by Jaymin Eve
The three overlords led the group; my father and Brad brought up the rear. I was just wondering where the cars were when four appeared in the distance. They cruised in through the trees, taking the same path – or lack thereof – that Chase had.
When they were about ten feet from us, they stopped and the drivers of the first two jumped out and opened the doors. Callie, Emma, and I were ushered into the wide back seat of the first car. Daniel took the driver’s seat, Chase the passenger, and Lexen got in the back. I turned to see my parents filing into the second black, unmarked, SUV. Once they were inside, the tint was so dark that I couldn’t tell who was sitting where.
No time was wasted, all four cars took off, somehow not hitting any trees, and then we were moving far too quickly for my liking. Chase turned: “Don’t worry, my father is in the second vehicle, making sure the trees get out of our way.”
For some strange reason, I wished I had seen his dad. It would have been nice to glimpse the Daelighter who raised Chase.
“Your dad might be chatting with Chase’s dad,” Emma whispered in my ear, giving me a wink.
I just stared back at her, because she was probably right. It felt weird, but at the same time it was my dad’s job to liaise with Daelighters. He should be fine. I also felt better knowing there was a powerful overlord in with them, protecting them.
The moment we were out of the trees and back on the main dirt road, I strained to hear a helicopter. Knowing Laous might be above somewhere, with a massive machine gun, ready to blow us all away, was giving me heart palpitations.
“Do you guys have weapons?” I asked. “Like guns or grenades or … anything?”
“Nope,” Daniel said from the driver’s seat. “Daelighters don’t use human weapons. We’re more inclined to use our own energy, the network, and the specific powers of our house to fight.”
Which was great, except right now Laous was using human technology, and I felt like we should as well if we wanted to stand a chance against him.
“Don’t worry about Laous,” Lexen added. “He won’t risk hurting the secret keepers. Not until he gets what he wants from you. That’s why I requested vehicles with the darkest tint. He won’t know for sure who’s in which car, and we need him to be confused enough that he hesitates.”
My hands were clenched tightly, which I didn’t even realize until Emma reached out to grab one, and Callie grabbed the other. The three of us clung to each other while Daniel practiced some racecar driving maneuvers.
“Don’t worry,” Callie said, trying to sound cheerful. “Dan can take a Lambo around a corner at eighty miles an hour. He’ll get us there in one piece.”
I really wasn’t reassured by that, but at least I knew it wasn’t his first time driving a car. At these speeds over dirt roads, our odds of surviving felt like they were on shaky grounds.
And now, more than ever, I really wanted to live. I was about to go to an alien world. That was not something I could miss.
11
We made it through the first section of the trees without an issue. I didn’t relax in all that time though; I wouldn’t relax at all until we were a hundred percent safe. There was too much at stake here, and the thought that something was going to jump out at us from nowhere had me on edge.
Daniel was living up to Callie’s confidence in him, barely braking as he swung around corners, spraying up dirt and rocks in his wake. I spent my time stressing, sweating, and turning to check my parents’ car was right behind us. The final two cars, which must have been filled with Daelighters, were bringing up the rear.
I was just turning to face the front when Chase barked out: “Brace yourself.” It was so unlike his normal cool and collected tone that my fear spiked immediately, and I leaned forward to try and see what we were bracing for. The road looked empty; we were on a straight, with trees on either side.
Chase hit the button to lower his window, leaning out. When he was half out of the car, I had to stop myself from reaching out and pulling him back in. What he was doing looked like a good way to get himself killed.
Leaning forward further, I kept one eye on him, and one on the road. Something caught my eye through the front windshield … like a heat haze hovering over the road. But it was cold here, so that couldn’t be right.
“What is that?” Emma asked, her voice higher pitched than normal.
Lexen leaned over the seat, staring forward. “He’s set up a transport barrier,” he snarled. “That asshole is trying to take us out using the barrier.”
“What happens if we hit it?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know the answer.
I was already picturing us crashing into it and ending up squished into a small box of metal.
“It will transport everything that hits it to another location,” Daniel told us, hands firm on the wheel as we continued to fly toward the barrier. “Same technology as our transporter between Earth and Overworld, but less permanent. It will disappear as soon as we go through it.”
“Shouldn’t we stop?” Callie asked then, her tone suggesting we were idiots for still driving.
“If we stop, he’s going to have someone waiting to take us out,” Lexen said shortly. “This is going to be one of those double-sided traps.”
“There are fifty Daelighters in the forest,” Chase confirmed, his voice faint because he was still out the window. “The trees are telling me.”
I loved trees. Seriously. How had I been living my life without them?
“You got the barrier, Chase?” Lexen sounded relaxed, which felt wrong in this sort of situation. What the hell could Chase do from the car? Unless he was getting the trees to do something.
“Trees on Earth can’t move, right?” Emma looked between the front and back. “Just communicate in a limited way?”
That’s right, he’d told me that.
“The trees can’t move, but Chase can,” Daniel said, which seemed to satisfy Emma. But I still had no idea what that meant.
Both of my legs were bouncing so hard now that it almost felt like my chair was shaking. That might also be because Emma and Callie were jumping around as much as me. My eyes remained locked on the broad back hanging out the window. What was Chase doing?
I was watching him so closely that I noticed the moment his shoulders broadened out, filling almost every spare space in the window, and … was he getting taller? It felt like even more of him than usual was hanging out of the car, while the same amount was still inside.
Something brown flicked across the front of the windshield, drawing my attention briefly. It flicked back and forth a few times before I figured out what I was seeing. Vines? Where did the vines come from? The trees here weren’t exactly the viney sort. Mostly they were tall redwoods, their foliage high in the sky. The vines whipped in front of our car again, disappearing when they dropped below the window level. When they reappeared, they were wrapped around and carrying a large tree trunk.
“What in the world?” I breathed, trying to understand. Was this Chase? Was he commanding those vines somehow? The log flung forward with force and speed, smashing against the barrier. The moment it hit, the barrier shimmered and the log disappeared.
That’s when everything clicked into place for me. Chase was not commanding those vines … he was them. Somehow he was shooting the long tendrils from his body – something I couldn’t actually see to confirm because of his positioning out the window. Unbelievable.
We sped through the section of road where the barrier had been and dozens of beings poured in from the trees. But we were moving too fast for any of them to do more than be flung off around us. Chase remained out the window, his vines cracking Daelighters in the head as we passed them. When the coast was clear, he finally returned to his seat and I let out a deep breath. By the time he was seated, his body had returned to its normal, perfect shape. Any resemblance to a tree was gone.
“We have company on the way,” he told us, turning around. “They’re closing in on us.” His gaze lin
gered on my face for a moment. “Are you okay?” His voice was low, thrumming in the energy between us.
I nodded a few times, swallowing hard. “Yes, thanks to you.” I was spilling all my feels, uncaring that we were in the middle of a group. “You saved us.” He had saved me again.
His eyes ran across my face, like he was trying to determine if I was freaking out because of what he’d just done. I smiled. There was nothing Chase could do that would make him unattractive to me, certainly nothing to do with his abilities. If he was an asshole, that would be a deal breaker, but he wasn’t. None of them were. I mean, I knew there were bad Daelighters – cough, Laous, cough, cough – but the ones in this car were keepers. If humans knew these sorts of “aliens” walked among us, there would be fewer movies with little green men and more with hot gods that everyone wanted to be bonded with.
The sounds of engines revving distracted me, and Chase’s gaze shifted up and over my head, looking out the back window. I turned then too, to check on my family. Shit. Behind the three SUVs, a bunch of motorbikes had appeared.
“Get down low,” Lexen growled, before he turned to face the back window.
Dark clouds washed across the previously very blue sky in a rush, and I realized that Lexen didn’t need an open window; he was fine just where he was. The rumble of thunder started competing with the roar of motorcycles, pretty much deafening all around. Callie put her hand on the back of my head then, forcing me to lean forward with them. “I thought Lexen had a dragon power,” I whispered, my chin resting on my knees. Luckily I was flexible from cheer.
“Lexen has multiple skills,” Emma murmured back, pride very evident in her tone. “He has the normal House of Darken powers, which include electrical storms, weather manipulations, and cool shit like that. And he also does the dragon thing.”
“Six more coming through the right,” Chase noted, his voice faint enough that I knew he was back out the window again.
“This is ridiculous,” Emma griped. “If we’re going to be stuck in this world, dealing with this sort of power and such, we should have been given some ourselves.” She let out a huff of air. “Well, I suppose Callie did get some, but the rest of us…”
I shifted my head around the other way to meet Callie’s eyes. “What power did you get?”
She gave a strained grin. “When Daniel tied our souls together, the bonding shared his power with me. I can shoot out a burst of flame … like the heat of a volcano.”
Unbelievable. No doubt I was going to say that a few more times before this day was over.
“So, all Daelighters have these skills, right? Differing between the houses they’re born in?”
I heard multiple noes from the car.
“All Daelighters have a very small level of power,” Emma explained. “But only those born in the overlords’ bloodlines have the strong gifts. Mostly because they’re more closely connected to the network. Able to use more of its power.”
“Yep,” Callie confirmed. “On Earth, ninety percent of Daelighters are almost as useless as humans. We’re just lucky to be in this car with some of the most powerful dudes in both worlds.”
Daniel chuckled, even though it sounded a little strained. “I love your way with words, Cal.”
She shrugged, which he couldn’t see. “Call it like I see it.”
Our car lurched, skidding across the dirt, and I had to lift my head to check on my parents. Emma and Callie followed my movements, and I wondered if they instantly regretted it as much as I did. We were surrounded on all sides by dark-helmeted, leather-clad, motorbike riding people. There were at least twenty, and that didn’t include the ones already taken out by strikes of lightning, tree branches, and bursts of fire.
The fire was sporadic, because Daniel was focusing on evasive driving, but as soon as Callie got a view of those trying to attack us, she let out a low rumble of anger and lowered her window. She took in a few deep breaths, and then the air around her started to heat. If there hadn’t been a breeze of cool air coming in from hers and Daniel’s open windows, I would have been sweating up a storm.
Flames flew from her hands. They missed the riders close by, crashing into some of the trees. Fire engulfed those trunks and branches, which startled at least three riders enough that they lost control and crashed. My heart tightened at the sight of the trees burning, and I sensed a new tension in Chase that hadn’t been there until now. He had felt it, too. The trees should not have to burn because of humans with an inability to understand that everything wasn’t theirs for the taking.
“You can hit them, Callie,” Lexen growled, turning back to focus on his storm in the dark sky above. Lightning was zapping Daelighters. “They’re trying to kill and kidnap you.”
She shook her head, words bursting from her. “I can’t take another life, not unless there is no other choice. I’m … I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
“We understand,” Emma soothed. “Don’t we, Lexen?” That was muttered through gritted teeth. He didn’t say anything, but he did reach forward and pat Callie on the shoulder.
My parents’ car was rocketing along behind us, but it looked like there was only one black vehicle behind it. Had we lost the other one somewhere along the way? “Do you think Laous is on one of the motorbikes?” Callie yelled as she blasted another patch of trees.
“Are you guys going to start a huge forest fire?” I cut in before anyone could answer her. I just couldn’t handle the trees suffering any longer.
Chase swung around then, his gaze so intense that I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t sure what that look meant, but whatever it was, the emotion was strong. “I won’t let the fire spread,” he told me, and I acknowledged that with a nod.
Callie had her hands back in the car now, staring down at them. “I don’t want to kill people, but I should have realized, after being in House of Leights, that trees are as important as people.”
“Aim for their bikes,” I suggested. “Light them up enough that they have time to jump off before it blows up.”
She tilted her head in my direction, her eyes a stormier gray than I had ever seen them. “I think I better just keep my power to myself until I can figure out what my hard lines are. Hesitating in these situations can get us all killed, and right now, I’m unsure of everything.”
She sounded so devastated; I really felt for her. These were not the sort of decisions we should be making at eighteen, or ever, but here we were, in a life-or-death situation.
Three motorbikes swerved into the path a few yards ahead of us. Two of them revved up their engines and let their bikes fly forward toward our cars. At the last minute, they bailed, which left us in the path of two riderless bikes.
Vines whipped out of nowhere and slammed against the out of control bikes, knocking them off to the side. “There are too many of them,” Emma cried as more bikes appeared beside us. “No matter how many times the guys knock them down, they’re back again with the same numbers.”
As if to prove her right, something hit the car with force, sending it skidding to the side. This was followed by multiple bangs as our tires popped. We flew out of control and I let out a low gasp, planting my legs and bracing myself as the car started to flip, over and over, at least five times, finally stopping on the edge of the tree line, on its side.
I let out a groan, pressing the numb strip across my chest where the seatbelt was cutting into me. I quickly moved my arms and legs, satisfied that I wasn’t seriously injured.
“Everyone okay?” I called out. Callie, Emma, and I had been wearing seatbelts, but I was pretty sure none of the guys were. Especially not after they started using their gifts.
“I’m fine, just a few bruises,” Emma said.
“Same,” Callie added.
“I’m fine,” came from Daniel.
I held my breath, only releasing it when Chase said, “I’m fine, no injuries.”
“Lexen…?” Emma called, fear in her voice.
“Don’t worry about me, ba
by girl.” His reply was immediate. And he sounded perfectly fine.
A low familiar whomping sound echoed around the cabin of the car, and the moment it registered all of us scrambled to free ourselves. I tried to get the seatbelt off, which was hard because all of my weight was pressing it down, making it almost impossible to unclick.
I struggled for about eight seconds before Chase was there. He leaned in, using one arm to lift me while the other unbuckled my belt. Lexen did the same for Emma. Callie managed to free herself on her own, and she climbed forward to help Daniel with the front windshield.
As I collapsed against Chase, he wrapped his palm around my face, thumb brushing along my cheek. A sting followed its wake, and when he pulled back I saw the blood. I blinked, lifting a hand to press to the cut. “I didn’t realize I got hurt,” I said. “Is it bad?”
He shook his head. “It’s not bad, just a small scrape.” The hand still wrapped around my face tightened minutely before he gentled it again. His eyes were darker than usual, almost gray.
“Is there something else?” I asked, unsure.
He shook his head. “I just don’t like seeing you hurt. It’s testing my control. And I’m usually very good at remaining calm in crisis situations.”
A low rumble shook him, and I had a firsthand view of his gift when he spun around and pushed both of his hands forward. I sucked in deeply as the very hands that had just held me started to lengthen, shooting out as vines.
The glass shattered when the vines hit the front windshield, which I knew took a hell of a lot of force to do. Daniel kicked out the remaining glass, and then we crawled through one by one. The black-clad motorbiking assholes were surrounding us, of course, and the sound of the helicopter was extra loud now, wind whipping through the trees and grass to hit us.
“My parents?” I asked, looking around for them.
Lexen, who was maneuvering himself in front of Emma, said, “They kept going. Chila, Chase’s father, will get them to safety.”