by Skye Malone
I ignored them, glancing back. The cousins were still gaining. And to make matters worse, Wyatt had joined the chase. In the distance, Noah was struggling with a man so large, he could only be his uncle.
And neither Ellie nor Zeke were anywhere to be seen.
Sunlight glared in my eyes as I raced out from between the rows of silos. Ahead, empty fields and distant farmhouses waited, none of them promising a single hope for escape from the monsters snarling behind me.
I veered right, running alongside the towers as fast as I could. I heard the cousins shout when they emerged from the rows as well.
Gasping, I fought for more speed. I couldn’t keep this pace up for much longer. However fast Noah thought dehaians could run, it meant nothing compared to the aftereffects of what Harman had done to me.
Aftereffects which were going to get me killed if something didn’t change soon.
In my side, a muscle began to cramp as if in answer to the thought, sending stabbing sensations through me with every breath. My other muscles had long since started protesting with throbbing aches of their own and my lungs burned despite the cool morning air. Pained noises escaped me, sounding nearly like sobs to my ears. Gritting my teeth against it all, I threw a glance over my shoulder.
One of them reached out to grab me and pull me down.
I choked, my feet stopping of their own accord and I ducked fast to the right. His hand swiped the air, missing me by inches. He stumbled, overbalanced by the effort, but then his brother was there. I darted to the side and felt his fingers brush my arm, closing a heartbeat too slowly to grab me but burning hot like coals when they touched my skin. I gasped, twisting away, and then I was running along the rows of silos again, leaving the greliarans snarling furiously at my back.
Noah and Ellie had to have gotten Zeke out of there by now. It’d been an eternity, or maybe just a minute, but surely they’d gotten Zeke out.
The collection of silos felt like it would never end.
I bolted past the final tower and then looked to the warehouse, hoping to see Zeke so I could circle back and get out of here too.
My breath caught. Baylie’s car was racing away.
Terrified confusion hit me, making my steps falter. They were leaving? Why were they leaving?
A man ran from the warehouse, chasing them as they sped off. A dozen yards ahead of him and gaining distance with every heartbeat, the car skidded onto the road and headed left.
My gaze went from the car to the country highway running parallel with the grain company property. She’d turn onto it. That was where Baylie was going. And since it was directly in my path, I could meet her there, get in the car, and get the hell out of this place.
I hoped.
Gasping down another painful breath, I forced myself to run faster. Gravel became scrub grass under my feet, hiding sinkholes and rocks that threatened to trip me. Everything in me wanted to stop, if only to make my muscles quit hurting with each motion.
The car veered onto the road ahead.
I looked back. The first two guys had slowed, their expressions like they’d used up all the speed they had in trying to reach me that first time.
But Wyatt was still there. And he was gaining.
Desperately, I fought to keep running. The wind whistled in my ears and my gaze was locked on Baylie’s car.
She pulled to a screeching stop thirty yards ahead and I could see her twist in the driver’s seat to yell at someone behind her. People moved in the shadows of the vehicle, and then someone scrambled from the passenger side door.
Noah.
With a shotgun in his hands.
“Chloe, move!” he shouted.
I ducked to the side.
The gun went off.
Behind me, Wyatt cried out. I couldn’t tell if the sound was more fury or pain, and I didn’t bother to check. The last of the field passed beneath me, and then the ditch at the side of the road as well. The rear car door opened as I scrambled up the slope and Zeke reached out to me from inside.
I choked, relief overwhelming the pain. He was alright. He was here.
His hand caught mine. With a grimace, he tugged me into the car and then caught me, his arm wrapping around my shoulders as if to hold me there.
Baylie smashed the gas pedal to the floor.
Gravity pushed me back in the seat and shoved the car door closed at my side.
“Are you okay?” Zeke asked.
I nodded. My heart was still racing and my muscles ached, but nothing mattered quite as much as him being there. Being okay.
My gaze registered the bandages on his legs. The burn marks on his sides. The way his body was shaking. I pushed away from him, my breath catching at the fear that touching him might hurt him more.
Baylie made a panicked noise. I looked back. Wyatt was still struggling after us, blood on his arm and his face a twisted mess of rage. The other cousins remained by the silos, not bothering to try catching up since there was no chance of that now.
And by the warehouse, my parents’ sedan was pulling into the drive. Cop cars raced toward the grain factory from the other direction, their lights flashing in colors that felt too bright even over the distance. Harman was rushing from the warehouse door, his arms waving toward the police and a few other figures I didn’t recognize following on his heels.
But Harman didn’t look toward us. And the large guy who’d been chasing Baylie’s car was nowhere to be seen.
The road dipped down a small incline and the terrain swallowed my view.
I turned back. In the front seat, Noah was watching me, while Baylie kept casting glances in the rearview mirror to me and the road.
“Everybody else alright?” I asked breathlessly.
Noah nodded and Baylie did the same. I glanced to Zeke, my eyebrows rising questioningly, while on the other side of him, Ellie seemed to be trying to keep as close to the opposite door as possible.
Zeke’s arm tightened around my shoulders, bringing me back to his side. I saw Noah drop his gaze away, his jaw muscles jumping.
Discomfort moved through me. Uncertain what to do or how to feel past the gratitude that we had all escaped from there, I looked away from Zeke and watched the silos disappear over the horizon.
~~~~~
It didn’t take Baylie long to want to pull over, and when we reached a small forest preserve with empty picnic tables near the road, that was exactly what she did.
She turned around in the seat to look at me. “So now–”
Ellie scrambled from the car, cutting off her words. Brow furrowing, Baylie stared after her.
“What?” she called.
The girl didn’t respond, but Zeke sighed. My brow drawing down in an expression that probably wasn’t far from Baylie’s, I glanced to him. Ellie had been plastered to the other door for every minute we’d been driving, and spent most of that time eyeing Zeke.
Not explaining, Zeke nudged my shoulder. We climbed from the car, while in the front seats, Baylie and Noah did the same.
“What?” Baylie repeated to Ellie, closing her door.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Zeke said with exasperation as he leaned on the car for support.
Confused, I looked between them.
“We don’t have to just touch you,” he continued in the same tone. “We have to want to do that, and trust me, I don’t.”
The caution didn’t leave her eyes, even as my confusion cleared.
“What’re we talking about here?” Baylie asked.
Ellie’s face took on a warning look. “You need to stay away from him. If he touches you, then–”
“That’s not true,” I interrupted hurriedly. Baylie didn’t need more reasons to be freaked out about dehaians. “That whole thing. It’s just landwalker crap.”
Ellie blinked.
“We have to want to,” Zeke said to her again, speaking each word slowly.
“But you can.”
I turned to Noah in surprise. He didn’t look away from Zeke.
“If you want to,” Noah continued. “You take away people’s free will. Get them to do whatever you want. You kill them by making them unable to be away from you.”
Zeke paused, watching Noah.
“It’s illegal, though,” I insisted into the silence. “And murder.”
Noah didn’t respond.
“The greliarans say it’s true,” Ellie pressed.
I looked back to her.
“Oh yeah,” Zeke commented coldly. “Turns out the landwalkers have been working with the greliarans. And not just her grandfather; that scrawny cop from Reidsburg was at the warehouse too.”
Ellie dropped her gaze away.
I glanced between her and Noah, alarmed. “Is that true?”
Ellie didn’t respond.
“That’s why his family was there,” Zeke said, jerking his chin toward Noah. “Her grandfather made a deal with them. They stay away from you, they get to kill me.” His face tightened with anger. “After he was done experimenting, that is. Seems that’s been the landwalker and greliaran deal for years.”
I swallowed.
“Not with all of us,” Noah said. “I’ve never heard of that.”
Zeke didn’t say anything, but at his expression, Noah’s face darkened.
I drew a breath. I wanted to know more about this deal between the greliarans and landwalkers, in the way people had of wanting to know more about the terrifying thing so they could decide just how much they should be panicking. But there wasn’t time. Everything else aside, my parents could still be chasing us, or sending the cops to do the same. We had to figure out what to do next, and the last thing we needed was to fight among ourselves.
“Okay, listen,” I said to Ellie. “I don’t care what the greliarans said. Nothing will happen to you if you touch us. It has to be intentional and no one here is going to do it anyway. So please, calm down.”
Her face took on a defensive cast.
“You wanted to talk to me about something,” I pressed on. “Was it about that?”
She shook her head.
“The greliarans?” I prompted.
Ellie swallowed. “No, it’s…” She glanced to the others. “Look, could we maybe, um…”
My brow drew down as I followed her gaze to Noah, Zeke, and Baylie. I could tell what she was asking, and the creeped out feeling I’d had around her earlier started to return.
“You can talk in front of them,” I told her.
Her mouth tightened.
“Ellie,” Noah tried. “What the hell is it already?”
The girl hesitated. “Alright,” she agreed reluctantly, looking back at me. “It’s… it’s about you. And it’s kind of… big.”
The disturbed feeling grew. “What about me?”
Her brow furrowed, as though she was searching for the right words. “Well, um, you know about landwalkers and dehaians, right? How we used to be the same?”
I nodded.
“There’s a reason we’re not anymore. And that reason has a lot to do with something called the Beast.”
I tensed.
“You’ve heard of it?” she asked, reading something in my expression.
“I’ve heard it mentioned, yeah,” I allowed, stopping myself from glancing to Zeke. His brother had brought it up after he’d kidnapped me, as had the Sylphaen pretending to be EMTs back at the cabin.
They’d all said it was coming, and they’d made it sound like it had something to do with me.
“Well, the history is tangled up in a lot of different versions but… it sort of goes like this. The Beast was a force, created by dehaians a long time ago. Back then, dehaians could live on land or in the sea without any trouble, because they had a relationship with the magic in the ocean that I guess you could call synergistic. The dehaians used magic to survive beneath the water, they sustained themselves on it when they couldn’t sleep or eat, and they carried it with them when they went on land. In turn, the ocean’s magic was really strong. It was almost like a life force all on its own, strengthened by the exchange of energy from the dehaians leaving the sea for deep inland and then returning again.
“Some of our ancestors, though, they didn’t want to just live in the ocean. They could survive inland, as well as beneath the water, so they tried to expand their territory. A lot of their people already lived on land, especially on these certain islands out in the Pacific. So they figured they should just establish themselves there formally. But the humans who lived on the nearby islands, they didn’t like that. They thought those places were theirs. And they were involved in using the ocean’s magic too, and didn’t like the competition.”
Noah grimaced. “The ones who made us,” he said, only partly asking.
Ellie nodded uncomfortably. “There was a war. The dehaians fought against the humans, and they were winning, but then those humans who’d studied magic… they made weapons. The greliarans. So then the dehaians made a weapon too and theirs… well, theirs didn’t start out human. They used the magic of the ocean. They contained it somehow. Controlled it in a way no one ever had before. I mean, hundreds of dehaians, all working together to create one thing with a common purpose… nobody had done that. But it formed this… thing. A force of magic that was almost alive. That they could control, and that was tied to their magic like a dog on a leash. And they could turn it on anyone they chose.
“The stories say it was terrible. Like a hurricane with a mind, but one that could shake the ground, exist above the water or below it with equal ease, and strike at any target just as its masters ordered. But the thing was… it was ocean magic. It existed as a part of that synergy. And after it destroyed the islands, tearing them apart and dragging them down into the ocean and drowning just… just everyone there…” She exhaled. “It turned on the dehaians. Maybe it needed more magic. Maybe it didn’t like being controlled. I don’t know. But it did, and it just drained the magic right out of them. Dehaians don’t survive without that. They’re not like humans. They need magic to live. And with that thing coming after them…”
She shook her head. “They ran. They tried to hide. And when nothing worked, when the Beast kept hunting them down and draining them and never growing weaker no matter how far inland they stayed… they came up with another solution. They’d use their magic to change what they were. To transform their own magical and physical selves so that what the Beast fed on from them wouldn’t exist anymore. They split their own characteristics, abilities, everything, and made what we have now: dehaians who can’t leave the ocean and landwalkers who can’t come near the sea. It worked, too. The Beast never went after the landwalkers and it ignored the new dehaians like it didn’t even know what they were. The solution wasn’t perfect, though. Life was still dangerous. The Beast continued to rage on the land and sea for years after that, hunting what it couldn’t find and destroying so much in the process. The originals claimed it almost seemed like the Beast enjoyed the destruction for its own sake, even if it gained nothing from it, magically-speaking. Lots of people were hurt or killed, just as collateral damage from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But eventually, it did weaken and seem to go away.
“The landwalkers and dehaians, though… they were still worried. They figured that, even if those kids born when dehaians and landwalkers got together always died, someday, somebody might come along who wouldn’t. And they worried that this person would be like them enough to wake the Beast again.”
I swallowed hard.
“But the thing was, they also hoped that – if that happened – it wouldn’t be all of it. They theorized that this person… well, they’d been born from the changed dehaians and landwalkers, in a world where the Beast’s energy possibly still permeated the magical landscape. So while that person might have some of the abilities that the originals did… maybe they’d also be something new. Maybe they’d have differen
t skills altogether. A few of the originals even hoped that, by being something new and yet possessing some of the originals’ powers, maybe this person could figure out a way to fix this. Stop the Beast. Destroy it. And maybe even help us find a way back to being able to live on land and in the ocean like the originals did too.”
She fell silent, looking embarrassed and yet watching me askance with that creepy, quivering, hopeful look I finally knew the reason behind.
And I didn’t know what to do except stare at her.
“They were sort of right,” she continued, almost apologetically. “You are like they said, at least in waking the Beast. It’s still weak, we think, but there’ve been storms on the coast, earthquakes detected by deep sea scanners… Like I said, the Beast is a force. It’ll show up like that before we see anything more. But since the originals were right about that, you know, maybe the other stuff might be true too.”
She gave an awkward shrug.
I didn’t know how to respond. She had to be crazy. The whole family was crazy, from her grandfather on down. “I… I’m not… nothing’s happened that…”
“The water around the boat that day,” Noah said quietly when I trailed off.
Blinking, I pulled my gaze to him, finding him watching me.
“That was this Beast thing, wasn’t it?” he continued.
“Sounds like it,” Baylie murmured, her voice faint.
I felt a breath leave me. I wanted to run, but there wasn’t any point. Anywhere to go or a way that would help at all.
A giant sea thing from God-knew-when was after me.
My stomach rolled. This wasn’t happening. There was no way this was real.
“What can we do?” Zeke asked.
I looked to him. His face was solemn, and no one but me probably knew him enough to tell how pale, and all I could think about was his family, still under the ocean somewhere.
With the Beast coming.
Niall had wanted to fight it. He and the Sylphaen thought killing me would give them the ability to do so. By taking what I was. By giving it to themselves.
Though that just sounded like it’d make this worse, if what I was fed that thing.
