AIR Series Box Set

by Amanda Booloodian

Seeing the look in his eye, I decided that Vincent might not be as adamant about our relationship as I thought.

  “We picked up everything you asked for,” Ethan said while rummaging around in the trunk.

  It was too late for Vincent and me now, so I pushed it out of my head.

  “How’s your hand?” I asked while trying covertly to increase the amount of space between us.

  “It’s getting better,” Vincent said.

  “And your partner?” I dropped my voice, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. Rider could probably be half a mile away and still hear a whisper.

  “Also getting better,” Vincent said. “Why don’t you two ready the gear we brought and Ethan and I will bring the rest over.”

  I cast a nervous look at Rider. “Sure.”

  Rider already had the tailgate of the truck pulled down when I approached. My stomach felt twisted and I bit my lip. What kind of reaction would I get from Rider?

  “This is a nice truck,” I said. “Is it yours?”

  Rider didn’t look at me, but jumped into the back of the truck and started pushing stuff onto the tailgate. “I have purchased the vehicle.”

  “That’s, um, it’s nice,” I repeated. “And you look good. Better, I mean, than last week.”

  “I heal fast,” Rider said.

  “Yeah.” I twisted my hands and decided to say what I wanted to say. “Listen, I wanted to let you know that-”

  “Here’s one bag,” Vincent said, coming up beside me. He caught my eye and shook his head in the smallest fraction.

  The words ‘I’m sorry’ died in my throat.

  “Right,” I breathed. Not the way to go. Rider and Vincent must be getting closer to the friend stage if Vincent knew enough to stop me. Friendship means a lot to a werewolf.

  At least I thought it did. If I apologized for getting him shot it would be implying weakness, or that he couldn’t hold up his end of the friendship.

  “Right,” I said again, louder, “what do we have?”

  Vincent and Ethan began to organize our supplies. It took a remarkably small amount of time to fit everything like a puzzle into four bags, each item finding its own little spot. As if by unspoken communication, they had decided to make my bag lighter than the others were.

  “Try this on,” Ethan said. “Let’s adjust the straps.”

  “It looked like it could fit a bit more,” I said.

  “If we need the space,” Ethan said, “we’ll add more.”

  When he put the bag on my back, though, I was glad it wasn’t any heavier.

  Ethan moved around in front of me and adjusted the shoulder straps. While his concentration was on the bag, my eyes were on him.

  He caught me watching him and smiled. Using my shoulder straps, he pulled me closer. “I’m not sure how long we’ll be out here, but maybe we’ll get the chance to see those early morning stars.”

  “Because that worked out so well for us before,” I smirked.

  “It’s fun trying, though.” Ethan winked at me and then gave me a quick kiss before stepping away.

  My partners were very pointedly not looking in our direction.

  “So,” I cleared my throat, “where does the Lost live? I don’t see a house.”

  “Logan said it’s not far,” Vincent said.

  “And Harry ran away on foot?” I asked.

  “That’s what we understand,” Vincent said. “I thought we’d start at the house and go from there.”

  Rider jumped down from the back of the truck and picked up his bag with one hand. It had been the heaviest pack by far, but he swung it around as I would a purse.

  “This way,” Rider said, and then set out through the undergrowth without making a sound.

  Vincent and Ethan followed, and I brought up the rear.

  “You guys are sure we have everything we need, right?” I couldn’t help but feel apprehensive when we moved away from the vehicles.

  “We’re good for three or four days, assuming we find a water source,” Ethan said. “Any longer than that and we’ll have to catch dinner.”

  Three or four days? “Um, do you think we’ll be out here that long?” I tried to make my voice sound casual. It’s possible I might even have succeeded, but Vincent felt the tension under my voice. As a side effect of sharing a small piece of my soul, it’s possible he always would.

  Chapter 3

  “We hope it won’t take that long,” Vincent said, “but we are tracking a bigfoot, or someone hunting one anyway. They’re well-known for being elusive.”

  Ethan chuckled.

  “What?” I asked, worried he had caught my trepidation and found it amusing.

  “It’s just…I can’t believe I’m going cross-country looking for bigfoot,” Ethan said. He laughed again. “With my girlfriend, no less.”

  I grinned, enjoying the fact that Ethan referred to me as his girlfriend, but then I felt an undercurrent of tension start to build. My smile turned weak and I reached for the Path.

  “Over here,” Rider called.

  Without making the jump to the Path, I quickened my pace to catch up to Ethan. He looked excited, thrilled even. The feeling must have come from one of the others. I let it drop and concentrated on the small shack in front of us.

  “It looks like a shed,” Ethan said.

  Rider walked around the building then looked around the forest. Shadows were growing darker and deeper, but the sun hadn’t given up on the day yet.

  Vincent knocked on a piece of sheet metal that appeared to be the makeshift door. “Harry?”

  The shed was tiny. Would a bigfoot actually live in a place like that? The thought that Harry, Logan’s friend and one of the last bigfoot in the Northern Hemisphere, lived in such a flimsy little shack made my heart ache.

  Vincent rattled the metal. “Ethan, do you want to help me with this? I think we can move it to the side and-”

  “Do not go inside,” Rider said without turning back to the dilapidated pile of metal.

  Vincent took a step back, but still had eyes on the shed. “He’s not in there, but we should at least check.”

  “I do not think that Harry lives in the metal house,” Rider said.

  “Do you think he lives in the open?” I asked.

  Rider didn’t answer, but he seemed to be concentrating on something, so I tried not to take it personally. He shook his head, rolled his shoulders, and then turned in a circle, scanning the woods.

  “What are you thinking?” Vincent asked after Rider completed his circle. “We’re still in the dark.”

  Rider frowned and looked at the sky. “The sun is still out and the shadows are not deep enough to leave you in the dark.”

  “He means that you seem to understand something that we’re missing,” I said with a wistful smile, missing my friend even though he stood in front of me.

  “He has confused the smell,” Rider said. “I assume it was Harry that did this. The smells lead to here, but they are mangled. Meant to lure.”

  “You mean it’s a trap?” Ethan asked.

  “I do not know if it is meant to be malicious or misleading,” Rider said, “but Harry does not live here.”

  “But he probably lives near here. This is where Logan sent us as well,” Vincent said.

  I started looking closer to the area surrounding us as well. Vincent was right. Logan wouldn’t have sent us knowingly into a trap, so Harry’s actual house had to be around here somewhere.

  “The smell is too thick to find a trail. I can circle out until I find the correct scent,” Rider said.

  “We could split up,” Ethan suggested. “Each walk in a different direction to see what we find.”

  Rider’s gaze flickered in my direction for a moment so brief that I might have imagined it. “There are other smells. Bear, wild cats.” Rider turned to Vincent. “The woods are full of predators.”

  “Most of those animals aren’t going to bother us unless we startle them,” Ethan said.

  Knowing wh
ere the conversation was heading, I closed my eyes. Predators reacted poorly to me, and they would go out of their way to cause trouble, but I didn’t want Ethan to be reminded of this fact. With my eyes closed, I stretched my mind to the edge of my knowledge of the world as we know it. The border between my mind and the Path was getting crowded. Fragments of my soul and others gathered there. Luckily, my own soul knew it belonged and kept the other pieces in check.

  Ignoring the glittery shards, my mind stretched and jumped over the chaos and into the Path. Holding back as much of the power as I could while still being effective, I opened my eyes. A shimmering overlay streamed through the landscape. Memories of expended energy lay in front of me, ready to be read.

  “In most cases this-” Rider broke off what he was saying mid-sentence. I’m not sure what he experienced when I read the Path, but he could always tell when I opened myself up to the vivid world of swirling color.

  Everything leaves a trace in our world, and as a Reader, I was skilled in interpreting what was left behind, although, in rare cases, I was also able to glimpse Paths that hadn’t yet been laid. It’s understandable that I might catch something that hadn’t happened yet, since I was born into a long line of psychics.

  Here, I was firmly in the present. I avoided looking at the others. It seems like an intrusion to look too closely at my partners or Ethan if there was no need to know what they were feeling.

  Pale streams of green and brown wound around the landscape. Animals, and more of them than I would expect, even for the forest, had made trails everywhere.

  The others had gone silent and I could feel their eyes on me. I ignored the animal imprints and concentrated on the others. There was a trail left behind where someone had walked repeatedly, burning their movements into the Path. I assumed that was Harry. Besides the Paths of my partners, there were two others that stood out. I took note of them, but knowing that we were running out of daylight, I concentrated again on Harry.

  “He walked through here regularly,” I said. “I agree with Rider. It’s as if he purposefully made the area remember him. But I don’t see any sign he entered the shack.”

  “Is there any way to tell where he might live?” Ethan asked.

  “It’s strange. I see places he may have entered and exited the area, but they’re all faint. There is, however, a brighter Path that way.” I pointed deeper into the woods.

  “So he came and went from that direction more often?” Vincent asked.

  Rider went to the area I indicated and I joined him.

  “Not exactly.” I studied the area where this brighter Path came into contact with the repeated efforts of Harry’s misdirection. “It looks like this Path was made by someone else.”

  “I agree,” Rider said. “This scent is unlike the others.”

  “But it melds with the Path that I presume to be Harry’s.” I moved my hand through the Path. “It flows from here, straight into the other Path.”

  “So it’s someone Harry knows, or maybe it’s our hunter,” Ethan said.

  I studied the Path and thought it over. “Is it possible for someone to change their smell?”

  “People use things that hide or cover their scent,” Rider said, “but it does not alter it. Your smell is the only one that I have seen change.”

  Ignoring the comments on my own smell, I went on. “It’s sort of the same with Paths. People have an underlying Path that’s their own. It can change shape and color based on emotion, but the Path still remembers that it was the same person. Their core imprint is still there.”

  “I understand what you’re saying,” Vincent said, “but I’m not sure I understand the context. Why is the base smell or Path relevant here?”

  As I focused on the bright Path and where it entered the other, I found what I was looking for. “I think both Paths are Harry’s. When he entered this area, one Path doesn’t just bump into or run over the other, it flows into it, and…it’s hard to explain. It kind of twists and becomes the other Path.”

  “So, Harry comes to this area, alters himself somehow, makes sure this area stands out, and then what?” Ethan asked.

  “I think he left the area in different directions each time. Maybe to chase the animals away? Or to confuse anyone who can smell him or see the Path,” I amended.

  “It’s starting to get dark,” Vincent said. “Let’s follow this and see if we can find Harry’s house. If we don’t, tomorrow morning we can come back here and take another look.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Ethan said.

  Rider and I took the lead. Rider’s eyesight was almost as good at night as it was during the day, and with the Path open, light filled my world.

  While I was absorbed in the Path, Rider stalked ahead, but together, we were making decent time at a quick pace. Looking up, trees swung back and forth in the wind leaving impressive wisps of color, pale greens, yellows, and in one case gray, trailing behind each sway until the Path swept it away.

  It was fascinating to watch. At least, until Rider swung out his hand and I walked into the unmovable limb face first.

  I stumbled back, but caught myself before falling and glared at Rider’s back. “What was that for?”

  Rider ignored the question and stood stock still.

  “What happened?” Ethan asked.

  “I…” I sighed at my own inattentiveness. “Never mind.”

  “Someone else came through here,” Rider said.

  Paying closer attention to Rider, I saw that he had stopped in front of a set of intersecting Paths in front of us.

  “I saw these two Paths back at the shed,” I said.

  “I smell only one,” Rider said.

  “One looks like it could be a person. It’s a bit clouded to be sure. The other looks like an animal, but more substantial,” I said.

  “I do not know what that means,” Rider said.

  “Animals without complex thought leave lighter, almost ghosted trails. They have simple emotions, and only a few of them, so their Path isn’t as dark. People, on the other hand, are more complicated. The Path remembers us in a more solid way. In this case, the pattern in the Path is simple, but solid.”

  “I do not smell an animal with the new person,” Rider said. “Did it go through at the same time?”

  “Around the same time, I think,” I said. “I’d have to follow the Path back to the past to be sure.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Vincent said carefully. “It’s getting late and we’ve been on this trail for a while now.”

  Meaning he thought I had been Reading too long already. I could argue and say I felt fine, but in truth, I was a bit worn.

  “Which trail do we follow?” I asked.

  “Harry’s,” Vincent said. “If the new one goes in a different direction, it could be unrelated. We should start by checking Harry’s house, if we can find it. Rider, do you want to lead the way?”

  I rolled my eyes, taking the hint. Rider didn’t move, so I closed my eyes and concentrated on pushing the Path aside.

  The Path fought back.

  Holding back the torrent of energy and letting only a small piece through had been easy this time. I had expected releasing the Path to be the same way, but my mind tried to rebel and stay in the brightly colored world. Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself and concentrated. Paths pushed in on me from every side. Even with my eyes shut, I could see the rapidly flowing stream of information. Little by little, I closed up the dam of color and made the mental leap back into my mind.

  When I opened my eyes the world was dark, and I swayed on my feet, more tired than I realized. Rider put a hand on my shoulder to steady me. When I looked up into his face, I could see that his mouth was set in a hard line, but he wasn’t even looking at me.

  Did that mean he was trying to be all business, or was he being a friend, but not letting it show? The whole situation with Rider was getting too confusing, so I tossed the thought aside.

  “I’m good,” I said
. “Let’s get moving.”

  Chapter 4

  Cool mountain air started to weave through the night. The day hadn’t been too hot, but it was summer and the fresh air felt good. Usually, I have decent night vision, but I was still light-blinded from the Path. Tripping over tree branches and stepping in unseen holes wasn’t what you would call a good time.

  “I think we need to stop for the night,” I said after stumbling over a tree root. “We could walk by the house and never see it.”

  “Rider, any idea how old the trail is you’re following now?” Vincent asked.

  Rider stopped. “Five days, give or take a half day.”

  “Then we still haven’t found Harry’s most recent departure from the area.” Vincent unclasped a buckle on his backpack. “We’ll stop for tonight, but leave as early as we can in the morning.”

  When I took off the backpack, the air hitting my back felt cold, and I realized I was covered in sweat. Vincent took my bag and lined it up with the others. I arched my back, stretching out the muscles that had been weighed down throughout the day. When I looked around, everyone else was hard at work.

  Camping wasn’t a skill I possessed, and I was thoroughly clueless as to what I should be doing. What had we done last time?

  Looking over, I saw Rider twisting around a small ball of material. Our hammocks. That was something I was at least a little familiar with.

  I felt nervous approaching Rider, which I hated. “Can I help you with your hammock?”

  “I thought this one was yours,” he mumbled, turning the fabric over.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I can grab one end and-”

  “You should help Vincent,” Rider said.

  “Oh, yeah.” There was no way to keep the hurt from my voice, but I tried my hardest. He may as well have slapped me in the face. “I’ll do that.”

  Rider didn’t look my way, but in a low voice he added. “He could use the assistance due to his hand.”

  “Right.” A small hope buoyed my heart. “I’ll help him.”

  He didn’t say anything else, so I wasn’t sure if he added the detail for my benefit or for Vincent’s. Either way, he wasn’t sending me away to get rid of me.