The Broken World

by Lindsey Klingele

  He wished he had more time here, to ask that question and a million more.

  “They are not letting up behind us,” Kat said from the backseat without even turning her head around.

  Liv’s eyes darted to the rearview mirror and back. “I know,” she said. “I have an idea.”

  Cedric raised his eyebrows. “An idea?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

  The road smoothed out and became larger, and Liv pushed her foot down to make the van move faster once again. But the cars following them had the opportunity to go faster also—and to spread out behind them. Once they had all descended from the mountains, Kat set to counting how many were in pursuit.

  “Thirteen,” she said, her voice grim. “There are thirteen of those things behind us.”

  With a roaring noise, a vehicle that looked like the mopeds they’d used to find Henry Martin—only much larger—pulled up to the side of the van. Its owner looked to Cedric with narrowed, all-black eyes.

  Cedric straightened, all attention, his sword at the ready. The wrath was so near to him, and he longed to jump out and fight it. It swerved quickly toward the van and away again, causing Liv to yelp and jerk on her steering wheel.

  “Should we not stop here and fight them back?” Cedric asked.

  Liv shook her head quickly, her hair slashing against her now bone-white cheeks. “I think I can thin them out first. We just have to hold on till Calabasas—”

  “What’s in Calabasas?” Shannon asked, but Liv didn’t respond.

  “I got it!” Peter suddenly yelled. “Cell phone service . . . and internet!”

  “I’ll call Daisy,” Shannon said, whipping out her phone.

  Peter’s fingers click-clacked over the keys. “Uploading now.”

  Liv blew out a breath. This time, Cedric did reach out and briefly hold her hand. Her eyes slid over to his.

  “This plan will work,” he said, though he had no idea if that was true.

  “If I keep us alive long enough to even give it a shot,” she replied, just as another car pulled up alongside them and she revved the gas to move faster.

  For the next few minutes, everyone in the car was racked with tension and anxiety. Well, everyone except for Shannon, who talked excitedly into her phone. Cedric heard snippets—“I’ll send you the link . . .” and “. . . how would I know your parents’ password?” and “Of course it’s an emergency!”

  “Linking to the video on other sites now,” Peter said distractedly. “All our Facebook and Instagram profiles, Snapchat, my D&D forums . . .”

  Shannon pulled her phone from her ear. “Daisy’s in. She’s on her mom’s Twitter right now. As soon as she links the video, it’ll go out to 2.1 million people. She’s hashtagging it with the name of her dad’s latest movie, so people will click on it.”

  “Sneaky,” Liv breathed. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing it—we’re saving the world through Twitter.”

  “If this works and we don’t all die, you should definitely put that on your resume,” Shannon replied.

  Liv managed a smile, but it soon slipped from her face as another motorcycle moved up ahead of the van. It swerved, trying to cut the van off, and Liv had to slam on the brakes to avoid being driven off the road.

  “Holy crap!” Shannon exclaimed, as Liv swerved to the right and hit the gas again. Behind them, the motorcycle moved in a fast circle and picked up pursuit. “If these guys are from another world, how is it they can drive like that?”

  “Maybe they’re not from another world,” Liv said darkly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe Malquin has already turned more men into wraths than we thought. For all we know, his army might be mostly humans-turned-wraths at this point.”

  Shannon shuddered. “Can you imagine? Turning into a monster like that?”

  Liv shook her head, her eyes flicking back to the rearview mirror. Cedric didn’t have to guess who she was looking for in the crush of vehicles behind them.

  A new thought struck him. “You said earlier that your ploy with the movie might not just fix the world—it could maybe fix the men Malquin has changed.”

  “Emphasis on the maybe,” Liv said. “Malquin said that the only reasons the old Guardians didn’t turn into monsters when they ingested wrath blood was because the magic on Earth was more stable then. If our plan works, if we can bring back balance . . . then maybe the wrath blood in these men will become stable. Or maybe not.”

  “If it does work,” said Cedric, trying to be hopeful, “then would these men not regain control of their own minds? They might stop chasing us altogether.”

  Liv bit her lip, the way she sometimes did when concentrating hard.

  “They might.” She looked to Peter. “How’s it coming?”

  But Peter’s face gave her an answer before he could. “It’s only been a minute. These things take time.”

  “We don’t have time,” Kat said, her eyes carefully monitoring the two cars that were nearly at their bumper.

  Peter bit his lip, and his eyes widened. “Shannon, give me your phone. I just thought of something.”

  “What?” Shannon asked, handing the phone over.

  “Live streaming. Extra content to keep eyeballs on us, and maybe it makes the story even more believable.”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Liv said. “Give it a shot.”

  As Peter clicked around on Shannon’s phone, Liv took a hard right turn then, coming up to the intersection of two large roads.

  “Uh, shouldn’t we stick to the freeways?” Shannon said, gripping the seats in front of her to keep from being thrown sideways. “Not to challenge your driving or anything, Liv, but surface streets could get a bit . . . dicey.”

  “I know,” Liv said as she hunched forward, eyes on the road ahead. She made another sharp turn.

  In the backseat, Peter held his phone up, recording their drive. Cedric noted that the scenery passing by was now distinctly city-like, with darkened buildings and empty roadways. In the distance, he saw a line of what looked like thin yellow paper stretched across the road in front of them. He recognized that paper—the police had lined it around the museum alleyway after he had battled wraths there.

  Cedric leaned even closer to the large windshield, trying to see. Beyond the yellow barrier, objects appeared to be . . . floating in midair. A metal blue box with a cylindrical top, a green plant in a pot. An entire car. They all rotated a few feet above the ground, suspended in the air as if by . . . magic.

  “What . . . ?” he started.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Shannon asked, pushing herself between the driver’s and passenger’s seats again. “I saw those on TV, the Gravity Incidents? Liv, you’re headed right for it. Liv? Liv?!”

  But Liv wasn’t slowing down. She sped right toward the floating objects, her eyes locked on the road straight ahead. Without thinking, Cedric gripped the sides of his seat, his fingers digging into the fabric there.

  The nose of the van moved closer to what Shannon called the Gravity Incident, closer . . . closer . . .

  Just as it was about to crash through the yellow tape, Liv suddenly pulled hard on the wheel, yanking it to the right. The van made a hard turn, screeching over the ground and throwing its occupants against the windows. It kept moving forward, nearly skidding into a metal sign that read “Donut Time” before Liv was able to pull the wheel again, righting it and directing it back onto the road.

  Cedric turned his head to look behind him, and that’s when he understood Liv’s plan.

  Several of the wraths’ vehicles hadn’t been able to make the turn in time to follow Liv, and instead had gone sailing straight into the Gravity Incident. Now four cars and two motorcycles hovered in the air, their wheels spinning uselessly as they floated through empty space. Many of the rest of the vehicles had stopped just before hitting the incident, and some wraths were getting out to try to help down their floating comrades.

  Only one singl
e car had managed to make the turn quick enough and was still following Liv, though as she made another turn, Cedric realized it might be easier for her to gain speed and lose it on these streets.

  Liv grinned. “Calabasas Gravity Incident. One of the first.”

  “That,” Cedric said, grinning in response, “was genius.”

  “Thanks, but I got the idea from the poor security guard who made the mistake of trying to chase me down in the Grove.” She put one hand up toward the ceiling of the van. “I really owe you, random guard guy!”

  Liv made another turn, her eyes on the rearview mirror.

  “There is still one back there,” Kat said from the backseat.

  “Hey, I’ll take one over thirteen,” Liv said, but her smile slipped a bit. “I’ll try to lose this one, too.”

  But as they drove on, turning down street after street, the vehicle behind them managed to keep up. It never pulled forward or beside them, but followed them at a safe distance. Kat counted three wraths in the car.

  “Why’s it staying back like that? What’re they waiting for?” Shannon asked, her voice tinged with panic.

  Liv shook her head, making turns and speeding up to try to lose the vehicle. But it stayed stubbornly behind her as they passed gray, boxy buildings and empty lots filled with dirt. In the distance, a bolt of lightning forked to the ground.

  Behind them, a second car joined the first one still chasing them. It pulled onto the road from a random side street and sped up quickly.

  “They’re regrouping,” Kat said.

  They were all quiet and tense, but Cedric noticed that Liv’s shoulders grew straighter and straighter, her look of concentration pulled down in a frown. She looked down at the panel behind the steering wheel and bit her lip.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked quietly. “I mean, more than usual?”

  Liv swallowed and looked at him. “We’re almost out of gas.”

  “What?” Shannon asked, leaning forward.

  “That is bad, right?” Merek responded.

  “It’s pretty bad, yeah,” Liv said.

  Two more cars pulled into the road behind them, alongside the others. Liv pushed her foot down on the gas pedal, but the van seemed to be going as fast as possible already.

  “On the plus side, the more cars that follow us, the more viewers we seem to keep on the stream,” Peter said. “Almost eight hundred now.”

  Liv peered out at the still-orange sky. “Not enough.”

  “One more car just joined the group,” Merek said from the backseat. “A Jeep.”

  No one said anything for a few moments, dread settling heavily over them.

  “Maybe we should stop now and fight,” Cedric finally said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the feeling of anxiety loosened from his stomach. It was much better to face the wraths and fight, swords out, than to sit in this chair and helplessly watch them get nearer and nearer.

  “We need to give our plan more time to work,” Liv said. “If you’re right, Cedric, if this works and they turn back into men . . . I can’t risk us killing any of them.”

  She looked at Cedric with pleading eyes, and he knew what she was saying—she didn’t want him to kill Joe, even if he was in his new form. Even if he was one of the number of wraths pursuing them now.

  “Nine hundred viewers,” Peter said, angling the phone to catch the cars chasing them.

  Liv’s own eyes were on the glass panel behind the wheel, where Cedric saw a small red icon blink on. The word above it read “Empty.”

  They surged forward.

  Cedric looked out his window to see one of the cars moving up on their right-hand side, pulling almost level with his window. It was close enough for Cedric to see the driver’s black eyes through the window.

  The wrath looked at Cedric and smiled, pulling its thin lips across its teeth. Then it jerked its hands hard to the left, sending its car smashing into the side of Cedric’s door.

  There was the sound of screeching metal, then a jolt. Liv swerved wildly to her left, but another car was on that side, boxing her in.

  Shannon caught her breath first. “Holy sh—”

  “Liv!” Peter interrupted, “Knock them back!”

  “What?” Liv screamed.

  “Try to knock them off the road before they can push you off.”

  Liv’s eyes darted wildly between the two cars framing either side of the van. “Are you insane? I’m not Mad Max.”

  “Well, you’re gonna have to be!”

  Shannon stuck her head up near Liv’s. “Do it!”

  Liv’s mouth fell open, her brows knitting together in concentration. The car on her side of the van swerved suddenly, smashing into her door and sending them all rocking in their seats again.

  “Maybe I can help,” Cedric added. He looked quickly at Liv, then pushed the button to roll his window down. He pulled himself partway up through the window and thrust his head and shoulders through—along with his sword.

  The van was moving so fast that Cedric had to momentarily close his eyes against the wind, which blew his hair back and pressed his shirt against his skin. He balanced himself against the window frame and focused on the wrath driving in the car immediately to his right. The next time it swerved the car over to knock into the van, Cedric swung out with his sword arm, slashing its metal tip against the side of the car.

  The sword didn’t slow the car down, but it did leave a long scratch and a grating metal-on-metal noise that looked like it gave the wrath driver pause.

  Next, Cedric swung for the window. He couldn’t get enough leverage on his sword to break through the glass entirely, but he swung out hard enough to send spiderweb cracks up the window surface, obscuring the face of the wrath driver.

  Cedric heard another cracking noise and turned around—both Rafe and Kat were hanging partway out of their own windows, swinging their weapons at nearby cars as well. Merek kept an eye through the back windshield for new cars joining the chase.

  Rafe made a solid hit against a car’s wheel, and it went spinning off the roadway in a squealing cloud of dust. He turned to Cedric with a grin and shouted, “This is excellent!”

  The wrath driver closest to Cedric pulled a few more feet away, though it still kept steady with the van. Cedric slipped back into his seat for a moment and looked to Liv. Her knuckles were still white on the steering wheel, and she gave him a wan smile.

  “Seriously, stuntman is your calling.” Her words were light, but she couldn’t keep the strain from her voice. Her focus shifted to the red Empty light once again. Cedric turned back toward the window, ready to keep any advancing wraths at bay. But he counted eight cars behind them now—if all eight decided to rush their van at once . . . there was little his one sword could do.

  “We’re past a thousand. The comments are going nuts,” Peter said. “People are confused, but they’re loving it.”

  “Glad someone is,” Liv muttered. Then she mumbled something else that sounded to Cedric like her made-up mantra, “Accept the magic.” She kept her eyes focused ahead, where lightning still crashed down in the distance from the angry clouds.

  Peter swung the phone around to aim it at the seat behind him, where Kat was still hanging half out a window, swinging her sword, while Merek held her legs down to the seat from inside. Cedric saw that Kat was engaged in an actual sword fight—one of the wraths sitting in the backseat of a large, boxy black vehicle was leaning out of his own window and trying his hardest to knock Kat from hers. Part of Kat’s sleeve was torn and fluttering in the wind, and Cedric saw a thin trail of blood running down past her elbow.

  “Liv! Move to the left—now!”

  The van swerved suddenly, and Kat was given a moment’s reprieve from the wrath in the other car. Unfortunately, Liv had swerved too far in the other direction, which nearly crushed Rafe between the van and the large vehicle on the other side. Rafe pushed himself flat against the window of the van, hugging its roof, as the wrath car nearest to him
again swerved nearer. It grew closer and closer, too fast for Rafe to slip back inside the safety of the van—

  And then it surged forward. The car moved quickly ahead, knocking into the front end of the van instead of Rafe’s window and moving past them quickly. The black car next to Kat’s window shot forward, too. Cedric whipped his head around, confused, and it took him a moment to realize—those cars weren’t going any faster; the van was slowing down.

  And getting slower every second. Several vehicles and motorcycles sailed past the van before putting on their brakes and turning around.

  Cedric lowered himself back into the passenger seat. “What happened? Why aren’t we going forward?

  “The tank ran out.” Liv’s panicked eyes swiveled from the dashboard to him. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  THE LAST STAND

  Liv’s foot pressed the gas pedal down to the floor, but the van refused to move.

  The wraths in their cars and trucks and motorcycles were turning around, forming a large circle around the stalled-out van. A stucco apartment building sat in a wide lot on one side of the road, and on the other was a small building with “Sherman Oaks Burger Time” printed in faded red letters on a yellow roof. It looked abandoned, its lights off and its two patio tables empty in the daylight.

  There was no one here to help them.

  Liv turned to Cedric. His hair was wild from the wind, and his eyes were wide as they tracked the wraths that started to circle them.

  “We’re surrounded,” Cedric said.

  Liv turned around to see both Shannon and Peter staring out the windows at the wraths that circled nearer. They looked terrified, though Peter managed to keep the phone in his hand trained on the monsters outside so viewers could see.

  “How are we doing, Peter?”

  He turned to her, his face pale and stretched-looking, and in his eyes was pure panic. He didn’t move.