Descendant (23 page)

“…with you I just can’t seem to help it,” I final y managed to whisper. “So I followed you in here. And now here we are talking and laughing like we’re—I dunno. I don’t get you.”

He turned back to the path in front of us. “You don’t need to get me,” he said. “But one thing?”

“…What’s that?”

“You don’t need to be afraid of me.”

I nodded silently. Not because I agreed, but because of the hurt in his voice.

We walked quietly for a few minutes after that, until Kael said, “You said you were worried about whether or not I hate you?”

I shrugged. “You act like I annoy you, sometimes.”

He glanced over and gave me a small smile. “You do annoy me,” he said.

“Wow. You know there’s this thing called tact…”

“But I don’t hate you,” he said quietly, his smile fading.

“Actual y, I…” he hesitated. Before he could continue, the sound of rustling leaves and snapping twigs interrupted.

sound of rustling leaves and snapping twigs interrupted.

I lifted my head and closed my eyes, breathing in deeply through my nose. Against the backdrop of typical forest smell s I was getting used to, there were several others that I didn’t recognize—and one I sort of did. I exhaled.

“It sounds—and smell s—like there are people heading this way,” I said quietly.

“Lots of people,” Kael said. He looked upset, but his voice was strangely calm.

“I think I recognize one of them,” I said, giving Kael a worried look.

“It’s Sera.”

It was so obvious, now that he said it. “Why are you so calm?” I asked. “It doesn’t sound like she’s alone…we should…”

Kael turned toward the sound of the footsteps, but still stayed perfectly cool and collected.

“I’m going back to warn the others,” I said, turning away. But before I’d even taken a single step a hand closed over my wrist. I looked back and found myself staring Kael in the eyes. I tried to pul away, but he grabbed my other arm so roughly that I froze, unable to do anything but stare as he spoke.

“This isn’t how I wanted things to go,” he said.

“I don’t understand. Why are you—”

“I have to do this.”

“You don’t have—”

“Hel o hel o…” I whipped my gaze from Kael to see Sera smiling at me as she stepped into the clearing. On either side of her were a half-dozen others who looked like they’d never smiled a day in their lives. I turned back to Kael, desperate for an explanation.

He wouldn’t even look at me.

“Fancy meeting you guys here,” Sera said.

Kael pulled as far away from me as he could without letting go of my arms, his gaze focused on Sera.

“I’m surprised you’re on time,” he said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be late for this,” Sera said.

Kael nodded, and a second later he smiled—but it wasn’t like the smile he’d shared with me earlier. It was cold, almost mocking. “Think you brought enough people with you?” he asked in an amused voice.

“I’d be lying if I said you didn’t have me worried for a while there, Kael,” Sera replied with a sly smile. “I just wanted to make sure there was no room for failure this time—even if you failed to do your part.” His part? He continued to ignore my confused looks—it was like he only had eyes for Sera all of a sudden. “You’re too impatient, Sera. You should’ve known it would only be a matter of time until I accomplished what I set out to do,” he said. “I always do.” He let go of my arms then, throwing them away like he was disgusted by the touch—even though he’d been the one holding me back. Then he stepped away from me and walked toward Sera. I guess I should’ve used the opportunity to run. But my knees suddenly felt weak, and in that moment all I wanted to do was col apse. I was too proud for that, though. I would stay on my feet. No matter that I felt completely exposed.

Naked.

“I suppose that’s true,” Sera said, her eyes flittering over Kael. “You’ve done what you said you’d do, and here I am, like I said I’d be.” As she said this, Sera kept throwing glances my direction—in what I took to be the equivalent of her rubbing this in my face. Or maybe she was just making her rubbing this in my face. Or maybe she was just making sure I knew Kael had planned this—that he’d been expecting her. As if I needed anyone to spel it out for me.

The fact that he couldn’t look me in the eyes told me everything I needed to know.

And it all made perfect sense now. Earlier, when he said he’d been out for a walk, he must’ve been out here with her —the other night, too, when he’d left me alone on the porch.

He’d gone to see her. No wonder he’d agreed to take the first watch. And when he’d suggested we go for a walk, and I’d followed him… God, how could I have been so stupid?

“We aren’t done yet, are we?” Sera was talking again. I could distinguish words—but they didn’t mean anything.

“You’ve left me in the dark for too long, Kael. I’m not sure even I know what’s going on in that head of yours now.”

Even though I couldn’t put any meaning behind the words themselves, her tone was unmistakably coy. With every word she spoke she inched a little bit closer to him. Nothing between them, huh? Yeah. Right. I knew I shouldn’t have cared—especial y not now—but the way she was hanging all over him… it just made me that much angrier.

“It can stay that way, for now,” Kael said to her. For some reason, Kael’s words made more sense than anything Sera was saying. Maybe because I was still clinging to them, hoping I would hear something—anything—that would hint this wasn’t for real. “I’ll tell you everything later—right now we need to get going before the others we were with realize we’re missing.” “We could just take care of them,”

Sera said with a nasty grin.

I inhaled sharply. But Kael shook his head. “There’s no need for that. It wouldn’t do anything except cause us more trouble.” Petty as it might have been, I still rejoiced inwardly at Kael’s rejection of her. “Maybe,” Sera said, obviously disappointed. “But never mind, then. I assume you have a plan for what happens next?”

Kael nodded. “I think my father will be happy to see us.”

A confused look spread across Sera’s face. “I’ve no doubt about that,” she said slowly. “But doesn’t that go against everything—” “I told you, we can discuss that later,” Kael said sharply. Sera looked hurt by the harsh tone of his voice. And again I celebrated. At least I wasn’t the only one he was keeping things from. But my celebration was short-lived, because a second later Kael turned to two of the men standing closest to me, his eyes passing over where I stood. “Grab the girl, and let’s go.” I felt my jaw drop. Had he real y just referred to me as ‘the girl’? If this was a joke, he’d definitely just rammed the punch line into the ground.

The two men he’d addressed, however, definitely didn’t think he was joking. Two pairs of rough hands grabbed obediently onto either of my arms.

“Let me go!” I struggled, but their grips just crushed my arms even more tightly every time I tried to jerk free. I still had relatively free use of my legs, though, so I drew one of them back and kicked as hard as I could. I felt the guy on my right buckle as my foot hit him. “You little—” I flinched as he raised one of his hands. But just as he got ready to hit me, Kael appeared behind him, grabbed the hand and jerked it back down. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to not hit girls?” he asked with a frown. The man yanked his hand away with a disgruntled look on his face.

Kael turned to me. “Look,” he said. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way—it’s your choice.” If my hands had been free, I would’ve slapped him without a second’s hesitation. But the men holding me back were gripping my arms more tightly then ever now, so I just glared straight into Kael’s eyes instead. Then I jerked my head back and spit directly into his face. “You jerk,” I said, my voice shaking so much I could barely get the words out. “I trusted you.”

For a minute, Kael looked even more furious than I felt as he wiped his face clean. But then his face split into a crooked grin and he shook his head. He was laughing as he turned and walked away from me.

And this was why I didn’t like getting close to people. If I thought I could’ve managed it given my currently restrained condition, I would’ve kicked my self.

I’m not sure how I made my feet move, but somehow I managed to trudge along. It was either that, after all , or let those guys drag me. And I sure as hel wasn’t doing that. I could still walk just fine all by myself, thank you very much.

So I did. Even as the minutes stretched into hours, which then became several hours, and even once my feet starting cramping and I could feel the beginnings of blisters forming on the back of both my heels.

I desperately wanted to know where we were going. Kael was walking several feet in front of me, side-by-side with Sera, and once or twice I almost called out to him. But in the end I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to risk the pain of being ignored on top of everything else.

We hadn’t been walking long before my thoughts strayed to Vanessa and Eli. And to Shane too—he was probably back at the campsite by now. They’d probably be wondering about me. Shane would jump to the worst possible conclusion, and would waste no time in blaming Kael. And he’d be right too.

He’d been right all along.

Anger swel ed inside me, and with it came guilt—because now the others had me to worry about, too. I could only hope they would still go after Emily and the others first. I’d gotten myself into this mess all by myself, after all —so I’d be the one to get myself out of it.

Unfortunately, that looked like it was going to be easier said than done. Not counting Kael and Sera, there were at least twenty others, including the guys on either side of me.

I’d threatened those two enough times that they’d taken their hands off me, either because they were tired of listening to me, or because they were real y frightened about what I might do. I’m going to go ahead and claim it was the latter. Of course, either way it didn’t matter much—they were still close. Close enough to grab me if I tried to make a run for it. And even if I managed to get past them, there were still a half-dozen others behind me to deal with.

I may have been fast, but the odds were definitely against me.

There was one thing working in my favor, though: we were going up. And ‘up’ meant more rock than forest, rock that in some places jutted up at steep angles and created narrow passageways that called for a bit of rock-climbing. We’d had to climb through a few already, and a short distance ahead was another one that those at the front of our group were having to slowly single-file their way through.

I threw a quick glance over my shoulder. I’d counted right.

There were only six behind me. My eyes darted back to the passageway. It was barely big enough for one person to fit into, and after about twenty feet or so it took a sharp bend —which meant the people at the very front couldn’t see us anymore. It was lined with a loose outcropping of rocks that looked terribly unstable, and would make turning around even more difficult. Or at least that’s what I was hoping for.

One last flicker of doubt crossed my mind, but I forced myself to shrug it off. I didn’t have time for doubt right now; for all I knew, wherever we were going could be just around that bend, and if I didn’t act soon I was going to miss my chance.

We reached the passage, and the man on my left stepped forward and placed a hand against the wall of rock, testing his footing on a large, makeshift-step of stone. And then, before I could even think about what I was doing, I stopped.

I had to duck to avoid the hand that snatched out at me. I stayed low, searching the ground for something I could arm myself with.

“What are you doing?” demanded the man beside me.

“Nothing…I…I just dropped something.”

“Get up,” he growled, kicking me hard in the side.

“Alright, alright!” I said, just as my hand folded over a rock with a particularly sharp edge. I hesitated for another second, and he tried to kick me again. I managed to roll out of the way this time, and then I jumped to my feet and swung up as hard as I could; the rock caught him just underneath the chin and he fell back, clutching his throat. I dropped the rock abruptly. For a second all I could do was stare at the damage. Within seconds, though, the people behind us rushed forward. One of them tried to grab me. I jerked aside, but they still managed to get a hold of my sleeve; their grip on it was loose, though, and I managed to pul free pretty easily.

And then I ran harder than I’ve ever run in my life. I had to circle wide to avoid the rest of the ones who had been behind us, which meant abandoning the well -beaten path.

Which meant scaling lots of rocks, which meant lots of fall ing. Footsteps and the scraping and sliding of rocks echoed behind me. I tried not to think about how close they were. I just ran, until all I could feel of my footsteps was a vague burning sensation that shot up into my calves with every step. I bounced from rock to rock, slid down the pebble-strewn hill s, and leapt the small er crevices without stopping to think. I couldn’t think about what I was doing. I couldn’t think about what it would mean if the footsteps caught up with me. Al I could think about was the line of trees rising in the distance, and I pumped my aching legs toward it.

Thirty feet away.

If I could just reach the cover of the forest...

If I could just reach the cover of the forest...

Twenty feet away.

I can make it...

Ten feet away.

I’m going to make it.

There was a sudden noise—like the whoosh of wind—and I couldn’t stop myself from looking back. A blur of black was hurtling towards me. The last thing I remember seeing were the claws, outstretched and aiming straight for my face.