on the sharp rocks. With the impact, air was forced to whoosh from my lungs. Gravel dug into the sleeves of my hooded leather jacket while the cowl protected my face.
Well, that fucking sucked.
The next stop was a few miles away. I couldn’t risk being seen by Kinetics, so I’d plunged to the ground as an early exit.
I groaned. Soreness nestled within my bones and muscles, protesting every step to retrieve my bag. My body healed during the train ride, but I was still aching. I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and set off on the next leg of my journey, hoping to find a safe place to truly rest soon.
I didn’t know where I was, only that I was near a small town somewhere in the middle of Georgia. However, despite the foggy skies, the moon told me it was about three in the morning.
My stomach grumbled, reminding me it’d been too long since my last meal. I’d have to either hunt or scavenge for food.
Not long after Devolution Day, bartering and trading became the new form of currency, but food was a rare item to trade since most lived underground in fear of the Kinetics and Elementals. The survivalists that came topside to grow or raise food drove steep prices for their product. Foods lower in demand, such as nuts or common vegetables, were more easily bartered.
While on the train, I’d discovered a hidden pocket in the duffel that contained a stash of my jewelry from the palace. Scarlett or Cotton must have raided my drawers while I was with my father and Grim. Depending on the trade, speakeasies sometimes provided meals to nomadic humans and rebels. But it would only get me so far.
I reached into the hidden pocket of the bag, sifting through the gold, silver, and platinum chains and bands. A pair of extravagant diamond earrings snagged against my palm.
That should do. I stuffed the pair into my front pocket with a sigh.
I walked through the trees lining the train tracks, hoping the woods would camouflage me from random passersby. The crickets’ cadence to their mating partners told me dawn was bringing an end to their midnight rides. I needed to get out of the open and hole away somewhere.
For five miles, I hugged the inside of the tree line. I was in human territory, even if the majority of them were underground. It didn’t lower the risks of running into a rebel. Aside from speakeasies, business was conducted topside, which meant human militias patrolled these rural areas.
After walking for hours, the sun awakened, illuminating the landscape before me. Inside the tree line, I trekked past the outskirts of a town. Abandoned and looted homes sprinkled either side of the quiet road. Former businesses were nothing but crumbling artifacts from a none-too-distant time. I pictured them in their prime when business was flowing.
When life was good. When life was normal.
Abandoned cars rotted in the crumbling road from where the EMP zapped their ability to function. Rust disintegrated the metals into colorful heaps of junk that peeked through the greenery as it devoured them. Vehicles sat on flat tires that would forever kiss the cracked asphalt. Years of the torrid summer heat and moist climate faded the street paint, while the grass I trudged through was tall enough to hide lesser animals on the food chain.
Earth was reclaiming her power, and it left behind the decayed remnants of the humans’ brief dominance.
I continued through the town until I reached the antiquated square. An antebellum courthouse was the central point. It stood with southern grit even as vines climbed its structure and holes marred its face.
“Who are you?” a deep voice cut through the silence, breaking my disheartened reverie.
I spun, my right hand landing on a dagger in my weapons belt, and came face to face with a teenage boy. My blade pressed against his windpipe, his tawny skin reminding me of desert sand.
His voice didn’t match his age. Unruly, black curls stood untamed on his head, and his clothes hung loose on his thin frame. “Not someone you want to sneak up on, kid.”
Through his poker face, his uneven breaths gave away his fear. “I was only asking because we don’t see fresh faces around here often.”
I didn’t respond but pressed the dagger harder against his throat instead.
“If we see newcomers, they usually cause trouble,” the kid continued, swallowing against the blade.
“Right.” My voice came out flat, unsure whether to remove my weapon. I kept it there, studying the boy.
We both knew I outmatched him, but he remained stalwart, like the courthouse, against my scrutiny. A warmth and softness simmered behind his steadfast and determined gaze.
I dropped the dagger from his throat and backed up two steps. My brows pinched together as I read his rigid posture.
“Where can I barter some food?” I asked, breaking the tension.
A childish smirk played at the edges of his lips. “We don’t barter food here. We’re pretty stingy folks.” He shrugged.
“I’m pretty sure I can be persuasive.” I crossed my arms over my chest, cocking a brow.
Tilting his head back, the kid looked at me down the bridge of his nose, “What are we talking here?”
“Enough to make up for the food you sell me, plus some.”
“I need to see the evidence,” he said, skepticism lacing his voice.
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” his voice cracked, showing his age for the first time.
I suppressed a smile and reached into my pocket, retrieving the diamond earrings.
The boy’s eyes widened and his jaw gaped open. “Yeah,” he muttered. “That should do.”
“Great,” I said, shoving the earrings back into my pocket. I glanced at the kid. His eyes were unfocused on an abandoned car on the corner. “Lead the way—”
“Dash.” The kid snapped out of his daze with a shake of his head. “The name’s Dash.”
“Okay, Dash. Take me to your leader.”
“Hope you don’t need to phone home,” Dash said, quoting the movie E.T. as he walked ahead of me.
I smiled at the cheesy quip. “Nope. No worries there.”
“Good because our ham radio signals are pretty weak here,” he said without so much as a glance over his shoulder.
I tucked away that piece of information as my suspicions heightened. Rebel militias used ham radios. Not exclusively, as there were some non-militant humans that could have acquired them prior to Devolution Day.
Was I overlooking this scrawny teen?
“So, Dash,” I said, “where exactly are we going?” I looked around as we turned left down an abandoned street. More foregone businesses loomed in our periphery, their ghosts wailing as we passed. Signs were missing letters. Glass doors and windows were shattered from long-ago looters. Dangling from metal frames were scraps of awnings that swayed in the late October breeze.
Dash smirked at me over his shoulder. “You’ll see.”
We weaved through vehicles that were bound to the road. A Honda Civic sat smashed into the back of a semi-truck. Peeking inside, I spotted a clothed skeleton whose baseball cap was blood-stained. He remained hunched forward with his face pressed into a deflated airbag.
“That’s comforting,” I retorted in sarcasm as I strolled past.
Dash chuckled. “Relax. It’ll be fine,” he said with a wave of his hand.
I said nothing as I took in the wreckage that would forever be immortalized until either nature consumed it or it was rebuilt.
We walked in silence. The quiet forced its weight on my shoulders as the ghost town demanded my attention.
A crash shattered the somber atmosphere behind an abandoned farm supply store. We halted our movements, glancing at one another.
I watched as Dash transformed from an innocent kid to a vigilant young man as his back went rigid and shoulders tensed. I raised an eyebrow at his poised hands hovering above his waistband. With keen awareness, his eyes shifted as he scanned the surrounding area.
It was possible that the movement was simply a survival skill that humans had adapted over the past five years. Or…he was part of a human militia that would burn the world down in celebration if they got my head—both concerned me.
A louder crash blasted through the eerie street.
I snatched a pair of regular daggers from my weapons belt designed for human enemies. With my bracelet on, I couldn’t detect what we were facing. The chances were high of it being a straggling human who’d gotten separated from a clan.
Dark clouds wiped away the harsh morning sunlight, casting an angry shadow over us. Dash and I glanced at one another in warning before shifting our attention to the blackening sky.
Naturally occurring thunderstorms usually presented warnings upon their onset: looming thunder, the rise or fall of temperature, or breezes. But this impending storm wasn’t natural. These clouds seemed to have appeared from nowhere, and complete silence stifled the stagnant air.
My head buzzed from dread as I realized this was the work of an Elemental—or worse, an Endarkened.
With my magic repressed, I felt unprepared, but I couldn’t risk revealing myself to Dash.
The sky continued to darken, and footsteps shuffled from around the corner of the farm supply store. With frayed and stained clothing, a woman staggered into view. Upon first glance, matted blonde hair dangled from her patchy scalp. Pallid skin peeked from behind peeling gold flesh. The gold-flecked layer drooped over itself, leaving decomposing skin in its wake. In some spots, the lingering skin was rotten black, where others exposed a graying second layer.
Decaying, dark gray veins dominated her form as they desperately pulsed for the next soul to consume to sustain them.
I stared at the monster before us and realized it was worse than an Elemental. We were facing an Endarkened.
Kinetics replenished their magic by absorbing external energy waves from the environment or energy-sharing with other Kinetics. Elementals replenished by absorbing the energetic output from living beings’ auras–whether it was Kinetic, Elemental, or human–so long as they didn’t drain it. Becoming Endarkened is what happened when Elementals depleted. Once an Elemental depleted an aura to the point of death, an addiction unlike anything humans could imagine overtook their rationality.
Once the aura was consumed, they were thrust into the devolution process of becoming Endarkened. The Endarkening process consisted of three phases to make the complete transformation. Each time they depleted, they furthered the process, falling to the frenzy in increments. It was almost impossible to resist the urge to deplete after the first time. By the final stage, they transformed into decaying, mindless creatures with all sense of their former identity lost in the madness, only seeking auras to absorb. Supernatural auras were more potent to feed their heightened elemental magic, making them even more dangerous.
They needed to be put down at all costs.
I debated risking my identity to Dash to fight off the Endarkened. Before I could act, he charged the woman at full speed. A glint of metal flashed from his hand, and I realized he had a gun. I rolled my eyes. A bullet couldn’t kill an Elemental, much less an Endarkened. I glanced down at my daggers, realizing I wielded the wrong blades. But activating my Kinetic daggers would expose me to Dash.
The bottom dropped out of the sky, unleashing an onslaught of rain. The Endarkened was a water Elemental who had the ability to control the weather with her increased power. So much for not getting drenched. Water began to pool and rise in front of her, creating a liquid wall that separated her from us.
Dash skidded to a halt before slamming into it, splashing a puddle under his worn boots.
I stood frozen while I thought of a way for us to flee. She wanted our auras. Well, mine, to be exact. So, I did the next best thing.
“Hey!” I yelled to grab her attention. I walked in her direction, giving her a chance to sense my strengthened aura, and stopped at Dash’s side.
The wall of water quivered before it collapsed, gushing over our boots. The Endarkened’s bloodshot eyes squinted before she took a slow sniff of the air.
I adjusted the cowl that covered my mouth and nose. Her shifty eyes cast down to the wet asphalt beneath her feet. In an unexpected move, she dropped to one knee and bowed her head, her ragged curtain of hair shielding her face.
One of my eyebrows peaked at the strange sight, remembering the Endarkened in the prison who’d done the same. I searched around for anyone else nearby. My magic would’ve made it much easier to detect.
Dash gaped at the kneeling Endarkened before he recovered from his surprise. Raising the gun, he aimed at the woman. The click of the weapon yanked the Endarkened from her reverent pose, and a guttural growl reverberated from her chest. The deep cadence shook my bones in response.
She moved to lunge at the teen, but the twitch of his finger pulled the trigger.
Dash didn’t flinch at the powerful kickback of the gun. The thunderous boom disturbed the unnatural storm.
In mid-stride, the Endarkened froze. A gaping black hole gleamed between her reddened eyes. Dark gray blood cascaded from the wound and the corners of her mouth. She staggered, but the wound wasn’t healing. Instead, it seemed to worsen as a range of emotions passed over her features.
Rage, confusion, pain, and fear all morphed across her face. But it was the last one that unsettled me: relief.
The Endarkened folded in on herself, crumbling to the black asphalt as she gasped her final breaths.
I stood bewildered by what just unfolded in front of me. None of it was normal. How had she been able to process the emotion of relief? But I realized as I looked at the teenage boy beside me that he was, in fact, a rebel.
The cold-blooded shot he fired with steel repose said it all. He didn’t question. He didn’t shake. The warmth and kindness in his deep brown eyes had vanished.
With both daggers drawn, I took casual strides to him from behind as he examined the fallen Endarkened. Subtly, I pressed the edge of my dagger against his throat while I dug the tip of the other into his lowest spinal disc. He was much taller, but the arched position I held him in made him compliant.
“Who are you?” I whispered into his ear.
He grunted from the pain in his back, struggling to pull in even breaths. “Why don’t you tell me,” he said, sounding nothing like the scared kid I’d mistaken him for.
I dug my dagger further into his spine, making him squat a fraction. He growled.
“I’ll ask again, Dash. Who are you? And don’t think I won’t fucking kill you if you lie to me.”
Dash chuckled. “You already know the answer.”
I pressed the dagger harder into his throat and shifted to kick the back of his knee. As I was about to connect, a bruising grip on my neck stopped me. “Fuck.”
I couldn’t counter the unknown attack without letting Dash go. So, I maintained my hold on him with my right arm, but they forced my left arm away from his back.
I threw an elbow at my attacker but missed.
And that’s all the assailant needed to get the upper hand. A sharp pressure drove into the joints connecting my nape and spine before a cloth covered my nose and mouth.
Darkness swarmed my vision. The world around me turned black, and my body felt incorporeal as strong arms caught my fall.