by Wendy Knight
The first drop hit before the warlocks had figured out what she was going to do. But by the third, when the screaming started, they began to back away, falling all over each other in their haste to escape.
But she couldn’t let them do that.
She started to sing again, but they covered their ears, their own chanting drowning out her words, and they moved farther away from her. Out of reach now, unless she really, really stretched.
The ground underneath her shifted and gave way.
She screamed, in her head cursing her own stupidity because she knew how fragile the lava flows were. There were signs everywhere. But she’d forgotten, and now she would die for it.
She was wrong. Instead of falling to die at the hands of the warlocks or impale herself on a jagged column, Quin caught her wrist. She spun, her hand with the vial flinging out as her body flew in an arc through the air.
Effectively hitting the warlocks with the remaining potion.
She pinwheeled back onto the dome and into Quin’s arms. He stumbled backward several steps but then held, keeping them both upright as Damien steadied them with strong hands. Below them, fire erupted, the smell of burning, rotting flesh swallowing the air. And still, they fought to get to Destiny, throwing spells too weak to even leave their hands, so driven by hatred and greed for her power that they were nearly blinded to their own pain.
Until it devoured them.
Destiny backed away, out of reach, wondering what she could possibly do if the warlocks didn’t die. If they kept coming after her. She’d used pretty much all the tricks up her sleeve.
But their spells fell short, their steps faltering until each and every one collapsed below them, burning on the lava field. The spells died. The chanting failed.
As the warlocks screamed, she sank to the ground to watch them burn.
Quin kept his arm protectively around her. Damien had his hand on her knee, as if she could possibly slip away in this position. She had no idea what they would do now. She had no idea how they would get out of the park or find Fate and Luca at the hospital. She had no idea if more warlocks were on their way. But for the moment, she was alive, and she was grateful.
“I don’t think he’ll make it to the hospital, Destiny. What do I do? How can I save him without a potion?” Fate sobbed in her head. “We just found him and now we’re going to lose him.”
Destiny couldn’t hold her head up any more. It felt like it weighed fifteen hundred pounds, at least. Everything hurt. She let it drop to Quin’s shoulder. A risky little move given their history — he could have just shoved her off and then she’d be embarrassed and angry, but he didn’t. He adjusted his arm so she was better supported and didn’t say anything.
“Use a spell.” She wasn’t sure if it was her or whoever was in charge of the bars that kept showing up in her head, but she thought it anyway.
“I don’t have a wand or any potion.” Fate was on the verge of panic and Destiny got a brief glimpse of the big white truck barreling down the highway with Fate trying her best to keep it together inside.
“Did you need those things to conjure the blankets? Did I need them to attack Luca or call the warlocks? Try it, Fate. Use the magic within you and have faith.”
Fate grumbled something, but it wasn’t something Destiny caught. Damien and Quin were talking, voices low, and Destiny focused on them while she waited for Fate to respond. “Fate told me to protect her sister. There wasn’t time for arguing so I followed Destiny, and now Fate’s out there somewhere alone, fighting who knows what.”
“She’s not alone,” Quin said. “And you did the right thing.”
“Destiny didn’t need help racing across the lava field.”
“Fate doesn’t need help driving a truck. And she’s not alone.” She felt Quin motion to her with his head, and Damien answered with an understanding ah.
“I did it! Destiny, I did it! He’s okay. I’m taking him to the hospital but the bleeding has stopped. He’s sitting up now. I did it!”
Destiny smiled. “I knew you would.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BY THE TIME THEY MADE IT back to the campground, the rangers had opened the park again. What had been the longest several hours of Quin’s life had been only a minor inconvenience to so many others.
Destiny stumbled in front of him and nearly went down. He caught her just in time, pulling her against his side. She was so much tinier than she seemed. Her personality and that strong will of hers made her seem about six feet tall. But she wasn’t. She was tiny and hurting and exhausted.
He would have carried her, but he was pretty sure she would hit him.
Damien hung up the phone and shoved it back in his pocket. “Luca has some second degree burns. They neutralized the toxin running through his body and told him he needed to stay overnight for observation. He didn’t agree. They’re on their way back now.”
Destiny nodded, her head on Quin’s shoulder. Obviously, she already knew. That twin to twin communication thing was handy. “The truck didn’t fare so well,” she said.
Which was a shame. It was a gorgeous truck.
Destiny collapsed on the picnic bench, dropping her head to her arms and closing her eyes. “So tired,” she murmured. Luca’s medical bag and the first aid kit and their makeshift weapons still sat around the area, so Quin rifled through for something to clean her wounds with and bandage them up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Destiny sit up, her back ramrod straight, and she pushed herself away from the table.
“You okay?” he asked, still digging.
She didn’t answer.
“Destiny?” He turned toward her now, but she didn’t look at him.
Damien glanced up, holding both his bats in his hands, but Destiny ignored him, too.
Quin swore and sprang to his feet, but by then, Destiny was already running. After everything she’d been through that morning, he didn’t think she had it in her. He knew for sure he didn’t. His entire body ached.
She, apparently, didn’t have that problem.
“Destiny,” Damien bellowed, dropping the bats. The people in the campground stared curiously, and Quin could only imagine what they saw. Two burned, bloody, torn teenage boys chasing a burned, bloody, torn teenage girl across the lava field they weren’t even supposed to be walking on. Maybe people yelled, he wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter anyway, none of them could be stopped.
Destiny sprinted past the dome they’d climbed earlier. The still smoking bodies of the warlocks were quickly disintegrating into ash that was hidden among the black rock like it had never been there at all. She raced past it all and ran harder.
“What the hell, Destiny?” Damien yelled. He looked as exhausted as Quin felt. They’d already run this once today, and he was sure it was at least a mile, if not more. He and Damien went slower and slower, but Destiny didn’t. She pulled away from them, her ragged breath the only sound across the lava field.
She was a blur in the distance, but her white t-shirt against the black backdrop of rock made it easy to track her. At least for a minute. But suddenly she jumped.
And disappeared.
“Destiny!” Quin bellowed, somehow finding strength to pick up the pace. He sprinted the last couple hundred feet, pulling up short when the ground below abruptly gave way. Six or so feet down, there was a mouth of a cave, but no sign of Destiny.
Damien nodded toward the darkness. “She go… in… there?” he asked between gasps for breath.
“I think so.”
She hadn’t hesitated to jump right in, and since she wasn’t lying at the bottom in a mangled heap, he assumed he could survive it, as well, although his aching, exhausted legs might not hold him when he landed. He was trying to calculate his trajectory when Damien suddenly appeared below him. “There are some rocks over there that are easy climbing.”
While Quin climbed down, feeling like he was half mountain goat, Damien ducked through the cave entrance. “Destiny?”
Sh
e didn’t answer.
“It’s pitch dark in here. I don’t know how she sees anything.” Damien’s voice wafted out of the darkness just as Quin came through the entrance. He blinked several times, waiting for his eyes to grow accustomed to the pitch black, but it didn’t help. The light just didn’t come very far past the mouth and the lava rock seemed to absorb any light that did.
“I’m going to call Fate and tell her to pick up some flashlights.” Damien’s voice moved away. Quin had never been afraid of the dark, but he’d also never been alone in pitch black nothingness like this. He’d seen some massive spider webs throughout the field and the campground. They seemed to like the heat from the rocks, which meant they were probably in the cave, too.
He hated spiders.
“Destiny!” he yelled again.
Again, she didn’t answer, but he did hear crumbling rocks in the distance toward his right. He started that way but only made it about ten steps before he smacked into a wall. Searching for Destiny like this was pointless. She could be standing right next to him and he wouldn’t even know it. He gave up and went back to the mouth of the tunnel, craving the light.
“She’s always liked the dark,” Damien said when Quin gratefully escaped the cave. He tipped his head up, the sun warming his face as it chased away the lingering dark.
“She hides in the shadows. It’s one of her witch talents. If she doesn’t want to be found, we won’t find her,” Damien continued.
“Can Fate do it?” Quin sat on the rock next to Damien. His legs were so exhausted they almost didn’t hold him.
Damien shook his head. “I think it’s their dark hair. Alina can do it, too.”
“That’s not normal,” Quin said. “I’ve never met any other witches that can do that.”
Damien smirked. “They’re definitely not normal.”
Sighing, Quin leaned back against the wall, letting his back absorb the heat, and inclined his head back so he could stare at the sky. It killed him to leave her in there by herself. Who knew what could be in those depths? No one was supposed to walk on the lava fields, so no tourists would stumble upon them, thankfully.
Damien said nothing, just stared hard at the mouth entrance, listening for Destiny.
They stayed that way until Fate and Luca found them. Quin wasn’t sure how, exactly, she knew where to come. He knew she couldn’t track Destiny when she was like this. Maybe Damien had told her, but Quin was too exhausted to ask.
“I brought supplies.” She dumped two grocery bags on the ground in front of them. Head lamps and handheld flashlights in one, and food in the other. Gratefully, Quin grabbed a water bottle and a headlamp.
Luca eased down next to them. He didn’t look good, but no one pointed that out. Instead, Fate said, “Stay here in case she comes out without us knowing. We’ll go in after her.”
Armed with light, they ventured into the cave once more. Quin’s heart pounded in his chest and he wondered when, exactly, he’d started worrying so much about Destiny and her well-being. He could lie and say it was because she had to save his mother, but that wasn’t the whole reason and he knew it. His little crush on Destiny had long since become something a lot stronger.
And it scared him to death.
“She doesn’t believe in love,” Fate murmured. “She says if it can be made by a potion, it isn’t real.”
Quin sighed. “You aren’t allowed into my head without asking first.”
Fate tried to smile, but it cracked and she fought tears. “Don’t think so loud.”
“I never said anything about love,” he said after several more seconds in silence. “It’s a crush. That’s all. I don’t even know her.”
Fate nodded wisely. “Except being in extenuating circumstances such as these where emotions run so high can amplify a crush into something much, much more. It’s a syndrome. It probably has a name.”
Damien chuckled and brought Fate’s knuckles to his lips.
“The cave goes two ways. Should we split up?” Quin asked.
Fate’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Have you never watched a horror movie? No one goes anywhere alone.”
“This is weird.” Damien reached up to touch the ceiling, and Quin’s headlamp followed his hand. “The ceiling has been reinforced.”
It was true. Huge, decayed and rotting beams supported the ceiling. It was clear they had been there for ages, but Quin was no expert. He couldn’t even hazard a guess as to how long.
The other path didn’t have them at all.
Fate studied them both and then nodded toward the reinforced path. “This way.”
The air was colder here, slightly musty and damp. There were puddles that soaked through Quin’s shoes every so often, so he would guess it was sloping down, and the rainwater would run through here. But there was no sign of life, no footprints. No sign of her at all.
Just the spiders.
They made it past the first bend when they heard the distinct sound of metal ringing against rock. Fate’s eyes widened and she ran, ducking under broken beams and jumping the puddles. “I found her!”
Quin and Damien caught up with her and both skidded to a halt. The tunnel widened into a room. There was a rotting table with the remains of a book, mostly dust now, sitting in the middle. Several shovels lay haphazardly throughout, and an old lamp was shattered on the ground. The tunnel narrowed again and there, in the darkness with no light to guide her, was Destiny.
Digging.
With a broken, ancient shovel.
Fate didn’t hesitate. She grabbed another shovel and leaped to her sister’s aid. From the way Destiny completely ignored them, he figured they couldn’t be talking to each other, but somehow Fate trusted that whatever Destiny was doing was exactly what needed to be done.
So Quin did, too. He picked up a shovel and tossed another to Damien, and they joined the girls. They dug for an eternity, or an hour, he wasn’t sure. No one spoke. No one had the energy to speak. The only sound was the metal hitting the rock and the debris being thrown behind them.
And then Luca.
“Fate?” he called. “Which tunnel?”
“I told him to stay in the sun where it’s safe,” Fate grumbled. “Right tunnel, Luca,” she said more loudly. His light appeared behind them and he eased his way into the room.
“Whoa,” he breathed, taking it all in.
Whoa, indeed.
There were no more shovels, so he explored the room, instead, touching the remains of the book, inspecting the broken glass. Finally, he moved back to the book and bent low over it.
Above Quin, the rock crumbled.
“Get back.” Damien jerked both girls out of the way, but Destiny wriggled out of his arms. Her shovel broke and she hissed, throwing it aside.
“This isn’t stable. It’s not reinforced and look—” He pointed at the ceiling. “—Every time she hits that wall, it cracks further. We can’t go on.”
Quin dropped his shovel in exhaustion. It was old, and his fingers were full of splinters.
Destiny started digging with her hands.
“Destiny,” Damien yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders. “It’s not safe.”
She hissed again and lashed out at him, knocking him backward with one of the moves they’d been practicing earlier. Damien swore as he smashed into the wall, raining rock down on their heads.
“She doesn’t mean to, Damien,” Fate said, pulling him to his feet. “She can’t help it.”
“Yeah well, we’re going to have words when she comes back.” He dusted the rock from his shoulders and glared at Destiny, but there was more worry there than anger.
“Hurt her again. That will pull her out of it,” Fate said to Quin. Apparently he’d become the official Destiny abuser.
He hesitated, because the thought made his stomach recoil. How could he hurt her again? How could he possibly cause her more pain than she was already enduring? But was there a choice? She could get herself killed. Feeling sick, he pull
ed his pocket knife out of his pocket and reached for her hand.
Without even looking at him, she twirled her hand in the mini cyclone move, and the knife flew from his grip and into the darkness. His eyebrows shot up and he stared at Fate.
“She’s protecting herself now,” she said quietly, brow furrowed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DESTINY DUG DEEPER. SHE COULD HEAR Luca and Quin and Fate all yelling at her, telling her it wasn’t safe. The tunnels antiquated support system could come crashing down at any minute, and every extra shovelful she pulled put more pressure on the rotting beams.
Still, she dug.
Even her own common sense told her to stop. She heard it, a little voice in the back of her head, but she was like one possessed. Her hands, long since blistered, started to bleed, but she kept digging.
Her shovel broke. The handle split and the end flipped up, narrowly missing her face. The rest of them were behind her in the tunnel, and now Fate was screaming in her head, as well as her own voice, but she didn’t stop. She dropped the broken handle pieces and started digging with her hands. Her nails broke and tore, so she was bleeding not only from her palms, but from her nail beds, as well.
Still, she dug.
It was Quin who finally dared venture in after her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and jerked her back. “Destiny, what is wrong with you?”
She hissed at him.
He stumbled back away from her, eyes wide, and swore, but she was already back to her digging.
Dig, dig, dig, dig.
Fate still screamed in her head.
And then another shovel. She turned, seeing things from behind the bars, screaming to be let free.
Quin shoveled next to her.
His shovel was much more effective than her fingers, and more rock disappeared faster. The rotting beams above shook, and she, in her screaming, somehow forced words past her captive mouth. “You’ll be killed.”
He looked at the beams, at the cracks in the walls and ceiling, but when she turned back to the wall, so did he.
