Epic Escape (11 page)

“They suit you.” Chase flicked the pink card at him. “Or you could have the reanimation card.”

Riley tossed the pink card back. “Bringing things to life. That’s a girl card.”

“Hey,” Veronica said.

“You keep the pink one, Chase,” Riley said, “That card’s a girly match for your girly item.”

Chase held up his arm. He spoke with a deep voice. “This is a rope.”

“It’s a golden lasso, like Wonder Woman has,” Riley said.

Chase frowned, tugged at the rope, then shrugged and patted the end back in place. “Like Wonder Woman
wished
she had.”

Riley snapped a bracelet on and the metal covered his whole wrist. The sun glinted off the surface. Veronica took the other one and put it on. “I don’t know, I think these are kind of cool. I like silver better than gold, but…” As if magnetized, her bracelet slammed into Riley’s.
Clang.
With no other warning, the bracelets locked together. Riley frowned and pulled. Veronica’s arm followed. He grasped her hand and tugged. Nothing.

Chase laughed. “Let me see.” He pulled on each of the bracelets, but he couldn’t make them move, much less separate.

“Hey, I’m super strength, let me try.” Megan yanked at the bracelets.

“Ouch. Stop!” Veronica said.

Riley addressed the vendor. “Let me guess. Bargain bracelets but the key will cost us?”

“You chose the Bracelets of Anguish. They will release only when you feel true anguish.”

Riley said, “I think I’m feeling it now.” But he sounded playful, not mad.

Veronica frowned at the vendor. “Maybe, you should have labeled them or something.”

The vendor folded his table and scurried away.

Riley’s blue gaze followed him. “Yep, I’m definitely feeling anguish.”

“You are not,” Veronica said, “You’re connected to me and you’re smiling. That emotion is happiness.”

“The anguish is on the inside.”

Veronica laced her fingers with his. “Let’s find a locksmith.”

It was as good a plan, as any they’d come up with, so they strolled down the sidewalk. Megan wiggled her free fingers, trying not to feel jealous. She wished she and Chase had chosen the bracelets.

“I like hearing you sing,” Veronica said.

Riley looked into her eyes. “Yeah?”

“Do you know how to play an instrument?”

Riley pushed her hair behind her ear with his free hand. “Guitar. Piano. Drums.”

So cute.

Veronica said, “My mom will hate that I’m dating a musician.” Riley grinned. Veronica reached up and touched the blue in his hair. “Does this wash out?” Riley frowned and didn’t answer. Veronica smiled, turned back to the street, swinging their clasped hands like she didn’t notice Riley’s scowl.

A roach-like bug hopped over a crack in front of Megan, landing near her foot. She stepped to the side. The bug jumped again, landing on Veronica’s shoe. Megan pointed. “Ew.”

Veronica jerked backward with a squeal.

Riley asked, “What?” Veronica gestured madly toward her sneaker. The nasty roach-like bug appeared to be nesting atop the canvas while actively secreting a vivid green slime. Riley laughed and scraped the bug off with his shoe, squashing it with a crunch.

A group of guys jostled passed them. “Dog, he’s so whipped he’s attached his ball and chain to his arm.” His friend made a whip-like crack and jerked his wrist forward.

Riley moved toward them but the bracelet connecting him to Veronica halted his progress.

Chase, his gaze on a posh gadget store on the other side of the street, stepped away from them. “I’m going to get another phone. I still can’t get a signal on mine.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Veronica said.

“You keep walking. I’ll catch up.” Chase darted across the street.

Megan knew it was silly to feel abandoned, but she did.

Veronica put her free arm around Megan’s shoulders. “Shiny new toys and no visible commitments--classic Chase. Come on.”

They proceeded further down the main avenue. As they neared the cross street, Megan froze to the sidewalk by the sight in front of her.

A
bug-like creature the size of a Ford Focus crawled toward the intersection. The body had multiple legs, multiple antennae and left a slight yellow-green slime trail in its wake. Two narrow, grayish-pink tongues emerged from its sides and licked people as it ambled forward. After swiping a short, round man, one of the tongues went back for a second lick. After the second lick, the bug twittered.

Stomach rolling, Megan realized why.
OMG.
“It’s tasting them.”

The tongue stuck to the man and dragged him close. He somehow jerked free and ran, screaming. The strand maneuvered out again and successfully snared a small redheaded child, lifting him into the air. The kid kicked and cried out, but the creature just retracted his tongue, rolling the ginger child closer.

Riley started forward, and his bracelet dragged Veronica with him. He stopped and looked between her and the bug. He changed course and snapped the windshield wiper off a Toyota Corolla. The blade arced through the air toward the bug’s head.

As a counter measure, the bug emitted a stream of slime. Riley ducked and pulled Veronica behind the bumper.

The little boy’s mother ran at the beast and hit the shell with her bare hands. In response, the giant bug spit an enormous yellow-green slime ball on her. The boy screamed from his spot on the creature’s back. Pedestrians scurried while the mother struggled to escape and attempt a rescue. The bug opened its mouth, chewing on the kid’s leg, and ambled forward.

Veronica held up her blue telekinesis card. Mentally, she ripped the boy from the creature’s grasp and the kid tumbled to the pavement, tears streaming down his face. The mother yanked free from the goo, grabbed her boy, and split.

The giant bug hissed and whipped toward Veronica. One of its tongues lashed out and wrapped around her waist, then began the retraction that would force her to take the spot vacated by the boy. Her wrist snapped backward, and the connection towed Riley after her. The creature’s tongue strained against the weight of two people.

Megan raised her super strength card. She touched the red card to the straining tongue and yanked. The tongue was rough and dry. The strand wriggled, alive and strong. Megan pulled. The tongue tensed.
Snap.

The sudden freedom slung Veronica and Riley backwards, and the rough brick wall of a building broke their flight.

Megan fell to the pavement, holding a severed bit of
still-wriggling tongue, like dissection day in bio lab.

Riley removed the severed end from Veronica’s waist. The tongue curled around itself on the ground then grew finally still. Megan threw hers too. Hers landed atop the pile of dying tongue, still stuck to the super-strength card.

Veronica and Riley scrambled back.

Adrenalin kept her in the moment, Megan wiped her hands on the side of her pants, eyeing the card. “Should we try and get it?”

The other two stared at her.
Okay, so that’s a no.

Veronica said, “Oh.”

The remaining stump of tongue still attached to the giant bug gyrated wildly in the air. The creature reared twice, landing with a clacking bang on the concrete. The body turned fully toward the trio and shot out a second tongue.

A
second tongue.
The strand wrapped around Riley’s legs. Jerked off balance, Riley hit the pavement. The creature pulled, and Veronica, yanked by her connection to Riley, fell too. Her head banged into the brick wall on her way down, and once she hit the ground, she lay still. Riley struggled, but the tongue towed him and an unconscious Veronica forward.

Megan ran all out after them, heart pounding, no plan at all. When Riley was a few feet from one of the creature’s many eyeballs, the bug stilled. Then in unison, all its eyeballs swiveled toward Riley’s shoe.
Click, click.
The creature unwound its tongue from Riley’s ankles and snatched off his bug-laden shoe, held the shoe in the air, and let out a sorrowful “
caw.”
Clutching the find to its heaving shell, the bug scurried up the street.

Veronica lay, unmoving in a heap. Riley pulled her into his arms. Megan touched her shoulder. “Veronica?”

“Veronica?” Riley said.

“We need the other card.”

“What?” Riley didn’t take his eyes from Veronica.

“She’s unconscious.” Megan shook her limp hand at him. “Give me the reanimation card.”

“Chase has it,” Riley said, “Find him and get it!”

Megan’s feet pounded against the asphalt as she ran down the side street to the main avenue. She crossed against the light and fell into the doorway of the posh store where Chase had detoured, gasping for breath. “Chase!”

Chase turned from where he stood paying at the counter. Whatever he saw on her face made him rush toward her.

“Hey, Mister, your bag,” the sales clerk said. Chase ignored him and reached out to touch her cheek. He pulled back his hand. Goo dripped from his fingers to the floor.

“You can’t bring that in here,” the clerk said.

Chase shook off the goo and wiped his hand on the side of his pants. “What happened?”

Megan sucked in more air, trying to spit out the words. “The card, the card--have you seen it?”

Chase pulled the pink reanimation card out of his pocket. “The girl one?”

“Give it, I have to get back to Veronica. That thing, the bug thing, knocked her out.” The second her fingers closed over the card, Megan turned back to the sidewalk and ran, ignoring the stitch in her side, the cramp in her left calf and the lack of oxygen in her lungs.

Chase paced her, still asking questions she didn’t have the breath to answer. They rounded the corner.

Riley sat up ahead, holding Veronica. Piles of slime surrounded them. Chase muttered a curse. Megan pushed the card at Chase and jabbed a pointed finger toward them, then folded double, breathing in air that smelled like biology lab. Chase ran ahead.

Megan met them at a slower pace, still panting and holding her side, trying to massage out the stitch. “How is she?”

Riley held the card against Veronica’s face, but Veronica lay unmoving. The bracelets linking them snapped open and fell to the sidewalk with a clank, the sound loud in their silence. Riley said, “She won’t wake up.” He glared up at Chase. “You shouldn’t have left. We needed that card.”

Chase frowned down at Veronica. “I’m not the one who got her hurt.”

Why did they want to fight at a time like this?
Tears burned Megan’s eyes. “Stop it. We have to do this stuff together. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

Veronica’s eyelids blinked. Riley clutched her close and put his head on her shoulder. Veronica lifted a hand to Riley’s hair, threading her fingers into the strands. She appeared pale, and her perfect hair was matted with goo.

Clatter, clatter, click, click.

“What’s that?” Chase stared open-mouthed at something behind Megan.

She turned.

The broken bug creature was crawling toward them.

Behind it crawled a friend--a much larger friend.

T
he second creature, Hummer-sized rather than Focus-sized, extended both of its much larger, longer tongues. The tongues were more gray than pink, and scarier somehow.

Riley flung his open bracelet with perfect precision at the approaching strands. The bangle snapped closed, lashing them into one. Gravity dragged the weighted strands to the sidewalk.
Clank.
The bug scraped its tongue against the asphalt then waggled it through the air, like a dog trying to shake his collar off.

Riley threw the second bracelet at the smaller broken bug. The bracelet twined around one antennae and tightened. The bracelets locked together with a loud smack, joining antennae and tongues. The proximity and force caused the two creatures to slam into each other. Scales flew from their bodies at the contact, and slid down the street like translucent toboggans.
“Caw.”

Riley lifted Veronica and they all ran, searching for any way out.

Chase said, “There.” A narrow alley lay up ahead. They darted inside.

Megan collapsed against the wall, grateful for the reprieve. She didn’t know how much further she could have run.

Riley put Veronica down, and she leaned against him. “I’m okay. I feel better.” Veronica’s words were weak and she clutched one of her wrists against her chest.

Crackling, scraping, and cawing noises came from outside the alley. Megan’s body jerked and she backed away from the entrance. The other three followed her.