Nothing can snap me out of the peace, warmth, and deliciousness of Marienne Land quite like a Hellion.
She says, “What?” in response to my last words, and her surprise is audible.
I concede, “Not without me, anyway. Don’t go without me.”
The question, “Why not?” sounds more curious than exasperated. “I wouldn’t go by myself. Beatrix would go with me.”
“I think he’s too dangerous.”
“But I’m a Defender.” I can practically see the quizzical look on her face. “Beatrix even more so.”
“You’re right,” I agree, “but he’s clearly the calculating type. He’s a Hellion who has been dating your sister. And think about that note he left you. I wouldn’t put it past him to be waiting for you—expecting you, even—to come after Claire, and that’s not good. That means he could have something planned for if you show up.”
“Well, if I just call Claire and tell her I want to talk without him there....”
I shake my head even though she can’t see it. “I hate to say this to you, but we have to assume she’s on his side now. I think it would be most unwise to trust her with anything, especially your safety.”
I hear the air whoosh out of her lungs. “Are you…really?” She sounds crestfallen.
“Really,” I tell her softly. “That might make you angry, and even though I don’t want that, I’d understand because she’s your sister. But you know we can’t trust Hellions, which means we can’t trust Shaun. We can’t trust him not to have some kind of influence over her that he could use to harm you—I mean, you and B have already agreed he’s gotten into her head somehow because she took off with him like she did.”
“I…yeah….”
After many moments of her not saying anything else, I start feeling bad. I’m not trying to order her around, nor am I saying she’s stupid or wrong for wanting to go after Shaun. I just don’t want her playing into his hands, even with Beatrix there.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” I tell her sincerely. “I’m not trying to boss you around.”
“I know,” she murmurs. “You’re just thinking more clearly than I am.”
I frown. “Well, I understand where you’re coming from with all of this. And, honestly, if you’ll just wait for me to get back, I’ll go with you if you still want to. Shit, all four of us can go.”
Sounding hopeful, she says, “Really?”
“Yeah, really. I just don’t want you girls going when Wes and I are more than three hundred miles away from you.”
A light laugh reaches my ears. “Again with the practical thinking. I’m starting to feel like an idiot.”
“Oh, no,” I reassure her quickly. “Don’t. You’re not an idiot at all.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“Not even a little bit.”
I can hear her smiling when she says, “Okay, then.”
Feeling more at ease, I lie back on my bed and ask, “How is Trenton’s training going?”
“Fine, I think. I kind of zone out while I’m in there. I saw him do a backflip this morning, though.”
“A backflip?” I repeat. “That sounds awesome. Maybe he can teach me how to do one.”
“You mean to tell me you can’t already do one? I thought you could do everything.”
I make a puzzled face like she’s here to see it. “I never claimed to be able to do everything.”
“Well, no. I just thought that.”
“You thought wrong,” I say with a laugh. “I can speak a little bit of French, though.”
“Huh? Do it!”
“Bonjour, mon nom est Gabe et j’adore le fromage. That means, ‘Hello, my name is Gabe and I love cheese.’”
Marienne bursts into loud laughter. It warms me and makes me laugh, too.
“Oh, man,” she squeaks. “You gotta teach me some of that.”
“I’m still waiting on a drawing lesson,” I tease her.
“Okay, okay,” she says brightly. “When you come back, I’ll teach you how to draw something, and you can teach me how to say something in French.”
“It’s a deal.”
“Awesome.” She breathes deeply before she asks, “How are things going there?”
Disappointment skates through me. “Not that great. I mean, no one’s gone back out or anything. We just haven’t come up with anything new to add to the list.”
Smith and Cates still haven’t come back, and even after a couple of days, we have only the barest of details about the tattooed man. We put everything down on paper, from what he said, to our thoughts on what he could be planning, to where he might’ve come from. We noted that he’s stronger than normal Hellions at least power-wise. We wrote out our thoughts on the warning he gave us.
Although we agreed we should take him seriously, we aren’t afforded many proactive courses of action—the best we can do is plan for more encounters with Hellions since he said there will be a lot of them around. Lon from Armaments has been working like crazy to create new weapons. And, at least at the Dallas Sanctum, plans have been made for those who don’t know how to shoot a gun or who simply need a license to get those things taken care of.
It occurred to me at one point that a Hellion gateway probably had something to do with the arrival of the tattooed man, especially since everyone insisted they’d never seen the likes of him before.
When Wes and I spoke to Bartholomew in private about it, he seemed to think it was a plausible idea except that he’s not aware of a gateway around here. We tried to tell him it could be hidden somewhere like the one in Fayetteville, but that was when he shut us down.
“Even if there is one here,” he said, “I’m not sending anyone out to look for it. It doesn’t matter how he got here, only that he is here.”
But we couldn’t, and still can’t, help thinking it does matter. If he came through a gateway, there’s no guessing what might follow him or what might come out of the gateway at home—or how many whats.
I tell Marienne, “It’s frustrating to be as in the dark as we are.”
“Well, I think you’ve done a great job,” she says.
“How?” I ask in soft disagreement. “We’ve got hardly anything to go on.”
“That’s because you spent hardly any time with that man. No one expects you guys to know everything there is to know about something you encountered for five tiny minutes.”
The optimism brings a small smile to my face.
“You’ve got that list, right?” she continues. “That’s a hell of a lot more than what you would have if you never came across the guy. And didn’t you tell me yesterday that Bartholomew wants to contact as many other Directors as possible to fill them in on what happened? That would be a huge help, too, Gabe.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I concede, wishing I could look into those eyes of hers while she’s talking sense to me. “But the tattooed man seemed really sure that shit’s about to hit the fan, so we wanted to at least have an idea of what might happen, and we have no idea. I mean, if he’s walking around with powers like that, how can we make any kind of prediction? And what if the other Directors aren’t happy with such incomplete information?”
“It won’t always be incomplete, Gabe. I still think it’ll come to us.” Her voice comforts me. “I still think we’ll figure it out. Maybe it’ll just take a little bit of time—Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that. And a tiny warning is better than no warning, by the way. I’m sure other Light people will agree.”
I chuckle. “How are you so calm?”
“I’m far from calm.” She sighs. “I just know that being Light has fit with me like a puzzle piece, and I don’t believe it can be discounted this easily.”
I sigh, too. “I don’t believe that, either. This is all just so…weird. And scary.” I stretch out on my bed, and my sore body protests. “But I guess I should be used to it by now. Lately I’ve been learning that I don’t have everything figured out like I thought I did.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep.” I relax my body again and my eyes drift closed. I abruptly realize how tired I am. “Started the day I first saw you.”
“You were scared of me?” Although teasing, her voice is softer and slower, like she’s thinking sweet thoughts. Or like she can tell I’m about two minutes from falling asleep. “That’s no good.”
I smile and admit, “You know what? I was a little scared.” As soon as she took off running, I feared I’d never find her again, never even get to know her name.
She laughs quietly, then asks, “What time do you have to go back to the meeting?”
“Um…5:30.”
“Okay, well, it’s almost 4:00 now. Why don’t I let you go? You sound like you could use a nap.”
Mmm, she knows me so well. “But I like talking to you. It’s all I’ve got. Unless you count my thoughts, and they’re pretty enjoyable, but the real you is way better.”
“Oh, I know what you mean, but we can talk again later tonight. Get some sleep.”
The phone is already feeling heavy in my hand. “Mmm. Okay.”
“Okay, babe,” she murmurs.
Ohhhh, sweet, she called me…or…did she just say my name?
Some part of my brain makes the executive decision to ask her later. “Bye, gorgeous.”
I think I hear her laugh again, and then the call is over, and I’m drifting off.
When I wake up, it’s 4:42 and someone is knocking on my door. Even though I’d like some more sleep, I feel better than I did. I get off my bed without complaint.
I find Wes on the other side of my door. He tells me someone brought pizza for everyone and that it’s in the conference room.
We head over there together.
“How’s B?” I ask.
“She’s fine. She said Trenton’s doing well in training and Mari is doing well holding her together.”
“Huh?”
He smiles. “She said Mari is, like, the sweetest thing. She gets up and cooks breakfast every morning, and she actually sang B to sleep the night we called to tell them about all this shit. My woman was flipping her fuck and Mari calmed her down.”
“Oh, God,” I moan, “is there anything about her that’s not awesome? How is it possible that she’s so awesome?”
He laughs now. “Well, I’m sure you’ll find something about her that’ll annoy the piss out of you. B annoys the piss out of me when she leaves wet towels wadded up on the bathroom floor. Like, goddamn, woman. At least spread the fucking thing out.”
I snort. “Not much of a dealbreaker, there.”
“I didn’t say it’s a dealbreaker. Said it’s not awesome.” He claps me on the shoulder. “But she still goes with me. Maybe Mari just goes with you, man. It happens.”
I can’t admit out loud to him how much that thought thrills me, so instead I ask, “Was B on your mind all the time when you first met her?”
“All the time, dude.” He rolls his eyes, but he smiles. “Not always pleasant, especially when I was trying to get shit done and all I could think about was…uh…” he clears his throat, “…nevermind. She’s like your sister and you probably don’t want to hear it.”
I chuckle. “Ugh, yeah, keep it to yourself.” I don’t want to hear about their sex life. I already have to suffer their PDA—like the time I went with them to shop for a new bed and they made out on every single mattress in every single store we visited. I shudder now just thinking about it.
“That happening to you?” he asks obliviously. “Mari putting up a permanent residence in your head?”
I nod slowly. “It’s the weirdest and coolest thing ever.”
“I hear that.” He blows out a breath. “It gets better and worse. I’ll go ahead and tell you that now.”
“How do you mean?”
He shrugs. “Well, I don’t even know if I could explain it. It’s just how it goes. The good parts turn incredible and the bad parts have the ability to fucking cripple you.”
We’re back in the conference room now, so I say, “Oh.” I don’t really know what else to say anyway. It sounds like something you just figure out for yourself.
The cool thing about having so many guys in one place is that we’re easy as hell to feed. Several large pizza boxes are open on the conference table, full of food. No muss, no fuss. Wes and I both get a big plateful and kick back in our chairs to wolf it down. I don’t know if it’s the food or the need to spend our break not thinking about the issues at hand, but the room is quiet even with most of us in here.
Rather quickly, the time approaches for us to start the meeting, but I’m not too disappointed. I feel pretty good, circumstances being what they are. However, there is a certain amount of tension in the room when we all get settled, and I glance around to see where it’s coming from. Wes and I are pretty relaxed, and May seems to be lost in his thoughts.
One good look at Thompson, Simon, and Reibek tells me it’s them.
Indeed, Reibek crosses his arms and announces, “So look, I think it’s time we go back.”
Bartholomew clarifies, “Back to the farm building?”
Thompson speaks now. “The three of us agree we have too little information. We think if we go back with the intention of listening in, not fighting, maybe we’ll find out more.”
“I don’t think that’s smart,” I politely disagree.
“It’s our only option.”
“Not true. We can just wait and see what happens. We don’t have to purposely endanger ourselves.”
“Look, man,” he says irritably, “we don’t have any other options. You’re kidding yourself if you think sitting here hashing everything out eighty times is going to benefit anybody. And it’s kind of our job to handle the dangerous parts, remember?”
“And what if you get out there,” Wes interjects, “and you don’t come back? You’re really not going to benefit anyone if you’re dead.”
Thompson shrugs. “We don’t think they’ll expect us to come back after what happened.”
“Maybe they are expecting it. Maybe they’re thinking—and they wouldn’t be wrong—that those of us who survived are having a hard time making a sandwich out of the breadcrumbs they tossed us.”
Reibek speaks up again. “Hey, if you and your buddy don’t want to go, don’t go. But I’m going.”
Thompson says, “So am I.”
Simon nods his agreement but says nothing.
“May, what are your thoughts?” Reibek asks.
The man sighs tiredly and shakes his head. “I don’t think going is a good idea.”
“Aw, come on,” Thompson groans. “I thought you wanted to fight for your brother-in-law!”
I say, “Just because he doesn’t want to take a stroll through where the guy died—”
“No, you know what?” Reibek talks over me, holding up his hands. “This is just fine. It’s fine. This is our town anyway.” He gestures between himself and his other two guys, all three looking stony. “I don’t expect you to be willing to do everything you can for it.”
Oh. Okay. It appears there wasn’t much sincerity in his whole, ‘If you don’t want to go, don’t go,’ thing.
Wes laughs wryly from beside me. “Don’t insult us, man. We’re not opposed to this because we don’t live here. It’s got nothing to do with that.”
“Yeah?” Reibek’s eyebrows lift. “I bet if all of this was happening in Fayetteville and your pretty little wife was in immediate danger, you’d man up and do what had to be done.”
Wes’s forehead creases with a frown. He leans forward and drops his elbows onto his knees, looking at the other man like he’s fifteen instead of older than him.
“Difference of opinion, fella,” he counters. “I don’t believe walking into our enemy’s front yard is a smart move this time, so I’m not going to do it. And if you want to bring my wife into it, I assure you this decision is me manning up. I’m pretty goddamn sure she doesn’t want me risking my life for something I don’t feel has to be done, on top of it hardly being worth what it might cost me.”
“You think she’d agree with you on every bit of that?” Reibek still looks unconvinced. “You think she’d agree that her husband should just sit by idly when he could be doing his job as a member of the Lightforce? A job that only the people in this room have the ability to do?”
Wes stands up and pulls his phone out.
“Call her and ask her,” he suggests. “And put her on speakerphone, because I want to hear the verbal ass-beating she’s going to give you when you imply that I’m sitting here in fucking Texas doing nothing like a lazy piece of shit instead of being at home with her.”
I lean an elbow on the armrest of my chair, trying to subtly cover my grin with my hand.
Bartholomew finally pipes up again. “Let’s all calm down.” He turns to Reibek. “Maybe it’s for the best that the room is split like it is. That way, we’ve got people going and people staying here. Both are useful.”
Reibek shakes his head but says nothing.
Wes sits back down and Bartholomew looks at him, then at me and May. “I told you the other day I wouldn’t try to ask you to go along with any extra recon, and I meant it.” His expression says he’s sorry for his guys trying to force us into it. “Your decisions are yours to make, and I respect them.”
I nod once at him. Wes says, “Appreciated, sir.” May says nothing.
The Director sighs and addresses the rest of the room. “If you want to go back, I won’t stop you, but I ask that you hold off for another hour or so.” He clears his throat. “I’ve spoken with several Directors in the Ark-La-Tex area over the past day or two. Even though I didn’t have much information for them, they did appreciate that I reached out to them. They’re informing their members and other Directors they know, creating more weapons, bringing in extra food and water just in case it’s needed—even if this all turns out to be a whole lot of nothing, none of us see the harm in trying to be prepared. Like us, they all say they’ve never encountered a man like this, but one Director did say he’s been having a bigger problem with Hellion attacks than he’s had in the past….”
He continues on like this for a little while. I consider it favorable news. I agree with Marienne that telling people what we know is a good idea, and I’m pleased that they’re receiving it well.
I can only hope we’re over-preparing—I’m sure it won’t turn out to be ‘a whole lot of nothing,’ but maybe the tattooed man is bluffing. Maybe he’s just trying to scare us. Maybe he can’t actually use those powers all the time, leaving us mainly with Hellions we already know how to defeat. Or something.
Fear is a very effective weapon—a poisonous one, a deadly one. And if anyone knows how to use it, it’s someone from the Dark world.
A bit over an hour passes before Bartholomew finishes talking. He gives Reibek, Thompson, and Simon the chance to figure out their plan. They seem to have most of it worked up already, so they’re moving out before long.
Once they’re gone, Wes stands and says to me, “I’m thinking we should have a drive-around and kill some Hellions.”
I’m about to say that sounds good when May speaks up. “Care if I go?”
“If you’re up for it, we’d be glad to have the company,” I tell him.
“Yeah, man,” Wes agrees.
He got out of the clearing the other night with both his dagger and the extra one he received, so he hands the latter to me. May has his dagger, too, so we head out within minutes.
We’re not even to the Jeep yet before we start spying Hellions. They’re relatively spread out from one another; one is following a teenage boy who’s too busy listening to headphones to notice, and a couple others are lingering by storefronts. One is studying a Mercedes parked in front of a nearby bank.
Though there aren’t that many compared to what we found at the farm building, it’s a visible change.
Quietly, May remarks, “I don’t remember there being this many the last few times we came up.”
“Yeahhhh,” Wes draws out in agreement. “That’s because there weren’t this many before.”
So, yeah, the tattooed man meant it when he said we’d see an increase in Hellion numbers.
We quickly decide who’s going where, and then we split up. Wes gets in the Jeep and drives off to park out of sight. I head down toward the bank on foot while May wanders to the other side of the street, where the teenage boy is pulling out his phone and slowing to a stop, still unaware of the Hellion lurking behind him.
The one I’m headed for is trying to look inconspicuous next to the Mercedes, but I’ve been watching him alternate between glancing at the bank entrance and peering into the empty car. He’s going to try to steal it, I’m sure—not the worst crime I’ve caught a Hellion committing, but that means nothing to me. So even when he starts wandering innocently away from the car, for which a well-dressed man is heading after leaving the bank, I follow him down the otherwise boring sidewalk.
A cold wind blows. In what I assume is an effort to seem harmless, he crosses his arms against his chain-bound chest and says to no one in particular, “Damn, I can’t believe how cold it is out here!”
I think he’s lame, but I take a leaf out of his book and act like I’m not up to anything. I cross my own arms and start walking a little faster, like I want to get where I’m going as quickly as possible. I even keep a fair amount of distance between him and me so he won’t think I’m following him if he turns around.
But he doesn’t turn to glance around, and it would’ve benefited him to be sketchy enough do so. He’s trying too hard to look normal, so he doesn’t see me snake the dagger out of my jacket and, at the last second, step sideways so I’m right behind him. He senses my presence and tenses up all too late, right as I drive the blade into him. It’s one of my quicker kills; he’s dead in a second, not having made a single sound.
I step around his disappearing body like it’s nothing more than trash on the ground, then keep walking.
Wes calls after a few minutes to say he and May cleared out the others we spotted, and I tell him I killed that one plus another I saw around a corner. The two of them show up in the Jeep, so I get in and we start off again.
After almost an hour, we’ve got fourteen kills between us. By 8:45, we’re at twenty-six. After we hit thirty-five, I call Grayhem.
“You need to really keep an eye on things there,” I tell him. “The Hellion-to-Light-people ratio around here is way off. Three of us have killed thirty-five Hellions in two and a half hours. Maybe it’s just Dallas since this is where the tattooed guy is, but the tree house where you are is what concerns me.”
“Funny you should call and tell me this,” he replies, not sounding very amused at all. “Beatrix and Mari just walked out of my office. They’ve also seen an increase in Hellion kills in the last few hours. Not quite the number you’ve got, but still.”
Hearing her name makes me ache.
“And I don’t know if it has anything to do with that or not,” he continues, “but our new Gatherers have found two white Radiances since last night.”
I blink slowly. “Wow.”
Speaking of white Radiances: I look out the window and see the familiar glow of one walking into a gas station. I tap Wes on the shoulder and point the person out, and he gets his phone out.
After a few seconds, I hear him say, “Hey, it’s Wes Avery. You’ve got a white Radiance at the gas station on the corner of….”
I tune back in to Grayhem saying, “We’re doing fine here, Gabe, so if you two need to keep working there, I understand. But if things are going to keep picking up, I may be asking you to come on back pretty soon.”
“I’m not sure how much longer we’re planning to be here anyway.” I fill him in on the Dallas guys’ insistence that we need to investigate the farm building more, and I tell him what Wes’s and my stance on it is. He agrees that going back there wasn’t the best idea he’s ever heard and that, truly, maybe we’ve lent as much assistance as we can right now.
After another reminder that he’d be glad to see us back any time, he calls off. I hang up, too, to find Wes and May have spotted a group of six Hellions and are trying to plan out how the three of us can handle it.
We expect it to take a little longer than our other kills, and the expectation is met. We come out of the fight with a couple of bumps and some really terrible-smelling stuff on my jeans from one of them. But it’s a victory. And that leaves us at forty-one dead Hellions.
I feel glad that we’re preventing forty-one Hellions’ worth of bad shit from happening until I remember there are many more than that still walking free.
*
We get back to the Sanctum at 10:45 and are just filling Bartholomew in on our evening when Reibek, Simon, and Thompson walk in.
“How’d it go?” Wes asks.
Thompson levels an annoyed look on him, then on me. “Well, we’re not dead.”
“I can see that,” Wes says.
“Can you? Good. Just making sure you caught on that nothing went horribly wrong like you two were convinced it would.”
I roll my eyes.
Bartholomew looks interested, though. “What did you find out?”
Thompson’s annoyed look stays in place, but he turns it on the ceiling.
Simon answers, “Nothing. No one was there at all.”
“That’s right,” Reibek speaks up, jaw working. “We snuck out there extra-carefully, didn’t see a thing, decided to wait a little longer.” He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
So they were just sitting in the dark out on some farmland while the three of us were fighting a stupid number of Hellions. That’s cool.
“I wonder why the place was empty,” Bartholomew muses.
A deadpan May says, “Probably because every Hellion in Dallas was crawling the streets instead of hiding out.”
The other Defenders look at him questioningly.
Bartholomew agrees somberly, “Yes, now you say that, I’m sure that’s why.”
“What are you talking about?” Simon asks.
The Director motions to us. “They decided to do a little headhunting while you three were out. They killed…well, how many was it again?”
“Sixty-two,” we all say together.
The others stare at us.
After many long moments, Reibek asks, “What? Seriously?”
“Wouldn’t dream of making that up,” I promise him.
“Didn’t you see them when you went up?” May asks. “Obviously, there weren’t sixty-two of them right outside our building, but the ones that were there weren’t exactly hiding.”
Thompson scratches the back of his neck, looking confused. “No, I…uh, I don’t guess I was paying attention.” The other two don’t look like they’re in any position to disagree.
I can’t help but laugh. Though I don’t guess it’s really funny, it blows my mind that these guys didn’t only run off on a boneheaded and utterly fruitless quest, they also completely ignored their real and immediate duties in the process.
“What’s funny?” Reibek snaps.
I chuckle and shake my head. “Nothing. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
Wes shuffles out of the office behind me. Bartholomew calls, “Good work tonight,” after us, and we wave our thanks and continue on.
“How fucking long were they gone?” Wes asks when we’re out of earshot of the others. “As long as we were, right? And they spent all that time just sitting out there?”
“Guess so.”
“Dude,” he groans. “They are so not worthy of the attitudes they’ve got going on.”
“I don’t even know why they’re mad at us. I mean, shit, when we left home, we didn’t even know we were coming to fight. And here we are catching glares because we don’t want to go offer ourselves up to the enemy a second time.”
“An enemy like none we’ve ever faced.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I stand by my instincts. And I’d say it’s a damn good thing I stayed here—and you, too, and May—because if all of us had gone back out there…. I mean, we took out sixty-two Hellions in just a few hours.”
I nod. “I wouldn’t have stayed out there all that time, though. I don’t know why they didn’t call it sooner.”
“No shit.”
I’m glad when my room comes into view. Despite the nap I took earlier and our lack of strenuous physical activity over the past few days, I’m tired. Probably leftover fatigue from that night in the clearing, plus stress and, of course, this night we had tonight.
Like he knows how I feel, Wes yawns. “All right, man. See ya.”
“Later.”
I take a quick shower before I call Marienne. My bed is even more comfortable than it was earlier, and I wish it weren’t so. I don’t want to be tired while I’m talking to her, especially not for the second time in one day.
When I tell her about my night, she gasps loudly. “Are you kidding?”
“Not even kidding,” I say.
“God, and I thought me and Beatrix kicked ass.”
I laugh. “You did.”
She laughs, too. “I may not be good with numbers, but I know sixty-two is bigger than twenty-five or whatever we got.”
“Ah, come on, it’s not a competition. And I’m glad you aren’t being overrun with Hellions like these people are.”
“Mmm, and I wish you weren’t there to deal with all of them.”
I smile. “Well, I’m ready to come back to Fayetteville. I’m going to see about leaving tomorrow.”
“Really?” She sounds relieved.
“Yeah, I think we’ve done all we can do here, barring going back to the place from the other night. Which, by the way, the Dallas guys did tonight, and it yielded absolutely no results.”
“Uh, okay,” she says derisively. “If they’re going to start up with that, then yeah, just come back.”
“My thoughts exactly.” I tell her all about the tense meeting we sat through earlier.
She tsks. “I’m sorry they were rude to you, Gabe.”
“Not a big deal.” I have a thought that makes me grin. “Though I wouldn’t mind watching you slap someone else across—”
The room shakes, and I stop talking.
“Hmm?” she asks after a moment.
The hell was that?
“Uh….” I wait to see if anything else happens.
After several seconds of nothing, I shake my head a little.
“I’m sorry. I must have imagined—”
It happens again more forcefully.
I sit up in my bed. “There it is again.”
“What is it?”
Again.
I throw back my blanket and stand up out of bed, immediately on alert. “Something’s happening.” I dash toward my clothes.
“Huh?” she asks, worry coloring her tone. “Like what?”
“I don’t know.” The floor trembles under me as I pull my jeans on. “All I know is something is shaking this entire place, and we’re underground, so….”
I hear shouts in the hallway.
“Shaking the—? Like an earthquake? But Texas doesn’t get those, right?”
“I don’t think so.” I start yanking on my socks.
“Well, I…oh—Gabe.” Her voice turns fearful. “Could it be him? The tattooed man? Could he be doing something to the city?”
I freeze for a second as the words threaten to shut down my brain.
Then I blink slowly. “Oh, shit. Maybe. You might be right.”
“Wait, no,” she says quickly. “I don’t want to be right!”
The place won’t stop shaking. I’m having trouble stepping into my shoes.
Or maybe that’s because I’m shaking.
“Well, he said—he acted like they were going to attack us soon, right? And it’s been a few—and he can probably do anything—” The details are falling into place in my head, but I can’t get all of them out of my mouth. I grab my jacket. “All those Hellions! He said there’d be more and there were!”
“Okay, all right! It’s all right,” Marienne tells me even though her voice is full of alarm. “Just take a breath and try to figure out what you can—”
Someone starts banging on my door as I’m stuffing my wallet into my pocket. “Come on, man! We gotta go!” I hear them bellow.
It’s Wes. He sounds frantic.
That is not good.
Over the din, I barely hear Marienne say desperately, “Gabe, be careful! Keep yourself safe!”
“I’m coming home!” I tell her as I fling the door open. “Right now!”
Wes bolts down the hallway. I race after him with tense muscles and unsettled bones.
When Marienne doesn’t say anything, I ask loudly, “Did you hear me?”
Still nothing.
“Hey! Marienne!” As I tip sideways from another quake, I look at my phone and realize the connection is gone. “Oh, damn it!”
“What the hell is happening?” Wes demands.
“I don’t know!”
We don’t encounter anyone else on our way upstairs, but once we burst into the store above the Sanctum, other people come into view. I see Simon, Thompson, and some people I don’t know peering through the windows. My own eyes are attracted to the flickering orange glow outside the building, and before I even get to the windows to pinpoint what it is, my stomach drops painfully. Something bad is—
A thunderous boom sounds.
The building shakes worse than it did when we were underground. It has us stumbling to a stop against the front counter while dust drifts down from the ceiling and merchandise in the store rattles.
We’re close enough to see outside now, and as I look out, my blood runs cold.
The night is burning.
Fear grabs me tight with invisible hands that I can’t wrench free of.
“Oh, God,” Wes says. “Gabe, we have to go.”
“Hey!” Thompson interjects desperately. “You can’t leave!”
Wes is already starting for the door with me on his heels. “Watch us.”
“This isn’t some investigation like earlier! This is real! You can’t bitch out this time, we need—”
The door slamming shut behind me cuts him off.
Wes and I dash for the Jeep. I’m bombarded by sensation, yet I can’t focus on anything but running. I can’t fully take in the fire, the smoke, the sparks, the lack of autumn chill in the air, the state of the buildings around us, where the next ground-shaking boom is coming from. I can only think about getting out of here.
Almost there. My lungs suck in the pungent air as I run. Almost there.
An abysmal, knee-weakening laugh like low thunder reverberates from somewhere I can’t place.
A laugh I know and wish like fuck I didn’t.
My hand closes around the handle on the passenger side. Get in! Don’t look around! Get in!
We’re in. We’re going. Music from earlier is blaring from the speakers. Another powerful boom is sounding. My thoughts are deafening. My heart is running at a million miles an hour.
But we both suck in a breath when that unforgettable voice seems to whisper from right behind us, “You are not prepared.”
An earsplitting blast sounds and the Jeep jerks out of control and—