THE DAMN sun shining right in his face woke Darius the next morning. No mage could control the weather, but certain Air mages could move clouds. A few clouds would’ve been good right then.
He froze when a crash sounded downstairs, followed by raised voices. For a terrible heart-hammering moment, he thought he had intruders until he recalled he had a house full of intrusive guests instead. No. Unkind, Valstad. Friends who rushed to help.
Not ready yet for human contact, Darius took the time to shower and dress in jeans and a flannel shirt before he headed downstairs. Whatever disaster or altercation had occurred was long over when he poked his head in the kitchen. Zubayr stood at the stove with several pans going, no surprise, while Arden made biscuits and Elias manned the cutting board. Though Darius had only been away a few days and the food left behind would have been perfectly fine to use, he didn’t recall even having mushrooms and cheddar. Wait. No. He’d bought cheese for Toby.
A heavy sigh shuddered through him. Every corner of his house had Toby in it.
On his way out to the driveway to make sure Elias’s truck wasn’t blocking the garage, Darius stopped short on the front porch. A honeysuckle vine had crept up the steps and lay as if it were reaching toward the door. Had he been that neglectful? He didn’t have honeysuckle in the front, did he?
He crouched to examine the vine. It moved, climbing up his jeans, and wrapped around his wrist. Darius lost his balance in his shock and landed on his ass. “Arden! Arden!”
Three sets of feet pounded down the hall from the kitchen, though with his longer legs, Arden reached the doorway first. “Dar! What is—what in the world?”
“You’re… seeing this?” Darius demanded. “Haven’t lost it?”
“I see that you have a vine wrapped around you. What are you doing?”
“I didn’t….” Darius huffed and knew his next sentence would sound ridiculous. “It attacked.”
The vine yanked at him, leaves rustling as it tried to pull him down the steps.
“Well, fuck. That’s not normal.” Elias bent to stroke a leaf. “I don’t think it’s attacking, though.”
“Oh? Little Viney’s trying to tell us Timmy fell down the well?” Zubayr’s exasperated voice came from just inside the doorway.
Arden cocked his head to one side as he held a palm out over the honeysuckle. “You know, that might not be far off.” He closed his eyes, head tipping one way, then the other as he stroked the vine. “Dar, I’m not sure how to say this.”
“Spit it… out,” Darius growled.
“It’s Toby.”
Elias stared at Arden as if he’d lost his mind. “The vine is Toby?”
“No, you idiot,” Arden snapped before he turned to Darius with a pleading look. “Don’t you feel it, Dar? That’s Toby’s life signature driving that vine.”
Zubayr came forward to touch the plant too. “So little Viney is trying to tell us something.”
“That…. No one…. It can’t be.” Darius shook his head, though at the same time reached for the plant’s Animus. “Fucking hell. Toby.”
“So let me see if I have this straight.” Elias took a seat on the top step. “Toby sent the vine. Somehow. He wants us to follow the bouncing plants to him?”
“Not sure it’s… conscious.” Darius unwound the vine gently from his wrist. “His connection. Plants. So much stronger….”
“He’s a walking generator, we get that.” Zubayr stared out along the driveway as if he could discern where the vine led. “We all felt it. Dar, why don’t you stay here with your plant friend. I’ll bring you breakfast.”
“But we—”
“No. You eat first. This could end up being a long, long day.”
They ended up eating together on the porch while the vine tapped and prodded at Darius, clearly impatient with his lack of action. Not usual behavior for plants, who normally limited their movements to helio- and geotropism, but a Toby-driven plant couldn’t be labeled normal.
Elias brought Darius his jacket, while Arden brought his boots, and within thirty minutes of the honeysuckle attack, they were ready to set out. Somewhere. The expedition didn’t feel sane at all, but they couldn’t ignore Toby sending a plant telegram.
“So what’s the plan, Professor?” Elias asked as he closed the front door and handed Darius his keys.
“You.” Darius pointed to Arden and Zubayr, then waved to the trailing vine. “Follow. With me.” He turned and stabbed a finger at Elias. “You bring… your truck.”
Elias’s frown rivaled thunderclouds. “I have my hiking legs. Don’t do this.”
“No.” Darius shook his head, trying to convey his frustration and his apology at once. “When we… find him. I’ll need… that.” He pointed at the truck. “Can’t… carry him… back.”
“Oh. Oh.” Elias shot him a crooked grin. “Got it. And you don’t know where the plants are taking us, and my truck’s better off-road than your fancy Brit machine.”
“And no one else can drive your truck,” Zubayr added.
“Not my fault you’re all losers who don’t know how to use hand controls.”
Darius took Elias by the shoulders and pulled him into a hard hug. “Yes. All that.”
“Thanks, teach. We love you too.” Elias said it in a teasing way, but his cheeks and ears darkened in an obvious blush. “Zu, stay on the phone with me so I don’t lose you.”
With Darius and Arden following the vine, Zubayr on the phone, and Elias following slowly in the truck, they set off down the drive. Once they reached the point where the vine lay in the grass, Darius picked it up to follow its length.
“This makes no sense. It’s impossible,” Arden grumbled.
“Hmm.” Darius allowed him half an ear as he concentrated on Toby’s magic. “Elias? Also… impossible. Me alive? Impossible. Your house—”
“Hilarious. I get it. But this vine can’t extend far enough to lead us to wherever Toby’s being kept. Vines don’t grow that far. I don’t understand how this is all physically possible.”
“Mmm.” Darius reached the point where the honeysuckle joined its brethren at the hedge beside the road. Difficult to follow Toby’s signal through the tangle of vines, but not impossible. For a moment he panicked, thinking he’d lost the trail, until he leaned his hand against the oak beside the hedge. “Because… it’s not.”
“What—oh!” Arden had placed a hand on the bark to steady himself down the hill. “Dar, the trees.”
“Yes. Trees.” He motioned for Arden’s phone, where he typed, Trees communicate across great distances. Chemical communication. Communication through moss networks. We have to be careful since the signal may spread out as we go.
Darius put his hand to the tree’s roots, reaching into the earth where his magic was strongest. Yes. Toby’s call went from root system to root system here. He straightened and crossed the road to the oak on the other side, which had passed the message to the one on his property. “This way.”
“It’s like following the world’s strangest bloodhound,” Zubayr murmured before he waved to Elias. “I’ll tell you when we cross the next road.”
The old truck rumbled as Elias pulled onto the shoulder to wait. Darius led his puzzled but intrepid party off into the trees.
TOBY RAN through hallways littered in glass, glittering shards and sheets of it that broke as he ran. The glass was all over the floor, then was the floor until it wasn’t glass at all but mica. He had to find Darius. That was the important part. Now the mica had turned to steel, which had something to do with Darius, but he couldn’t quite remember what.
The metal, which might have been steel or might’ve been something else, came apart in his hands when he pulled on it. The shapes were strange, and he thought they were words or runes, but he couldn’t read them. The twisting hallway wasn’t one anymore, and he ran through strange caverns. He tripped and fell, coming down hard on the uneven floor.
Underneath his hands were ropes, strangely fuzzy and unyielding. No, not ropes, roots. The whole tunnel was made of roots, and he had to pick his way carefully now or risk breaking an ankle.
All the while he called out, though his voice made no sound—Darius! Darius! Darius!
THREE HOURS and four backtracks along the trail later, Darius was tired, sweaty, and had no way to know how much farther they had to go. They’d been traveling in a roughly northwesterly direction, sometimes crossing roads or small creeks. His hands were bleeding in several places from fighting with thorn bushes, his boots were soaked, his right knee ached abominably, and he was more than done with Arden’s running list of complaints.
To put the icing on this anxiety-layered irritation cake, they’d reached a boggy part of the woods where he’d lost the trail. Too much water interference. “Zubayr.”
“Me?” Zubayr twitched around to face him, eyes wide. “I can get the water out of your way, I guess? Though I’d rather not disturb things more than we have to.”
Arden stalked to the edge of the waterlogged land, cocking his head to one side, then the other. “I’m on Zubayr’s side of the web. If he helps me with the Water part, I can find the Toby signal for you.”
“By our powers combined,” Zubayr muttered. “Very Captain Planet.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Really? Didn’t you watch any cartoons as a kid?”
Arden’s sniff was a hair shy of melodrama. “I had more important things to do than turn my brain into mush.”
“Gods, you must’ve been a miserable child.”
It pleased Darius more than it should have when his growl echoed over the bog. “Less snark. More finding.”
Zubayr had the grace to appear shamed as he crouched by the water’s edge and placed a palm on the soggy ground. Arden glared in offense, but he took Zubayr’s hand, and together they began to cast out among the bog plants.
“Anything?” Darius cringed at the snarl.
“Give me a minute, Mr. All Powerful,” Arden murmured. “What I’m searching for is a little more subtle than your direct Animus connection.”
“Watch your feet,” Zubayr said a moment too late as Arden stepped in a deep depression.
“I’m never going to be dry again.” Arden shook something off his foot as he stepped back onto higher ground. “My feet are going to rot off.”
“Shut up, Arden, and concentrate.” Zubayr tugged at his hand to get him moving again.
Darius followed slowly, waiting each time they moved forward only to stop and switch direction again. Their progress across the mats of bog plants was agonizingly slow but always eventually forward. He clenched his fists hard against his rising impatience. Every step, every inch, we’re closer. Just keep walking.
The bog crossing couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards. It only felt like miles. Finally, Darius picked up the trail again at an ancient holly at the edge of the spongy, sodden ground. The holly had received the transmission from a nearby maple—and they were off at a better clip again.
Elias met them when they next hit a winding country road. He waved Darius over and leaned out of his truck’s window. “You’re moving in a pretty straight line now, Dar. I’m driving to the next road on your course to see if there’s anything. Might speed things up if I see a likely place.”
“Do that.” Darius patted the hood of the truck as he strode around it and plunged back into the woods.
Arden followed him, grumbling about poison ivy in the dense underbrush while Zubayr asked how he could be a Life mage when he apparently hated all life so much. To preserve his sanity, Darius ignored them. From tree to tree he proceeded, sometimes along root highways, sometimes along moss networks, and from time to time along the vines of sleepy wisteria. He was puzzling out a route from a stand of clustered maples when Zubayr’s phone rang.
“Elias? Oh, all right. Putting you on speaker.” Zubayr held the phone out for all of them to hear.
Elias’s voice came through tinny and small. “Dar? I’m on Stillswamp. It’s the next little not-officially-named road you’re gonna come to. I think I’ve found it.”
“Why?” Every nerve in Darius’s body stood on end.
“Why do I think that? You better come have a look. This is some weird shit, old man.”
Despite complaints from his knee, Darius took off at a jog, heading in as straight a line as he could toward where the trees thinned again. Zubayr and Arden most likely followed, but he couldn’t hear them over his own crashing through the brush and the hammering of his heart.
He burst out onto the road and stumbled, surprised to have run out of woods so suddenly. Elias’s truck sat up the road a few hundred yards, so he adjusted course and kept running. By the time he’d reached Elias, who stood by the side of the road, arms crossed, jaw clenched, Darius could make out what had disturbed him so.
A partially paved lane ran off into the woods beside the truck, and down that lane appeared to be a… structure of sorts. Perhaps something that had been a structure before plants overran it. Vines of all descriptions covered it, softening and partially hiding the lines of roofs, gables, and walls. Such a structure should have been abandoned, so it was jarring to see cars parked all around the building, people running back and forth or standing in clumps and yelling at each other.
“I have the bad feeling that’s the hospice.” Elias nodded at the vine-devoured building. “Toby, you think?”
Darius put his palm on the grass, feeling his way to the earth below. Toby’s Animus signal ran in a straight line toward whatever disaster was down the lane. “Yes.” He stood, dusted his hands off, and strode toward the distressed building, trying not to break into a dead run. “Bring the truck. Please.”
The whispers started as he reached the first group of people.
“Valstad.”
“It’s him.”
“That’s Darius Valstad.”
“Gods, it’s worse than we thought.”
He kept his head up and ignored them as he headed for a cluster of mages near the building, some of whom he recognized as guildmasters from Montchanin.
“Hospice?” Darius pointed to the vines without giving them a chance to ask what he was doing there.
“This isn’t your concern, Valstad.” A pinch-faced mage regarded him as if he’d crawled out from under pond scum. “Please go home.”
Darius scowled as he surveyed the vines and stubbornly held his ground. Old Darius would’ve let them have it. Present Darius feared they wouldn’t hear out his stumbling sentences. Had he been alone, this might have been an insurmountable problem.
“Guildmasters.” Zubayr had reached them, breathing hard as he held out his hand. “Zubayr Tahiri, formerly of the Allegheny guild. We believe we may be able to help or at least shed some light on the situation. Is there a hospice building under there, and was this a rather, ah, sudden vegetative invasion?”
The guildmasters’ expressions ranged from wary to confused. A younger woman Darius didn’t recognize spoke up. “Yes, to both. We have people trapped in there.”
Zubayr adopted an expression of grave concern. “That’s not good. And is there a patient inside named Toby Jones?”
“That’s not information we can give out,” snarled one of the older mages. Roger Barris, Darius believed, though if that was the case, he hadn’t aged well at all. “Especially not with Valstad here. The director gave strict instructions not to allow—”
“Where’s John?” Darius cut him off sharply.
“He’s, um, inside,” the young woman said as her face flushed scarlet.
“Not a good situation at all.” Zubayr shook his head sympathetically. “What have you tried so far?”
Arden had arrived, though he hung back outside the circle of guildmasters. Smart move. Elias had edged his truck as far forward as he could without running anyone over and was picking his way through the gravel and leaf litter toward them.
“We had an Animus mage try to encourage the plants off.” A willowy mage with a shock of wild black hair took his glasses off and cleaned them fretfully on his shirt. “But they wouldn’t listen. We tried hatchets and trimmers to cut a hole, but the vines confiscate any tool used against them and immediately fill the gap back in.”
Another mage piped up from the back, “Someone suggested a controlled burn—”
“But we all agreed that idea was incredibly stupid,” Barris snapped and rounded on Darius. “And you’re here because you think you can do better than the entire guild?”
Darius fought against hunching his shoulders under that furious regard. “Yes.”
“Ha! Without killing everyone in a mile radius?”
“Yes.”
Barris took a step forward, crowding him. “And how do you propose to do that?”
“Quietly.” Darius allowed himself a little smile. “I’m going… to ask.”
Objections and derision rose from all sides until the young woman called out, “Gods’ sakes, Roger, let him try. No one else is doing anything useful.”
Roger Barris, who most likely would have been director if John hadn’t been so much better at handling people, threw up both hands with a sound of muted rage. “Fine. Wonderful. I want everyone to back up to the road, except you and I, Morgaine. Valstad, I swear, if I feel even a hint of you throwing magic of any kind, I’m taking you down like the rabid dog you are.”
“Fair… enough.” Darius kept his expression placid, though the urge to punch Barris in his angry, blotchy face was strong.
Zubayr laid a hand on his arm. “Dar?”
“No. John….”
“Will recognize me from Pine Creek. And you think he’ll get defensive.”
Darius nodded and waved Elias to him. “Come speak… for me.”
“Are you serious?” Arden squawked. “John knows me. He’ll be more likely to listen.”
“No. Ard. Need you… here.” Darius pointed to the ground in front of where he believed the front door to be. “Life.”
Arden’s offended puffing deflated immediately, and Darius was never so grateful for friends who understood him. “Because if things go wrong, you need me out here to do what I can to get you out.”
“Yes.”
Morgaine confirmed the exact location of the front door, two steps up, while the guildmasters herded the remaining mages back to the road. When everyone was in place, Darius stepped up to the building with Elias on his blind side. He touched the leaves gently, letting them feel him, hear him.
“Toby,” Darius whispered. “It’s me. Came to…. Let’s go home.”
The leaves rustled, murmuring soft arguments. Toby’s magic emanated from them so powerfully, Darius didn’t need his own to reach for it.
“Please, Toby. Miss you. Only light… in fifteen years. Please, let me in.”
Rustling spread to the surrounding vines, a chorus of negation.
“Toby, I’m here. Wouldn’t….” Darius struggled as his throat closed on a raw lump. “Leave you. I… love you.”
The sharp intake of breath from Elias registered as the leaves all went still at once. Slowly, as if they had to deliberate vine by vine, the leaves parted just far enough to allow Darius and Elias to push their way up the steps and into the front vestibule. The impenetrable plant curtain snapped shut behind them the moment they were through.
“Well,” Elias said on a stunned breath. “That was different.”
The door was unlocked, and Darius pushed it open carefully, hoping no panicked prisoner stood behind the door with a blunt instrument. No, the front hallway was clear. The electricity must have gone out, since a mage light hovered along one wall. Probably John’s since Light was his Major Arcanum.
Voices came from nearby. When they turned the corner, they found a receiving area with a desk and a few chairs, along with two people with stunned expressions.
The smaller person clutched the larger person’s arm. “Davis, look! They got through!”
Elias waggled his fingers in a little wave. “Not exactly. Yes, Darius and I got through, but the vines went right back to being all kidnappy.”
Large person started to sob while small person hugged them tight. The single mage light in the corner made it impossible for Darius to make out anything beyond size.
“Then why the hell are you here?” small person snapped.
“Toby Jones,” Darius rasped out. “Where?”
Small person began, “There’s no one here—”
“Oh, stop it! It doesn’t matter now,” large person cut them off in a trembling voice. “He’s on the second floor. Down the hall, up the stairs, last room on your right. If it’s him doing this, can you get him to stop?”
“We’ll see.” Darius wanted to offer some comfort, but it would’ve been a lie. He shrugged and headed for the dimly lit hallway behind the desk, trying not to feel guilty about the renewed sobbing in his wake. I’m trying to fix it. I’m sorry you were caught up in this.
“Hey.” Elias nudged him as they started up the stairs. “I know that face. This isn’t your fault.”
Maybe this situation, right this moment, was not directly his fault, but arguing with Elias would be a waste of energy. He limped up the last few stairs and started down the hallway. Up here, little bits of light filtered in, as if the vines had decided a screen was fine on the second floor rather than a fortress wall. In contrast, light flooded out from the last room on the right. Not shocking, of course. Darius knew who was in there.
Out of some misplaced need for courtesy, he knocked on the doorframe before he stuck his head inside. “Hello, John. Bit of a… pickle.”
John’s startled expression lasted half a heartbeat. “This isn’t the time to be facetious. How did you get in here? Who’s that with you?”
“Elias Butler, sir.” Elias came forward and extended a hand that John shook in an automatic response. “Formerly Allegheny guild. Minor Arcana abomination.”
“I’ve heard of you.” John snatched his hand back.
“As to your second question—Darius asked Toby to let him in. You do know Toby’s doing all this, right?”
“Yes.” John subsided onto his chair and waved a hand toward the bed where Toby lay, pale and still. “This shouldn’t be possible. He’s sedated so completely, we could perform surgery.”
“And still….” Darius limped to the bed and perched on the edge where he could hold Toby’s hand. “He failed… your test.”
“In frightening fashion, yes.” John rubbed his hands together to spark a light ball and floated it over to the bed. “He showed no sign of channeling and was going into wild magic overload with terrible speed. We had to sedate him to save everyone in the building. His parents are here.” He ran both hands back through his hair. “Don’t look at me like that, Darius. We can only deal in the possible, not the patently impossible.”
“Or you can dismiss things that you thought were impossible when they’re right in front of you,” Elias muttered.
Darius stroked the strands of white back before he leaned in to kiss Toby’s forehead. “And yet… here we are.” He hated how cold Toby was, hated the whole situation, though anger wasn’t going to get them anywhere. Besides, he had been thinking about the situation since the night before. “Paper?”
John shot him an incredulous look, but Elias hunted until he found a notepad and pen in a drawer. For a moment, Darius considered the paper. Old Darius would’ve gone in with all the righteous rage of an avenging angel, spouting consequences, making threats. Present Darius was coming to the conclusion that Old Darius had been about as subtle as a knife in the ear.
I wish you would have listened, John. We could have prevented all of this. Toby’s inexperienced and wielding such enormous power that it easily overwhelms him still. He needs guidance to channel. Calm assistance rather than pressure to perform.
Regardless, this is where we find ourselves and this is what I propose:
First, Toby comes with me. This is nonnegotiable since I’m certain it’s the only way we all get out of here alive.
Second, Toby stays with me. He needs a teacher who understands him. He’s bright. He’s motivated. He’s intellectually flexible. I’m confident he’ll be safely in control within a few weeks.
Third, I’m not asking for reinstatement. We’ve gone too far to go back if we’re both honest. My return to the guild would be one episode of resentment after another. I have Toby. I have my house. I propose that when I return there, you leave us in peace. You relinquish all control over Toby, his education, and my mage craft.
We stay out of your way. You stay out of ours. Nothing more complicated than that.
Squinting even with all the mage light, John had to fish his glasses out of his suit jacket before he could read Darius’s list of demands. He frowned and set the pad down, not offering any immediate commentary as he stared at the vine-obscured window.
While he pondered, Elias seized the moment to read the note, eyebrows creeping up his forehead with every line. He looked about to say something, but Darius shook his head. Not yet. Tell me later.
John finally broke his silence. “What would you propose to do about the child’s parents?”
“Up to…. Toby. Not a child. They can visit. If he… wants.” Darius took a deep breath. So many words today. “Visit. Not… interfere.”
With a twitch of his fingers, he asked for the pad back. I know this is hard, to give up control like this. But it’s not as if exiled mages haven’t lived outside the guild system all these years. Toby will simply join our ranks. He won’t be a wild mage alone, though. So please don’t look at it as leaving a dangerous loose cannon out in the world. He’ll have support. Training.
“I admit I had doubts about your recovery.” John tapped the notepad against the windowsill. “But it’s obvious that your communication issues are not due to intellectual impairment. So be it. I agree to your terms, but only because it appears to be our only choice. If you’re unsuccessful in freeing us from this trap, more drastic measures will need to be taken.”
More drastic measures couldn’t have been any clearer. If they couldn’t walk out as Darius hoped, they would kill Toby and hope his death would free them. They’d call it a kindness. Euthanasia. For Darius, it would be murder. He tamped down on his boiling rage so he could manage a civil nod.
After a flurry of activity that included handwringing from Toby’s parents, who didn’t look favorably at either Darius or Elias, and consulting with several doctors, a nurse-phlebotomist came to remove Toby’s IV’s, both the fluids and the sedation.
“It’s going to take a few hours for him to wake up,” she instructed in a tone both stern and kind. “And you’ll have to watch him carefully for at least four hours after. He’s going to be a little loopy and prone to falls. Lots of fluids and I’d wait until at least six tonight before you try food.”
Finally, Toby was wrapped in blankets and lifted onto a gurney. That wouldn’t work to get them out of the building, Darius was nearly certain, but he didn’t think his knee would manage all the stairs with even a Toby-weight burden. Instead, two orderlies rolled the gurney down the hall to manhandle it down the steps while staff, parents, and everyone else evacuated the second floor.
Toby had been the only patient, which really shouldn’t have been a surprise.
At the door, Darius stopped them. “Has to be… me.”
“You have to carry him out?” Elias guessed correctly. “Yeah, I can see the sense there. You sure you can?”
Darius answered with a glare. Yes, he’d carried Toby up the stairs at the house. No, his knee hadn’t been screaming at him that day. He didn’t need to go far, though. For Toby, he could manage this one thing without screwing it up.
“Toby? It’s Darius. You’re with… me.” He slid his arms under Toby, letting their foreheads rest together for one precious moment. “But you need… to let go. You found me. Let it… go.”
He sent a prayer out to any god who might be listening and lifted Toby into his arms. A nod to Elias, who opened the door, and he stepped forward toward the wall of vines, willing them to part.
Nothing happened.
Possible that Toby was too far under sedation… if one disregarded the fact that he had ordered vines to make a building into a human trap and had sent a message halfway across the country, largely through the chemical interaction of trees. Darius shifted his grip so he could support Toby partially against the doorframe. He unwound one of Toby’s hands from the blankets and set it against the vines.
“Through here,” Darius murmured into his ear. “Ask them… let us through. Don’t….” He hesitated. It felt like emotional blackmail. “Don’t let me… die in here.” Still nothing. “Toby. Please. Take us home.”
Toby’s eyes shifted back and forth under his eyelids, his body twisting as he worked through whatever distressing dream had ensnared him. The leaves began to murmur and rustle again. The woody stems rattled against the building. Then slowly… slowly the vines moved away from the door, creating a bower over the front steps.
“Go,” Darius whispered. “Hurry.”
John ushered Toby’s parents out first, and give the man credit, he stayed to shepherd out the staff, one after another, before he made his own escape. Darius nodded to Elias to go, but Elias just wrapped his arms around them both with a grin.
“All together now, Professor.”
Darius resituated Toby, and with Elias providing extra propulsion, they raced through the opening and down the steps just in time for the vines to snap shut again. Cracking and snapping followed in their wake. Darius risked a glance over his shoulder and realized to his horror that the vines were tightening their grip. Roof shingles popped. Siding broke in pieces. Glass shattered.
Bits of debris rained down on them as they ran for the dubious shelter of Elias’s truck, Darius trying to shield Toby as best he could and Elias trying to shield them both. Arden was there within a few steps of the porch to take some of Toby’s weight. Zubayr raced ahead to open the truck’s doors. With several sets of hands helping, they dragged Toby into the cab, Arden nearly tossing Darius after in an adrenaline-fueled bid to get him in despite his failing knee.
With Zubayr in the jump seat behind the driver and Arden still hanging half out of the cab, Elias hit reverse and roared off down the drive. The risky maneuver gave them an excellent view as the private hospice collapsed inward under the force of rage-filled plants, the walls crumpling as if they had been made of tissue paper.
Zubayr made an uncomfortable sound. “Remind me, someone, everyone, never to make Toby angry. Ever.”