Earth Shaker

by Juliana Haygert

  I crouched down and said in a soft voice, “Please. Whatever made you come with us, act on that. We need to leave. Now.”

  Loud and fast footfalls came from outside. I stood, the lion lifted his head, and Rye had his sword pointed to the front gates as it opened.

  “There you are,” Hanzi said, stepping in. “I was looking all over you.” He jerked his chin to Wesh. “I was sent by the rom baro to get you out of the infirmary. When I got there and didn’t find you …” He shook his head.

  “And how did you find me?” Wesh asked.

  “I was hiding from the alchemists,” Hanzi replied.

  I stepped out from the lion’s stall. “How bad is it?”

  Hanzi’s shoulders sagged. “Bad. Really bad. There are dozens of them. Or more. I … I don’t know.”

  I cursed under my breath.

  Rye lowered his sword. “Since you’re here, you’re coming with us now.” He turned to me. “Five seconds. Then we leave the lion behind.”

  Shit.

  The three men turned to the truck and I faced the lion, who, to my surprise, was now standing on four legs.

  I opened my mouth to say another stupid thing, but the lion let out a low growl. A chill coursed down my spine.

  Rye was by my side in half a second, his hand on my wrists, pulling me back.

  But the growl wasn’t for me.

  I closed my eyes and lowered the shields around my mind, sending my senses out. I couldn’t feel them exactly, but I felt a heavy, dark feeling, like a thick fog spreading fast and enveloping everything in its way.

  “They are coming this way,” Rye said, probably sensing the same thing I was.

  I looked up at him. Damn the lion. “Let’s go.”

  The moment we spun toward the truck, the front gates of the barn blew open with a loud bang and the alchemists poured in. I counted six, but in the dark and with how fast they moved, I couldn’t be sure.

  Pale and cradling his broken arm, Wesh retreated to the back of the building. Hanzi jumped forward and threw his arms out, sending a powerful rush of air over the alchemists. The strong wind blew them back a few paces. I channeled my power and stomped on the ground. A wall of stones rose from floor to ceiling, sealing the alchemists behind it.

  “Go!” I shouted.

  The four of us ran to the truck.

  Hanzi helped Wesh into the back and Rye opened the driver’s door.

  Then two alchemists jumped down from the roof—one right in front of Rye, the other right in front of me.

  With his shadow dagger out and his feet apart, the alchemist was ready to attack. I imagined him snarling at me under his mask. I reached for my sword, but the alchemist moved, swiping his dagger at me. I ducked, calling my power. Little stones rose from the ground. They pelleted him like bullets.

  Then, I pulled out my sword, but before I could kill him, the white lion jumped from behind me, landing right on the alchemist’s chest. Both of them went down. The alchemist screamed and blood sipped onto the ground.

  Eyes wide, I stared as the lion discarded the alchemists and turned his big head to me, as if killing an alchemist by tearing up his neck open was a normal occurrence. I averted my eyes from the gore and saw as Rye pulled his sword from the other alchemist’s chest.

  He immediately spun toward me and reached for me. “Are you okay?”

  Still in shock, I nodded. He grabbed my hand and squeezed once. “We should leave.”

  Not trusting my voice, I nodded again. He opened the passenger door of the truck for me but I stayed in place, watching as the lion sauntered to the back of the truck. With blood smeared all over his muzzle, the lion hopped inside and the door closed behind him.

  What a bipolar lion.

  Rye touched my arm, and I focused on the problem at hand. We had to leave.

  Holding on to the doorway, I hauled myself into the truck while Rye ran to the other side and took the driver’s seat.

  Without turning on the lights, he backed the truck onto the back road. We saw as the alchemists crawled up the roof, coming for us. Rye turned the truck around and stepped on it.

  When I was sure the alchemists couldn’t reach us on foot, I fished my phone from my pocket and checked for messages. Nothing. I sent a couple of texts to my brother and my father and my mother asking for updates. My heart hammered as I continued staring at the screen, hoping for an answer.

  Hanzi rolled down the window dividing the front and back of the truck. “I’m trying to call my dat and he doesn’t answer,” he said. “Any luck here?”

  “I haven’t tried yet,” Rye said. His eyes were on the road, but I could see the way his hands wrapped around the wheel and the tension in his shoulders.

  “They aren’t answering me either,” I whispered, afraid of voicing it.

  Head lowered, Hanzi stayed seated behind the window, and when I glanced back, I saw Wesh seated farther away, his back against one of the empty cages.

  We remained in silence for a while.

  Five minutes later, we were off the property. Not being able to get ahold of anyone, I tried calling my brother’s phone. It rang and rang, but he didn’t answer.

  My chest hurting, I lowered the window and glanced back.

  I squinted, not quite understanding what was on the horizon.

  Then I gasped as the tiny orange flecks grew and gray smoke rose to the dark sky.

  “Fire!” I yelled.

  Startled, Rye jerked the truck. “What?”

  “The enclave … it’s burning,” I said, my voice breaking.

  Hanzi ran back and opened one of the truck’s door. He fell on his knees. “No!”

  I twisted toward Rye. “They are in trouble. We have to go back.”

  Rye’s knuckles turned white around the wheel and he shook his head once. “No. We have a mission and we’ll stick to it.”

  “Our family is back there, and you want to stick to the damn mission?”

  He shot me a glare before looking at the road again. “For all we know, our family made it out. That’s just a consequence of the battle.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “Neither do you!”

  Groaning, I moved to the window and looked back again. The fire spread, fast and relentless.

  Please, Saint Sara-la-Kali, let my family, all of our families, make it out.

  A loud boom rang around us, shaking the truck. Rye slammed on the breaks, and we jumped out of the truck. The four of us stood at the end of the truck, watching as the fire rose and rose and rose into the sky, swallowing our enclave whole.

  6

  Despite all my screams and shouts and the punches I landed on his shoulders, Rye didn’t stop the truck again. He didn’t turn it around. In fact, he only sped up and took us farther from the enclave.

  Hanzi and Wesh agreed with him, though we all continued calling and texting and hoping someone would contact us to let us know they were okay, that they had made it out before the alchemists burned our home to the ground.

  Each time I closed my eyes, I saw it again. The black night stained orange by the flames that shot to the sky.

  A heavy mix of emotions made its way up my chest and choked me. I wiped away the tears before someone noticed I was crying. Until we knew for certain … no, until we received news from someone at the enclave, I wouldn’t be weak. And when someone did call us, I would cry in relief. Those were the only tears I would allow myself.

  Because there was no other option. I wouldn’t even think of other options.

  Finally, after another two hundred miles or so—most of them on smaller roads in the middle of nowhere—we passed what looked like an abandoned gas station and Rye parked the truck behind a line of thick trees just off a back road.

  My legs and heart restless, I jumped out of the truck before it had fully come to a stop.

  Hanzi opened the truck’s back door and jumped out.

  “What now?” he asked.

  Groaning and holding his broken arm, W
esh sat down on the edge of the truck. “I say we keep going.” Wesh’s face was still pale, save from the few dark red wounds spread across his neck. Poor guy. He had just lost his brother, and now we couldn’t contact our enclave. I understood why he wanted to keep going. “Besides, we need to take these animals to the sanctuary before we do anything.”

  Rye appeared from the other side of the truck. His eyes narrowed, and his arms and neck were tense. I had never seen him so stoic and fierce before. To be honest, I had never paid him much attention before.

  He stood tall, his arms crossed. “I think … before going any farther, we need to find a way to confirm what happened.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “We can’t drive aimlessly,” he said.

  “We’re not aimless,” Hanzi said. “We’re going to the sanctuary, right?”

  “Yes, but what about after?”

  “We go back home,” I said, defiant.

  Rye shook his head. “We can’t risk it. We can’t risk going back there without knowing what happened. What is happening.”

  I groaned. “But we have to … We need to find out what is happening now.”

  “We’ve been calling,” Hanzi said, lifting the cell phone in his hand. “No one is answering.”

  “Then we come up with a new plan.” I lifted my chin and faced Rye, knowing he would be the one opposing me. “You guys keep going, take the animals to the sanctuary, and I’ll go back to check on everyone.”

  I had no idea how I would go back by myself, but I would find a way.

  Rye shook his head before I finished talking. “No way,” he said, his words harsh. “I won’t let you go out there alone.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  Rye took a step toward me. “What if it’s not safe? What if they know some of us escaped, and they are waiting for us to go back and fall into their trap?”

  I threw my hands down. “We can’t just stay here and wait! Our families aren’t answering! They might be in trouble and we can help!”

  “It’s probably too late,” Wesh said, his voice low and utterly calm.

  I flinched at his words. “What? Why do you say that?”

  He turned his gray eyes to me, and I suppressed another flinch at the coldness reflecting in them. “Think. Dozens of alchemists invaded our home when we were all sleeping. They got past our wards and warriors, and they attacked our home. You saw the fire, the explosion, and no one is answering our calls. Don’t you think that, if someone else had escaped, they would have contacted us by now?” He snorted, and I realized he had given up. He had no hope for our people. “And you know what alchemists do with tziganes. They rounded everyone up and are now harvesting our family and friends.”

  “Shut up!” I shouted, clenching my fists.

  “Dude,” Hanzi snapped, clearly aggravated.

  Wesh shrugged. “It’s the truth and you know it.”

  Rage made its way up my chest and my hands trembled, itching to claw Wesh’s eyes out. Instead, I spun around and marched to the edge of the road. I opened my hands and rocks flew from the ground down the road, going as far as I could see. I kept throwing rocks, using my magic, spending its energy, letting out the anger floating in my veins.

  Finally, my shoulders sagged and a single tear rolled down my cheek. I looked down the road to where the dark blue sky was slowly turning a dark orange on the horizon as the sun rose.

  We had been on the road for hours and no one had called us.

  Still not ready to give up hope, I fished my cell phone from my pocket and tried it again. My father, my mother, Marko, the rom baro, Roma, some of the elders. I called everyone I had in my contacts. No one picked up.

  I sensed his steps on the rough ground before I heard them. Moments later, Rye halted by my side.

  “If you’re here to tell me Wesh is right, don’t waste your breath.” From the corner of my eyes, I saw his chest moving up and down as he took a deep breath and let it out again. “I won’t give up. Not yet.”

  “I know and that’s a good thing.”

  I snapped my head to him. “I thought you agreed with Wesh.”

  He pressed his lips tight. “I don’t want to agree, but all the evidence we have so far points that way.” He turned, just enough to face me. “But I don’t want it to be true, and I think having you fight for a better outcome is what is giving me strength right now.”

  The sun chased away a bit more of the darkness and that was when I saw. Rye’s eyes shone with unshed tears. I was wallowing in my own despair and anger. I had forgotten they all must be suffering too. Even Wesh, who seemed uncaring.

  “I’m barely holding on,” I said in a low voice. “I can’t be someone else’s strength.”

  Rye reached for me and caught my hand in his. “Right now, I’m just glad you’re here with me, where I can see you’re safe and sound.” Another tear escaped. Rye lifted his free hand and, cupping my face, he brushed my tear away with his thumb. “Whatever happens, whatever happened, whatever comes out of this, we’ll make it, okay? I’ll make sure you make it.”

  Another bag of emotions seized my chest and my throat closed. I lowered my head, and before I knew it, Rye slid his arms behind my back and pulled me to his chest. I didn’t resist. Instead, I buried my face in his warmth, inhaling deeply, wishing his woodsy male scent would overshadow my fear, my anger, my frustration. I clutched the side of his shirt and allowed a few more tears to fall. His big hands rubbed up and down my back, soothing some of my pain, calming me in a way I didn’t expect.

  Rye dipped his head down, resting his chin on my temple. He hummed a tune all tziganes knew, a children’s nursery rhyme about going to sleep safe from revenants and dragons and other supernatural creatures that were our enemies. Including alchemists. I focused on the melody and forgot the lyrics.

  Soon, the tears stopped, but Rye continued rubbing his hands up and down my back. And we were swaying side by side—when had we started?

  Probably tired from the same rhythm, Rye started humming another lullaby.

  Sniffing, I pulled back and looked up at him. “Are you trying to put me to sleep?”

  He shifted his face to meet my eyes and I sucked in a sharp breath. His full lips were only a couple of inches from mine.

  “If that helps, I’m game,” he said, his voice low, coarse.

  His gaze flicked to my lips.

  My cell phone rang and I jumped back, my heart going into overdrive.

  “By Saint-Sara-la-Kali,” I muttered, reaching for my phone. It was a call! A call! It was them. My family. I knew it. But as I glanced at the screen, confusion replaced the excitement. “I don’t know this number,” I said.

  “Just answer it,” Rye said.

  “Do it!” Hanzi shouted from the distance. He helped Wesh down from the truck and both of them rushed toward us.

  I pressed the green button and answered the call, “Hello?”

  “Cora?” a strange voice said.

  My stomach dropped. “Yes. Who is it?”

  “I’m Theron, from the Bellville enclave in Connecticut.”

  I had forgotten all about Bellville and the contact my father had sent me. “Yes, he gave me your number. He said to call you if we needed help.”

  “Well, he called me last night,” he said. “He asked for help.” My heart sank. “We’ve been on the road since, but we’ve been trying to call him and no one answers.”

  A sob rose and lodged at my throat. “I know. I can’t get a hold of him or anyone else.”

  Holding back more tears, I explained to Theron all I knew, all I had seen.

  “All right,” Theron said. “Give me a moment.” I heard a few muffled voices as he told someone else what had happened. “Okay. I’ve talked to my people here, and we’ll keep the original plan. We’re going to your enclave to see what we can find out.”

  I wanted to shout, beg him to take me with them. Instead, I let out long breath to calm myself. “We thought about going back,
but some of us think the alchemists could be waiting.”

  “They are right,” Theron said. “But they won’t expect us. Don’t worry. They won’t see us coming,” he said, sounding confident.

  I balled my hand into a tight fist. “Well, if you meet the alchemists, skin them alive, please.”

  A hollow chuckle came from the other side of the line. “Will do. Meanwhile, you should keep going to the sanctuary. The sooner those animals are there, the better.”

  I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “That’s the plan.” I paused. “Please, keep me posted.”

  “Will do,” he said before ending the call.

  Hanzi’s eyes were huge. “So?”

  I shrugged and glanced at Rye. “I want to turn around and meet them at the enclave, but I know some of us—” Rye raised one of his eyebrows “—won’t want that.”

  “You’re damn right,” Rye muttered.

  “So … to the sanctuary?” Hanzi asked.

  I let out a defeated sigh. “To the sanctuary.”

  7

  The idea was for us to keep driving until nighttime, find a quiet inn in the middle of some town where we could hide better than the roadside ones, and rest. But it was just past noon and we couldn’t take it anymore. We had slept only a couple of hours last night before the screaming and the running started. We had fought and ran, and the tension and fear clutching our bones and muscles brought on exhaustion faster.

  Because of that, we agreed to stop at the only inn in a tiny, rural town around two in the afternoon. We rented one room with two queen beds so we could sleep for a couple of hours. But decided, once the sun set, we would be back on the road.

  However, as we entered the small room and I took in the two beds, something like panic weighed down my chest.

  Hanzi helped Wesh to one of the beds. “Wake me up tomorrow,” Hanzi joked, settling down on the bed beside Wesh.

  I stared at the remaining bed. I understood why we shouldn’t have more than one room, but sharing a bed with Rye? I couldn’t think of that …

  Rye halted beside me.

  I jerked as if he had shocked me. “It’s been a while since we ate.” I retreated to the door. “I saw a diner two blocks from here. I’ll pick up some stuff for us.”