Arise (Awakened Fate Book 4) Page 2

  And they hadn’t stopped in all the miles since.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding,” Baylie groaned when the phone buzzed again. She tugged her gaze from the midday traffic on the highway and glanced to Noah. “Could you look this time?”

  He pulled open the lid to the center compartment and drew out the cell.

  And then returned it to the console without a word.

  I sighed. Still my parents then, and not Baylie’s stepmom, Sandra, or anyone else. Noah and Baylie continued checking, and kept the phone on vibrate rather than silent just in case their family tried to reach us.

  But so far every call had been the same.

  “What is that?” he asked tiredly. “Forty?”

  “Forty-three,” Ellie supplied in a small voice from her seat on the far side of Zeke.

  Noah shook his head.

  I turned my gaze to the window. Land so flat it could have been ironed surrounded us, though I knew mountains couldn’t be much farther ahead. We’d entered Colorado not too long ago, and though the eastern portion of the state was flat enough to seem like Kansas all over again, the western would make all this feel like a weird dream.

  Or at least, that’s what I remembered from when Zeke and I had driven through an area not too far from here.

  The thought made me shift uncomfortably, bringing as it did a hot blush of memory and a nauseated feeling of worry all at the same time. On the seat next to me, Zeke had barely moved over the past several hours. Bandages covered his legs from where Ellie’s grandfather had cut him, and bloodstains showed through the gauze. The tendrils of scales that had dangled around the injuries were finally gone, but his skin still glistened in places, as if he could barely keep it from changing. Strange burn marks marred his chest and sides, though both were now covered by the shirt Noah had lent him. I had no idea what Harman had done to him – Zeke hadn’t spoken of it during the entire trip – but even all these hours later, he seemed like he’d scarcely gotten better.

  I didn’t know what to do to help him. We couldn’t take him to a hospital – Zeke wasn’t human, he had no ID, and Ellie’s grandfather or my parents would have the police looking for us besides – and none of us knew of a place to go other than where we were already heading.

  But if Ellie’s mentor, Olivia, couldn’t help him. If he died…

  The nauseated feeling grew. Just because I’d almost died last night after what that horrible little man had done, that didn’t mean Zeke would.

  Stomach churning, I pushed the thoughts aside. They weren’t helping.

  “How much farther?” I asked.

  When no one responded, I glanced away from the window.

  “A while,” Ellie answered apologetically.

  My fingers tightened on Zeke’s.

  He squeezed my hand back.

  I let out a breath, trying to allow the small pressure to convince me that everything would be fine.

  The phone buzzed.

  I closed my eyes.

  Time passed and the mountains arrived, swallowing us in shadows even though it was only late afternoon. Cars raced around us, their drivers moving faster for the comfort of not having police looking for them, and the road curved back and forth past slopes that felt surrealistically high.

  And the hours crept on.

  Stars shone by the time Ellie finally murmured for Baylie to turn off the state highway. The road delivered us into a low-lying city lost between the mountains and bisected by a river cutting a path through its downtown. Tourist traps, all of them long since closed for the night, fronted the waterway, while near the town center, strings of lights glowed around a stage in a park, revealing the trash-and-plastic-cup aftermath of what might’ve been a concert.

  Following Ellie’s directions, Baylie steered the car past assorted businesses and the little stands advertising tickets to various events, and into the neighborhoods hiding behind them both. The hilly terrain quickly blocked the lights of the main city street, leaving us winding along dark, narrow roads dotted with houses tucked at odd angles beneath giant trees.

  “There,” Ellie said, leaning forward a bit to point at a white-walled bungalow nearly lost between two large pines. By the screen door guarding the enclosed porch, a lamp glowed buttery and warm in the darkness, and when we turned into the gravel drive, I could see that the lights at the back of the house were still on as well.

  I swallowed hard. I’d known Olivia would be waiting. Ellie had called earlier today to tell her we were coming, and about an hour ago to let her know we were getting close.

  But anything could have happened between then and now. Harman could have called and told Olivia what had happened from his perspective. Something else could have changed to put us all in danger. Ellie swore we could trust her mentor, that even though she was a landwalker elder like Harman, Olivia didn’t think like him. She wouldn’t see me as just a half-and-half kid who needed to be turned back into a landwalker, and she could help with more information about this ‘Beast’ thing that had caused the Sylphaen to want me dead.

  But Ellie could be wrong, and on the roller coaster my life had become, I’d found paranoia of strangers wasn’t always the wrong reaction. After all, at least half of them had ended up trying to kill me.

  Zeke gently jostled my hand. “It’ll be alright,” he whispered.

  I glanced over, and then caught sight of Noah looking back at us. Discomfort tangled through me for a whole other reason, and hastily, I turned away and pushed open the door.

  Warm summer air pressed against me, carrying the smell of pine and river water. The neighborhood was silent, the hour long past when most people probably had gone to bed. From the car, Zeke climbed out. I hesitated, waiting to see if he needed any help.

  “I’m fine,” he assured me, reading the pause.

  I stayed close just in case, and tried to ignore the feeling of Noah watching us both. Ellie led the way while we headed for the porch. The steps creaked beneath us and the hinges of the screen door made popping noises as Ellie pulled it aside. We gathered inside the enclosed porch, and when Ellie knocked, the heavy, mahogany door seemed to absorb the sound.

  A second passed and then footsteps hurried toward us from within the house. The door swung open to reveal a slender African-American woman with a short afro and black-framed glasses. Above her jeans, an old flannel shirt covered her, the plaid fabric visibly softened and faded with age. Her dark eyes swept us as though counting and running a calculation on the number she found, and from her face, I couldn’t tell what the result could be.

  “Hi Olivia,” Ellie managed with a tiny, nervous smile. “I’m sorry to drop in so late.”

  “It’s no problem,” the woman answered, sounding more cautious than upset. “Is everything okay? You were fairly vague on the phone.”

  “Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. It’s… well, I mean… can we come in?”

  Eyebrow twitching up, Olivia nodded. Not looking away from us, she stepped back to allow us all space to enter. Ellie hurried inside, with Baylie coming more slowly behind her. Noah followed, only to pause on the opposite side of the entry from the woman, still watching her. Olivia’s eyes skimmed over him questioningly before flicking to us.

  And then she spotted the bandages on Zeke’s legs. Alarm on her face, she looked to Ellie.

  “I can explain that,” Ellie began. “It’s just… he, uh…”

  “Why don’t you all join me in the kitchen?” Olivia offered carefully when Ellie trailed off. She waited while Zeke and I walked past her and then she shut the door. “I have a couple chairs in there and I was just getting some cocoa ready.”

  Ellie took off for the kitchen. Still casting short glances to the wounds on Zeke’s legs, Olivia trailed after her.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself. With Zeke beside me and Noah a step ahead, I walked down the hall. Through an archway to my left, I could see a darkened study. A trio of monitors sat on the desk i
n the corner, their blue power lights blinking sleepily. A computer tower waited on the floor near them, and in the dimness, I could make out a thick braid of cables running to additional machines several feet away. Beneath the bay window to the right, a couch sat with a laptop and a few paper file folders on it, the latter of which looked as though they’d been in the middle of being read.

  With a wary glance to Olivia, I kept going. At the end of the hallway, a bright glow spilled through the arched entrance. A metal-legged table stood in the middle of the kitchen, while an old, white-enameled gas stove waited to the right with a tea kettle getting ready to whistle on its top.

  Olivia crossed to the stovetop and removed the kettle quickly. Turning back, she motioned for us all to take seats around the table. Her ever-present worry still in her eyes, Ellie ghosted over to the cabinets and retrieved a box of instant cocoa and several mugs.

  I pulled back a chair, wincing at the scrape of the metal legs across the checkered tile, and then sat down next to Baylie. Zeke and Noah paused, and then Zeke sank into the chair at my side.

  The muscles of Noah’s jaw jumped. He took a seat next to his stepsister.

  I looked away.

  “So…” the woman began while Ellie opened a packet of hot chocolate mix. “Like Ellie said, my name is Olivia.”

  Baylie glanced to me. “I’m Baylie,” she replied warily.

  “Chloe,” I said.

  “Noah.”

  “Zeke.”

  The woman paused and then cast a quick look to Ellie when nothing more came. “I take it you all had a… well, how was your trip?”

  No one answered while Ellie set the mugs down in front of us.

  “We need your help,” Ellie said.

  Olivia waited.

  Ellie’s gaze twitched to me. “I didn’t know what to say on the phone. It’s just… things with Grandpa got bad. Complicated bad. He…” She exhaled. “You know how you told me he sometimes can take a hard view on things?”

  The woman nodded.

  Ellie glanced to us. “He… well, he did. And he, um… he hurt them. Because Chloe and Zeke are dehaians.”

  Olivia’s brow climbed. Her gaze went back to us.

  “Well, Zeke, really. And Chloe… she’s half-landwalker. But also dehaian. She survived the change.”

  The woman’s brow rose higher as she stared at us. I tried not to fidget under the scrutiny.

  “Grandpa tried to take that away from her, though,” Ellie continued. “Well, I mean, her parents wanted – her landwalker parents, that is. Sort of. They adopted her. I think that’s what Grandpa said. Her mom was the sister of the man who raised her, and then she died so he and his wife adopted her. Or…”

  Ellie’s tangled explanation failed her and she looked to me.

  I hesitated briefly and then nodded.

  She exhaled, echoing the motion. “Yeah, so they wanted him to take the dehaian stuff away. But Olivia, she survived. She actually became one of them.”

  The woman didn’t respond. I couldn’t read her expression. Without taking her eyes from me, she accepted a mug of cocoa from Ellie and stood holding it for a long moment in silence.

  “You saw her change?” Olivia asked Ellie.

  My face darkened at the implication.

  “Well, she…” Ellie looked to me. “Could you, like, maybe show your, um…?”

  She gestured haltingly to my forearms.

  I hesitated again before making the spikes come out.

  A breath pressed from Olivia’s chest. She glanced to Zeke. “And you?”

  Zeke didn’t respond.

  “He’s full-blood dehaian,” Ellie supplied in a tiny voice. “And Grandpa… he wanted to do testing.”

  Olivia paused for a heartbeat, and then her gaze returned to me.

  I couldn’t stop myself from shifting under her study this time. It just didn’t seem to end.

  “What about your friends?” she asked finally, her focus moving to Baylie and Noah.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Noah tense while Ellie opened her mouth to speak.

  “Just friends,” I answered.

  Ellie closed her mouth, appearing uncomfortable.

  I didn’t look away from the woman. There wasn’t anything particularly important about keeping Noah’s greliaran identity a secret – except that if Olivia turned out to be a threat, having someone around whom she’d underestimate might save our lives. She’d already gotten more information from us than we’d gotten from her, and there was no telling what she’d do with it all.

  A shiver moved through me. I couldn’t believe myself for thinking like this. A few weeks ago, the worst things I had to worry about were jerks at school. But life had changed, and the long drive here had sharpened a few things. I couldn’t trust anyone except Noah, Baylie, and Zeke. The jury was still out on Ellie, the fact she’d helped save me after what my parents and Harman had done aside.

  But other than that… other than them…

  “And him,” Olivia continued. “The fact he’s here…” Her head leaned toward Zeke, though she didn’t look away from me. “That has something to do with you?”

  I gave a tight shrug. She exhaled again.

  “What else have you been able to do?”

  My gaze twitched to Zeke. I didn’t know what to say, and I was starting to feel like a circus performer being asked what tricks they knew.

  “Look,” Noah cut in. “Ellie said you could help us. A whole lot of weird stuff has happened since Chloe found out she was dehaian, and a good chunk of it has tried to kill her. But Ellie said you’d know about it, and maybe even know what we have to do to stop it. So…?”

  Olivia’s brow drew down. “What kinds of ‘stuff’?”

  I hesitated and Noah did the same.

  “Possessed water,” Baylie answered before Noah could speak. “In California. It attacked our boat.”

  Olivia glanced to Ellie, who shrugged helplessly.

  “Did this happen every time you went in the ocean?” Olivia asked me.

  I paused. “No.”

  “Most of the time it just feels like the water is electrified when she’s in it,” Zeke said. “Though how much varies.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” I added before the woman could ask.

  Olivia looked away and her dark gaze slid back and forth across the checkered tile as though reading something there.

  Ellie fidgeted. “See? And I mean, I’ve watched the news about the storms hitting the coast and those earthquakes underwater. Olivia, if this is–”

  “I’ll need to look into it,” Olivia interrupted. Her gaze found me again. “But yes. Yes, I’ll help you.”

  Tension seemed to leak out of Ellie, though the woman’s words didn’t do much for the rest of us.

  Harman had thought he was helping me too.

  “It’s late, though,” Olivia continued. “And you…” Her gaze flicked to Zeke again. “You had a long trip. I have an extra room upstairs, and the couch down here isn’t bad either. Why don’t you all get some rest and we can talk more in the morning?”

  A heartbeat passed, and then we pushed our chairs back and rose to our feet. Olivia motioned us toward the hall, and followed when we headed for the stairs.

  The ceiling was lower on the second floor, as if it dated from a time when people were shorter, and it made me feel claustrophobic. Olivia directed us to a room at the end of the hall, where we found a queen-sized bed covered in a checkered quilt.

  “Bathroom is on the left,” Olivia said, “and my room is by the stairs. I’ll get some blankets together and then you all can decide who wants to take the couch. Ellie, could you grab the sleeping bag in the closet there? And, um… there should be a second one downstairs somewhere.”

  Ellie nodded and crossed to the twin folding doors on the left wall of the room. The woman returned to the hall closet, where she set to pulling out blankets and sheets.

/>   I hesitated, and from the corner of my eye, I could see the others do so as well. Reluctance was written all over Baylie’s face, along with a fair measure of awkwardness, and in varying degrees, Zeke and Noah’s expressions were the same.

  “Um… I can take the floor, I guess,” Baylie offered.

  “That’s alright,” Noah said.

  Her gaze twitched to Zeke. “No, it’s fine.”

  She went to help Olivia before anyone could say anything further.

  I bit my lip. Noah and Zeke didn’t quite look at each other, and having them both in such proximity was starting to make the air feel like it might explode.

  “I’m going to stay up,” I told them quietly. “We should probably keep an eye out… you know, in case.”

  “Chloe,” Noah protested. “You need sleep as much as–”

  “I’ve gone longer without it before, and it isn’t like I’m tired anyway. It’s not a problem.”

  “That last time wasn’t good either,” Zeke pointed out in a low voice.

  I shifted my weight uncomfortably. “It’s not a problem,” I repeated.

  Without another word, I hurried after Baylie. The last thing I needed was those two ganging up on me, and I didn’t want to argue any more than I wanted rest.

  After Harman and the Sylphaen and everything else in the past few weeks, I could only too easily imagine the nightmares that were waiting.

  ~~~~~

  In the end, Zeke took the couch.

  Tucked in the shadows behind the screen enclosing the porch, I sat on a swing and watched the street. The others were upstairs, asleep most likely, though Noah hadn’t looked happy about it. For her part, Baylie hadn’t said a word about my plan to stay up. Instead, she’d just given me a weird look, like the news upset her somehow, and then she’d gone to bed.

  I’d need to talk to her eventually. There just hadn’t been time. Or privacy. Or, on my part, any idea of what to say.

  Though she wasn’t the only one I needed to talk to.

  A moth flew past my face. I waved it off.

  It felt pretty crazy, though, sitting out here on watch like some sort of soldier. Odds were, my parents wouldn’t figure out where we were and couldn’t really pose a threat if they did. I wouldn’t let them drag me home again, after all. But then, if the police showed up, or even Harman…