Groaning, Cheyenne pushed herself to her feet and looked around. “Persh’al?”
Only the wind replied, howling through the nothingness of the in-between. Her foot scraped against a large, slanted rock jutting from the black fog, and she frowned. Well, that’s where I landed. And where the hell’s the doorway?
She spun quickly around, searching the thick smog for any sign of Persh’al and the doorway out of this place. “Hey! Where are you?”
Something slithered behind her, and she whirled around again to see nothing but thick, drifting black, smoke. No fucking way did I just get stranded in here.
She stepped forward, looking for the way out, and another stiff wind blew out of nowhere. The black smoke moved aside, and a new doorway appeared not ten feet in front of her. Beside it was another crumbled bit of stone. Cheyenne glanced behind her and took another slow step forward. Doesn’t matter what portal. Get the hell out.
The second she took off toward the new doorway, the in-between filled with earsplitting roars and grating shrieks. A shadow built to the right of the doorway, and Cheyenne darted around it before launching herself through the opening and out onto the other side.
The strobing flash of purple and green lights momentarily blinded her. She stumbled forward through two black pillars of stone jutting from the earth and nearly fell on top of a black tactical bag lying there in the grass. Then her vision adjusted to the darkness, and she found herself staring at the back end of Bianca Summerlin’s house in Henry County, the bright lights over the dining room table shining through the entire back wall of windows.
Holy shit.
Someone shouted in front of her, and figures scrambled in the dark. The flashing light of the Border portal lit up FRoE agents in various stages of surprise as they readied their weapons to attack what they couldn’t see in the middle of the night.
Cheyenne spun toward the house and was about to slip into drow speed before she locked eyes with Rhynehart. He had a fell rifle trained on her, his eyes wide behind the screen of his FRoE-issue helmet. The other agents stationed at the new portal ridge shouted, Cheyenne paused, and a blinking yellow light lit up in the top left corner of her vision: Sleep.
Without thinking, she waved her hand toward Rhynehart and the one blinking word, trying to get all the flashing lights out of her eyes. A bright-yellow spark burst from her hand and pelted Rhynehart. He grew rigid, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he toppled backward like a felled tree.
What the hell was that?
“Hands up, magical!”
Fell weapons powered up with high-pitched whines, glowing with green fell ammunition, and Cheyenne burst into drow speed. She hurtled across her mom’s backyard and only looked back once to see the FRoE agents still training their weapons at the unknown magical they couldn’t see. The bright lights of the newest portal shimmered, illuminating the tip of a glistening black tentacle reaching through from the in-between.
They can handle it. I need to get out of here.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Cheyenne ran at drow speed for ten minutes and stopped at the edge of the Henry County line. Trees groaned and branches snapped in the shockwave of her passing when she finally stopped just off the main road. Chest heaving, she looked around the empty road, the forest around her silent but for the last crickets holding out until autumn’s first cold snap in the middle of the night.
“Shit.” She stomped off the road and into the trees, then pulled out her cell phone and had to wait to turn it on. When it did, the screen lit up not only with her home screen but now with the quickly scrolling lines of data picked up by Elarit’s activator. “What?”
The halfling practically ripped the activator off the sensitive skin behind her ear, hissing at the sharp pinch. Her eyelids fluttered, and she blinked away the pain before sticking the metal coil in her pocket. So many things that aren’t supposed to happen just happened. Somebody better have an explanation.
It was a lot easier to focus on her phone now, and she pulled up Corian’s number before jamming the phone against her ear. He picked up after the first ring.
“Where the hell are you?”
“Henry County.”
“What?”
Cheyenne licked her lips and blew out a long, slow breath, trying to calm down. “I don’t know what happened. I was with Persh’al and everyone else, then the whole place just… Did he make it back? Is he there?”
“He’s here. Cheyenne, are you okay?”
She spun again, searching the darkened trees in the starlight. “Yeah, I’m fine, I think. Just really fucking confused.”
“Listen, pin yourself on a map and text it to me. I’ll come get you.”
“How did it do that, Corian? It just picked me up and—”
“Cheyenne. Hey.”
“Yeah.”
“Your location. Got it?”
“Right.” She hung up on him without a second thought and pulled up her GPS before sending him the link. Thirty seconds later, a dark, shimmering circle opened in the air above the middle of the road. Corian stepped halfway through, searching for her, and Cheyenne jogged out of the trees to meet him.
“Come on.” He reached out for her, guiding her with a hand against her backpack and scanning the road before they both stepped back through.
“Oh, shit.” Persh’al was pacing in the center of the warehouse. He stopped when Cheyenne and Corian stepped through the portal, which closed behind them with a soft pop. “Fuck!”
He raced toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders. Cheyenne winced and pulled away from him, then got a good
