Awaken (21 page)

Mom pushed by me. “Bill? Bill, are you–”

“He’s alive,” Diane said as Mom kneeled by
her side. “Ambulance is on its way.”

Trading places with Mom, she rose to her feet
and turned to me and Noah, hesitating as she saw the stains on his
shirt.

“What happened?” Noah asked.

“Someone started shooting at us from the
woods,” Diane told him. “And then a bunch of men in masks came out
of the brush at us. Maddox stopped those two, but the rest took
off.”

“Where is–” Noah started.

Maddox ran from the forest. Torn fabric and
blood marred his shirt, and hair-thin cracks of firelight still
shone in his skin, fading as I watched. His gaze raked the yard,
catching on Noah.

“Any more of them?” he demanded.

Noah shook his head. “Only one came back
there.”

Maddox glanced his brother over and swiftly
seemed to conclude what had happened. “I got three of them,” he
said, his voice nearly a growl. “The other two…”

Noah looked to the woods as the sound of
sirens carried up the hillside.

“Get inside and change clothes before the
ambulance arrives,” Diane ordered. “Both of you.”

The guys hesitated. Twitching his head at his
brother, Maddox motioned for Noah to go in while he paused at the
ruined stairs.

“How’re we going to explain–” Maddox began,
gesturing to the wreckage and the men inside.

“We don’t,” Diane said. “We say something hit
them. We don’t know what. Blame it on the others shooting at
us.”

He nodded. Noah pulled himself up onto the
porch and then disappeared into the house.

My eyes went to Dad lying on the ground. Mom
had a towel still pressed to his shoulder, but he was speaking to
her, his voice too quiet to hear. Diane stood nearby, watching them
and the road that the ambulance would drive equally.

I bit my lip, and then walked over to where
Baylie sat on one of the log benches, her free hand absently
stroking Daisy’s fur. She flinched as I came near, as though I’d
startled her, and when I lowered myself onto the bench next to her,
she swallowed hard, looking bloodlessly pale.

“You okay?” I asked quietly.

She shivered. “W-we were just talking. And
then suddenly there was all this noise. Your dad fell. Something
hit my arm. It hurt so much and then these guys just…” Shaking her
head, she didn’t take her gaze from the ground. “I thought they
were going to kill us. I thought…”

A frightened expression came over her face.
“M-Maddox, though. He…” Her terrified eyes met mine for the first
time. “Chloe, he changed. I swear. H-he just became some…
thing
. Like a monster. He threw two of them through the
stairs and when the others tried to shoot him… he just went after
them. He barely even stumbled. And his skin…”

Her trembling grew stronger and her gaze
dropped to the grass, though she didn’t seem like she was seeing
it.

I swallowed and turned away. On the porch,
Noah came outside and, at a quick nod from him, Maddox headed into
the house.

Like they were trading off watch.

A shiver ran through me. They thought those
guys might come back. They thought they might have to defend
against them again.

Become those… things… again.

And they both were staying ready for it.

I glanced to Diane. She knew. Had known all
along. And so of course my problems hadn’t seemed strange.

She had two stepsons who could probably glow
in the dark.

I looked back at Noah, my brow furrowing with
hurt. He could have told me. He
should
have. I mean,
everyone was entitled to secrets, but there I’d been, sharing this
terrifying new discovery of spikes and scales and possible death,
and he’d never said a word about the fact he wasn’t human
either.

Not one word.

He’d just seemed like he’d understood how I
felt the entire time.

My gaze returned to the driveway as an
ambulance pulled up. He still should have said something. But
instead, he’d lied to me. Maybe not outright – much – but by
omission. He’d had a hundred chances to say something, and he’d not
taken one of them.

He’d also saved my life.

I grimaced and turned to help Baylie to her
feet. As the EMTs rushed over to my dad, I continued on with her,
leaving Daisy by the bench and walking toward the second ambulance
that was coming to a stop on the grass.

The middle-aged driver hopped out and jogged
over to us, while his younger companion circled to the rear of the
vehicle.

“Hey there, I’m Marty,” the first man said,
putting a hand to Baylie’s elbow gently. “Let’s take a look at that
arm, shall we?”

He directed her toward the back of the
ambulance, where I could hear the younger guy opening the
doors.

I looked over my shoulder, watching two EMTs
load my dad onto a stretcher. Mom hovered nearby, holding his hand
as they got ready to carry him back to the ambulance. Another EMT
was checking over the men inside the ruin of the porch steps, with
Diane eyeing him from several feet away. Maddox lingered near the
corner of the house, effectively keeping anyone from wandering back
toward the trail, while Noah stood on the porch, studying the
surrounding forest.

“You doing alright?”

I flinched. The older med tech who’d been
helping Baylie stood nearby, and he smiled ruefully at my
alarm.

“Sorry,” Marty apologized. “Didn’t mean to
scare you. You’ve got some scratches there. Can I get you something
for them?”

He gestured and I glanced down, seeing the
bloodied scrapes on my palms and arms for the first time.

I swallowed. The man currently lying broken
by a tree had dragged me to the ground after he’d shot Noah. I just
hadn’t noticed the damage then.

“Sure,” I managed.

I followed him back to the rear of the
ambulance, where Baylie was sitting on the step. The younger EMT
stood near her, tying off a bandage around her arm.

“You were lucky,” he told her.

She swallowed and then nodded. He gave her a
warm smile before following Marty into the back of the ambulance to
gather more bandages.

I sat down next to her.

“What do you think Maddox… you know…
is
?” Baylie whispered to me, half-glancing to the EMTs
behind us.

I shook my head.

“He can’t be human, though, right? I mean,
humans don’t do that. Glow and have all this stuff in their skin
and put people through–” She caught herself and lowered her voice
again. “–through porches like they’re ragdolls. They can’t.”

She turned to me, renewed alarm coming over
her face. “Do you think Noah is like that?”

I looked down, uncertain what to say.

“I-I mean, what if he and Peter and all of
them are just–”

Something white flashed at the corner of my
eye and she gave a muffled cry. A hand clamped to my mouth and
yanked me backwards into the ambulance. I tried to scream, though
the sound never made it out as my back hit the cold metal floor.
The door of the ambulance slammed, and the grip on my mouth
disappeared.

The younger EMT stood over me, a hand
gripping a rail attached to the wall and the other pointing a knife
to one side.

“Scream and she’s dead,” he said.

I slid my gaze over. Baylie lay next to me,
her body limp and a white cloth on the floor beside her.

The ambulance engine started up. “Good to go,
Colin?” Marty called from the front seat.

“Yep,” he replied.

The ambulance rocked as Marty pressed down
the accelerator and pulled the vehicle through a tight turn.
Holding the rail, Colin didn’t take his eyes from me.

“Bet you thought you were pretty smart,
surrounding yourself with them,” he said.

“Who?” I asked warily.

He smirked. “We’ll get what we want from you.
We’ve had centuries to prepare for this. To watch for this. It
doesn’t matter how you try to avoid it; you’ll serve our purpose,
just as ordained.”

I stared at him.

“Quit the chatter and dose her already!”
Marty called.

Colin’s brow furrowed. “Wait,
now
? But
what if she–”

“You want her causing us trouble under the
water? Come on! We need her prepped for the ceremony and she needs
something else to think about besides getting away.”

Colin grunted disgustedly. Keeping the knife
pointed at Baylie, he reached over and tugged open a small drawer
set into the wall. His eyes didn’t leave me as he stuck his hand
into the drawer and then pulled out a syringe.

Heart pounding, I looked between the knife
and the needle.

“Don’t move…” he warned.

He bent down toward me.

I kicked out hard, my foot slamming into his
crotch.

He shouted, staggering backward in the tight
confines of the ambulance. His wrist hit the wall and the knife
fell from his grip to clatter on the ground.

I scrambled up, but he was already coming at
me again. My hands grabbed the first thing I could reach and hurled
it at him.

The box of medical gloves bounced uselessly
away.

He snarled and charged at me. I kicked at him
again, and he snagged my leg. Shoving it sideways, he sent me off
balance. I stumbled and then swung a fist at his face, but he just
grunted and drove me back against the partial rear wall of the
ambulance.

“What the hell’s going on back there?” Marty
shouted.

Colin’s fingers wrapped around my throat. His
other hand rose, holding the needle.

Stinging rushed through my forearms.
Desperately, I rammed the spikes forward.

His eyes went wide and the syringe dropped
from his grasp. Wet heat ran over my arm and soaked my shirt as he
choked. Blood frothed past his lips and his expression became
unbelieving.

The ambulance tilted as Marty slammed on the
brakes. Colin tumbled away from me, a row of deep red holes ripped
in his chest.

I stared, my spikes retreating again.

“You
bitch
!” Marty shouted.

Something heavy hit me from behind. I fell
hard, landing on Colin. Scrambling across his body, I tried to put
distance between myself and Marty.

He grabbed my hair, yanking my head
backward.

The needle jabbed my neck.

I gasped, a dizzying rush of pressure hitting
me, starting from my neck and surging outward. Sizzling energy
surged through my skin, making me shriek, and I collapsed as he
flung me to the ground.

Behind me, Marty scoffed. “Half-breed scum,”
he muttered. “I hope the Wisdom takes his time on you.”

His footsteps clunked on the metal floor as
he headed back to the front. The engine revved again.

I choked. My skin burned. I could feel my
legs changing. The fabric of my shorts and shirt scraped on me like
acidified sandpaper and the air was too thick. Too heavy. I
couldn’t breathe.

The ambulance rocked. Marty was driving
again.

My hands grasped at the cold metal ground,
trying to pull me toward the door. Gold dust shimmered on my arms
and hands. Heaving, my lungs fought to breathe the air. My fingers
curled, digging against the metal as spots swarmed over my vision,
devouring the light.

This wouldn’t happen.

I wouldn’t die like this.

Tears stung my eyes as I clung to the
thought, repeating it inside my head louder and louder till the
words became a shout.

I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do this now. This
wouldn’t happen.

Would. Not. Happen.

The air grew thinner.

I gasped. The burning pain of fabric on my
skin faded to a dull ache and the light from the ambulance windows
returned in a rush. Trembling hard, I pushed up from the floor with
hands that bore only traces of iridescence.

My gaze went to the front of the vehicle. The
world was sharp – sharper than it had ever been. I could see
everything, down to the tiny print on the medical machines strapped
to the wall and Marty’s pulse throbbing in his neck.

Spikes stung as they pushed from my arms
again.

On shaking legs, I stepped around Colin,
trying to ignore the way my stomach twisted at the sight of him.
Against the wall, Baylie still lay, her chest rising and falling in
steady rhythm.

My fingers balled into a fist. The spikes
spread out straighter from my skin.

I crept toward the driver’s seat and raised
my arm, bracing myself to threaten him into stopping.

Marty caught sight of me in the rearview
mirror.

His eyes went wide. “What the–”

He yanked the wheel sideways, sending me
stumbling. The engine roared as he floored the pedal. Grabbing at
the railing on the wall, I barely stopped myself from falling.

Gravity dragged at me as the ambulance raced
down the road. Clutching at the rail, I fought to pull myself
forward, closer to him.

Marty looked over his shoulder, checking on
me, and then he swerved hard, throwing me back against the wall.
The impact drove the air from my lungs. Electricity raced over my
skin, trying to change it again.

“Keep fighting, you little half-breed bitch!”
Marty yelled. “You still won’t stop this!”

He whipped the wheel around again, hurling me
in the other direction and nearly breaking my hold on the
railing.

“Do you have any idea what we’re going to do
to you? Any idea how the Wisdom is going to bleed you
dry
?”

I clutched at the rail and looked to the
front.

Marty’s eyes were locked on me in the
rearview mirror.

But the ambulance was heading straight for a
curve. And a tree.

I gasped.

“The Beast is coming for you,” Marty snarled.
“It’s waited so long in the deep, and now–”

Metal screamed and glass shattered as the
front of the ambulance crumpled and the world tilted. I tumbled
forward, slamming into the wall, and boxes and bottles came after
me, pelting me as the floor and I both crashed back down.