“Hurry.” I pushed Peter and dragged the other two. We had to get the hell out of here.
Now.
There would be no other chance. I’d seen Bear for a reason, and Eligor had done what he’d done for a reason. Everything had aligned for us to make this one big push. We would not get another chance like this.
I felt it in my gut, every instinct driving me to action.
The ramp opened and we stepped out of the darkness completely. I did a quick turn, assessing where we were. A small bunker, a truck to the left, a road out to the right. For the first time, I let go of Eligor. I ran to the truck.
Locked.
I moved to the passenger side, checked that door. Locked as well. I lifted an elbow and smashed through the glass, then climbed through the opening and settled myself into the driver’s seat. The dog got in beside me and woofed. As if she wanted to hurry me up too. There would be no keys in the truck waiting for us. I was sure of it, but I checked anyway. Nothing.
I bent down and ripped off the cover underneath the wheel and found the wires I was looking for.
Pete and Cowboy jumped into the cab of the truck. “Hurry, they’re on us!”
I didn’t lift my eyes from my task as I ran the wires across one another and the engine tried to roll over. “Shit, where’s Eligor?”
“Just standing there,” Cowboy said.
“We need him!” I snapped.
“No, we don’t!” Peter snapped back.
The engine caught and turned over. I threw the truck into reverse and hit the gas pedal. Gravel and rocks spat out all around the truck as I spun it around, then jammed it into first gear. I leaned out the window. “Eligor!”
“Go,” he said, not looking at me. “Go. They will track you through me.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I hit the gas and released the clutch. The truck peeled out and we shot away from Eligor and the facility that had held us. I ran the truck until I was in the highest gear, moving as fast as I could.
“Jesus, slow down!” Cowboy yelped as I took a hard corner, the truck tires squealing against the hot asphalt.
“No.” But even as I said it, it struck me that I probably shouldn’t be driving. I could feel Eligor still, whether or not he realized it.
“Peter, take the wheel.” I scooted out of the way and the Magelore did as I asked. My body started to shake, and I found myself watching through Eligor’s eyes as the ones who had followed us swept out of the tunnels.
Eligor straightened his back even as he dropped to his knees.
But his eyes, and subsequently mine, were locked on the main figure that strode out of the cave. He was taller than every other person present, mostly humans to be fair, and his dark red cloak swirled out around him on a breeze that I couldn’t feel, a breeze that stirred nothing else.
“What are you seeing?” Cowboy asked.
“Shh.” I absently slapped a hand over his mouth.
Eligor didn’t look away from that man.
That is the boss. He is dangerous. He will come for you, Phoenix. I . . . am sorry for my part in this. He would have found you for sure if I’d stayed with you.
“Eligor, run,” I said. “Fight, do something!”
I am doing something. You know what I am, so you know what he is, and what he is capable of. I thought . . . that he was right about the abnormals. We have no other tokens of yours, so we will not be able to connect to your mind again. And I am going to cut you off. He touched his pocket and I found my hand moving to my own pocket. I pulled the silver wings that Bear had given me there. He’d slipped them in at some point.
The boss stepped toward him. Long, white, curling locks flowed over his shoulders, and eyes the same blue-purple as Eligor’s stared down at the much smaller man. “Ernest, what have you been up to? Did you fall in love with our captive?”
“No,” Eligor said, but the denial fell flat even to me. Even now, after what he’d seen me do, he thought I was worth saving.
That I wasn’t the evil monster I’d been made out to be. That I was meant for more than the facility would do to me.
I gripped the dash of the truck.
Dinah trembled as she no doubt picked up on my emotions. “Do we need to go back?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No, but I need to see how they overpower him. It will help us.”
“Smart,” Dinah said. “You were always too smart for your own good.”
The boss stepped up to Eligor, reached out and touched the miniscule man in the middle of the forehead, then drew his finger back with a twist. Something sticky and long went with him. Like glowing spiderweb. I could guess at what it was. Or who it was. The essence of Eligor.
His last thought was simple. He has all that I am now. Do not trust me.
“Eligor?”
Nothing. Either he was dead and what was left of him was wrapped up in that web shit, or he really had cut me off. Either way, we weren’t going to get more help from him. I blinked and rubbed at my eyes as I came back to the present.
“So . . .” Cowboy leaned around the dog who’d plopped herself in between us. “Any idea where we are?”
I shook my head. “We drive until we find something. And then we drive until we hit a hospital. If we can’t use your EMP pulse, then we need something else to derail the tracers.”
And then I was going to find my family. But in order to get to them, I would have to navigate the new laws about abnormals. Which meant I needed to learn why we
