Arise (Awakened Fate Book 4) (23 page)

“You think they found them already?” Clay asked.

“It’s another five miles to where that guy said she’d be,” Owen pointed out.

I ignored them both, watching the landwalkers. Only one car was parked ahead, with the other two sedans nowhere to be seen. All the guys who’d been on the road near our house were gone too, with only that scrawny lab assistant and the round, old cop remaining. They weren’t doing well, either. The cop clung to the sedan like it was the rock holding him stable against the spinning world, while the toothpick guy just looked like he was about to shake apart. Neither of them reacted to our SUV pulling up near them, though perhaps they were in too much pain to care anymore.

And then there was Harman.

His hands shook when he pointed to the forest, and I could see the sweat dripping down his face like he was under intense stress or strain.

Not that he seemed to notice. Pacing back and forth in front of the turnoff, he appeared to be speaking. Every few moments, he’d start down the road, only to suddenly retreat.

I pushed open the passenger door, still studying him.

He
was
talking, though his voice was so low that it couldn’t be meant for the others to hear. In rambling mutters, he was going on about how this had to work, about the other men collapsing, and about medicines holding out because he had a mission. Research. Lives to save. When we came closer, he turned. My brow rose at the look on his face.

I’d seen crazy. Much time around the more pathetic of the older greliarans, and you sort of became used to the way those aging weaklings cracked.

But I’d never seen anything like this.

His eyes were practically sparkling. His mouth twitched in and out of a spasmodic smile like the muscles couldn’t agree on which ones needed to work for the expression to hold. He didn’t really seem to see us, and his gaze kept returning to the forest like it was pulled there by a string.

“What–” the large cop sputtered when he finally spotted us.

He grabbed for his gun.

“No,” Harman protested, hurrying back from the side road. “No, no it’s fine.”

“How is it
fine
?” the cop demanded. “These things, they… they’re not landwalkers. They’re not even
human
. They’re– what the hell
are
they?”

Harman appeared to barely hear the question. His gaze stuttered toward the other road.

“G-greliarans,” the scrawny assistant guy supplied, eyeing us like he wanted to back away. “They’re, um… they were created to kill dehaians and–”

“
What
?” the cop snapped. “Harman, Chloe Kowalski is half–”

“It’s fine,” the doctor interrupted, his gaze snapping to us again. “It’s just fine.”

Harman shuffled toward us quickly. “She’s down the road,” he said to me. “You have to help us reach her. We can’t seem to get to her. Every time we drive there, we end up back here. The road. It bends. It…” He looked up at me, that crazy light in his eyes growing stronger. “You have to save Chloe, Richard. And Eleanor too.”

My brow climbed again. Wait…
Richard
? Seriously?

“I don’t want these things involved, Doctor Brooks,” the cop insisted. “This madness has gone far enough. This is a matter for landwalkers, so send those creatures back where they came from and let us rescue the girls ourselves.”

I barely held back a growl. There was no way in hell that was happening. I’d break his fat neck if he tried to stop me from killing that bitch.

“No,” Harman argued, “they have to help, Barry. These are the
good
ones. The dehaian boy, that other greliaran boy,
they’re
the ones who are against us. They want to push Chloe into giving up every trace of humanity she has left. They’ve filled her head with… with stories. Lies. She doesn’t understand the danger of all this because of them. But these…” He attempted to look at us, but his crazy gaze didn’t seem able to make the trip before it returned to the side road. “Richard and his sons will help us. They can stop those boys and bring Chloe to safety.”

Appearing more unsettled by the second, the assistant glanced from Harman to us as if he couldn’t decide whether to tell the old man that he had our identities wrong.

The cop only grimaced, however. “Fine,” he agreed, his tone strained. “But for her safety, she’s coming back in our vehicle. All the girls are.”

“Of course,” Harman said.

I eyed them. Again, that wouldn’t happen. But arguing here wouldn’t fix it.

Making it clear how wrong they were once I had the fish girl in my grasp, on the other hand…

I restrained a smirk.

“I need more medicine,” the cop muttered. He headed around to the other side of the sedan.

“D-Doctor Brooks?” the scrawny assistant tried. “About the treatments, though… what your granddaughter said–”

“Eleanor is
confused
, Aaron,” Harman stated as if he couldn’t believe the other guy didn’t see it. “My treatments save lives. They
always
save lives, and with Chloe’s help, they’ll save even more. It’s vital we keep her from losing herself by becoming any more like those soulless creatures than she already has. Our research
depends
upon it.”

Aaron’s brow furrowed. Seeming discomfited, he dropped his gaze away.

“Now, Richard,” Harman continued to me. “Can you see about this road? We simply
must
reach her soon.”

I regarded him flatly, but he’d already returned to watching the forest and talking to himself.

Psycho.

Suppressing a scoff, I steered clear of him and walked toward the gravel track.

My feet stopped almost immediately. There was something wrong with the air. It seemed to vibrate, as if an enormous speaker waited ahead of me, playing on full blast. But I couldn’t hear a thing. Only the regular sounds of the forest surrounded me, interrupted sporadically by Harman’s muttering. The farther I continued down the side road, though, the worse it became – like the world was trying to bend around me.

I retreated several steps. The warped feeling faded a bit.

Thoughtfully, I studied the road. Whatever it was, magic had to be involved. Humans couldn’t do this. Humans wouldn’t even know where to begin.

“What is it?” Owen asked.

I didn’t respond. If it was magic, then maybe we could take it. Kill whatever was causing it and absorb it into ourselves.

This much power… it’d probably feel
amazing
.

I looked to Owen. “It–”

The vibration around me shifted. I turned back to the forest.

Nothing had changed.

Except I could tell that wasn’t right. Something had shifted. Birds still chirped and creatures still moved through the undergrowth… but the vibrations around me didn’t feel quite the same.

“Get the car,” I ordered.

Clay made a confused noise. “But what about–”

“I said get the car.”

I scanned the forest while Clay crunched away on the gravel, heading for the SUV. I wasn’t sure what’d just happened, but it didn’t really matter. The girl was on the other side of this, and something felt like it’d changed.

That was enough for me. Time to find that bitch and finally give me a fish to kill.

Chloe

I rushed out of the room and almost ran straight into Joseph.

“Careful!” he snapped, retreating a step while I came to a sharp stop.

“Sorry.” I glanced around. “Do you have a restroom I could use?”

He eyed me balefully and then jerked his head toward the entry. “Down the hall, first door on the right.”

“Thanks.”

I fled the room. Baylie would be coming after me. Or Noah, God forbid. I didn’t want to talk to either of them. I didn’t even know what to say.

The bathroom door was nearly indistinguishable from the dark wood siding on the hallway walls. If not for the doorknob, I would’ve missed it entirely. Fumbling at the handle, I pushed the door open and then hurried inside, shutting it behind me.

Closing my eyes, I leaned back, resting my head on the wood.

I was being ridiculous. I’d known that there was a chance I wouldn’t be able to choose what I became. I’d come here anyway, because Joseph was my only shot at stopping all this.

But I didn’t want to end up a landwalker. I didn’t want this to be the last time I saw the ocean.

Or Zeke and Noah.

A breath left me, the sound ragged. Zeke couldn’t leave the ocean. I knew that, obviously. And as for Noah… I’d heard Joseph. Greliarans needed the sea too. Not like dehaians, not to the point where they couldn’t
ever
travel inland, but they did. Noah had said something like that once, back when he was driving me to the ocean with the Sylphaen’s drugs in my blood. He’d said it felt better to be near the sea.

Thrusting away from the door, I crossed to the sink. I turned on the tap and watched the water rush into the drain for a moment before splashing it onto my face.

I was being stupid. Nothing had happened yet. There was every possibility I could become dehaian. Sure, it was a gamble, but it was a fifty-fifty chance. Lots of people didn’t get those odds in life.

My gaze lifted to the mirror. And if I didn’t become dehaian like Zeke, I’d never see him or the ocean again, and the chance for any kind of relationship between me and Noah was as good as gone. I’d have to stay with my parents, or somewhere inland, and figure out how to live when everything remotely close to the ocean was pretty much off-limits to me.

I snagged a hand towel and scrubbed it over my face, fighting the tears burning in my eyes. This was stupid too. I could still date Noah. If he wanted to be with me, anyway. But hey, long-distance relationships… well, sometimes they worked, though probably not
forever
. And as for Zeke… okay, so I’d never get to say goodbye. So the thought of that made me want to throw up. So I didn’t even know where he
was
and I couldn’t stop worrying about what that could
mean
, since he
really
should have been here by now, and–

A knock on the bathroom door made me jump, and spikes rushed from my arms to topple a bottle on the edge of the sink. The plastic thing clattered to the ground.

“Chloe?” Baylie called.

I snatched the bottle from the floor and returned it to the counter before turning off the faucet. Drawing a breath, I crossed the small space, swiping tears away while I went.

She eyed me warily when I opened the door. “You okay?”

I nodded.

Her mouth thinned. Giving the hall a quick glance, she slipped into the bathroom with me.

“What is it?” she asked after she shut the door.

I shook my head.

“Chloe.”

“It’s dumb.”

“Okay. Tell me anyway.”

I looked down. “It’s just… the landwalker thing.”

“Maybe becoming one of them, you mean?”

I nodded.

She paused, taking a slow breath. “You’ll be dehaian,” she said with certainty. “It’ll be fine.”

I gave her a skeptical look.

“Oh, come on. If you want it that badly, I’m sure you will.”

“I lived like a landwalker for my whole life, though. Up till these past few weeks, anyway. What if that… I don’t know…
did
something? Made that side stronger?”

“What if it didn’t?”

I grimaced.

“You’ll be dehaian. And if you’re not, well…” She cleared her throat. “Hey, we could go to college in Colorado, right? That was the backup plan if California didn’t work out. We’ll get an apartment like we always talked about and take classes together and throw crazy parties.” She smiled, a tinge of hope in her eyes. “That wouldn’t be so bad.”

I hesitated. “Do you
want
me to be a landwalker?”

“What? No, of course not! You want to be dehaian. I get that.”

“Baylie.”

“What?”

My brow twitched up.

“I don’t!”

I waited.

“I want you to be happy,” she insisted. “And it’d suck to get sick like them.”

“Dehaians get sick too. I… I couldn’t come more than maybe a hundred miles inland if I was one of them. Like they are now, I mean. And I’d have to go back underwater every few weeks or so, at least.”

“Yeah, no, I-I know that,” she said with an awkward shrug.

There was something weird in her tone. I leaned back on the counter, watching her. “Baylie?”

Her brow furrowed. She reached over to fidget with the frayed edge of a bath towel. “You know how, when we were kids, we talked about how we’d have houses next door to each other when we grew up?”

“I remember we planned secret tunnels leading from one house to the other.”

Her lip twitched. “Yeah, that too.” The smile died. “It’s just, if you’re like you are now, that can’t happen. None of the things we talked about can. And if you’re dehaian… it’s the same. But if you’re a landwalker, I know you’d be miserable.”

“I’d deal,” I managed.

She gave me a pained look. “I don’t want you to be unhappy. I just…” She dropped her gaze to the tile floor. “I kind of don’t want to lose all that either.”

I swallowed. “Neither do I.”

She nodded, her attention still on the tiles.

Shifting uncomfortably against the counter, I drew a breath. “We could still get an apartment if I’m like the other dehaians, though. And take classes together and all that. I’d just, you know, have to slip off to the beach every so often. We could even have houses near each other like we wanted.”

Baylie smiled, sadness in the expression. “You’re not going to need a house, Chloe. Or some college degree. Not if you’re like them.”

I looked away.

The silence stretched.

“What about Noah?” Baylie asked quietly.

I tried to keep from grimacing.

“What’s up with that, Chloe? Noah… he
really
likes you. And I thought you liked him too. But now you have this Zeke guy around, and–”

“It’s not like that,” I protested. “I didn’t plan this. I’m not trying to hurt Noah. Or Zeke. I–”

“What
happened
?”

I struggled for words. “It got complicated.”

She waited, her brow twitching up.