Authors: Juliana Haygert
“I agree.” I glanced up at him. He returned my quick look with a warm shine in his eyes. I wondered what would happen between us when we were done with this adventure—if we survived.
“We don’t have time to brainstorm,” Morgan argued. Then, he took off.
I watched, wide-eyed, as he passed through the hotel’s main door and then looked up and down the street. He seemed to see nothing alarming, but I found myself twirling my hair with both hands. Beside me, Victor squeezed my wrist, causing me to stop my nervous habit and causing my heart to beat even faster.
Through the glass walls, I saw Morgan give a shrug. He came back inside with an easy smile. “Nothing out there. Are you sure about your vision?”
His words felt like a punch in my stomach. I didn’t like when people doubted me. I ended doubting myself too. “I-I don’t know.”
“Just to be sure, I’ll go out again and get the car. When I pull up to the front, we leave.” He motioned to Victor who fished the car keys out of his pocket and handed them over.
“Do your visions ever betray you?” Micah asked, his gaze following Morgan as he strode outside, then down the sidewalk.
I thought about Micah’s question for a moment. Even if what I had seen wasn’t real—my time with Victor, for example—all the things I was told or saw in my visions had come true.
“Never.”
That was when Morgan ran toward the car. I squinted and stepped closer to the door, trying to see what had triggered him to run, but stopped when I saw bats descending.
“We need to help him,” I yelled, ready to sprint outside.
Micah’s hand on my shoulder prevented me. “Want to get yourself killed?”
“We can’t let him get hurt.”
At that moment, a bat landed on Morgan’s back. He fell onto the pavement. He tried to crawl away, but another bat landed beside him.
“I’ll go,” Victor said.
I recoiled, watching as Morgan tried to protect his face from slashing claws.
“Don’t be stupid,” Micah snarled. “I’m the best one for this. I hope I still can repel them.”
I didn’t like the idea of any of us going out there, but I also didn’t like the idea of leaving Morgan alone to serve as bat food. So, I didn’t stop Micah when he ran outside.
But Morgan did. “Don’t,” he shouted, wrestling one of the bats that was trying to bite his neck. “It’s you they want. Go!”
We didn’t have time to process. The bats’ attention turned to us just as the demons I’d seen in my vision rounded the corner of the hotel. They hurtled toward us and growled like gorillas, saliva streaming out of their gaping mouths and baring sharp teeth. Yellow eyes burned with pure death and desire.
I froze. Victor and Micah pulled me back, though I had no idea where we could run to, especially since Brock was coming toward us, holding a gun pointed at my face.
The guys stiffened, and my knees quivered, threatening to buckle. Brock shoved his way through the lobby, pushing the doorman to the ground. A woman saw him and screamed, shifting the attention to us.
“Turn around and step outside,” Brock ordered.
“Or what?” Micah asked, clenching his fists.
“The demons won’t like it, but I’ll kill the girl.” Brock pulled the gun’s safety off.
Behind me I felt Victor move, and then a lamp flew past me, smacking Brock in the temple. His gun wobbled, and Micah jumped at Brock and punched him again. Hard.
When Brock seemed too weak to stand alone, Micah let go.
Victor grabbed me. “What now?” His arms around my shoulders tried to steady me as I shook uncontrollably. My head spun. I heard women scream and men yell, but Victor and Micah didn’t seem to care that the customers and staff were freaking out around us.
Scenes flashed in my mind. The front desk, two guns under a table, a back door, a covered alley.
“We find another way out.”
In four steps, I reached the front desk. I jumped over it and, from inside, opened the side “employees only” door for Victor and Micah.
A hotel employee ducked and tried to hide.
“Shut the door,” Victor ordered. The employee nodded and pressed a button that canceled the automatic opening of the front door. I doubted the barrier would hold the demons for long, but the closure had gained us a few precious seconds.
From under the table, I took the guns and passed them to the guys. Micah didn’t hesitate, while Victor took one with wide eyes.
Scratching sounds came from the main door.
“How can we get out of here?” Victor asked.
“Here,” I said, opening a door that led farther in. I turned to the employee cowling in the corner. “Where does the alley in the back lead to?”
“A-a department store. Then, a residential building.” His voice cracked.
As we closed the door behind us and ran down a long corridor, a strident bell warned us that the front door had been breached. The demons were now inside the hotel, hunting.
Micah opened a door labeled “Exit” and stuck out his head.
“Not that one,” I said.
He quickly closed the door again. Something bumped into it—hard. I winced.
We continued down the hall until we found another exit. Confident but holding my breath, I opened the door and stepped into a narrow, dark alley. It had a low zinc roof to protect passersby from rain, but in this case, the roof protected us from being devoured.
“What was that?” Micah asked as we ran down the slippery alley. “You knowing what to do?”
“Visions.”
“Really?” He showed me a half-smile. “Interesting.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure “interesting” was the right word.
Soon the hotel was behind us and the wall of the alley gave way to a steel fence.
“This must be the residential building,” Victor said, spying through the fence. I only saw a garage filled with cars. “Any more tips from here?”
“Not yet,” I muttered.
A loud bump sounded on the zinc roof. We ducked and the guys pointed their guns skyward.
“Let’s go,” Micah whispered.
Victor and Micah grabbed me and shoved me over the fence, while the sound of demons and bats pounding against the zinc roof grew closer.
Victor was the last to cross the steel fence. He climbed over just in time to escape a claw swiping through the roof.
Micah dashed to the cars. He tried opening doors, but had no luck.
Again, images filled my mind. A blue Range Rover, a guy walking out the back door of the building, keys in hand.
I gulped, not happy with what we had to do. “Come on,” I called to the guys. After a few steps toward the building, I gestured to the SUV parked a couple of spots ahead. “That car”—I pointed to the door as it was opening—“and the key is with him.”
The guy stepped out of the building and froze upon seeing us.
“Sorry, pal,” Micah said, charging him. They struggled, but Micah was stronger. He took the keys from the guy’s hand and shoved him back inside. “Stay there if you want to live.”
With the keys in hand, we ran to the SUV.
Victor grabbed my arm and shoved me in the backseat, then sat shotgun while Micah took the wheel. Behind us, more bats broke through the roof and entered the garage. From the opposite side, a guard approached, holding up his flashlight and gun.
Micah smiled and turned on the SUV. From one side, claws and teeth came at us, and from the other, a man with a gun pointed at our heads, and Micah was …
smiling
?
“Hold on,” he shouted, stepping on the gas.
The SUV jerked. I fumbled around and put on the seatbelt. Victor had found the garage door’s remote and held it ready, even though we didn’t know where the exit was yet. Guessing the way, Micah drove toward the guard, who crouched and held the gun in both hands. “Stay low.” The guard shot at the car, bullets smacking the metal with an eerie, dull thud, loud and echoing.
Another great noise behind us meant the bats had broken down the fence.
“Anyone hit?” Micah asked. Unable to utter a word, I shook my head.
Instantly, Victor whipped his head back and looked at me with wide, concerned eyes. His gaze ran the length of my body and relief flooded his features once he saw I was okay.
A sense of warmth washed over me. It was comforting to see he cared.
I wanted to reach out to him, to hold his hand, to feel his skin on mine, but before I could, he turned back to help Micah look for an exit.
“There.” Victor pointed to the left, past another row of cars and columns. The exit gate. He pressed the button on the remote. “Come on, come on.” He looked out the back of the car at the demons I knew were approaching.
I heard the screams of a man, deep and guttural, then high-pitched and gurgling, and closed my eyes, trying not to imagine the guard being eaten alive.
Micah revved the engine. His fingers went white against the wheel. “Come on,” he yelled, as if he could order the gate to speed up. I saw him looking through the rearview mirror. His eyes widened. A second later, a bump shook the car. “Hell,” he cursed, accelerating.
The top of the SUV scratched against the bottom of the gate as it rose up enough for us to slip under. I was glued to the backseat. Victor leaned out of the window and pointed his gun to the back.
Following his shots, shrieks filled the air, but they soon grew fainter as we sped down the street. The creature had been hit. No others followed. We were getting away.
For now.
Chapter Twenty Four
We remained silent for a while as Micah continued to drive into the night. The surroundings were nothing but a black blur, but I didn’t hear any shrieks or ruffling of wings.
He watched via the mirrors. “Did we lose them?”
“I think so,” Victor answered as he looked around, observing the exterior. He stopped when he faced me. “Are you okay?”
I held onto the back of the seat, fighting against the urge to crawl on his lap and have him hold me while telling me everything would be all right.
Instead, not trusting my voice, I nodded. If I tried to speak, I would scream or cry. God, I wanted to press “pause.” I needed a break, and time to breathe, to rest, to think about all that had just happened.
“Morgan?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
The guys didn’t say anything. Victor sat back in his seat and stared at the black horizon.
Poor Morgan. He had done nothing more than be on our side and help us in any way he could, and now he was dead.
“What now?” Victor broke the silence and my unsettled thoughts. “We can’t keep with our plan to go to Cathedral Rock. Brock knew where we were going. If he was with those creatures, they know too.”
“Do you have a better idea?” Micah asked, an edge to his voice.
“Yeah. It’s called remaining alive.”
They bickered between them even as I heard the voice say, “Go to Cathedral Rock.”
“We gotta keep with our plan,” I said. I earned a shocked and upset look from Victor. It hurt, but all I could do was sigh. I could see that whatever had happened in my room back at the hotel had already been forgotten.
“Are you certain?” he asked, not looking at me.
“I am,” I said.
“And how are we going to do this?”
“I don’t know.”
Micah cleared his throat as if noticing the tension in the air. “We have to get there first.” His usual smile shone against the rearview mirror as the car accelerated. It should take us about fifteen hours to get to Sedona, but with his heavy foot, we might make it in half that time. I leaned forward and looked at the speedometer—almost 130 miles per hour. He would get us killed without the help of any demon.
We stopped twice to get gas and food and use the restroom. The second time we stopped, it was four in the morning. We were due to arrive at our destination in two or three more hours.
When I came back to the Rover holding a mochaccino, Victor leaned against the SUV and asked, “How are you doing?”
“Good,” I answered. The heat from his gaze spread and confirmed my cheeks were growing pink. Inside, even with everything that was happening, I yearned for his touch, for his kiss.
Avoiding his eyes, I opened the back door of the SUV, putting it between us.
He leaned over the door. “We should talk about what happened … in the hotel.”
My chest ached, afraid of rejection. No, I didn’t want to hear him. Not yet. What if he said it had been a mistake, and that he wasn’t into me? What if he said it had been a spur of the moment thing? I glanced around. Micah was buying something inside the diner, and the waitress melted before him—poor girl. I knew how she felt.
I shook my head and returned my gaze to my mochaccino. “No, it’s okay. You don’t need to say anything.”
“Let me say what I have to say.”
I brought my eyes to meet his, hoping my expression looked as courageous as I wanted to feel. “I’m not ready to hear it.” I saw Micah leaving the diner. My salvation. “Forget it.”
I slid into the car and closed the door.
Outside, the guys exchanged a few words before joining me in the SUV.
Micah had just pulled back onto the interstate when his cell phone rang. He answered the phone, then said, “Hey, Morgan. I thought you had become bat food.”
A loud sigh of relief escaped my lips.
Micah pressed the speaker button and we heard Morgan speaking. “I have some nasty cuts, but I’ll survive.”
“How did you escape?” I asked, leaning forward, wedging my shoulders between the front seats.
Morgan said, “When you guys showed up at the door, your auras offset mine and they forgot about me. I was able to get to the car, but then couldn’t find you.”
“Why didn’t you call sooner?” Victor asked. “We could have waited for you.”
“I lost my phone. I found it on a bush near where the bats first assaulted me.” Morgan paused. “By the way, did you guys watch the news?”
“No,” the three of us answered in unison.
“A few moments ago, the motel exploded. To me, it seemed like some fireball was hurled from above.”
“Omi,” I said.
“I think so too,” Morgan said. “And I’m guessing he’s after you three.”
“We’re almost to Cathedral Rock,” Micah said.
“Good,” Morgan said. “Don’t stop. I’m on my way, but I guess I’m still a few hours behind.”