The burning increases. Eve’s fingers shoot toward her cheek, but are stopped again by firm, callused hands.
“Don’t move,” Luca warns, holding her wrists as Martin pulls out a vial.
She watches as Martin dumps the contents onto the black cotton strip from Rowan’s t-shirt, now firmly wrapped around his fingers. Eve instinctively tries to pull pack as Rowan brings it toward her face, connecting with the wound.
Pain. Anguish beyond anything Eve has experienced. She struggles to break free as Rowan firmly holds his wet rag to the infected area.
Then it stops. Tears of torment turn into tears of blissful relief.
Relaxing, she shuts her eyes once more only to feel a firm tug on her neck. The sounds of a chain snapping and a loud hiss.
Eyes flying open, Eve sees her grandmother’s necklace tossed in front of her tattered feet.
Boots. More running. A cloud of dust. Before Eve knows it, she is surrounded.
The Quinns form a circle, weapons raised, with Eve in the center.
“What the heck?” she squeals.
Looking into their hate-filled faces, she halts. When Luca speaks this time, it is low. Menacing.
“The necklace. Who are you working for?”
His boot comes smashing down on the pendant, crushing it into a thousand little pieces.
Chapter 13
“Eve, I am only going to ask you one more time. Who sent you?” growls Luca.
Pulling out a large, serrated blade from a holder at his side, he flips it, catching it again with ease. The moment the handle connects with his palm, the knife and his tattoos come alive once more. One by one, the brothers follow suit, until the eldest Abbott is surrounded by a glowing ring of muscle and malice.
“What are you doing! Eve? What is going on?” Maggie yells, trying to get to her sister. West swiftly puts a hand around her waist, pulling her out from the defensive circle. Tate and Rowan step closer to each other, closing the gap once more.
Something isn’t right. Eve tries to focus on Luca—she knows that something important is happening. Looking to Rowan, Tate, Martin, and Luca again, she doesn’t understand why their shiny weapons are pointed at her. Every thought feels like it’s being pulled through maple syrup. Sticky, slow, and sweetly addicting.
Whatever is happening to her, she likes it.
Luca is speaking again, but her current state makes it impossible for her to concentrate.
She can’t stop staring at his mouth.
Licking her lips, she starts to crawl toward his feet. Mid-slither, Eve realizes that the dry grass under hands feels amazing. The tingling sensation when it tickles her skin is pure ecstasy. Moaning, Eve flops over onto her back, running her arms and legs through the neglected lawn.
“What…is she doing?” Maggie whispers to West, horrified. She watches as Eve rolls back over and grabs a stick. With her new wooden friend, she starts to frantically dig.
Snap.
A loud crack of a whip to their right causes Maggie to wince. She quickly looks over her shoulder, as does everyone else, and Maggie is once again stunned into silence. Staring at the figure planted firmly in the driveway, she sees a tall woman. Toned, with red hair pulled back in a single tight braid. Raising her right arm, she cracks the whip once more, which upon closer inspection looks to be covered in razor-sharp blades. It sparks as it slices through the air.
Head to toe in black. A tight tank top exposing her arms. Her luminous red tattoos are identical in shape and size to the markings adorning the Quinns.
The creature before them is Eve and Maggie’s aunt.
And Aunt Jill is pissed.
“Hi boys. How about you move away from my nieces, before I have to cut a few names from your family tree?”
Maggie is dumbfounded. Their aunt had always seemed like some crazy baking hippie. But the woman before them is a crimson-haired angel of death. The brothers shift, lowering their weapons. Even at five against one, healthy odds, Maggie could tell that none of them honestly wanted to challenge her.
“Your niece was wearing a lure! A goddamn lure! How do we know you didn’t give it to her?” accuses Tate, pointing his blades toward her head.
Jill is stunned. She looks to Eve, silently begging for it not to be true.
“What is a lure—” begins Maggie, but West puts a finger to his lips, silencing her mid-sentence.
“I thought they were all destroyed,” their aunt puzzles.
“They were. Only Snappers have them now.”
The accusation in Luca’s tone causes Jill to hiss in disgust.
“You think I gave it to her? Have my sacrifices not been enough to prove to you where my loyalties lie?”
“We have all made sacrifices,” Luca grates, the words bitter in his mouth.
Maggie, beyond confused, is about to chime in again when something in Martin’s backpack starts to beep. Everyone freezes—except Eve, who is now gnawing on what Maggie thinks in the semi-darkness is a pinecone.
Martin doesn’t hesitate. Breaking into a quick sprint, he grabs the tablet he had used for the exterior light show minutes before and examines the screen.
“We’ve got four. From the north. Less than a mile away and closing fast. At their current rate of travel, three minutes.”
And with that, everyone, including Jill, springs into action.
“I can’t fit my nieces on my bike….” their aunt ponders, showing fear for the first time since her arrival.
“We’ll take care of them,” Luca promises, and Jill and Luca seem to come to some wordless truce.
“There is a safe zone! Meet me at the café!” she yells over her shoulder. Dashing into the woods and reemerging on a motorcycle, Jill speeds off purposefully down the dirt road, leaving her nieces’ current protection in the hands of the Quinns.
Maggie’s head hurts.
Hadn’t Jill—just moments before—been challenging these guys? She was acting like Maggie and Eve needed to be protected from the Quinns. And now, they’re all getting along because of Martin and his beeping iPad-like device?
But there is no time for questions. Grabbing her arm, West yanks her forward until they are both running toward the Quinns’ porch and the sleek black hot rod parked out front. Maggie spots a floppy Eve in Luca’s arms as Tate splits off, heading toward the moving truck. Within seconds, the tailgate starts to lower. But before it has even hit the ground, someone—Maggie thinks it’s Rowan—disappears inside the truck. Then there’s the unmistakable sound of an engine revving, tires against metal, and a giant black Humvee emerges.
Heading to the passenger side, Tate jumps in. Dust flies as the outfitted, monster of a vehicle barrels straight toward them.
Maggie had been wondering why they still had the moving truck parked in front of their house.
At least one of her questions has been answered.
The classic muscle car rips up next to the Humvee, and between the two, the headlights are blinding. Shielding her face, Maggie watches as Luca jumps out, barking orders, having already buckled Eve securely within.
“Maggie, Martin, with me! West, you’re with Tate and Rowan.”
Giving her hand a reassuring squeeze, West releases. They all split off to their respective vehicles, and no sooner are the doors shut than four massive orbs roll into view and stop.
Waiting.
Eve pushes her face against the glass; never has she seen anything so beautiful.
Perfect unearthly circles of ash and thunder. They look to Eve like crystal spheres belonging to a fortune teller, except for the fact that they are easily twenty feet tall. And unfortunately, more than likely there to kill them.
“Plan?” Luca asks Martin. Tablet in hand, he is in the front passenger seat with the Abbott sisters in back.
“Maggie, your hair? It’s dancing….”
Eve, covered in dirt and debris, gazes at her sister in wonder through her filthy spectacles. She reaches to pull on a particularly bouncy ringlet, but Maggie
slaps her hand away.
“Can you tell me now what’s wrong with her?” Maggie inquires, whining as she continues to deflect her older sister’s strange behavior.
“Forty-five degrees to the left, two hundred feet, then cut right back to the road. It would be advisable to avoid direct contact. All four are rollers—”
Luca growls, slapping his right hand against the steering wheel in frustration.
“I know that already! Rowan?”
Static, and then a voice comes through a square intercom on the dash.
“Copy that.”
Eve pauses and gasps, thinking that a voice from heaven has just spoken to them.
“Jesus? Copy what? Copy what, Jesus?” she exclaims, hopeful, as she leans over Luca’s headrest.
“Control her!” he bellows, pushing Eve back as he hits the gas. The Humvee does the same, following the hot rod’s lead.
The rollers are right in front of them and coming just as fast.
They are going to hit the cars head on.
Both vehicles swerve left at the last second, shooting straight into the corn field. Eve giggles, clapping her hands in excitement, as Maggie’s white knuckles cling to the headrest before her. Daring to look out the back window, at first, there is nothing. Just taillights and stalks of corn falling in the wake of the Humvee’s carnage.
It a matter of moments, the rollers are back. Single file, consuming everything they touch, and gaining on them.
“Can’t you just do that light thing and blast them? Like you did in the field?” begs the frazzled redhead, hoping the solution will be that simple.
“They are mutation level fours. That little trick won’t work. Rollers’ cells are repairing too quickly for such a small charge to be effective in disabling their molecular binding,” Martin answers, not that Maggie understands a word of what he just said.
Eyes glued to his screen, pointer finger raised, Martin seems to be waiting. A nod, he points to the right.
“Now would be an optimal.”
“Rowan!” Luca yells, cranking the steering wheel right, causing Maggie to slide left, crushing Eve against the door. The Humvee and the hot rod fishtail at first, but both drivers expertly straighten, changing direction in the field. Within seconds they hit the dirt road, and veer left. Maggie can’t help but scream as the car tilts up, threatening to flip, but the tires lower and slam back into solid ground.
“Luca? Luca? Luca?” Eve pesters, relentless.
“What?” he snaps, irritated.
“Can you keep a secret?”
Silence. No response.
“I don’t like you. But I like you. But I don’t. But I do….” Eve’s words trail off into a toneless melody.
“Can we tranquilize her?” Maggie snaps.
Both cars crank right, peeling onto Saints Street. Maggie looks over her shoulder again, and what she sees makes her heart stop. The black, spinning, circular orbs are inching closer by the second.
“Um, guys…?” Maggie voice cracks.
“We know,” Luca and Martin state in unison.
The sun is starting to rise.
It has to be close to five in the morning as their high-speed chase delivers them into town.
Jill is already there, and she’s been busy. Setting a trap of her own.
Large, plain, metal cylinders rise from strategically placed holes in the ground. Every twenty feet, another pole.
Their placement creates a rectangular perimeter around the main city buildings. Maggie spots Jill off to one side of the road with her motorcycle, illuminated by their headlights, before they roar past her. The moment the cars clear the rising metal rods, their brakes squeal as both automobiles fishtail before coming to a stop.
Whipping around, Maggie is just in time to see Jill tap the screen on a tablet she is holding before the poles erupt into a crisscross of lightning, creating a solid, electrified fence.
The rollers instantly try to reverse, but the one in front isn’t so lucky; sliding into the fencing and Jill’s snare, it howls. The noise of its torment rips at their ear drums as it explodes into blue light, smoke, and ash.
And then there are three.
Three rollers, waiting just outside the high-tech barrier.
Their vaporous surfaces roil and seethe.
The Quinns and the Abbotts are safe.
For now.
Chapter 14
Eve’s eyes roll back into her head and she starts to convulse, her body held in place by her seat belt. Instantly, Maggie’s attention is drawn from the ominous rollers.
“Eve? Eve? Oh my god, what’s happening!” she cries out, but Maggie’s door opens, and strong arms once again pull her away from her sister. Before she knows it, Rowan is holding her away from the vehicle while Tate and Luca gently retrieve Eve, laying her on her side against the frigid asphalt.
“Eve! Eve? Fucking let me go!” screams Maggie, her voice anguished, but Rowan doesn’t budge.
Jill is next to her sister. Their aunt kneels down, checks her pupils and rises quickly.
“She isn’t breathing. Follow me. Careful.”
Luca, again, scoops up her now-limp sister and hurries after Jill. The rest of the Quinns follow. Arriving at the front of her café, they purposely head down the alleyway to the back, arriving at the red door. Maggie can see the perimeter fence sizzling as Jill flings the door open, holding it wide while they all rush in.
“Martin, the kit’s in my office. The safe is under the rug at my desk.”
Without question, Martin sprints through the kitchen.
“Luca, set her on the table. Tate, Rowan, West, get her ready.”
Luca tenderly sets Eve upon the large metal surface, laying her on her back. Tate grabs her left wrist, pinning it down, as West does the same with her right. Rowan firmly grasps her feet as Martin re-enters with what looks like a pink shaving bag. Handing it to Jill, she unzips it, locates a large capped syringe with bright green contents, and sets it on the table. Jill snatches a pair of scissors hanging on the wall, then rushes back to Eve. Deftly, she cuts open her filthy t-shirt, stopping just before her breasts are exposed, and folds the fabric to each side.
Picking up the needle, she hands it to Martin, who leans over and locates an area between two ribs above her heart. Before Maggie can scream, he stabs it straight into Eve’s chest. Emptying the contents, he removes the needle and backs away.
Silence.
No one speaks.
Maggie’s horrified tears run slowly down the slope of her face, collecting at her collarbones.
And then Eve’s chest starts to rise and fall. Rise and fall. She is breathing once more.
Maggie’s knees buckle, feeling faint herself. Rowan catches her before she collapses, but she pushes him away, coming to lean against the table supporting her freshly revived sibling.
“Thank you for saving her life. Truly. I am so grateful….” She takes a deep breath, then demands, “But what in the hell just happened?”
Silence. Brother looks to brother before Jill sighs, surrendering.
“Where do you want us to start?”
Chapter 15
Baking. Someone is making cookies. The smell of butter and chocolate chips wakens Eve. Disoriented at first, she looks at the ceiling, then spots the time cards on the wall…she’s in Jill’s office. Pushing off the couch, she slowly sits up as a soft, crocheted blanket slides to the floor. Shooting pains rip at her chest, causing her to fold forward. Gasping for air, she tries once again to straighten, pulling the oversized black t-shirt she’s now wearing outwards at the collar. A dark purple bruise had formed in the center of her chest, and Eve is even more perplexed. The last thing she remembers is the field. They had made it to the field, and then everything after that was fuzzy.
What about Maggie? Is she alright? Forgetting her bruise, Eve has to find her.
Using the armrest to stand, gray sweatpants hang loosely around her waist. Forcing her left foot to move, then her right, she sl
owly walks to the door frame. Exhaustion pulls at her, tempting Eve just to sit. Sleep. But she has to find Maggie first.
As she gets closer to the exit, she thinks she hears lowered voices.
“Hello?” Eve’s voice is raspy as she calls out.
Footsteps, then a small, beautiful ginger comes barreling from the kitchen. Eve breathes a sigh of relief as she is wrapped in a tight hug. Flinching from her injuries, Maggie releases her sister, worry written on her features.
“Shit, sorry! How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I guess. What happened?”
Maggie’s smile falls as Eve notices West and Jill behind her. Her little sister looks to them before turning back to Eve.
“You want a cookie?” Maggie stalls.
“I want answers.”
“Okay, but I want to stuff my face, so you’re gonna have to watch me eat while we talk.”
West and Maggie slowly guide Eve into the kitchen, while Jill magically retrieves a soft armchair from somewhere. Plopping into the heavily padded chair, Eve sighs, noticing two trays of chocolate chip cookies cooling on metal racks in the center of the baking table. Grabbing at least four, Maggie positions herself on a stool in front of Eve as she greedily munches away.
West and Jill pull up stools beside her.
“Are your brothers…?” Eve’s first question is directed at West.
“They’re fine. Just showering and packing, they should be back soon.”
“Good. Good….” Eve sighs again. At least everyone had made it through last night alive. “What happened? In the field? Why did I pass out?”
“Umm, you didn’t pass out. You were tripping on mutant poison for a solid ten, twenty minutes? I wish I would have recorded it,” Maggie mumbles and starts to cough, the carbs stuffed in her jaw stunting her speech and laughter. Eve turns her gaze to Jill, who is oddly silent. She notices, for the first time, the intricate markings on her aunt’s arms. Looking quickly to West for reference, and then back again to Jill, she puts two and two together.
“Wait….” Eve begins.
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