and so ancient I had no idea if it was true or a myth. But in the story he had been tasked with leading his beloved from the underworld with the one stipulation that he not look back at her.

  Then I remembered the way Hades had told us only one person had escaped the underworld before us, and I knew the story must be true.

  Don’t look.

  Pick a leader.

  One of us was going to need to take the first step. And no matter what happened, we couldn’t look back. I trusted myself to go first and not be tempted, but at the same time I had no idea what the Keres or anything else lurking in the blackness might try to do to trick us. What if it worked? What if I looked?

  Then Leo would be doomed to an eternity here.

  “You go first,” I told him.

  It was the only way to guarantee he got out alive. If he looked back, then I’d be stuck, but at least if the Orpheus legend was true, he’d still be allowed to leave without me.

  “Go first where?”

  “Start walking, and whatever you do, whatever you hear, don’t look back.”

  Leo went quiet, and I felt certain he must be able to hear the hammering beat of my heart. “Tallulah, that’s nuts, you should go first. I’m wearing the bracelet. You should be the one out first.”

  “No. It’s fine. Just don’t. Look. Back.”

  “I—”

  “Leo, please.”

  He was quiet for what felt like a full minute before he finally said, “Okay.” He pulled his hand free from mine and let out a low, shaky sigh. “I hate this.”

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to like it. Now start walking.”

  His clothing rustled, which was the only way I knew he was moving. I waited to the count of five, then started to follow.

  “They picked.”

  “No changing now.”

  “Don’t peek.”

  The Keres laughed, and the sound was more irritating than a mosquito buzzing right in my ear. At least with a bug there was something I could swat at and kill.

  Each step I took felt like I was being dragged back, like I was in quicksand and if I stood too long in one place I might not come unstuck again. A simple walk had never been such a labor before.

  “Tallulah.” This was not the voice of a Keres, but it rang sweetly familiar all the same. “Tallulah Belle, come back.”

  My body froze on the spot, and my hands began to tremble violently. I wanted to shout for Leo, to ask if he heard it too, but I was terrified any distraction would make him look for me. That was all this was, a distraction.

  I couldn’t possibly be hearing the real Sunny.

  She was still alive. She was alive and safe in Arizona. Whatever was speaking to me now wasn’t her, couldn’t be her.

  But what if Charon called in your promise?

  My legs were made of lead, and the darkness poured in around me, threatening to pull me under an unseen wave and never let me back up for air. Not that I could breathe anyway.

  The tiniest sliver of possibility that it could really be Sunny behind me was keeping me anchored in place, at war with myself.

  “Tallulah, please.” The voice was so her, so perfectly Sunny, it sounded like she was standing right behind me. Pleading with me. Begging.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks, and my brain refused to make a decision. If she was real and I looked back, I damned her. But if I ignored her and went on and discovered it had been Sunny, my Sunny, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for leaving her here alone.

  “Sun,” I whispered. “I can’t.”

  “Don’t leave me.”

  Some sane part of me broke with that word, and the tears flowed all the more freely. Violent tremors shook me, and I sank to the ground, sitting cross-legged, refusing to budge. I wanted to shout to Leo, to beg him to glance back. He could take the decision out of my hands. If he looked, then I would have no choice but to stay with Sunny. He’d make things so easy for me.

  “Sunny, don’t do this to me.” I buried my face in my hands, covering my eyes to keep myself from looking. The temptation to seek her out was so strong I couldn’t bear it. Having her this close and knowing what I was leaving her to, it hurt me to my very soul.

  How could I choose when there was no right answer?

  She wouldn’t make you choose, a voice whispered in the back of my head.

  At first I thought it might be her or the Keres again, but no, this was different. This was that little voice of reason that had so often been the fine thread that kept me tethered to reality when all else seemed beyond comprehension.

  And I listened.

  Sunny wouldn’t ask you to stay.

  I caught my breath, trying to coax this new voice to speak louder than the others, because there was a logic to the words I was having trouble believing,
and I needed to hear more of it.

  Sunny wouldn’t ask.

  It clicked then, all at once, the absolute correctness of this statement.

  Sunny wouldn’t ask me to stay. Just like I’d never beg her to stay. If our places were reversed and it was me behind my sister, I’d stay quiet. I’d shut my mouth and let her go, because I’d know anything else would be torture for her. That this exact situation was one I’d never want to make her endure.

  I wasn’t even willing to let Leo bear the burden.

  My sister would never, not in a million lifetimes, ask me to stay in the underworld for her.

  I stood up abruptly, ignoring the pain and the tears and everything that was trying to trap me in place, and I did the precise thing I’d insisted Leo shouldn’t do under any circumstances.

  I looked back.

  And there was nothing there.

  A huge, shuddering sigh of relief shook my whole body, and I braced my hands against my knees, desperate to catch my breath now that I’d let it out.

  “Smart.”

  “Too smart.”

  “Figured us out.”

  “You. Immortal. Cunts.” I spit out each word, fueled by pure, blind rage. “If you three had faces, I would punch them.”

  “She has no manners.”

  “None.”

  “Unfit for the kingdom of Hades.”

  A slow, thin smile stole over my face, and I was sure that if anyone could see it, it might be described as malicious. Instead it was visible to only the darkness, and the darkness did not shrink from me.

  But this time I didn’t shrink from it either.

  Fuck this place. Fuck the underworld, and Hades, and Manea.

  I was getting out of here, and there wasn’t a single thing left that could stop me.

  I trudged onward, fighting against the resistance but no longer burdened by it. The darkness could try its worst to drag me back down, because for the first time in a week, I didn’t feel helpless. I had hope.

  And in the face of unflinching nothingness, sometimes hope was enough.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I felt like I’d been walking for hours when the darkness began to abate.

  A small part of me started to worry Leo had looked back, and my punishment was going to be walking alone in the darkness for the rest of eternity.