Daring Hearts: Fearless Fourteen Boxed Set

by Box Set

  I knew what Owen had figured out before anyone else.

  “He knew from the beginning.” Travis had come to the same conclusion I had, his voice as dead as the rock that had suddenly lodged itself in my gut. “Owen knew what Abran was right from the start.”

  “No, Travis,” I whispered, almost scared to put voice to the thought that had just rampaged through me. “He knew what they were. He knows what the Tar are, what they are capable of, and what Abran is doing to exploit that.”

  “Shit,” Travis growled, the word drowned out by the roar of the engine as he pulled us into a higher speed, my heart rate screaming at the increased danger.

  Travis said something else, something that was lost in the sound of the engine, but I didn’t even care anymore. We needed to get to Blood Rose, no matter how dangerous it was. Our reasons for getting there just seemed to keep adding up.

  Owen knew.

  At least as far as we could tell, he knew. It was a strangely frightening yet comforting thought. Comforting because, if Owen did know, if he did put the warnings in plain sight and knew exactly what Abran was capable of, then getting the help we needed to stop him wouldn’t be quite so difficult. Frightening because, if he knew and understood so much about the Tar that he was able to put such clear warnings in plain sight, then I only had to take one step into Blood Rose for him to know exactly what I was.

  Even if I didn’t know anymore.

  The whole ‘turning into a Tar’ thing had been so clear before: my blood changes; I get angry; I sleep a lot; I start attacking everyone; and then I cut myself and am caput.

  Easy.

  Well, in some twisted universe it was easy.

  Now, it didn’t seem quite so easy, quite so straightforward anymore.

  No one had mentioned talking in my sleep. No one had mentioned that I was going to go straight up crazy and start viewing the world like I was on some kind of hallucinogen. I wasn’t about to bring up that particular tidbit to Travis yet, either. Not when we were so close.

  Of course, I would consider it if what I had seen was simply a twisted side effect of being knocked in the head one too many times, but I had a very tense ball in my chest that told me it wasn’t.

  What I had seen was real, as real as the voice that still echoed through my.

  Part of me wanted to deny it, but I didn’t think I could. After all, there had been signs of what was coming. I had heard clicks where clicks didn’t exist. I had seen shadows move through clothing racks. I had written words on a wall, only to have them disappear. I had stood in what I thought was light, only to discover that the light had long since burned out.

  The world had been changing around me so subtly I had missed it until I looked into the wide, yellow eyes of a creature that saw the monster in me. It tried to make the last of that change and showed me the world it had been grooming me for, a world that part of me belonged in. A world that somehow existed beside our own.

  The Tar’s world.

  My back stiffened a bit at the thought, my breathing picking up on its own.

  The Tar’s world.

  I was seeing the Tar’s world.

  Or rather, I was seeing the world as they saw it.

  A world with light, a world where everything is inverted and distorted and broken. Yes, it was enough to think that it was some kind of drug-induced reality, but knowing what they were and the way they were changing me …

  “Travis,” I spoke his name quietly as the painful reality took hold, part of me was pleading for support, while a much louder piece screamed that I shouldn’t tell him, that I should keep this information to myself. I shouldn’t tell him what had happened, how far I was changing.

  The thought scared me.

  We had believed we were playing with fire by bringing me to Blood Rose in the condition I was in before. Now… Now I was only one bad injury away from sprouting wings and dripping blood.

  Not yet, no matter how close it was, no matter how sharp the inescapable reality came, I wouldn’t accept it. Not yet.

  “You okay?” Travis yelled back at me. I guessed my reaction hadn’t gone unnoticed, even if he hadn’t heard me before.

  I stared at the back of his head, his eyes continually darting back to me in concern. He was worried. He was always worried: worried over Bridget, worried over me, worried over the world. He always had. I didn’t need to add something else to that, not when there was no saving me, not when there wasn’t any positive outcome.

  Not when there wasn’t anything he could do.

  “Yeah,” I yelled, trying to cover my panic with overzealous positivity, praying he didn’t notice. “I’m fine!”

  He looked back at me once more, the sidelong glance severe enough that I knew my attempt at disguising my panic had failed, but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do about it right now, anyway. Instead, he exhaled in the way Dad used to do after a long day and went back to the road, his back tense and unmoving from where I leaned against him.

  Okay, so maybe keeping the info to myself wasn’t the best idea. I really didn’t see another option, though. It wasn’t as if I could explain it very well on the back of this bike with my head pounding like it was.

  Sometimes, you had to be strong, face things on your own, and carry the oozing black world on your own shoulders for a while.

  Like now. No matter how hard and gross it was, I couldn’t let him get his hands dirty with this one. Besides, the less he knew when we got to Blood Rose, the better. For all I knew, they had some kind of lie detector test as a requirement to get in.

  Travis continued to push the bike forward while my eyes remained trained, unseeing, on the power lines we were following. The thoughts swirled through my mind on overdrive as I tried to figure out what to say to Travis, how to come up with some crazy back up plan just in case Blood Rose wouldn’t let me in. There were too many ‘what ifs’ in my mind right now.

  I didn’t know how long I stared, how long I sat frozen on that bike, my mind trying to make sense over everything. But it was too long.

  It was too long before I saw the black shapes gliding through the air just beyond the power lines. It was too long before I realized we were being followed, that someone had found us.

  And someone had sent an army of black winged beasts after us.

  We had run out of time.

  “Travis,” I bellowed loud enough that he could hear me over the engine. “How’s the gas?”

  “So far, so good,” he said, his eyes not deviating from the road. “If I keep it steady, we might make it there before we run out.”

  It was good news, but as I watched the black shapes, watched them move closer, watched more appear through the blackness of the distance, I knew keeping the same pace would only spell death. And going any faster wouldn’t get us to where we needed to go. But we had to try. We didn’t have another choice.

  “You need to go faster,” I panted, my voice dead underneath the screaming fear that was rampaging through me.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because we’re being followed.”

  He didn’t even question, only cranked the speed.

  I wished it was enough.

  Chapter Four

  I didn’t dare look away from the spots of black that soared through the air around us. They were blobs of dark ink against a black sky, little distortions so faint that I could tell they thought they were too far away to be seen.

  It was too bad for them that I could see in the dark.

  I could see them, not that it actually helped.

  All it did was tell us how much closer they were, how much closer death was to reaching us. All it did was give us a heftier time table to how long we would have to push the bike while we prayed it would hold out until we reached Blood Rose.

  It was something that was seeming more hopeless by the minute.

  I stared at the specks, my eyes focused as the wind whipped my hair around my face, the long, red strands the only color I could see.
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  Black and more black and red.

  If only the black would stop coming, if only the blobs would stop multiplying…

  I had last counted more than twenty—twenty monsters that followed us, surrounding us from all sides.

  They kept pace with us as if they were guard dogs, pacing, watching, deciding when to attack.

  My muscles tensed, knowing they would decide soon, knowing when they did, we were little more than ducks being hunted for sport.

  It didn’t matter how fast Travis drove, how far we could push the bike. If we didn’t make it to Blood Rose before that decision was made … Well, let’s just say that there was no way I could fight more than twenty Tar, even with Travis’s help.

  “Go faster,” I growled from between clenched teeth, knowing Travis couldn’t hear me. Even if he could, it didn’t matter. I knew he was already pushing the bike to its limit. Either that or the bike just really liked to vibrate randomly as Travis pleaded with it “not to give up yet.”

  We had to be close.

  I looked away from the pacing blobs to the power lines, wishing they would somehow give me a sign as to how far away we were yet knowing it wouldn’t.

  I knew the bright yellow blinking light of “sanctuary this way” wasn’t really the best idea. You really didn’t want to advertise where you were, especially now that the whole “stay in the light” thing was null and void. Of course, that was essentially what we were doing with our loud motorcycle with its lights blazing a trail before us…

  Oh, no.

  Pulling my focus away from the power lines, I looked to the monsters that soared through the air, my heart dropping when I saw that, in the few moments I had looked away, they had moved closer, their bodies more than mere blobs now.

  Their shape was defined, their wings easily distinguishable from the black on black scheme they were trying to use as camouflage. I could see them, though, and part of me knew what they were up to.

  “What do you think the possibility is that these are Abran’s men?” I yelled the question above the engine, above the wind, fully aware that we hadn’t even questioned if they were. After all, when the Tar were chasing you, you ran. It didn’t really matter who they had sworn their allegiance to if they all wanted you dead.

  “Why does it matter?” he yelled back, and my heart dropped even farther.

  “Because what if they aren’t? What if we are leading the Tar right to Blood Rose?”

  Travis swore loudly at the realization, the bike swerving dangerously as he dodged around an abandoned car and made for what used to be the Cherrywood Drive exit.

  My head pulsed painfully with the movement of the bike, my muscles and heart seizing as I tried desperately to steady myself, knowing there was nothing I could do except sway alongside my brother and pray I didn’t have to kiss the asphalt.

  With my hands pushing against the ropes that were still holding me in place, I tried my best to get free, to keep my balance, suddenly afraid the fight was going to happen much sooner than I needed.

  I needed to get at my rail, and I had a bad feeling that it had been left in the garage.

  Why couldn’t I hold onto a weapon for more than two hours? That really wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

  The bike swayed again as we reached the end of the off ramp, and Travis pulled us to the right, toward an abandoned warehouse district that, fifteen years ago, had already been scary enough. Now, it was terrifying.

  “I don’t like this plan,” I groaned, knowing it was useless.

  “Well, if you come up with a new one, let me know.” He was angry, and I didn’t blame him. We had just barely found a bike, and now everything was starting to fall into piles of ashes. I only hoped we weren’t one of them.

  “How far away are we from Blood Rose?” I asked, a nearly impossible plan falling into place.

  “That doesn’t matter anymore, Lex. I can’t lead them there—”

  “No,” I interrupted as we turned down an alley that had turned into a graveyard all those years before. The old, cobbled road was covered with rings of ashes that erupted into a blizzard of grey behind us as we drove.

  “What if I drive the bike without the lights on so they can’t see us as easily? Maybe we can stay undetected long enough to get away.” I knew it was a crazy suggestion, and judging by the way Travis glared at me out of the corner of his eye, I knew he thought so, too.

  But maybe crazy was what we needed right now.

  “Hear me out,” I pleaded, trying not to cringe as he turned again, this time into a warehouse that was full of decaying furniture. “You don’t have time to teach me, but I can steer while you do everything else. I can see in the dark. And if we go slowly, the bike’s not so loud. We would have the gas to get us there, and then the Tar may not see us well enough to follow us.”

  The bike slowed even more as I spoke, his back tensing and relaxing as he slowly pulled us to a stop, the bike idling underneath us.

  He said nothing, only looked at me, his fingers moving quickly to untie the rope that I was still restrained by.

  “We don’t have any bullets left.”

  I looked at him curiously, trying to understand how that was connected before it clicked in my mind, and my mouth opened in a little surprised ‘oh,’ my eyes wide enough to match it.

  “If we can’t outrun them, if we can’t hide from them—”

  “I know.”

  It seemed pathetic that, after everything we had gone through, we would be stuck in this place after a dislocated shoulder, spider girls, and houses full of Tar. However, our perseverance had gotten us this far, so let’s hope it could get us through this, too.

  I guessed we were more stubborn than we thought.

  Some people called it brave.

  Right now, it just might be foolish.

  As soon as the ropes fell away from me, I hopped off the bike then slid into the seat in front of my brother, my body so small compared to his that we could both fit comfortably on the front seat, something that would be needed with what we were about to do.

  “I’ll do everything but steer; you have to do that. And talk to me about what’s ahead so I can gauge speed and cornering and everything.” I swear he just spoke French.

  “Cornering?”

  “Turning. You have to lean to turn, but I am sure you have figured that out.” He gave me what was probably the only instruction I would need, something that had scared me so much before that it seemed silly to be worried about it right then. “It doesn’t take much, so just a little lean will do it…” His voice drifted away, his nerves carrying it into the dark world that we were about to fling ourselves into once again.

  “I don’t know about you, but I think I would rather crawl on the floor surrounded by hundreds of these things again than do this.”

  “You aren’t the only one,” he growled, making it quite clear what he thought about the dangerous thing we were about to attempt.

  He looked at me once, his eyes wide and full of words and apologies and goodbyes and love and every other gushy thing I knew he wouldn’t say to me, nor I to him. I saw it all in that look before he leaned around me, his palm pressing into the lights that he had taped to the headlamp, turning them off and sending the world into darkness.

  Part of me expected that glistening sub-world of before to appear, but it was only black, only dust. It was only the heavy beat of fear that pulsed in my chest. It was only tense muscles and anxiety so heavy I could drown in it. It was only my brother’s heavy breathing from behind me and a large empty warehouse that looked more like a maze than a sanctuary, the bike purring underneath us so loudly that, if it wasn’t for the way my heart was pulled to the sound, I would have missed it.

  I would have missed the warning.

  Click.

  “They’re here,” I hissed into the dark, Travis tensing as I did.

  Click.

  I tensed even more, the sound coming so much more quickly than they had before, making me questi
on how close they were or, even worse, how many of those black specks had followed us into this dilapidated maze of buildings and rot.

  Click.

  I supposed we were about to find out.

  “We need to get back to the freeway,” Travis whispered in my ear, his voice shaking a bit as his hands began to quake. “Get out of the building and weave through the work district a bit. We should try to lose them before we get back on the freeway. The freeway is the only way we are going to get to Owen and the others.”

  I nodded once, realizing too late that he couldn’t see the movement. It didn’t matter, anyway.

  Click.

  “We need to move,” I hissed again, desperately trying to make my meaning clear. I could steer the sucker, but I couldn’t drive it if any of us wanted to stay upright. That needed to be up to him.

  He seemed to understand, the engine roaring a bit as he turned the throttle, the bike beginning to crawl forward at a snail’s pace.

  Even though we were barely moving, the complexity of what we were about to do became apparently clear. I had thought the word ‘hard’ was going to cover it, but ‘impossible’ was seeming more likely at this point.

  Holding onto the handlebars tightly, I tried to keep the bike going in a straight line, but even with the little amount of movement, we began to pull to the right, the weight displacement guiding the bike of its own accord.

  Despite my best effort, the bike began to dip to the side, the fall stopped by the heavy fall of Travis’s foot against the cement floor.

  “It’ll be easier when we get going,” Travis whispered, the shake in his voice only getting worse. I didn’t blame him; this was possibly the worst idea ever. It wasn’t like we had any other choice, though. We needed this to work.

  “Don’t let me get above twenty-five miles an hour.”

  Click.

  Travis had barely got the words out before the hollow click of talons against concrete echoed loudly around me. I turned around on instinct, the sound calling to me as it had every other time, fear and longing pulling me together in a desperate need to see, only to instantly regret having followed the intuition.