Allie's War Season One (17 page)

...a complex gold and orange geometry explodes over his head in a shower of sparks.

Revik's light body flickers, dims.

I see him draw his light arm back. Then he completes the rest of the motion...

And suddenly, I am wide, wide awake.

“Ow!” I held my face. “Ow, Jesus!” When my fingers left my mouth, blood colored them. I felt my cheek swelling already and my shock and pain turned into something closer to rage. “Are you kidding me?” I touched my lip. “You
hit
me!”

“Stay here, Allie!” he said. “Do whatever you have to, but stay the
fuck
in your body...I cannot do everything!”

“You hit me!”

He glared at me. “Yes.”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” I said.

“Yes.” He released the front of my shirt.

Taking another breath, he exhaled sharply, leaning back in his own seat.

“They are
draining
you, Esteemed Bridge...you will get tired. You will get
very
tired, but you cannot sleep! I hit you only to bring you back. If your body perceives itself in mortal danger, your light will return.” His eyes returned to my face.

“Pain is fastest. Understand?”

Something rammed us, hurling me into the dashboard.

Revik veered when the truck accelerated to smash into our rear bumper again.

Suddenly a police car blazed behind us, siren on as it flashed its lights.

Revik yanked the wheel left, throwing us into the grass and tree-filled island between the north and south-bound lanes. I gripped the dashboard as we bounced down the grade. We hit hard at the bottom, then Revik gunned the GTX up the grassy hill.

Behind us, the cop car hit that same grade at a different angle and got stuck, wheels spinning in the dirt after it smashed its grill into a boulder.

Revik entered the south-bound traffic going north.

I let out an involuntary cry as horns blared, cars spun and veered with a squeal of grinding metal and burnt rubber. He straightened the car’s trajectory and accelerated.

I looked back through our half-missing rear window.

Glass covered the back seat. I touched my face, realized I had tiny cuts on my arms and hands that I hadn’t noticed.

Cars screeched to a halt, swerved to avoid hitting us, slamming into one another instead. I counted five...six separate vehicles wrecked just past where the GTX dragged dirt tracks onto the road. Taking a breath, I gripped the armrest under the side window and stared at the blurring trees, flinching at the view out the windshield.

He spoke up as he weaved between cars.

“The Rooks would rather convert you,” he said. “But killing you would be an acceptable outcome for them...”

I gripped the dashboard, not looking at him. “Great. Nice to know. Revik...just drive the damned car, okay?”

He swerved again, causing another car to slam its brakes too hard and flip.

I watched through the rear window as that same car came crashing down in the middle of the road, facing the opposite direction as traffic, like us. I looked to my right, saw the truck driver pacing us in the northbound lanes up above, flashing between the trees of the wide divide.

“...The reality is, no one knows what causes the end.” Revik was saying. “Your death itself might start the wars.”

He drove up and over the gravel shoulder. He aimed us back into the island between the north and southbound lanes, bouncing a rough diagonal line through the sloped grass. I realized he was heading back towards the north-facing lanes.

“Your presence here complicates things for both sides. The fact that you are telekinetic—”

I shouted over the engine and bouncing car.

“You pick
now
to get chatty?”

The GTX slammed into a hole and a rock, and I smacked my head on the roof, yelped. We were nearly across the island.

“Hold the wheel,” Revik said.

“What?”

He turned to look at me...

...and his eyes are silver once more, metallic. Inside, pictures flicker in an organic projector, a war happened and happening and about to happen in shadows and exploding lights. I see vultures around his head, raptors...

...and snapped out.

His body lay slumped over the steering wheel.

I leapt onto him without thought. Pushing his torso back, I slid into his lap and gripped the wheel, turning it sharply to avoid hitting a tree. Shoving my legs down between his, I jammed my foot on the accelerator over his leather boot.

Still, we’d slowed down, enough that the trucker pacing us miscalculated.

I drove us through a narrow gap between two trees as that same trucker hit his brakes, trying to head me off. Managing to just get in behind him anyway, I headed for the right lanes, swerving on asphalt and gravel as we abruptly accelerated out of the lawn...

When Revik jerked beneath me.

He grabbed the wheel over my hands, as if to steady himself. Remembering what he said about pain, I dug my fingernails into the skin of his knuckles.

“Wake up! REVIK!”

His eyes clicked into focus.

He looked up at me, briefly, then turned away, coughing. Blood speckled the glass of the driver’s side window. He wiped his mouth, but when I started to climb out of his lap, he grabbed my wrist.

“I need you to drive,” he said.

He was already moving out from behind the wheel.

Gripping the steering wheel, I considered protesting, but realized it was too late as he crawled into the passenger seat to my right and leaned between the seats to retrieve the gym bag from the back seat of the car.

Watching him, I perched on the edge of the driver’s seat to compensate for his long legs, gaining control of the car before I fumbled for the knob to move the chair.

I forgot about both things when a booming sound vibrated the sides of the car.

I ducked as I felt nicks from more shards of glass, glancing at the ragged hole punched through a rear side window.

The trucker accelerated from a few lanes over, leaning out his cab.

Revik opened the black gym bag, and pulled out a shotgun that looked like law-enforcement issue. He dug around in the bag for a box of shells. Cracking the cardboard open one-handed once he found it, he dumped a pile in his lap, then began methodically loading the Remington 870 with deft fingers.

He paused, giving me a quizzical look.

“How do you know that?” he said. “About the gun.”

I looked at him, blank, then at the gun. “Old boyfriend.” When Revik went back to loading, I said, “What are you going to do? You can’t just shoot them all.”

He continued loading the gun, not answering at first.

Then he glanced up at me again, his voice flat, “You have the right to lodge a formal complaint regarding my methods with the Council once we arrive. They will hear you, and with a great deal of sympathy...I assure you. But reminding me of the damage I’m doing to my soul won’t help either of us
right now,
Allie.”

I stared at him uncomprehendingly, saw no hint of sarcasm. When he seemed to be expecting a response, I could only nod.

“Okay. Sure.”

“Thank you.” He chambered the first shell with a smooth jerk of his hand, then leaned out the window.

I watched in the mirror as he aimed at the truck, firing as soon as he leveled the barrel.

The truck swerved and his shot went wide.

Revik aimed again.

He hit the grill that time, and the truck swerved behind another 18-wheeler.

Revik sat back, his pale eyes locked on the mirrors. I heard a bleep of loudspeaker and turned, saw a Washington State police car pull up alongside us. Inside, a red-faced officer leaned back stiffly in his seat, driving and glaring at us while his partner aimed a shotgun at Revik.

“Pull over!” the driver yelled. “Right now!”

I caught the barest whisper of Revik’s thoughts.

We are not the criminals. It is them. Help us.

The cop driving glanced at his partner. Confusion softened both of their faces.

We are in danger. Protect us. Please.

The officer nodded to Revik, indicating the highway ahead. He shouted, “...Go on. We’ll take care of this, sir.”

Thank you, officer.

The driver tapped his brakes, picking up the police radio mouthpiece and speaking into it as the car fell dramatically behind.

I looked at Revik, dumbfounded.

“Go faster,” he said. “They will do the same to us.”

I muttered something about free will, hammering my foot down on the gas. My fingers whitened as the scenery started to blur.

Revik shrugged in answer to a question I hadn’t asked.

“I thought you would prefer that to my killing the driver,” he muttered.

I followed the direction of his eyes through the rear-view mirror, saw the vibrating reflection of the cop car slow beside the truck’s cab, right before I heard the same blare of loudspeaker and warning tap of siren.

A second later, Revik turned to me.

“It’s done. Faster, Allie.”

The Washington cops’ siren blared back into life.

I already had the pedal down hard. Now I pressed it to the floor, feeling my chest constrict as the GTX leapt forward. We were definitely past my comfort zone in terms of my ability to navigate at high speeds. I was on the verge of being out of control when I felt Revik with me in the Barrier, directing my hands. I resisted at first—

Let me. You will learn.

Faintly, a grid appeared, a maze of bright lines that overlaid the scenery and cars. The grid showed how the drivers interacted with one another and the light of the Barrier. I could almost see what each driver would do—

Another blast hit the back of the car.

My eyes snapped to focus as Revik’s mind left mine.

He leaned out the window as I turned, propping the stock against his shoulder and firing. The sound boomed inside the car, deafening, right before I saw the cop car swerve to avoid his shots. The black hood erupted in smoke after Revik’s third shot penetrated the engine block.

The police car swerved again, then rolled.

I heard a squeal of tires, a sound like an explosion, but the crash sounds were rapidly receding already.

I swallowed back bile, trying to focus.

“They seemed nice,” I said. “Like nice people.”

He didn’t answer. A shot hit the back of the car with a loud plink and groan of metal. Revik leaned out again, firing at whoever was shooting at us.

His mind felt closed to me now, so I stared out the windshield, digging my nails into my palms every time drowsiness tried to overtake me, hoping like hell I didn’t kill us both. I was so focused on these two things in fact, staying awake and not crashing from the speed, that I barely noticed the second police car pull up alongside us.

I glanced over in time to see the officer in the driver’s seat reach for his sidearm. I sucked in a breath, ready to duck, but the man unholstered his weapon and held it out to Revik through the window, the handle pointed towards us.

I worried Revik had told him to shoot himself, but...

...the gun simply left his fingers.

It clattered to the road, bouncing behind us.

“Watch the road!” Revik snapped, glaring at me.
“I
am doing this! You drive!”

I turned back to the windshield.

But his anger had allowed me to feel him again, at least in part.

The gun was as far as he would get with that human; the Rooks already had control over the cop’s mind. The knowing of that fact reflected a bitterness in Revik that surprised me.