I tried to shake the thoughts away. Tara might not even be telling truth. It was in her interest for us to trust her, but that didn’t mean she was actually trustworthy.
“Okay,” I said, “I understand you wanted to get away from Arman and I’m glad you took my parents with you, but what made you seek me out?”
“Well, originally I wasn’t going to seek you out, specifically. I wanted to find you and Farida — the two of you were able to fight off me and Patrick, so I knew I would be safer with you guys than I would be alone. And when I saw that Farida wasn’t with you and was maybe not the best person to hang around anymore, I decided to get in contact with you instead. With a little more practice, that poison of yours can take down anyone. Even Arman.”
I wanted to hide how anxious her comment about Farida made me, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “What did you see? When you scryed on Farida, I mean.”
“Well, I saw that she was by herself — completely by herself. It was nighttime, but she wasn’t stopping to rest — she was hurrying through the woods, practically running, but it didn’t seem like anything was chasing her. I’ve been following you guys long enough to know that’s not normal. She’s usually a lot more cautious and it doesn’t make sense for her to waste energy like that, plus it made me nervous that she would just leave you behind given that you’re… well.”
“Right.” Familiar nausea was burning my throat and making it hard to concentrate; I was too focused on wondering what the hell was going through Farida’s mind to care too much about Tara’s little dig at me. It sounded like Farida wasn’t even resting.
“What happened, anyway?” Tara asked.
Emily answered before I could. “Why do you care?”
She looked taken aback, then her expression shifted to a scowl. “I wanna know what I’m dealing with here. Is she gonna try and attack us, too?”
“Us?”
“Well, yeah. I told you: I need help staying safe from Arman.”
“Okay, let’s get one thing straight,” Emily said, jerking the steering wheel. She didn’t even bother using her turn signal as she abruptly pulled onto the shoulder of the highway and stopped the car. She twisted in her seat so she could see Tara, who was watching her with wide, frightened eyes. “You are not our friend. You haven’t done anything to give us a reason to trust you.”
“I saved her parents!”
“You saved your own ass.”
“Emily!” I snapped. “We haven’t even given her a chance.”
She laughed, but it was more mocking than truly humorous. “You’ve given her plenty of chances. Every time you’ve interacted with her up until now, she was trying to kill you.”
“I didn’t this time! A-a-and I can help her!” Tara’s gaze shifted to me, scared and pleading. “You want to find Farida again, don’t you? You’re worried about her. I can help! I can scry on her!”
“See?” I said to Emily. “She saved my parents, she hasn’t done anything to hurt us right now, and she’s going to help me find Farida again.”
“That still doesn’t prove anything.”
“Oh my god! What do you expect her to do, Emily?!”
With a huff, Emily crossed her arms and sagged back against her seat, rolling her eyes toward the roof. “Sorry if I’m feeling a little protective of my best friend after she told me about all the different ways she’s very nearly been killed over the last week.”
There was a tense pause. I studied Emily, my frustration melting away. Of course she was being protective — she had spent the last week not knowing where I was or what was going on after witnessing some pretty scary shit involving me on the news, and just a couple hours ago I had told her all the horrific details of what had actually happened. How else was she supposed to react? But I had been too wrapped up in my own worries and goals to consider what the situation looked like from her perspective.
Then Tara blurted, “I… I can also tell you things about Arman. I don’t know how much it’ll help you right now, but…”
I tore my gaze from Emily to give her a curious look. “Like what?”
“Well, he’s gotten one big item ticked off on his list: killing Masika. Er, sorry,” she rushed to add when my eyes quickly fell away from hers, a fresh wave of grief washing over me. “But, um, getting rid of Masika wasn’t just about revenge for Arman. She was also in the way of his bigger plans. He knew she would notice right away if the rifts reopened.”
My whole body went cold. “What?”
A black car screeched to a halt beside us. I had a second of recognition before the earth began to shake and a low wall of rock burst up in front of the car.
“Reverse!” I screamed, smacking Emily on the shoulder. “Go! Go! Go!”
Emily obeyed without question and the car flew backward, scraping and shrieking and nearly thrown sideways as it backed over another emerging wall of stone.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Tara was screaming, already in tears. “What’s happening? Who is that?”
“It’s Imani!” I said.
Emily whipped the car around in a haphazard U-turn and sped down the highway in the opposite direction, driving against the (thankfully) sparse traffic. A spike of earth shot up just in front of us; Emily swerved wildly, wincing as the front driver side corner crunched against the rock. Horns were blaring behind us.
“Take the exit!”
As she swung into the far lane, a gale of wind slammed into the back of the car, forcing us to turn more dramatically. Instead of fighting it, Emily used the added momentum to turn all the way around again, barreling toward the oncoming black car. We veered into a different lane to avoid collision and — as if in slow motion — I saw the driver side window roll down, the burning fist punching down toward our front tire—
“Watch out!”
Emily swerved again, throwing us far onto the shoulder without going straight into the ditch. The car shuddered as fire impacted the side of it and Tara screamed, ducking her head between her knees like we were in a crashing plane. I heard tires screeching and, when I checked the side mirror, saw that their car was struggling to get turned fast enough to follow us.
Emily put on more speed and kept to the left lane, passing the few other cars that shared the highway with us. I kept checking behind us, but soon I couldn’t see Imani’s black car following anymore. Even still, we weren’t taking any chances. Emily took the first exit we came across to make sure we weren’t on the same section of highway as Imani anymore.
“That was Imani?” Emily asked as she eased the car back down toward the proper speed limit (but not all the way down — she would always have a bit of a lead foot). “The same person who attacked you and Farida at that house?”
I nodded.
“I thought you said she only used fire last time?”
“She did.” But now she had used earth and fire. Which could only mean she was using more than one stone, just like Farida.
Tara, meanwhile, was still crying. “Who the hell was that?”
“Farida’s cousin. The bigger question is how she found us. Again.”
Chapter Six
We drove for some time after that, nervous of having another run in with Imani if we stayed in one place for too long, but now also nervous that she was going to appear out of nowhere and sideswipe us on the highway. The longer we went with no sign of her, the more I wondered if it had all been a fluke. It wasn’t impossible. Who was to say she hadn’t stumbled across us twice in one day?
But I knew that wasn’t right. In a world full of magic, coincidences were always suspect.
Not knowing how Imani kept finding us made it hard to know where to go next. Part of me wanted to go to PEI and check on my parents so I could see for myself that they really were okay. But if Imani had some way of tracking us, I didn’t want to bring her right to their doorstep. And I wanted to find Farida and pull her from this path of self-destruction. Tara could guide me to her, and with Emily’s car we were bound to cover the
distance between us quickly.
But… Well, as convenient as Emily’s car was, I really didn’t want to bring her into all this danger, either. She had gotten me to Tara in time. She didn’t need to do anything else.
“You should head home,” I told her as we drove. “You’ve been awesome — and I really, really missed you — but I can’t go back to the Island yet.”
“Then I’m not going back yet, either.”
I sighed. “Emily, this is serious.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
I glanced over at her. A wall of vibrant orange and yellow trees formed the backdrop out her window as she stared ahead at the road. Her expression was, indeed, serious, and the grimness was only magnified by the watercolour skull grinning at me from her bicep.
“Look, Emily, I know you’ll always have my back, but this really isn’t the time. Your family’s probably worried about you. And you have an awesome job you need to get back to.”
“My family isn’t worried because — as far as they know — I’ve gone on a long-ass road trip that has no definite end point because I’m struggling to recover from losing my oh-so awesome job.”
From the backseat, Tara let out a low whistle. “Big drama.”
I shot her a withering look, but my expression softened again as I asked Emily, “What happened? You loved that job. And you were good at it. They’re idiots for firing you.”
“I wasn’t fired.”
“What happened?” I asked again.
Her gaze remained fixed on the road, though it was more of a scowl now. Someone who didn’t know her would think she was just pissed. But I knew her well enough to notice the way her nostrils flared out and her eyes blinked too much — she was trying not to cry.
“…You quit?”
“Yeah.”
“What hap—”
“I was the only girl on my team. What do you think happened?”
We fell into silence. In a car full of women, no further explanation was needed.
Muttering a string of profanity, she wiped at the tears now streaming from her eyes. I watched, wishing we weren’t driving so I could hug her and rage with her and let her pour out all her pain. Instead, I pulled one of her hands from the steering wheel so I could lace my fingers through hers, squeezing gently as I said, “If you want, when this is all over, I can sic a dragon on him.”
She laughed tearfully. “I’d kill to see that.”
“You might have to,” Tara said softly.
There was another pause in conversation, filled only with the sound of Emily sniffling and swearing as she tried to compose herself.
“So,” she said eventually, “enough about me. Where to next?”
It didn’t elude me that she was trying to move away from discussing her own problems as quickly as possible. I wasn’t one to judge, however, nor was I one to push. Emily worked through things at her own pace. And when she was ready, I would be there to help her deal with it all.
“We shouldn’t stop,” Tara said automatically.
I glanced back at her. “Sleep is a thing, you know.”
“Right. There’s three of us. We’re all able to drive. So we can do it in shifts: One person drives, one person navigates and keeps them company, and the last person sleeps.”
“Absolutely not,” Emily snapped. When I turned to her with an exasperated look, she elaborated, “I’m not letting her drive my car. I don’t trust her to be unattended at the wheel.”
“I won’t be unattended!”
“You or I will always be watching her,” I said. “I mean, what other choice do we have? The more we stop and the longer we stop, the higher the risk of Arman or Imani or the police or—”
“I get it,” Emily cut in. She glared ahead, grinding her teeth as she shifted into the left lane to pass a semitruck. Finally, with a sigh, she said, “Fine. I guess that’s our best option. But we’ll still need to stop for food and gas soon, and we need an actual plan.”
“Right. So where are we going?”
I didn’t realize Tara was talking to me until she poked my shoulder. Panic immediately tightened my chest. “What? Wait — no, no, no. You can’t leave this all up to me!”
“Relax,” Emily said, “you’re not coming up with a masterplan or anything. You’re just deciding what our next goal is. We’ll work out the rest together.”
It still felt like too much pressure, like my seatbelt was locking tight against my chest and making it hard to breathe. I was never the person in charge. Not even for group projects in school — I tried to keep us on task and ended up stuck with all the work. When we were together, Emily was the one who took charge of situations. It just came naturally to her.
But it was obvious Emily and Tara weren’t going to give me a choice in the matter, so I swallowed back my nerves and quietly said, “Farida. We should find Farida.”
“Alright. I’ll scry out her location.” Tara settled back against her seat, closing her eyes.
“Hang on,” Emily said, earning an annoyed look from the other girl. “How many times a day can you do that?”
“A lot, unless we have to fight someone.”
“Okay. Maybe we should check in on that other chick who attacked us. Get a sense of where she is so it’s easier to avoid her.”
“Good call,” I said.
Tara nodded. “Easy enough.” Then she sank back into her meditative pose.
I twisted in my seat to watch her, curious. After a few seconds, a dull glow emanated from behind her closed eyelids. Then she gasped and her eyes flew open, the corneas and irises suffused with light. A shiver ran down my spine as her glowing eyes darted around frantically.
“No, no, no! This isn’t right! What’s—” She cried out, eyes squeezing shut as her back arched and her expression became pained. She was gasping and panting when she opened her eyes again. They were back to their normal, coppery brown colour.
“I — I don’t understand…” she muttered, shaking her head slowly.
“What happened?”
“I… I tried to scry on her, but as soon as I tried to glimpse through her eyes it was like I was slammed back into my own head. I was seeing you guys, but it didn’t look right — like a picture of a picture, you know?”
“So what does that mean?” Emily asked. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Tara shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know! It’s never happened before. Even when I tried to scry on you,” she added, turning to me.
I knew she had mentioned not being able to scry on me before, but I had been so focused on worrying about Farida that it hadn’t occurred to me to ask about it. “What do you mean by that, anyway? Arman had been asking about it.”
“You’ve got some kind of block on you. Any time I’ve tried to scry, it’s like I can’t get a signal.”
“If you had to guess,” Emily said, eyes darting up to the rear-view mirror, “what do you think happened?”
Tara was quiet for a minute, brow furrowed with thought. “I guess… It felt like maybe things got flipped. Like she was scrying through me.”
“Awesome,” Emily bit out sarcastically.
“She was tracking us, anyway,” I said. “This just means we need to be extra careful. Tara, are you still good for another scry, or do you need a minute?”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” She sank back into her seat and soon her eyes were closed and glowing again. I felt a bit bad for rushing her, but my omnipresent anxiety over Farida overpowered that. About half a minute later, she snapped out of it, blinking rapidly as she seemed to try to reorient herself. “Okay. Got her. But she’s got trouble.”
“Trouble?” My heart instantly leapt into my throat. “Trouble how?”
“Looks like she’s trying to lose some cops. I’m not sure — she was in the woods, but there were flashing red and blue lights against the trees.”
“Could you tell where she was?”
Tara shook her head. “Could’ve been any wooded area.
There’s a lot of them in New Brunswick.”
I swore under my breath. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but we were hitting roadblocks too soon.
Emily, meanwhile, was rolling her eyes and muttering, “Awful convenient.”
Tara bristled. “Sorry if I can’t pinpoint where someone is based on what tree they’re standing next to!”
“Standing? I thought you said she was running,” Emily bit back.
“Guys!” I snapped. They both shut up, thankfully, but the air in the car was tense now. Drawing a shaky breath, I rubbed my hands over my face. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine. We can just scry again later, right?”
“I’ll keep checking on her,” Tara agreed.
“For now,” Emily said, “we’re finding a rest stop so I can make sure my car didn’t get too wrecked back there. I can hear something rattling and I’m not taking any chances.”
There was always something rattling in Emily’s old beater of a car, but I wasn’t about to point that out when she was already in foul humour. We drove on in silence.
~
The late September air was brisk as I paced the parking lot, listening to the dial tone on my phone. I kept glancing over to where Emily had parked the car a few yards away. She was laying partially underneath it on the still-wet asphalt, using her phone’s flashlight to examine the underbelly of the car and make sure nothing too important had gotten damaged. Apparently the front was fine — just a dent in the bumper, nothing to the radiator or any other vital parts. Tara sat on the ground beside the car, legs sprawled out as she leaned back on her elbows, chatting up a storm. I doubted Emily was very friendly toward her company.
Ring, ring…
I clutched my phone a little tighter. They had to answer. They were safe. I had a strong signal. Tara had made sure dad still had his cell when she left.
Ring, ring…
Maybe Arman had found them again. He’d found Tara and recruited her without scrying, hadn’t he? Who was to say he didn’t have his own means of tracking people?
Those Who Fall Page 5
