by Dean Murray
I grimaced, my skin crawling at the idea of them getting their hands on her at all.
“We should fan out,” Niall continued. “Leave one guy here, and then head north with half the rest and send the others south. Try to cover as much of the coast as possible, so no matter where they–”
“This is where they’ve been, though. They’re all here.”
“Doesn’t mean they’ll come back this way, especially since this is where people know her and will be looking for her if they learn she’s been kidnapped.” He paused. “The Sylphaen can get her in the water anywhere. Trying here is probably their worst choice.”
I looked away. He might be right. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that they would come back to Santa Lucina again. The dead one on the beach had been here, along with potentially more, and they must have stuck around for a reason.
“Send the guards in either direction along the coast,” I said. “But I’m staying.”
“Zeke–”
“That guy on the beach was here for a reason.”
“Maybe to make sure none of her friends rushed off to help.”
“Or to be a lookout.” I exhaled, trying to calm down. “Come on, Niall. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just want to keep an eye out around here.”
His mouth tightened. “Okay, then I’m staying too.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
He echoed the motion. We walked back to the stairs.
On the beach, the guards were waiting, though the Sylphaen’s body was gone. I looked out at the water, knowing one of them must have dragged him out there to be lost in the currents.
“You three,” Niall called, jerking his chin at several of the guards as he reached the bottom of the steps. “You stay with us. The rest, I want you to split up. Half to the north, half south, and cover as much space as possible. You feel this electricity-in-the-water thing Zeke talked about, you signal.”
They gave a nod and headed for the waves.
Niall glanced back at me. “We should stay oceanwise. Better view of more shoreline that way.”
I made a noise of agreement, and then followed him into the tide.
If the Sylphaen brought her into the water anywhere near us, I’d feel it. And if they tried it anywhere else, one of the guards along the coast would be able to tell. It was hard to miss, that strange thing she did when she touched the water.
I just hoped we caught them, because I didn’t want to imagine what those bastards had planned.
Chapter Seventeen
Chloe
“But then my dad comes home, and Maddox just takes off! Leaves me standing there, in a bathroom covered in mud and holding this sopping wet puppy, like it was all my idea to take the poor thing in!”
I laughed and Noah grinned. Pushing a branch out of our way, he waited for me to pass him.
“So what’d you do then?” I asked as we continued down the trail toward the cabin.
“Well… panic. I dropped the puppy into the bathwater and tried to grab a towel, but the little guy just jumped out of the tub and bolted through the door. Next thing I know, I hear my dad yelling because this wet dog is racing around the living room.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, I ended up grounded for about a week over that one.”
“And Maddox?”
Humor showed in Noah’s eyes. “Two weeks, mostly for running off on me.”
I laughed again. “How old were you guys?”
He thought for a moment. “Eight, maybe? So Maddox would’ve been eleven. Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“What happened to the dog?”
“Oh, turns out he wasn’t a stray after all. Some neighbors down the street had been looking for him all afternoon.” He grinned. “And they were really grateful we’d given him a bath so they didn’t have to.”
I shook my head, still smiling. We walked around the turn of the trail, and the rear of the cabin came into view.
Gunshots rang out from the far side of the house.
I froze, my mind trying to catch up with my ears. Screams rose on the heels of more gunfire, along with the sound of shattering glass and Daisy barking.
Noah ran for the cabin.
I gasped and took off after him.
A man in a black ski mask darted around the side of the house. At the sight of Noah racing toward him, he skidded, his eyes going wide.
His arm raised.
I screamed.
And the gun fired.
Noah stopped as the bullet hit him. His hand clutched at his chest and his body jerked, as though he was choking around the pain. Doubling over, he staggered a step, and then crashed to the ground.
I stared. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t–
The man charged at me faster than anyone had the right to move.
Tearing my gaze from Noah, I stumbled away and ran.
The man’s fingers snagged my hair and yanked me backward, sending pain shrieking through my scalp. I screamed and clawed at his grip as he dragged me to the ground.
“Get the hell away from her!”
At the cry, the man suddenly stumbled and his fist vanished from my hair. Twisting on the ground, I scrambled back and looked up.
My mom had jumped on him. Like a wild woman, she had her arm wrapped around his throat as she desperately tried to choke him. Her other hand tore at his ski mask, blinding him momentarily and making him cry out with rage.
Grabbing at her, he caught her shirt and arm, and then ripped her from him and hurled her to the ground.
She hit the dirt path hard and rolled. Her hands landed on a rock and with a cry, she flung it at his head.
He dodged the stone.
And pulled out his gun.
“No!” I shouted.
The man paused. His head turned and his eyes met mine while Mom scrambled to the side.
His gun tracked her.
“Don’t,” I pled.
Beneath the torn ski mask, his mouth twitched toward a snarl.
“What do you want?” I continued desperately. “Me? I’ll go with you. Just please don’t.”
His expression became disgusted. Beyond him, I could see Mom, still in the line of his handgun.
I trembled. He’d shoot her. I knew he would. He’d shot Noah and no one else had come around the side of the house this entire time. It was just us and him and…
My forearms stung as the spikes grew.
“Chloe, no…” Mom begged.
“I’m not a landwalker,” I tried, ignoring her. “See? I don’t know why you’re doing this, but I’m not–”
“We know exactly what you are.”
I hesitated. “O-okay. But please, you don’t have to do this.”
“Yes we do.”
There was nothing in his voice. Just cold certainty and it left me shaking. He looked back at Mom, taking aim again.
Something slammed into him, knocking his shot wide and propelling him from the path. The man screamed, flying through the air and then crashing into a tree trunk. He tumbled to the ground and didn’t move again.
I stared.
It was Noah. But not. Alive and well, he stood with his back to me, regarding the crumpled man he’d just thrown into the tree. Smoke rose from his fists and cracks like fissures in stone ran up his arms, with fiery light like molten lava coming from inside them.
He turned, looking at me. His eyes glowed red like coals, and more cracks surrounded them, radiating outward like jagged tattoos of light. Blood stained his shirt, the wetness centered on a hole torn near the middle of his chest, and beneath the fabric, his skin shone.
Motionless, he watched me, and nothing human was in his gaze.
And then he drew a breath, tensing briefly as the fissures began to fade.
“Are you alright?” he asked as his eyes darkened back to their normal green.
A gasp of air entered my lungs. On the path behind him, Mom pushed to her feet, not taking her eyes from him. He glanced over at her,
and then back at me.
I couldn’t stop staring.
“We have to go,” he said.
My head nodded on its own. Reaching out, he extended a hand to me. My gaze dropped to his palm, and after a moment’s hesitation, I took it.
He felt the same. Warm, with skin no different than a short time ago.
His fingers wrapped around mine and he drew me up from the ground.
“What are you?” I whispered as the spikes retreated from my arms.
Noah paused. “It’s complicated. Come on.”
Bringing me with him, he headed for the cabin.
“Keep pressure on it!”
Diane’s cry carried past the house as we came closer. Noah leaned his head around the corner, and then pulled me after him as he ran into the front yard.
The porch steps were a wreck, and two ski-masked men had been shoved into the debris. Several yards away, Dad lay on the grass with Diane crouched over him, pressing a bundle of towels to his shoulder. With Daisy at her feet, Baylie huddled nearby, clasping her upper arm while blood dripped past her fingers.
Mom pushed by me. “Bill? Bill, are you–”
“He’s alive,” Diane said as Mom kneeled by her side. “Ambulance is on its way.”
Trading places with Mom, she rose to her feet and turned to me and Noah, hesitating as she saw the stains on his shirt.
“What happened?” Noah asked.
“Someone started shooting at us from the woods,” Diane told him. “And then a bunch of men in masks came out of the brush at us. Maddox stopped those two, but the rest took off.”
“Where is–” Noah started.
Maddox ran from the forest. Torn fabric and blood marred his shirt, and hair-thin cracks of firelight still shone in his skin, fading as I watched. His gaze raked the yard, catching on Noah.
“Any more of them?” he demanded.
Noah shook his head. “Only one came back there.”
Maddox glanced his brother over and swiftly seemed to conclude what had happened. “I got three of them,” he said, his voice nearly a growl. “The other two…”
Noah looked to the woods as the sound of sirens carried up the hillside.
“Get inside and change clothes before the ambulance arrives,” Diane ordered. “Both of you.”
The guys hesitated. Twitching his head at his brother, Maddox motioned for Noah to go in while he paused at the ruined stairs.
“How’re we going to explain–” Maddox began, gesturing to the wreckage and the men inside.
“We don’t,” Diane said. “We say something hit them. We don’t know what. Blame it on the others shooting at us.”
He nodded. Noah pulled himself up onto the porch and then disappeared into the house.
My eyes went to Dad lying on the ground. Mom had a towel still pressed to his shoulder, but he was speaking to her, his voice too quiet to hear. Diane stood nearby, watching them and the road that the ambulance would drive equally.
I bit my lip, and then walked over to where Baylie sat on one of the log benches, her free hand absently stroking Daisy’s fur. She flinched as I came near, as though I’d startled her, and when I lowered myself onto the bench next to her, she swallowed hard, looking bloodlessly pale.
“You okay?” I asked quietly.
She shivered. “W-we were just talking. And then suddenly there was all this noise. Your dad fell. Something hit my arm. It hurt so much and then these guys just…” Shaking her head, she didn’t take her gaze from the ground. “I thought they were going to kill us. I thought…”
A frightened expression came over her face. “M-Maddox, though. He…” Her terrified eyes met mine for the first time. “Chloe, he changed. I swear. H-he just became some… thing. Like a monster. He threw two of them through the stairs and when the others tried to shoot him… he just went after them. He barely even stumbled. And his skin…”
Her trembling grew stronger and her gaze dropped to the grass, though she didn’t seem like she was seeing it.
I swallowed and turned away. On the porch, Noah came outside and, at a quick nod from him, Maddox headed into the house.
Like they were trading off watch.
A shiver ran through me. They thought those guys might come back. They thought they might have to defend against them again.
Become those… things… again.
And they both were staying ready for it.
I glanced to Diane. She knew. Had known all along. And so of course my problems hadn’t seemed strange.
She had two stepsons who could probably glow in the dark.
I looked back at Noah, my brow furrowing with hurt. He could have told me. He should have. I mean, everyone was entitled to secrets, but there I’d been, sharing this terrifying new discovery of spikes and scales and possible death, and he’d never said a word about the fact he wasn’t human either.
Not one word.
He’d just seemed like he’d understood how I felt the entire time.
My gaze returned to the driveway as an ambulance pulled up. He still should have said something. But instead, he’d lied to me. Maybe not outright – much – but by omission. He’d had a hundred chances to say something, and he’d not taken one of them.
He’d also saved my life.
I grimaced and turned to help Baylie to her feet. As the EMTs rushed over to my dad, I continued on with her, leaving Daisy by the bench and walking toward the second ambulance that was coming to a stop on the grass.
The middle-aged driver hopped out and jogged over to us, while his younger companion circled to the rear of the vehicle.
“Hey there, I’m Marty,” the first man said, putting a hand to Baylie’s elbow gently. “Let’s take a look at that arm, shall we?”
He directed her toward the back of the ambulance, where I could hear the younger guy opening the doors.
I looked over my shoulder, watching two EMTs load my dad onto a stretcher. Mom hovered nearby, holding his hand as they got ready to carry him back to the ambulance. Another EMT was checking over the men inside the ruin of the porch steps, with Diane eyeing him from several feet away. Maddox lingered near the corner of the house, effectively keeping anyone from wandering back toward the trail, while Noah stood on the porch, studying the surrounding forest.
“You doing alright?”
I flinched. The older med tech who’d been helping Baylie stood nearby, and he smiled ruefully at my alarm.
“Sorry,” Marty apologized. “Didn’t mean to scare you. You’ve got some scratches there. Can I get you something for them?”
He gestured and I glanced down, seeing the bloodied scrapes on my palms and arms for the first time.
I swallowed. The man currently lying broken by a tree had dragged me to the ground after he’d shot Noah. I just hadn’t noticed the damage then.
“Sure,” I managed.
I followed him back to the rear of the ambulance, where Baylie was sitting on the step. The younger EMT stood near her, tying off a bandage around her arm.
“You were lucky,” he told her.
She swallowed and then nodded. He gave her a warm smile before following Marty into the back of the ambulance to gather more bandages.
I sat down next to her.
“What do you think Maddox… you know… is?” Baylie whispered to me, half-glancing to the EMTs behind us.
I shook my head.
“He can’t be human, though, right? I mean, humans don’t do that. Glow and have all this stuff in their skin and put people through–” She caught herself and lowered her voice again. “–through porches like they’re ragdolls. They can’t.”
She turned to me, renewed alarm coming over her face. “Do you think Noah is like that?”
I looked down, uncertain what to say.
“I-I mean, what if he and Peter and all of them are just–”
Something white flashed at the corner of my eye and she gave a muffled cry. A hand clamped to my mouth and yanked me backwards into the am
bulance. I tried to scream, though the sound never made it out as my back hit the cold metal floor. The door of the ambulance slammed, and the grip on my mouth disappeared.
The younger EMT stood over me, a hand gripping a rail attached to the wall and the other pointing a knife to one side.
“Scream and she’s dead,” he said.
I slid my gaze over. Baylie lay next to me, her body limp and a white cloth on the floor beside her.
The ambulance engine started up. “Good to go, Colin?” Marty called from the front seat.
“Yep,” he replied.
The ambulance rocked as Marty pressed down the accelerator and pulled the vehicle through a tight turn. Holding the rail, Colin didn’t take his eyes from me.
“Bet you thought you were pretty smart, surrounding yourself with them,” he said.
“Who?” I asked warily.
He smirked. “We’ll get what we want from you. We’ve had centuries to prepare for this. To watch for this. It doesn’t matter how you try to avoid it; you’ll serve our purpose, just as ordained.”
I stared at him.
“Quit the chatter and dose her already!” Marty called.
Colin’s brow furrowed. “Wait, now? But what if she–”
“You want her causing us trouble under the water? Come on! We need her prepped for the ceremony and she needs something else to think about besides getting away.”
Colin grunted disgustedly. Keeping the knife pointed at Baylie, he reached over and tugged open a small drawer set into the wall. His eyes didn’t leave me as he stuck his hand into the drawer and then pulled out a syringe.
Heart pounding, I looked between the knife and the needle.
“Don’t move…” he warned.
He bent down toward me.
I kicked out hard, my foot slamming into his crotch.
He shouted, staggering backward in the tight confines of the ambulance. His wrist hit the wall and the knife fell from his grip to clatter on the ground.
I scrambled up, but he was already coming at me again. My hands grabbed the first thing I could reach and hurled it at him.
The box of medical gloves bounced uselessly away.
He snarled and charged at me. I kicked at him again, and he snagged my leg. Shoving it sideways, he sent me off balance. I stumbled and then swung a fist at his face, but he just grunted and drove me back against the partial rear wall of the ambulance.