by Skye Malone
Maneuvering the truck around the turn to the bridge, Wes couldn’t stop himself from throwing yet another glance at Lindy. With her body pressed to the passenger side door and her legs drawn up, she looked fragile and small in the large truck, and his wolf snarled, damn near rabid with the need to attack whatever the hell was frightening her.
Except the threat was inside her.
And it scared the hell out of him too.
He pushed the pedal down harder, sending the truck roaring past a cluster of draugar surrounding an abandoned car on the bridge. She’d moved like lightning, one minute standing by the west entrance of the garage and the next standing in its center while the power those Allegiant bastards had been throwing at him hit her instead. And just as he’d been about to shift and tear those murderous fucks limb from limb, she’d…
What the hell had she done? Slammed them into a wall so hard they damn near became pancakes?
Gods.
And it hurt her. Everything hurt her. The Allegiants and what they’d tried. Getting across that field full of draugar like the six of them were invisible. It hurt her and it was impossible and if he didn’t figure out how to help her…
He raced the truck through a narrow gap between two destroyed vehicles, silently cursing the obstacle course of the bridge. Maybe he was making a mistake. Maybe he should insist they head back to Mariposa rather than continue on to Minneapolis. After all, what the hell did he know about seidr? In Mariposa there was the seer, Ingrid, with all her expertise, not to mention Hayden and all she could do. They could help Lindy better than he ever could.
Except… she’d never agree.
His eyes twitched to her again. She’d barely been able to stand after everything that happened in the garage. What happened if she had to do that again?
What happened? He didn’t even know what the fuck was happening at all.
The end of the bridge passed and he threw a look into the rearview mirror, checking on the orange SUV. The humans were right behind him, and when he sped up on the open stretch of snowy road, they did the same, sticking to the treads left by his tires and following him as he raced toward the interstate.
No draugar charged the vehicles, and whatever other Allegiants remained in the area, the bastards didn’t show their faces.
When the on-ramp finally appeared, he slowed, checking around carefully before coming to a stop. Putting the truck into park, he hesitated a heartbeat before taking the keys from the ignition as well.
“Stay here for a sec, okay?” he said.
She didn’t respond.
Guilt gnawing at him, he climbed out. Leaving the keys would have been foolish. He wasn’t trying to trap her, but she seemed back to wanting to go off on her own. And she could. She really could. This wasn’t a hostage situation.
But he was scared for her, and the thought of her being out here alone, barely able to stand while the gods knew what was happening to her inside?
If he’d been in wolf form, he would have howled.
Yasmeen climbed from the small SUV. After their passage through the field of draugar—and seeing her parents—she still looked shaken, but the determination was creeping back into her bearing. “Everything okay?” she called.
Wes nodded. “Yeah.” Not even close. “Just wanted to say, unless you all have somewhere else you’re planning on going, you should head to southern Colorado.”
The woman’s eyebrow twitched up, curious.
“Mariposa. It’s, um—” He threw a quick look back to the truck. “It’s where we’re from. It’s safe there.”
Yasmeen nodded. “That’s where we’ll go, then.”
“One thing, though?”
She paused.
“There are some folks there who are, uh… different. Not like her—” He nodded to the truck. “But different. They won’t hurt you if you don’t try to hurt them, though. Just tell them Wes sent you.”
After a heartbeat, she nodded again, thoughtfully. “Okay.” She drew a breath, giving him a smile. “Thanks for… everything.”
He smiled back.
She started back to the SUV and then paused. “Tell her that, too, please?” She glanced toward the pickup. “Thank you?”
“Will do.”
Her smile returned. Without another word, she climbed into the vehicle. Anthony steered the SUV past him a moment later, and in the back seat, Eloise waved while Julia managed a shy smile.
He exhaled, his breath puffing out in the frigid air, and walked back to the truck.
“Yasmeen says thank you,” he told Lindy when he got in.
Lindy gave a small nod, not looking at him. “You tell them to head for Mariposa?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded again.
He braced himself. “Don’t suppose you’d consider also—”
“I’m not going back yet.” Her voice was hard.
He sighed. Of course not.
Unsure what to say, he started the truck up again and headed toward the on-ramp.
Lincoln fell behind them, and then Omaha and the border of Nebraska did too. Snow growled beneath the tires, slowing them down, but the sandbags piled in the back of the pickup helped keep them on the road. A collection of gas containers was back there too, letting him refuel after a while. If nothing else, those Allegiant bastards had clearly been prepared for the bad weather, though there didn’t seem to be any food in the truck.
He tried not to think about why.
After a few hours, snowy signs told him they were nearing Des Moines. From what he’d been able to tell from an atlas he’d found tucked in the pocket behind his seat—along with a stuffed pig that made him wonder who the Allegiants stole this truck from and whether that person was still alive—after Des Moines, it was just a straight shot up the interstate for a few hours and then they’d be in Minneapolis.
He eyed the sky. Under normal conditions, he’d believe they could make it in a day, easy. But the sun would be going down in not too much longer, and that would put an end to driving for the time being.
The last thing he wanted was for them to crash again and lose use of this vehicle too.
His hands adjusted on the wheel, and he blinked tiredly, trying to drive the snow glare from his eyes as signs for the turn toward Minneapolis came into view. Des Moines seemed surprisingly intact, based on the buildings he could see from the highway. Businesses and hotels were still standing, as if the fires hadn’t come near this place and the earthquakes hadn’t managed to tear anything down.
But, intact or not, staying overnight in the city probably wouldn’t be the best plan. Something just didn’t feel right about this place, though damn if he knew what. There wasn’t much of it to see, so far. But if the Order were there and Lindy needed to do anything to stop them again, he’d never forgive himself. Better to head a bit beyond the city. Maybe get off the road entirely, if he was honest. Get away from here and find somewhere remote so they could—
“Holy shit!” He slammed on the brakes as the reason for his discomfort suddenly registered. The truck fishtailed on the snow and ice, sliding onward while details that hadn’t penetrated his mind before now pelted him in rapid-fire horror.
The gray horizon, too close. The gray everything.
Skidding sideways, the truck slid to a stop. Staring, his mouth open in a silent cry, Wes couldn’t move for a moment. They were alive. They’d stopped.
And the road… was gone.
His hands shook as he forced himself to release the wheel, and it wasn’t until he’d jammed the gear shift into park and waited a moment in case the truck decided to move anyway that he could make his foot ease away from the brake.
“What the hell?” Lindy whispered.
His eyes twitched to her, finding her staring too, and then his attention returned to the nonexistent road. Still shaking, he jammed the emergency brake into place for good measure before fumbling for the handle and pushing the door open.
Cold wind swirled around them as th
ey climbed from the truck. Twenty feet ahead, the snowy interstate became rubble, as if the world’s biggest jackhammer had broken it to bits, but only for a small distance.
Beyond that lay an abyss so wide, he had to strain to see any trace of the other edge.
Cautiously, he walked closer. The destruction stretched out on either side, tearing through an apartment complex to his left and a hotel to his right. The buildings clung to the cliff’s edge, pipes sticking out like bent twigs from their sides while pieces of concrete and cinderblock crumbled from their walls as if gradually succumbing to gravity. To the side of the highway, an off-ramp led to nothing, the overpass gone. In the distance, he thought he could make out the opposite side of the abyss, but in the weak gray light, he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just a trick of the overcast sky.
He paused several feet from the edge, his legs and insides quivering with the irrational fear that the ground between him and the chasm would suddenly vanish and send him plunging down. Heights had never been his favorite, and the cliff was a sheer drop with shattered pipes and ripped cables dangling from the sides where once they’d been buried in the earth. He craned his neck, but the bottom of the ravine was lost in shadow and darkness, too deep to see.
“Fenrir,” Lindy whispered.
He backed away from the edge. “What?”
She dropped her attention from the ever-present black gashes torn in the sky, and when she glanced at him, she hesitated, her expression unreadable.
“Fenrir,” she said again, as if admitting something to him. “His teeth. In the myths I learned growing up, when Ragnarok begins, he runs through the realms, his top jaw scraping the heavens and his lower ripping into the earth, devouring…” Her eyes slid along the abyss, and she drew a shaky breath. “Devouring everything in his path.”
Wes followed her gaze. The chasm carved nearly a straight line north.
Right toward Minneapolis.
“They’ll be okay,” he said, willing the words to be true for her sake as well as her family’s. “You’ll see.”
She nodded.
He hesitated, not sure what else to say, but then, there probably wasn’t anything. They just needed to get going and prove him right.
Or deal with the alternative.
His eyes strayed to the canyon, a shudder rolling through him. Quickly, he strode back to the pickup truck and climbed in.
Lindy didn’t say a word when she joined him.
Putting the vehicle into gear—and checking three times it was in reverse, just to assuage his sudden anxiety about getting that wrong—he backed away from the ravine and then made a swift turn, speeding back the way they’d come. “You want to dig that atlas out?” he asked Lindy, casting quick glances at the chasm in the rearview mirror. “Find us a state road going north?”
“Sure.”
Her voice was quiet and he couldn’t read her tone, but she twisted around, reaching behind the seats and drawing out the map all the same. A few miles later found them headed north along snowy roads through the gently rolling countryside, and the only way he could tell they were staying on the road was by steering between the ditches and occasional trees on either side. From where they were, he couldn’t see any trace of the impossible gash torn through the land to the east of them, but that didn’t stop him from taking it slow, just in case they crested a hill to find the earth ahead of them gone.
His palms felt sweaty beneath his gloves. As if draugar and the Order and creatures from other realms weren’t enough, now the damned ground had gone missing.
The sooner they got back to Mariposa, the better.
Light gradually began fading from the sky as time ticked onward. Vast swaths of farmland surrounded them, and houses were few and far between. At a small house surrounded by trees with a For Sale sign near its driveway, he turned off the road. “Just, um… stay put a sec, okay?” he suggested when he came to a stop.
Lindy glanced at him and then pushed open the door.
“Dammit.” He scrambled out and rounded the truck. “It’s not safe.”
“Neither am I.” Bracing herself on the side of the pickup, she scanned the area and then headed toward the house, her legs seeming barely stable.
Snarling a curse under his breath, he followed her.
The windows of the house were dark and curtains were drawn across most of them. Keeping an eye to them and the surrounding area alike, he headed up to the door, staying to one side in case someone tried to shoot through it.
His knocking produced nothing. Easing down behind the bushes, he inched toward the front window to peer past the glass.
Covered furniture lurked in the gloomy twilight of the living room, and cardboard boxes were stacked against the far wall. Cautiously, he made his way back to the front porch, debating how to get the door open. Kicking it down would be a great way to get shot if someone was hiding inside, but he didn’t exactly have lock-picking tools here.
The windows were pretty old, though.
“Mind if I borrow your knife?” he asked.
Lindy handed it over without a word.
He returned to the old window frame and jimmied the latch. “Hello?” he called when he pried the window open.
Silence answered him.
Hoisting himself over the sill, he waited a moment for anyone to shout before turning to reach back for Lindy.
She was already climbing inside.
He moved quickly to help her, and she froze. “Don’t,” she ordered, her voice tight.
Grimacing, he stepped back. She was shaking when she straightened, and he couldn’t help but note how bloodless she looked. Keeping distance from him, she walked farther into the house, seeming to look anywhere but at him.
Cursing internally, he followed her.
Everything in the house seemed at least forty years out of date, from the threadbare sofa to the ancient kitchen appliances. The bed was missing, but the moving boxes were new. Adult children relocating their parent to a rest home, maybe? That was the best answer, he suspected, and possibly not the correct one, but at least the entire place seemed empty.
He hauled cushions from the sofa and gathered blankets from a closet to make two beds near the fireplace. Lindy searched the kitchen drawers, returning a few minutes later with matches, and in only a few minutes, they had a fire going as well.
Seated on the cushions several feet away from her, Wes tried to ignore the way his damnable wolf paced inside his head, urging him to go closer to her. Lindy had her arms wrapped around her knees, her eyes on the flames, and barring brief yes or no answers, she hadn’t spoken a word.
So he said the only thing he could think to say. “How can I help?”
Her head moved slightly in his direction, and for a long moment, he wasn’t sure she’d answer him. “I don’t know.”
“Can you tell me what’s happening?”
She didn’t respond.
He risked bending a little to catch her eye. “I’m not leaving you, Lindy.”
She turned toward him, something so certain in her eyes. “You should.”
His mouth moved, wordless. Her gaze returned to the flames.
Consternation gnawed at him. Why the hell was she so damn determined to get him to go away? Was it because of what she could do? She’d had multiple opportunities to hurt him. Countless ones, in fact, and she never did. Even when she’d barely been hanging on, damn near collapse, she’d only ever lashed out at those seeking to harm him, her, and anyone they were with.
And she had to know he wasn’t going anywhere, anyway. How the hell could he face Connor and Hayden if he went back alone? Not to mention the fact his conscience wouldn’t let him get away with that, regardless. Insisting he leave didn’t make sense.
He sighed. Arguing with her over it wouldn’t help, though. He could tell she was scared. Attacking would only put her even more on the defensive.
Dammit.
Rising to his feet, he headed into the kitchen and set to digging through t
he cabinets, returning a few moments later with a collection of cans, spices, a suitable pot, and a can opener. In silence, he set to work over the fire, mixing the canned beef, broth, and vegetables into a stew flavored by the spices. After letting it simmer a while, he dished up dinner into bowls he’d retrieved from the kitchen as well.
Murmuring thanks, Lindy took the bowl, only to pause with it in her hands.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She shook her head, not looking at him. “Nothing.” Taking up a spoon, she drew up a bite of the stew. A grimace ghosted over her face as she forced herself to swallow.
“Look, if you don’t like it, I can make—”
“It’s fine.”
Frowning, he sank onto the cushions across from her and took a bite of the meal. It wasn’t French cuisine, but for a makeshift dinner in the middle of nowhere, the stew wasn’t terrible. He’d eaten far worse in Alaska during the year and a half he and his friends spent training in the wilderness at Connor’s father’s command.
“Sorry.”
Lindy’s quiet voice was rueful. He glanced over at her.
“I’m just…” Her brow shrugged. “Not feeling well.”
The wolf inside him whined. He pushed the feeling aside. “Anything I can do?”
She shook her head. “Thank you, though.”
He nodded, not sure what to say. She wasn’t even looking at him, and after a heartbeat, she set the bowl down in front of the fire, the food barely half eaten.
The skin of her wrist flashed between her glove and coat when she moved. He froze.
Lindy glanced over as if noticing his sudden tension. When she saw where he was looking, she blanched and swiftly tucked her wrist beneath her coat sleeve again.
He measured his words carefully. “That, um… that wasn’t like that before.”
She hugged her wrist to her middle, not looking at him.
His alarm warred with his concern, leaving him at a loss. “May I see?”
She closed her eyes, turning her face away, and frustration surged inside him. Dammit, the woman was a brick wall, and nothing he did made her trust him an inch. One night of sex aside, she seemed determined to keep him locked out. She looked lost in a world of pain—emotional for sure, and for all he knew, physical too—and because he didn’t even know what the hell was going on, he was helpless to do anything about it.
