Arise (Awakened Fate Book 4) (2 page)

“Really?” Harman asked.

“You have my word.”

I couldn’t keep an infuriated noise from escaping.

“B-but won’t they know you, though?” the doctor pressed with a nervous glance to me. “From back in Reidsburg, I mean. Won’t they know–”

“They never saw us.”

Harman swallowed a third time. He seemed to be having trouble stopping. “Okay,” he agreed. “Then I’ll… I’ll tell them you’re my other assistants. My ones who deal with dehaians. And that they need to go with you to save their daughter from that Zeke boy. Yeah. They’ll believe that.”

He shifted his weight, his hands twitching as though he wasn’t sure what to do with them. “You won’t hurt the girl, though, right? I still need her for–”

“I said you have my word.”

Harman gave a tight nod. He hurried back toward the parking lot.

“Dad,” I began.

“Shut it.”

He strode after Harman.

I stared at them. I could have come up with fifty plans better than this one. A hundred, even. And each of them would have involved tearing both those damn fish to pieces and feeling their magic gush out through the wounds. But instead–

Clay made an irritated sound at me while he moved past, trailing Dad like the pathetic lapdog he was and glaring as if he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t moving too.

I growled and he dropped the glare. Walking by him, I followed Dad and Harman into the parking lot. The two of them were heading for the couple by the car, and after a moment, the reason clicked.

Those
were her parents.

I walked faster.

“Bill? Linda?” Harman called. “Can we talk?”

The couple paused, caution practically radiating from them.

“These are my assistants,” Harman continued. “Richard and his, um, sons.”

Bill eyed us, clearly torn about just getting back into the car.

“They can help you find your girl and the… that boy who came with her.”

The skepticism on Bill’s face didn’t fade. “No offense,” he said to Dad. “But you all don’t look like scientists.”

“They’re here because of the boy,” Harman explained. “To help in case Zeke became… difficult.”

Bill’s caution abated slightly. “I see.”

“They want you to go with them to find Chloe.”

The woman, Linda, made a fretfully hopeful noise and hurried around the car. “Do they know where she is?” She looked to Dad. “Have you seen her?”

“We know how to find her,” Dad answered.

I glanced to him, realizing what he planned. What I hoped he planned. What, if it’d been me,
I
would’ve planned.

It was hard to keep the smile from my face.

“Okay,” Linda agreed. “Where is she? What do we need to–”

“Just follow us in your car,” Dad said.

She rushed for the passenger side of the sedan.

Bill didn’t move. “Follow you where?”

Harman fidgeted. “You better go quick, Bill,” he urged. “She’s in danger. What that boy is capable of…”

The words worked. Bill got in the car.

Dad headed toward our SUV.

“You won’t
hurt
anyone, right, Richard?” Harman tried, keeping his voice low while he scuttled after him.

“Make sure the cops don’t follow us,” Dad told him.

I continued past the doctor when the old man paused. Still clasping his hands, Harman shifted his weight for a moment and then scampered toward the police.

“We actually going to do any of what you told him?” Owen asked.

Wordlessly, Dad tugged open the door and then climbed in. I took the passenger seat, leaving my brothers to get in the back.

“Are we?” Clay pressed.

Dad turned the key in the ignition. “Those ropes still behind you?”

My lip curled. He
did
have the same plan as I would’ve made.

Dad glanced to us, his expression like ice. “There’s a barn about ten miles away. Saw it on our drive here. We pull over, get her parents out, and leave the vehicle there. They’ll fit behind you two. But we don’t hurt anyone too badly just yet.”

“What about that thing you told Harman?” I asked. “How we’d bring the fish back for him? Not touch the girl?”

Contempt showed on Dad’s face as he put the gearshift into drive. “Don’t be a moron. We find them, we’re killing them all.”

Chapter One

Chloe

We’d made it almost thirty miles from the warehouse near the Borman Grain company before my parents had tried calling us.

And they hadn’t stopped in all the miles since.

“Oh, you have
got
to be kidding,” Baylie groaned when the phone buzzed again. She tugged her gaze from the midday traffic on the highway and glanced to Noah. “Could you look this time?”

He pulled open the lid to the center compartment and drew out the cell.

And then returned it to the console without a word.

I sighed. Still my parents then, and not Baylie’s stepmom, Sandra, or anyone else. Noah and Baylie continued checking, and kept the phone on vibrate rather than silent just in case their family tried to reach us.

But so far every call had been the same.

“What is that?” he asked tiredly. “Forty?”

“Forty-three,” Ellie supplied in a small voice from her seat on the far side of Zeke.

Noah shook his head.

I turned my gaze to the window. Land so flat it could have been ironed surrounded us, though I knew mountains couldn’t be much farther ahead. We’d entered Colorado not too long ago, and though the eastern portion of the state was flat enough to seem like Kansas all over again, the western would make all this feel like a weird dream.

Or at least, that’s what I remembered from when Zeke and I had driven through an area not too far from here.

The thought made me shift uncomfortably, bringing as it did a hot blush of memory and a nauseated feeling of worry all at the same time. On the seat next to me, Zeke had barely moved over the past several hours. Bandages covered his legs from where Ellie’s grandfather had cut him, and bloodstains showed through the gauze. The tendrils of scales that had dangled around the injuries were finally gone, but his skin still glistened in places, as if he could barely keep it from changing. Strange burn marks marred his chest and sides, though both were now covered by the shirt Noah had lent him. I had no idea what Harman had done to him – Zeke hadn’t spoken of it during the entire trip – but even all these hours later, he seemed like he’d scarcely gotten better.

I didn’t know what to do to help him. We couldn’t take him to a hospital – Zeke wasn’t human, he had no ID, and Ellie’s grandfather or my parents would have the police looking for us besides – and none of us knew of a place to go other than where we were already heading.

But if Ellie’s mentor, Olivia, couldn’t help him. If he died…

The nauseated feeling grew. Just because
I’d
almost died last night after what that horrible little man had done, that didn’t mean Zeke would.

Stomach churning, I pushed the thoughts aside. They weren’t helping.

“How much farther?” I asked.

When no one responded, I glanced away from the window.

“A while,” Ellie answered apologetically.

My fingers tightened on Zeke’s.

He squeezed my hand back.

I let out a breath, trying to allow the small pressure to convince me that everything would be fine.

The phone buzzed.

I closed my eyes.

Time passed and the mountains arrived, swallowing us in shadows even though it was only late afternoon. Cars raced around us, their drivers moving faster for the comfort of not having police looking for them, and the road curved back and forth past slopes that felt surrealistically high.

And the hours crept on.

Stars shone by the time Ellie finally murmured for Baylie to turn off the state highway. The road delivered us into a low-lying city lost between the mountains and bisected by a river cutting a path through its downtown. Tourist traps, all of them long since closed for the night, fronted the waterway, while near the town center, strings of lights glowed around a stage in a park, revealing the trash-and-plastic-cup aftermath of what might’ve been a concert.

Following Ellie’s directions, Baylie steered the car past assorted businesses and the little stands advertising tickets to various events, and into the neighborhoods hiding behind them both. The hilly terrain quickly blocked the lights of the main city street, leaving us winding along dark, narrow roads dotted with houses tucked at odd angles beneath giant trees.

“There,” Ellie said, leaning forward a bit to point at a white-walled bungalow nearly lost between two large pines. By the screen door guarding the enclosed porch, a lamp glowed buttery and warm in the darkness, and when we turned into the gravel drive, I could see that the lights at the back of the house were still on as well.

I swallowed hard. I’d known Olivia would be waiting. Ellie had called earlier today to tell her we were coming, and about an hour ago to let her know we were getting close.

But anything could have happened between then and now. Harman could have called and told Olivia what had happened from his perspective. Something else could have changed to put us all in danger. Ellie swore we could trust her mentor, that even though she was a landwalker elder like Harman, Olivia didn’t think like him. She wouldn’t see me as just a half-and-half kid who needed to be turned back into a landwalker, and she could help with more information about this ‘Beast’ thing that had caused the Sylphaen to want me dead.

But Ellie could be wrong, and on the roller coaster my life had become, I’d found paranoia of strangers wasn’t always the wrong reaction. After all, at least half of them had ended up trying to kill me.

Zeke gently jostled my hand. “It’ll be alright,” he whispered.

I glanced over, and then caught sight of Noah looking back at us. Discomfort tangled through me for a whole other reason, and hastily, I turned away and pushed open the door.

Warm summer air pressed against me, carrying the smell of pine and river water. The neighborhood was silent, the hour long past when most people probably had gone to bed. From the car, Zeke climbed out. I hesitated, waiting to see if he needed any help.

“I’m fine,” he assured me, reading the pause.

I stayed close just in case, and tried to ignore the feeling of Noah watching us both. Ellie led the way while we headed for the porch. The steps creaked beneath us and the hinges of the screen door made popping noises as Ellie pulled it aside. We gathered inside the enclosed porch, and when Ellie knocked, the heavy, mahogany door seemed to absorb the sound.

A second passed and then footsteps hurried toward us from within the house. The door swung open to reveal a slender African-American woman with a short afro and black-framed glasses. Above her jeans, an old flannel shirt covered her, the plaid fabric visibly softened and faded with age. Her dark eyes swept us as though counting and running a calculation on the number she found, and from her face, I couldn’t tell what the result could be.

“Hi Olivia,” Ellie managed with a tiny, nervous smile. “I’m sorry to drop in so late.”

“It’s no problem,” the woman answered, sounding more cautious than upset. “Is everything okay? You were fairly vague on the phone.”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. It’s… well, I mean… can we come in?”

Eyebrow twitching up, Olivia nodded. Not looking away from us, she stepped back to allow us all space to enter. Ellie hurried inside, with Baylie coming more slowly behind her. Noah followed, only to pause on the opposite side of the entry from the woman, still watching her. Olivia’s eyes skimmed over him questioningly before flicking to us.

And then she spotted the bandages on Zeke’s legs. Alarm on her face, she looked to Ellie.

“I can explain that,” Ellie began. “It’s just… he, uh…”

“Why don’t you all join me in the kitchen?” Olivia offered carefully when Ellie trailed off. She waited while Zeke and I walked past her and then she shut the door. “I have a couple chairs in there and I was just getting some cocoa ready.”

Ellie took off for the kitchen. Still casting short glances to the wounds on Zeke’s legs, Olivia trailed after her.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. With Zeke beside me and Noah a step ahead, I walked down the hall. Through an archway to my left, I could see a darkened study. A trio of monitors sat on the desk in the corner, their blue power lights blinking sleepily. A computer tower waited on the floor near them, and in the dimness, I could make out a thick braid of cables running to additional machines several feet away. Beneath the bay window to the right, a couch sat with a laptop and a few paper file folders on it, the latter of which looked as though they’d been in the middle of being read.

With a wary glance to Olivia, I kept going. At the end of the hallway, a bright glow spilled through the arched entrance. A metal-legged table stood in the middle of the kitchen, while an old, white-enameled gas stove waited to the right with a tea kettle getting ready to whistle on its top.

Olivia crossed to the stovetop and removed the kettle quickly. Turning back, she motioned for us all to take seats around the table. Her ever-present worry still in her eyes, Ellie ghosted over to the cabinets and retrieved a box of instant cocoa and several mugs.

I pulled back a chair, wincing at the scrape of the metal legs across the checkered tile, and then sat down next to Baylie. Zeke and Noah paused, and then Zeke sank into the chair at my side.

The muscles of Noah’s jaw jumped. He took a seat next to his stepsister.

I looked away.

“So…” the woman began while Ellie opened a packet of hot chocolate mix. “Like Ellie said, my name is Olivia.”

Baylie glanced to me. “I’m Baylie,” she replied warily.

“Chloe,” I said.

“Noah.”

“Zeke.”

The woman paused and then cast a quick look to Ellie when nothing more came. “I take it you all had a… well, how was your trip?”

No one answered while Ellie set the mugs down in front of us.

“We need your help,” Ellie said.

Olivia waited.

Ellie’s gaze twitched to me. “I didn’t know what to say on the phone. It’s just… things with Grandpa got bad. Complicated bad. He…” She exhaled. “You know how you told me he sometimes can take a hard view on things?”