Tremors: A Stone Braide Chronicles Story (5 page)

The weight on her back. She couldn’t breathe. Sand invaded the openings in her face. She felt particles climbing to her sinuses. Her arms flailed. Granules clogging her tongue. No room to inhale.

The body holding her down was suddenly lifted away.

Selah flipped onto her back, gagging and coughing as she snorted out the sand blocking her air. Bodhi lifted Missing Tooth over his head. The boy’s arms and legs flapped in the air. Bodhi body-slammed him to the sand. He stopped moving.

Bodhi turned to the others and lunged for the closest.

“Get him!” Ragged Pants drew his bow and nocked an arrow.

“Kill them both!” Razor Head shouted. His smooth dome reflected the morning sun as he swept the long staff over his head in a circle, advancing on Bodhi.

Selah crawled a few feet away, still struggling to reinflate her lungs.

Bodhi leaned over on his hands and swept his body in a sideways pinwheel. Razor Head was caught off guard, and it drove his feet out from under him as his staff flew toward the sea and he landed on his back. Bodhi delivered a fist to Razor’s neck, and he went limp.

“Behind you,” Selah yelled in a raspy voice.

Bodhi swung to face Ragged Pants’ bow at the same moment the boy released the arrow.

As though time switched to slow motion, a sound came from somewhere near her toes, crashed up through her body and out her mouth. Selah screamed. The arrow spun toward Bodhi, who swung out his right arm and snatched it from the air.

Selah’s mouth dropped open. Bodhi took a step forward, and his right leg shot out in a roundhouse kick that connected with the boy’s face. He too went down. Bodhi pivoted on his side to deliver a crippling elbow slam across Ragged Pants’ neck.

Selah suddenly felt panic. It had all happened in less than a minute. She tried to crab walk away from Bodhi, healthy respect and fear for the man rising to the forefront. Watching someone dispatch many enemies at one time went a long way to change a girl’s perception.

Bodhi walked to where Selah sat in the sand. “Are you all right?”

Her mouth opened but words wouldn’t come. Her lips trembled. She wanted to cry but refused to look weak and invite more danger.

“Let me help you.” He held out his hand. She shrank back.

He looked at the arrow clenched in his other hand as though just noticing it. He threw it away and reached out both hands.

Selah tentatively reached up to him, and he easily pulled her to her feet.

“How did you do that?” Selah stammered over her words, her chest
heaving. Ten thoughts were trying to rank themselves in her head all at one time. Surprise, fear, and excitement topped the list. She had to be losing her mind to find him thrilling. Maybe that punch in the head she’d gotten had shaken something lose.

Bodhi shook his head. “Don’t know. Never did it before.”

Selah stared at the bodies littering the beach. She still couldn’t process the superhuman abilities he’d displayed.

He held up both open palms, turning them slowly to look at the backs. “There’s a vibration in them.”

Selah looked up from his hands and saw it coming. “No!”

Bonnie S. Calhoun
teaches workshops on Facebook, Twitter, HTML, and social media at writers’ conferences. In her everyday life she is a seamstress and clothing designer. Bonnie and her husband live in a log home in upstate New York with a dog and two cats who think she’s waitstaff. Learn more at
www.bonniescalhoun.com
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