by Skye Malone
He directed the last to me and I nodded. Noah did the same when Zeke looked to him.
“We’ll go to the house,” Zeke continued. “There’s no point in sneaking through the forest when we don’t know where her parents are and the greliarans can hear us coming anyway. We’ll see if we can convince your relatives to bring them out, and get Chloe close enough to help her mom and dad. Then it’s just a matter of buying time till the police arrive.”
“Which might be the hardest part,” Noah pointed out.
“Will they kill you?” Zeke asked him.
I looked over in alarm.
Noah paused. “Probably not.”
I swallowed, wishing he could have made his response sound more certain than it did.
“Then you cover our retreat if we have to run,” Zeke told him.
A moment passed before Noah nodded again.
“Good,” Zeke finished. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Twelve
Wyatt
Dehaians were inside the house.
Dehaians were everywhere.
And if I didn’t get to kill at least one of them soon, I was going to go insane.
Fighting back a growl, I paced away from the front room. A trio of scum-suckers had gathered there to watch the road, and their proximity was making me twitch. They didn’t seem to know what we were – an ignorance that would’ve been a pleasure to dispel if not for Dad forbidding us from coming near them. He wanted their help containing that Zeke guy if he tried to escape, and I’d nearly ended up with a broken rib for insisting we could take care of the scale-skin bastard ourselves.
It was insulting. We were working with fish. Fish. And sure, Dad promised we’d throw them all in the basement and kill them nice and slow once the guy was dead, but in the meantime…
The growl threatened to come back. In the meantime, I’d spent hours being forced to pretend I was human, while carrying on like we were some grieving family all heartbroken over little Brock. Dad was the only one who didn’t seem to be having trouble with the charade, though Clay and Owen appeared pretty content to play along. Countermanding Dad never even occurred to them, and when he’d sent them both into the woods a little while ago, ordering them to keep watch, they hadn’t even tried to protest.
Dad trusted them too much. Half a dozen scale-skins had gone with each of them, and I wouldn’t gamble on the idiots resisting the urge to kill those things for more than five minutes at most.
His whole plan was ridiculous.
As usual.
I shook my head while I made my way down the hall. Past the basement door, I could hear the man and his wife still sniveling quietly. They hadn’t looked good last time I checked. Pale and shaking, they’d barely been able to pull away when I nudged them with my foot. The room stank from where one of them had thrown up at some point, and the sweat covering them just added to the stench.
The girl better get here soon. Those two wouldn’t last much longer, and while hostages were one thing, bluffing that our leverage still lived was something else entirely.
I reached the end of the hallway and paused. The back room stretched the width of the house, and most of its far wall consisted only of windows. There was almost no furniture, barring the dining table to my right and a few ragged easy chairs near the old television on my left. We rarely spent much time in here, since I preferred eating in my room and none of us cooked for each other anyway. Random discarded objects scattered the tabletop as a result – from old mail to empty dishes – most of them abandoned on trips through the room and then forgotten.
But that Niall guy was in there. Standing by the dinner table, he was watching the ocean past the windows while his hand idly rolled one of Clay’s baseballs back and forth across the wooden tabletop. Only half his face was visible to me, and he didn’t turn when I stopped by the door. Dehaians didn’t have our hearing and I was quiet by default; he probably didn’t even know I was here.
I tensed with the urge to rush him. The guy bothered me, even more than the other fish. There was just something off about him. He was cold as hell when the other scale-skins were nearby, and he ordered them around like he was some goddamn king. But when he was alone…
The guy’s brow twitched down, a look on his face like he was bothered by something. I eased back into the hall.
When he was alone, he fidgeted with whatever was at hand and stared at nothing like he was chasing something in circles inside his head.
It was creepy.
I would have loved to make it stop.
Dad’s footsteps thudded on the stairs. Niall turned, that icy arrogance back on his face, and I quickly tried to make it seem like I’d just been walking down the hallway.
“Car’s coming,” Dad said when he reached the hall.
I looked past him to the door. I didn’t hear–
Tires rumbled faintly in the distance.
I started to smile. The expression died at Dad’s glare.
Niall strode past me.
My hands flinched and I barely kept myself from grabbing him. He was so close. So goddamn close…
The scum-sucker moved off down the hall.
“Keep it together,” Dad growled, coming up beside me. “I see you try that again…”
The threat in his voice was more than clear. He’d beaten us to pulps when we were kids and we didn’t do things his way. Now that we were older, it hadn’t much stopped, though these days, heavy objects usually got involved.
He was bigger, he was stronger, and he damn well knew it. He didn’t even look at me again as he turned and walked after Niall.
I shuddered. I hated him. His stupid plans and the way he’d left us stuck here, pretending to be humans with scale-skins all around. There weren’t words to describe it. This wasn’t how greliarans were meant to behave.
But then, the girl would be dead soon. I’d squeeze the life out of her pretty little fish body and I’d finally get to feel that magic rushing into me. Putting up with that muscle-bound jackass for all these years would almost be worth it once that happened.
Working to keep my hands from shaking, I followed him to the door.
Chapter Thirteen
Chloe
The dense forest made me feel like I was trapped in a tunnel of green with monsters at the end.
Which was mostly true.
In the back seat of Olivia’s car, I cast a nervous glance ahead of me to Noah for the twentieth time. He’d hidden his presence from his family, though we all knew they’d hear us coming anyway. But maybe, if they didn’t hide as well, we’d have some warning of where they were in this mess of evergreen trees.
But so far, there was nothing.
The car came around a turn of the track, and a bit farther on, the road opened up into a clearing. A two-story, cabin-like house of red logs stood to the right of the path, with a raised porch running the length of the building. The green, aluminum-slatted roof blended with the trees, while a matching shed waited to the left of the road.
And beyond it all lay the ocean. The waves crashed into the rocky shore in a turbulent rush, while the sky stretched from here to the horizon in a great swath of bluish-gray haze that ultimately blurred into the sea.
In spite of everything, I shivered with longing, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Zeke shift a bit. I glanced to him. One hand steadying the shotgun that was propped upright beside his legs, he blinked and tugged his gaze from the sea.
It’d been so long. I’d felt the ocean this entire time, and knew we were getting close, but seeing it again…
I drew a breath, forcing myself to concentrate while Olivia pulled the car to a stop. Being near the water was dangerous. The moment I used any magic to help my parents, the Beast could figure out I was here.
If it didn’t know already.
I swallowed hard, attempting to ignore that thought while I scanned the property.
Nothing moved.
We
climbed from the car. Birds called in the trees. Wind blew from the ocean, carrying the smell of salt and making my skin want to change.
My focus snapped back when the front door opened, its sound loud in the stillness of the clearing.
Niall walked onto the porch.
I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. His face was cold when he looked at us and his brilliant blue eyes were the same. Behind him, Wyatt and a man who could only be the guy’s father emerged from the house. I could see Wyatt shaking from the urge to race at us, though every few heartbeats, his attention twitched toward Niall like he could barely keep from attacking him too.
Niall’s gaze flicked to him, as if noting the shaking as well, though his expression didn’t change.
“Hello Zeke,” he said, looking back to us again.
Zeke’s jaw muscles jumped. “Niall.”
“We’re just here for Chloe’s parents,” Noah called, scanning the clearing.
I followed his gaze nervously, realizing that the other two greliarans were nowhere to be seen.
Wyatt chuckled. “Yeah, well, sure.” He grinned at me. “Come on, pretty. You and your friend join us over here, and we’ll let little Noah have your parents.”
Heart pounding, I looked past him to his father. “Let me see them. I want to know they’re okay.”
The man paused, considering.
“What?” Wyatt mocked. “You don’t trust us?”
I swallowed, watching his dad. “Please,” I added carefully.
The man’s lip twitched. “Wyatt,” he snapped, not taking his eyes from me. “Go get them.”
His son gave him an incredulous glance.
“Now,” the man ordered.
Wyatt’s mouth spasmed toward a snarl, but he went.
Seconds crept past. I took a shaky breath, my gaze sliding toward the ocean. It seemed unchanged.
A door slammed in the house. My heart climbed my throat at the sound of shuffling.
Mom and Dad came out the door with Wyatt behind them. They were hardly walking. They could barely even stand. Their faces were white as ash and their bodies trembled as though the proximity to the ocean was shaking them apart. Clutching each other for stability, they stumbled across the porch till their hands landed on the stairway banister.
I started toward them. Noah caught my arm, holding me back.
Atop the steps, Mom spotted me. Her eyes went wide and her grip clenched on Dad. “Chloe?”
They tried to hurry down the stairs, nearly tumbling to their knees by the time they made it to the yard. Watching them as though he was enjoying the show, Wyatt sauntered after them. They staggered on for a few more steps and then, with a smirk, he shoved them both forward.
A choked noise escaped me when they fell to the dirt.
“Wyatt!” his father barked.
Still smirking, Wyatt held up his hands and retreated, leaving them in the center of the clearing.
Noah and Zeke stayed with me as I rushed forward. Taking up positions on either side of me, they eyed Wyatt and the others while I dropped to my knees.
“Chloe,” Dad gasped. “Go. Get out of–” His words degenerated into a hacking cough.
I grasped their hands. Their skin was cool. Too cool, and their fingers trembled in mine.
My gaze flashed to the water. I prayed that Beast thing wouldn’t feel this.
I closed my eyes, willing them to be okay, for the ocean to stop hurting, for nothing of the sea to cause them pain ever again.
A shiver tingled across my skin, as if it was about to change. I drew a sharp breath, opening my eyes.
Color was returning to their faces. Their trembling faded away. They seemed to be breathing easier than before.
Dad blinked and then looked up at me. “Chloe, what did you do?”
I glanced to the ocean. The waves rolled in under the blue-metal sky, seeming no different than before. The wind carried the salty air past us, feeling no stronger than it had.
Relief rushed through me. I turned back when Mom pushed up from the ground.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she whispered with amazement. “Nothing… nothing hurts.”
“What happened?” Wyatt snapped.
My gaze rose to find him gaping at me with offended rage like I’d stolen his toy. On the porch, Niall stared as if he couldn’t decide whether I was an abomination or a prize.
Wyatt’s dad cleared his throat. “Take her,” he ordered his son, his voice a bit less steady than before. “The boy too.”
“That won’t be happening,” Olivia called, stepping past us quickly. Alarmed, Noah grabbed at her arm to stop her, but she avoided him with barely a glance. Straightening to every inch of her height, she came to a halt between us and the porch stairs, and regarded Wyatt’s father with a stern expression.
Wyatt snorted at her. “Oh, really? You gonna stop us?”
Olivia didn’t even look at him. “I am here on behalf of your benefactors, Richard,” she declared. “Of which I am one. Your protections are in danger of being removed. If you do not allow me to take the entire Kowalski family, Noah, and Zeke out of here unharmed, I will make certain you and your sons find yourselves on a fast track to prison.”
Curiosity flickered through Niall’s eyes at the words.
“What if we just kill you instead?” Wyatt snapped.
Olivia ignored him.
Richard did as well. “Nice speech,” he replied, “considering you have no proof.”
“My proof lies in the police who are coming, and the sheriff who will, if we ask, suddenly find himself being paid to arrest you rather than look the other way.”
Richard’s mouth twitched toward a snarl, though he held it mostly under control. “You’re bluffing. I know one benefactor who offered us just about anything to get those two back – including her parents. And plenty of others who are invested in his ‘research’.”
“There are a few,” Olivia allowed. “However, the individual who established the arrangement with your local sheriff is not one of them. So tell me… how do you feel about losing your home? Your freedom? How would you like to see your sons in prison over the little ‘problems’ we’ve cleaned up for you over the years?”
The man didn’t respond. At my side, I saw Noah glance to the forest, his brow flickering down.
“This is bullshit,” Wyatt spat into the silence. “We don’t need your protection, you pathetic, scum-sucker-loving–”
“Shut up, Wyatt,” Richard snapped. His gaze twitched to the forest too.
I swallowed. I couldn’t hear anything.
That didn’t mean much.
“You bring the cops out here,” Richard continued, pulling his focus back to us. “You call the sheriff. I’ll show them the thing that murdered my son.”
Niall glanced from Richard to Zeke, the curiosity in his gaze taking on a tinge of caution.
Olivia shook her head. “We–”
“No!” Richard barked. “My son is dead, so you take your arrangement and you shove it, you hear me?” He gestured sharply to Wyatt. “Get them over here.”
Wyatt started forward.
Zeke swung the shotgun up while Noah moved in front of me.
“I’m warning you!” Olivia cried. “I forbid you from–”
Wyatt grabbed her and flung her at Zeke.
A shout came from the forest, followed by a roar. A man screamed, the sound cutting short fast, and then another roar rose from behind the trees on the opposite side of the clearing.
Zeke turned to grab me while Olivia stumbled aside. Noah stayed between us and Wyatt, trying to watch both sides of the yard and his cousin all at once.
Two men ran from the forest.
A greliaran chased them. More fissures than I’d ever seen on Noah covered the guy, till he looked like a monster of molten lava that skin could barely hold in human form.
“Trap!” one of the men shouted at Niall. “They
’re–”
The greliaran caught him, hefted him bodily into the air, and then hurled him back toward a tree, where he hit with a sickening crunch. The other man turned, spikes rushing from his arms.
He followed his companion into the tree trunk.
Niall took one look at Richard and then leapt from the porch to the dirt. Richard started after him, his skin changing.
Another greliaran ran from the woods on the other side of the clearing, in pursuit of more men. When the dehaians reached the yard, they spun to face the creature, spikes extended.
In a single motion, the greliaran grabbed two of them by the throat. Their spikes deflected uselessly from his arms as he lifted them, and his mouth curved into a smile while their bodies thrashed and flailed.
Their necks snapped in his hands.
The greliaran shuddered, utter ecstasy slackening his inhuman face. He tossed the bodies aside.
I stared, frozen.
Zeke hauled on my arm, dragging me from the ground.
“Run!” Noah ordered us, his gaze darting from Wyatt to the other greliarans.
Olivia wasted no time; she grabbed my mother by one elbow and my father by the other. “Get up!” she commanded, watching the greliarans.
Mom and Dad scrambled to their feet.
Wyatt roared and charged at Noah, slamming into him and driving him back toward us. Olivia and my parents tumbled aside, barely managing to get out of the way, while Zeke pulled me to him and away from their path.
Motion caught the corner of my eye. I turned.
Niall lunged at me.
Zeke twisted, trying to push me aside and block him.
Niall drove his fist into his brother’s stomach, and a choked noise escaped Zeke when the blow landed hard. Without hesitation, Niall pulled back his other fist and swung at Zeke’s face.
Richard snagged Niall’s arm. Snarling like a wild animal, he took Niall’s shoulder with his other hand and then hurled him backwards.
“Get over here, you bastard,” Richard growled at Zeke.
Keeping me behind him, Zeke retreated as the man stalked toward us.
