Forbidden (23 page)

For a moment, time seemed to freeze. Then she started gaining ground, both physically and metaphysically. Magic flowed over her in a rush and she pulled the boy free. The magic began to fade as quickly as it started, so obviously the mayor had regained control and was locking her out again. Claire didn't hesitate; she picked up the boy and ran toward the light. He seemed to weigh nothing, his clothing drooping on him like he was just skin and bones.

Her chest was heaving with effort and she was positive the boy's captor was going to leap on her and kill them both. The sensation of hot breath on her neck wasn't a mirage. But somehow, it seemed whatever chased couldn't catch her, even though it felt like she was running in mud up to her knees.

She saw Rachel in the distance, urging her forward, hands cupped around her mouth like she was yelling, screaming encouragement that Claire couldn't hear. With her last ounce of strength, she threw the boy into the sunlit field where Rachel stood, hoping against hope he was one of the missing kids. The boy landed in the light on all fours, immediately scrambled to his feet, and ran toward the road as fast as he could. Rachel spun and followed. When she caught up to and then passed the child, she grabbed his hand and began to tow him along in her wake.

Exhausted, Claire felt herself slowing, felt claws wrap around her ankle and yank.
No!
She stumbled and started to go down. Sunlight touched her outstretched hand, warming the fingers that felt like ice. So very close, but it wouldn't be enough.

She prayed that if she died today, if this
thing
dragged her back into the darkness, that at least Rachel and the boy could reach safety in town and describe whatever it was that had killed her.

 

CHAPTER 17

“Dude, you okay?” Alek slowly sat up from where he was sprawled at the bottom of the stairs in the basement of Polar Pops and rubbed the back of his head. He looked up at Scott, staring down at him from the main floor. “That was a harsh fall. Should I go find Marilyn?”

His head was spinning but it wasn't from the fall. He felt like he'd been kicked by a horse. He felt weak as a kitten for no apparent reason. “No, I just lost my balance.” It was a lie, but he also had no better explanation. “I need to watch where I put my feet. Missed the first step.”

Scott carefully carried a case of ice pops down the stairs and set them on one of the risers. “Here, make sure you didn't sprain anything.” He offered Alek a hand, holding onto the railing for balance. Alek was grateful for the help. He wasn't sure if his legs would hold him.

Once upright, he leaned against the wall, his head still fuzzy. Other than weak, he didn't feel any worse than he had the rest of the day. “Nothing broken, as far as I can tell. I still feel just as much like crap as when we got here.”

Scott snorted. “Getting the shit beat out of you will do that. I told you what would happen if you didn't shower faster. Back talking didn't help either.”

“I still don't think saying ‘Lighten up' qualifies as
back talk
.”

“Alek, I love ya like a brother, but sometimes you need to keep your lip zipped.” Apparently, his face showed the surprise he felt, because Scott sighed. “Look, you weren't talking to Lenny the mentor or Lenny the fellow cop. You keep forgetting you're talking to Lenny the Second of this town, and you questioned his authority to set and enforce the rules. ‘Lighten up' says, ‘you don't own me' and ‘your rules don't apply to me.' He then explained why he
does
own you and his rules do apply to you. Got it? You're the Omega now. Rules are about to become your life until the next Ascension. Feel lucky and fall-down-on-your-knees grateful it's
only
for a month.”

There was a haunted look in Scott's eyes that Alek had never seen before and the scents that rose from the long-haired owl made his eyes burn. “What have they been doing to you?” He hadn't asked for details earlier and now felt like he should have. He felt both sympathy and outrage in that moment but he also feared for what he might hear and felt shame for what he might not have even bothered to notice until now, despite his and Rachel's saying they didn't mind. “I'm sorry.”

The blue eyes turned from haunted to angry. “Whatever they want to. Whenever they decide. Nobody cares. Get used to it.”

Alek had never seen this side of his brother before—this coldness—and it unnerved him. How could this have been going on without his noticing? But he had no solution right now. “Okay. So what do we do next?”

Scott sighed and shook his head, picking up the box once more. “The frozen stuff on the truck goes into the walk-in freezer in the corner. As soon as we finish unloading the ice cream, we'll get started on the grocery store. Then we can start moving boxes up. I wish Rachel would get here. This stuff belongs to at least a dozen people and I can't seem to figure out what sort of code she used for the families.”

The moment he thought about Rachel and Claire, a panicked feeling clenched his gut. “I'm worried about them. We should go look for them.” He started to walk past Scott up the stairs, when he felt the slap of an arm across his chest.

“Are you
insane
?” Scott's face was incredulous—dropped jaw, furrowed brow, and all the trimmings. “There's a ton of ice cream sitting up there, in a truck parked in the sun. There's milk and butter and other stuff for the grocery too. If the girls are much farther than a block away, we'll have puddles of melted stuff to clean up. After the beating you got this morning for being ten minutes late, imagine what they'd do to us for wasting the town's money.”

Alek's bad feelings didn't allow for logic. He was about to try to explain, knowing that he didn't have any idea what to say, when Rachel's voice split the air, getting louder by the second.

“Help! Alek, Scott … someone!
Help!
”

He beat Scott up the stairs and bolted out of the shop to find Rachel running down the road at top speed, dragging a child by the arm.

“Rachel, what's wrong?” He ran up to her just as she fell to her knees, coughing and gasping for breath, revealing the person she'd been hauling. It was Darrell!

Scott let out a whoop and grabbed their little brother, spinning him around and hugging him tight. Alek knelt down next to Rachel, who was trying to breathe.

“Darrell?” Scott was no longer whooping for joy and sounded scared. He was on his knees in front of Darrell, who was staring at nothing, his eyes vacant, his mouth half open and slack. “Buddy, it's Scotty. Talk to us. What happened? Where have you been? Where's Kristy?”

Alek turned, trying to concentrate both on Darrell and getting Rachel to breathe normally. He patted her on the back until finally, after a combination cough and retch, she could breathe again. She grabbed Alek's arm, pointing toward the edge of town. “Go get her! Claire is still out there with that
thing
. She was amazing! She ran right after it, pulled Darrell away, and threw him back into the sun before it sucked her back into the dark.”

Rachel wasn't making any sense. It was bright sunlight with not a cloud to be seen. There was no dark anywhere, not even in the deepest forest. But if Claire was in danger …

He looked toward the forest, where Rachel was pointing, and saw Claire running lopsidedly toward them. Limping again on her right leg. Alek sprinted toward her, reaching her just as the leg gave out. He caught her before she hit the ground.

“I've got you. Hang on.” The flash of energy, sensations, and scents as she collapsed into his arms took his breath away. Fear, pain, adrenaline, arousal, relief, anger—a potent, tangy cocktail that made his jaw ache and his head pound. “Are you okay?” he asked, even though he knew she wasn't. He smelled blood on the breeze and saw a trail of red leading back down the road.

“Caught me with its claws. It's not too bad—I'll be okay in a few minutes.” From the quantity of blood, he doubted that, but he couldn't help but admire the sentiment. “How's the boy? Is it Darrell? I thought it was, but couldn't tell for certain. My nose wasn't working right in there.”

Alek nodded. “Yes, it's Darrell. In
where
? What happened?”

Her answer was more matter-of-fact than he expected, her voice surprisingly steady, her scent hot-metal determination with a healthy dose of spicy pain. But no fear. None. It both took him aback and made him admire her. “We found an area that was magically blacked out—no sight, sound, or smell. It was done by a Sazi. No question. I haven't seen the kind of power that could create that very often. A few Council members, maybe, the head of Wolven, a pack leader or two. That's all I know of. I need to call my pack. Right now.”

“Is the town in danger? Should we talk to the chief or mayor?”

She shook her head, wincing as her good foot twisted on a hidden rock, sending a burst of scent into his nose. He shook his head, trying to ignore the scent of her. It filled his nose with sugared warmth, despite the crisis. “No. Not now. Whatever is out there probably stays there because of them. Sending people out to hunt it would only make it run and it could go anywhere. We need to find out what we're dealing with first and lock down the town.”

It was partly the truth, but he could smell a little lie hidden in the words. But which words were the lie? He'd never heard of a
blacked out
area anywhere near Luna Lake, but he'd met some Council members who could probably do just about anything … including kill someone snooping into their business. What surprised him was that
Claire
also knew Council members. “Let's get you back and get Marilyn to look at your leg.”

Claire didn't object, so he helped her hobble back to the ice cream shop. Scott was cradling Darrell in his arms. The crowd had dispersed, which seemed seriously odd to Alek. One of the missing kids had been found. Why weren't people celebrating?

“Mom's on her way,” Scott said. “I'm going to take Darrell to Marilyn. Rachel's going to head to the city office. You two are supposed to stay here and wait for the chief. He said he'd call the school for you, Claire.”

Rachel shrugged. Scott smiled and nodded. Neither of them seemed to notice that Claire was bleeding and Alek couldn't figure out how all that had happened in the few minutes it had taken him to help Claire walk back. “Was Lenny here? I didn't see his car, or did someone call him?”

It was as though they didn't hear him. “'K. See you guys later.” They walked away together. Alek boosted Claire to sit on the floor of the truck. Wincing, she used the cloth of her jeans to lift her wounded leg until it rested on the cold metal.

As soon as the others were out of hearing range, Alek leaned toward Claire and said quietly, “Something really weird is going on. They should have asked if you wanted to see Marilyn.”

The skin at the edge of her eyes crinkled as she thought. After a few moments, she tapped her fingers on her jeans. “No, I changed my mind. We need to let it go for now. I'll call when I know more about what's going on. And I'm not worried about my leg. I'll heal eventually. I've survived worse. The cold in here should slow the bleeding.” She reached to one side and grabbed a box. “Now how about I sit here and toss you boxes and you stack them in the freezer? I get the feeling nobody is going to race over to help us unload this truck, and I'm betting someone out there is just waiting for us to screw up. This feels like a setup, but I'm surprised Rachel and Scott are helping.”

He looked around, seeing empty streets that were normally filled with people at this time of day. It was hard to disagree with Claire's assessment. “Yeah. Sort of looks that way. But I don't know that Scott and Rachel are playing along. Something else is going on.”

It only took a few minutes to stack the rest of the ice cream in the basement freezer. He still felt like he was coming down with the flu, but was pleased that by the time he'd finished with the last box of ice pops, Claire was back on her feet, although gingerly. She wouldn't be running any races anytime soon, but she could walk. She was a fast healer. A lot faster than most people in town.

“You heal really quick. Do you have healing talent?”

“Of a sort,” she admitted. “Mostly empathic. It's not really good for much more than being sympathetic to someone's pain. But it does give me some boost when I'm hurt. I'm a little surprised myself, because the chief sucked out most of my power. Maybe he's distracted by Darrell.”

Alek pulled down the roller door on the truck. “Are you up to handling stairs? We need to get the other boxes unloaded at the grocery.”

She made a face. “I can, if you need me. But I could also start downstairs on getting boxes ready to go back to families. Rachel told me on the way over here where the list is.”

That made sense to him. It would probably be better to put her downstairs where she didn't have to risk tripping over the little step at the entrance to the store. The basement was just a wide room with no uneven surfaces. “Let's go downstairs and see what's there. I think you'd have an easier time moving around down there. Unfortunately, I have no idea what order to bring boxes up, or what we're supposed to do with them after they're out.”

“Might as well. Maybe it'll make sense once we're down there and I look at the list.” Alek went ahead of her into the shop so she could use his shoulder to steady herself going down the stairs. He was surprised Skew wasn't around. She was always here, always open even if the
CLOSED
sign was in the window. “I wonder where Skew is. It's not like her to leave the place unlocked.”

“Should we be poking around without her here?”

“No, it's okay,” Alek replied. “That was part of the deal when people started storing here. People need to be able to get to their things. I've been here lots of times before without letting her know first. But she's normally here.”