The Big Game

by Sarah Jaune

  It didn’t matter to Eli anymore, at least not too much. Pablo Mathias was the only dad that Eli really cared about.

  “What are you going to do about it?” Maia asked her husband.

  “I think I’m going to go into the woods and investigate,” Pablo said with a sigh. “The police chief mentioned wanting someone to check it out, and I volunteered. He was going to send a partner along with me, but I pointed out that we didn’t really have the manpower to spare. I think he bought it. I can track the Sasquatch easily without anyone around to witness it. I hope only to be gone a few days, and with any luck I can relate to them that they need to stay back from town. If they come too close, they risk the police getting involved.”

  “Maybe I should go,” Maia offered quickly. “I can easily speak to them.” That was her power, speaking to animals and magical creatures.

  “I already told the chief I was going,” Pablo said with a sigh as he sank back into his seat. “It will look weird if I send you in my stead.”

  Maia smiled wryly. “True.”

  Pablo rubbed at his brow and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “I am planning on leaving first thing in the morning.”

  “I have another question,” Ivy said into the silence of the kitchen. “What does this have to do with the Guard?”

  “We protect the magical creatures, too,” Maia said sadly. “If we can, that is. We’ve already lost all of the unicorns. Because we’re magical, we have a closer connection to them. You two spoke to the mermaids, but the reason they would deal with you at all is because of your magic. They avoid non-magical people when they can.”

  “Our primary goal is your safety,” Pablo said earnestly. “But we can’t ignore our magical heritage, either. No one around here would bother the Sasquatch otherwise. It’s likely that they’re coming in to town because someone with magic is forcing their hand. I need to try to help them.”

  Ivy glanced to Eli, then back again. He had no idea what she was thinking, but she did look serious. “Okay, well if I can help, let me know. I really do need to get home, though.”

  “Go on,” Maia waved her hand with a smile. “We’ll be fine.”

  Ivy rose and briefly touched Eli’s shoulder. “I am sorry.”

  “Forget it,” he shrugged the comment off. He’d had a small bump before, but he was sure it was starting to go down. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” Ivy agreed as she headed for the door, snagging her backpack from beside a pile of shoes.

  The moment the door clicked shut, Maia asked, “Are you sure you’re alright?”

  “I’m fine,” Eli promised as he handed over the bowl of prepped beans. “As you said, I have a hard head.”

  It proved true. By the time he woke up the next morning, he didn’t even have a bruise on his skull, not that they’d have seen it anyway through his dark hair.

  He heard a noise from the door of his darkened bedroom, and he turned to see Maia motioning to him. He rose and followed her out into the kitchen where she motioned to the table. Breakfast was already laid out.

  “What’s up?” Eli questioned as he sat down to eat.

  Maia’s face was grave. “I just got word from the Guard about kids who need to be picked up.”

  Eli’s stomach churned as he forced himself to eat. “Do I need to go now?”

  “Yes, right now,” she said as she reached over to take his hand. “I… I don’t know how to tell you this, Eli. Pablo has already left…”

  Dread filled him as whatever unknown secret that lay between them grew in his mind. “What happened?”

  Maia’s eyes filled with tears. “You need to go to Chicago.”

  Not even thirty minutes later, Eli and Ivy were on the road. Ivy was driving, despite her overly pale skin and the bruising under her eyes from a lack of sleep.

  She was in far better shape than Eli was at the moment. “We need to go to the Denver Zone.”

  “I know,” Ivy reminded him tersely. “I remember the instructions. We drive out of the Denver Zone on the main highway and pull off at the road with the large, red barn. We’ll meet the other person there.”

  “Right,” Eli said, although he couldn’t truthfully say he’d heard what she was saying. His brain buzzed as he thought back to Maia’s words. He was needed in Chicago. He was needed because someone had called.

  “Your father is gone for a week,” Maia had explained as she threw food into a bag for them to take along. “You have to get there and get out before he gets back.”

  “What am I doing?” Eli demanded as he took the bag she held out for him.

  Maia’s expression had faltered. “It’s a rescue mission. I don’t know any more than that, Eli. I just know that they need you to go in and save someone. You’ll have help. That person will be able to guide you.”

  Eli snapped back to the present, to the road that stretched on in front of them for miles in the predawn stillness. “We’re supposed to save kids. That’s what we’re supposed to do, Ivy.”

  “I know,” she said, but more gently this time. Ivy reached over to him and squeezed his hand. “We don’t know what we’re walking in to. I need you to be calm so that we don’t blow this. The last time we were at your house in Chicago it didn’t go so well.”

  “We left with this jeep,” Eli mused as he patted the car affectionately.

  Ivy glanced sideways at him. “We also blew up a boat, and your dad nearly killed you.”

  “True,” he agreed heavily. If it hadn’t been for their friend, Zen, who was a magical healer with prodigious power, Eli would have probably died.

  “How is your head?” Ivy wondered.

  “It’s okay,” Eli promised as he felt back to see if the spot still bothered him. “Honestly, I’d forgotten about it until you mentioned it.”

  They both fell silent as the miles ticked on in front of them.

  “I am sorry,” Ivy said yet again.

  Eli scowled at the dashboard. “Forget it. You already said you were sorry, and accidents like that happen when you’re learning to fight. I’ve knocked Pablo out more than once. It happens. It’s better that you’re prepared and I’m glad you got around my defenses.”

  She was silent for a minute and didn’t speak until they started to see the sun popping up over the horizon. “I went in close because you were reading my reactions so easily. I was hoping to trick you.”

  “It worked,” he said simply. “That’s all you need to do to get in the shots. A lot of it is reading your opponent. Most people will underestimate you at first, but I don’t because I know how far you’ve come in learning to defend yourself.”

  A slow smile spread over her lips as she absently tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel. “We have to go at least twelve hours today so we can meet the guy tomorrow by lunch.”

  “If I want to push through and drive straight on, will you think I’m crazy?” Eli wondered as his foot tapped nervously on the floor of the jeep. All he wanted to do was run. There were so many feelings running a race through him that he felt like his legs needed to move as well.

  “It won’t do us any good,” Ivy said flatly. “The guy, or girl, is meeting us at noon tomorrow. If we get there early, we may just be waiting for hours on end.”

  “Do you think it will be Thane?” Eli asked, referring to the only other Pursuer that they were aware of, who also happened to be Eli’s twin sister’s boyfriend.

  It was really a small world.

  Ivy shrugged. “It would be nice if it was because we know we work well with him, but… I’d think that Maia would have told us if we were meeting Thane.”

  “Maybe she didn’t know,” Eli speculated.

  “I think you should sleep so that the hours don’t drag on, and you can take over driving later.”

  He laughed. “I’m annoying you that much, huh?”

  “You’re nervous,” she said simply. “It’s understandable. We’re heading back to your home.”

&n
bsp; “It isn’t home,” Eli argued immediately. “Home is with Maia and Pablo, but…”

  There was a lot wrapped up in heading to Chicago.

  The first question was why. Maia hadn’t known. All she’d learned was that they needed to get into his father’s house in Chicago, and that they were on a very short timeline. “Why do we need extra help?”

  “I don’t know, Eli,” Ivy said as her exasperation started to slip in. “Seriously, you’re going to make yourself crazy. You have to just wait and see. We don’t know what we’re going to find.”

  But Eli had a horrible feeling that he did know what he was going to find. Almost a year ago he and Ivy had been kidnapped by someone working for his father. They’d mistaken Ivy for Eli’s twin sister. He’d been questioned by his father, then thrown into his bedroom.

  The person who had brought him food had been his old nanny, Florence. The problem with that was that his nanny had been fired when Eli had still been a child. There had been no need for a nanny once Eli and Beth had hit a certain age.

  He hadn’t thought to question why his nanny was back in his father’s house in Chicago, but now it seemed like that should have been the first question he’d asked her. Nanny had wanted to tell him something else before he’d left, but she’d changed her mind and told him to escape.

  “What if my parents had another kid?” Eli said as he spoke aloud the fears that were eating at him. “What if they had a kid when we were there last April?”

  The unspoken question hung between them. ‘What if we’d left an innocent child with that monster?’

  Ivy didn’t respond. He turned to see her mouth firmed. He studied her profile, her straight nose, and the chin that was getting more definition through all of her hard training and exercise. She wasn’t thin, not like Maia. She was muscled now, athletic, but not in the way of a lot of the girls at school who were slender and graceful. She was about an inch shorter than Eli was, having leveled out at five-foot-seven. Ivy was tough. He admired that more than he could say. When he was losing it, she kept it together.

  “You think they have another kid, don’t you?” he muttered miserably.

  “I think we’ll find out when we get there, and we’ll deal with whatever comes,” Ivy said confidently. “Your father won’t be there, but even if he is, Eli, you have gained so much control over your magical powers that he stands no chance against you. If you have another brother or sister, we’ll get them to safety.”

  He’d missed out on so much with his sisters, Naomi and Beth. He had another family, back in Portland, but it didn’t stop him from missing them. They were his blood, his kin. He hadn’t seen or heard from them in over six years now.

  “I get it,” Ivy said after flipping down the sunshade to try to block out some of the rising sun that was streaming into the car as they headed east. It was beautiful as light poked through the treetops, canvasing the world in a red glow. Unfortunately, it also created a glare that made it difficult to see the road. “If I had the chance to find my family, I would be a wreck as well.”

  Eli felt his insides crumble. Ivy still had family. She had a father and three siblings who didn’t want anything to do with her. If they saw her on the street they’d pretend she didn’t exist. Eli’s older sister might want nothing to do with him, but if he had the chance to save another child from his family… it would mean everything to him. He could save the poor kid from years of torture and abuse under the crazy Overseer that they happened to call Father.

  Ivy’s mother had died years before, and her grandmother had been killed in an earthquake the previous April. It left Ivy in a foster family that needed her as a servant more than as a kid.

  “How are your foster sisters?” Eli asked her.

  “We started meditating like Maia suggested,” Ivy sighed. “It was rough the first few times, but they’re starting to get it. I actually think it’s helping them. It isn’t doing much for me, though. I end up making lists in my head as I guide them through the meditations.”

  Eli laughed. “I had that problem for a long time.”

  “I really think you should sleep,” Ivy said again. “You had a head injury, and even though I think we should stop for the night, I’m sure you’re going to want to keep going. If you want to drive all night long, you need to sleep now.”

  She was right, of course. Nodding, Eli leaned his seat back and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER 3

  A BLAST FROM THE PAST

  They didn’t drive all night, but it was close. They ended up stopping by two in the morning, so they could both get some sleep, but it didn’t last long for Eli. He was up at six, driving them on again towards their meeting point.

  Ivy slept through the first hour they were on the road, and they spent the rest of the drive in silence.

  They arrived at the meeting point at just before eight o’clock. Eli pulled around the back of the red barn and saw, unsurprisingly, that they were alone. He pulled to a stop and shut the engine off.

  “Let’s stretch our legs and eat something,” Ivy suggested when he didn’t move. She poked his shoulder.

  He stared at the thick forest of pine trees that stretched around the back of the barn and tried to fight off the waves of nausea and anxiety that threatened to swallow him whole.

  “Let’s go on a run,” Ivy prompted.

  He couldn’t move.

  Moments later, his door opened and Ivy, who he hadn’t realized had already left her seat, dragged him out and pulled him along into the trees. “Run, Eli, or I’ll soak you!” she said as she pushed him ahead of her. “Run!”

  He ran. He ran ahead of her, faster than the eye could see, pushing his magic to the edge of his capacity in an effort to burn away all that was overwhelming him. He ran until his heart raced, his clothes were soaked through, and he’d gone most of the way up a fairly steep mountain.

  The air was noticeably thinner up here, and his head started to ache from it.

  Eli bent over, his hands on his knees, and fought to suck in air as birds twittered around him in a cacophony of tunes.

  He stared back down the hill and had no clue where Ivy had gone. Eli started back down again, jogging this time on the steep downgrade so that he didn’t lose his footing. He caught up with Ivy ten minutes later with her cheeks flushed bright red and her long hair trailing behind her as it fell from her messy bun. They both stopped and stared at each other.

  “Better?” she gasped as she held her side.

  Eli grinned, walked forward and hugged her hard. “Yeah.”

  “Let’s get back, then,” Ivy said, as they turned to head back for the jeep. “I look like crap, now, thanks to you.”

  “I didn’t make you run,” he pointed out. “I’m pretty sure you were the one who dragged me from the car.”

  “You needed it,” she said as she sucked in another lungful of air and attacked her messy curls.

  Eli shot her a sideways glance, then looked straight ahead again. “You don’t look like crap.”

  Ivy laughed as she worked her hair around and around, attempting to pile it on top of her head. “Stop with the flattery, Eli. You’ll make me swoon.”

  “Oh, ha, ha,” he grumbled as his cheeks flushed even redder than they had been from the run. It was easy with Ivy. They were friends in a way that he’d never experienced, except maybe with his twin. But it was different with Ivy. He didn’t see her like a sister, just as a best friend who understood him better than anyone else ever had before. There was comfort in their relationship. They knew each other well enough to be at ease. It was never like that with any of the girls at school. He’d attempted a date with a girl, Autumn, in December, and it hadn’t gone well. He’d ended up unable to speak to her the entire time they were out together. Maia had asked if he’d been nervous because he’d liked Autumn, but that truthfully wasn’t it. He’d asked her on a date in an attempt to be more like a normal kid. His hands had sweated with nerves as he’d asked, but then on the date he’d had nothi
ng to say. It was never like that with Ivy. Even when they didn’t talk, it didn’t feel horrible.

  There were no ringing, oppressive silences between them.