The 52nd (The 52nd Saga Book 1) (15 page)

Before I could stop myself, I kicked my heels off. I waved, hollering at Jett as I raced toward
him.

“Jett! Behind you, RUN!”

I didn’t know what Jett saw in me, but when he finally looked behind him, he turned back to me in a run-for-your-life sprint. Pure horror covered his
face.

I ran toward him. “Jett, hurry!”

The tall blades cut my arms as I pushed through. Jett chanced a look back and tripped, falling out of sight in the deep grass. The demon submerged itself in the pasture, and another form of panic struck me as a trail of blades swayed, nearing Jett. At the place where he’d fallen, the grass went still. Then there was a bloodcurdling
scream.

My tear ducts burst. I froze, half-numb. My mouth gaped open, creating endless puffs of frosted carbon dioxide. The gasping dried my throat until an excruciating cough formed deep in my lungs. I choked, trying to keep my attention on the location of Jett’s
scream.

Through the brittle wetness in my eyes, which were nearly frozen in the cold mountain air, I stared, horrified, at the patch of grass shaking unnaturally from side to side. Jett’s screams suddenly subsided, and the trail of rustling grass moved back to the bridge. A second later, his body slid out onto the open road in front of the bridge. The demon pulled him swiftly across the patch of packed dirt by one leg. Jett’s other leg kicked through the air, his fingers fighting for purchase in the dirt, but it was no use. His body went grayer in the shadow, and he looked at me, pale and aghast. My stomach sank to my feet. My cheeks were wet and cold, and I couldn’t breathe.

“ZARA!” he screamed as his fingertips disappeared into the bridge’s darkness.

I sprinted toward the bridge. Tears blurred my eyes, and I wiped them as best I could without stopping. Sharp points of pain cut through my feet as pebbles found places to embed themselves in my skin. The stinging brought still more
tears.

I stopped abruptly where the grass ended, staring across the patch of dirt to the bridge. I could hear the whispering growing stronger inside the black arch, beckoning me to enter. It was nearly impossible to stop the heaving that almost made me vomit. I ran a palm over my forehead while I swore to myself. Jett was dead because of me . . . I knew it. I wiped my eyes, looked back at the barn one last time, and sniffled. There was no going
back.

Adrenaline pulsed through my veins, giving me new strength. I saw everything so clearly now. It was these creatures that had chained me down the past weeks, making me afraid to do anything. I was sick of it, sick of running.

My first step onto the packed earth was difficult, like kissing death. My shredded feet stung like a whip’s lash with each step. But I could feel my fingers tingle as the shadows called me in, their voices growing louder with each step I took. As I approached the bridge, shaking, I felt the chains from the past few weeks lifting. This was the
end.

When I entered the bridge, I didn’t expect the whispers to stop suddenly, leaving only the noise of the stream. I waited, confused.

“Jett?” I called
softly.

Nothing.

I took another cautious step, then another. I couldn’t stop my hands from trembling as the flaky wood squeaked beneath my steps. “Jett?”

His moan came from the other side of the bridge. He was curled into a ball on the wood
floor.

“Ouch,” he
moaned.

“Jett!”

I knew I would be stupid to go farther in, but I couldn’t leave him. I ran toward his crumpled body. I had only gone a few steps when a flash of black struck and a form appeared, blocking my way to
Jett.

Even in the murkiness of the bridge, I could see his shift from smoky wisp to a very pale human. I sensed a delirious anger when he snickered. But something about his human form seemed off, as though he had once been muscular but was now weak and thin, but not undead like the others I had seen. His light skin was dirty, like he had rolled on the forest floor. Twigs stuck out of his filthy blond hair, and he was barefoot and shirtless. The only thing covering him was a torn piece of fabric around his lower waist. I looked up into his eyes. They were like black diamonds, glaring at me in a frenzy, but I studied him, wondering why he looked so familiar.

“Let him go. He’s hurt,” I pleaded.

The dirty thing didn’t speak; he held his hand out to me and twisted it. He smiled, and my body flipped over, first my head slamming against the planks and then my belly. I tried to sit up, but everything spun, and I dropped down to the bridge’s damp floor. Warm fluid oozed down my temple toward my cheek. I tasted
blood.

“Zara,” Jett mumbled.

I heard the fear in his voice’s rawness. He called my name over and over as I tried to keep moving toward him. But there were black stars each time my eyes stuttered open. I feared I was blacking out
again.

“Ow,” I moaned, limply rolling onto my
side.

Jett shrieked in pain. The pitch shook the molecules of my blood and made me cringe. I tried twisting my head in his direction, but when the yell stopped suddenly, I couldn’t look. My hair fell in my eyes as I wept. When I had enough courage to look again, I straightened my head, but as I did, a deep noise came from the opposite direction. I pretended it was the boys coming after us, but the louder it grew, the more I feared it was something large and animal, and very
upset.

I’d heard a lion roar on TV before; this was different. It sounded like a deep cough. The muffled whispers responded with a competing, synchronized tune. As both the roar and chant approached, fear drained my energy, leaving me a bag of bones glued to the
bridge.

But I knew that if I was going to have any chance of surviving, I needed to get out
now.

Just as I started to sit up, an invisible force slapped me down like a flapjack. My chin jerked upward, and my eyes rolled back at the explosion of pain. I saw the man still there across the bridge, unmoved, staring at me with fury. I tried to curl up into a ball, but my body wouldn’t give in to my command. My limbs were painfully stiff, arms by my sides, legs glued together at the knees. Something I couldn’t see held me down. Then, as his bare feet moved across the bridge with a cracking of splinters, my stomach hollowed.

“Ahh,” I moaned again, trying to squirm out of the invisible
bands.

My back arched in agony, popping as I tried to slide sideways toward the barn. I couldn’t get free. I had collapsed back with exhaustion when a black ball of smoke appeared by my side. It floated in midair, two glowing eyes buried in its fogginess. It exuded a deep chill as it waited for the footsteps to get closer. This was the type of demon that had tried to take me earlier, I was sure of it. But why wasn’t he taking me
now?

I gasped.
They want
Jett.

“Jett?” My throat was an old washboard, and my voice scratched down it as I called his
name.

He didn’t
answer.

Ten, nine, eight,
I counted down the footsteps to my side. The low snarl came again. I endured every tortured pain to twist my head to see what he was, but the man somehow kept me pinned down, loosing an eerie laugh. Finally, when I saw his foot from the corner of my eye, panic took
over.

In that moment, a blurry black shape flew over my body and struck the cloud of smoke at my side. The shadow released a high-pitched shriek and retreated swiftly into the trees by the
stream.

The figure landed by my side, and my eyes widened. I was staring at a jaguar with a coat as black as night. It looked at me like it knew me, then disappeared into the trees after the shadow. The man’s feet remained by the crown of my head. He would see me dead soon
enough.

I lifted my chin skyward. I had to see the face of my killer. As I looked into the psycho’s eyes, a horrifying recognition imprisoned me. I had seen him in the burgundy book—the man who looked like Dylan,
exactly
like Dylan, only grimmer. His jagged teeth showed in a greedy grin, and his hollow black eyes were crazed with an obsession with prey. He smelled like
death.

“Who are you?” I
asked.

He crooked his ear to a bony shoulder, and that demented smile broadened. “The question is, my little darling, who are
you?”

Blood seeped into my mouth as I coughed. “I don’t know what you
mean.”

Observing me now with curiosity, he crouched by my
side.

“Don’t, please. You don’t have to do this,” I
cried.

His eyes promised violence. “Yes, I do. You have no idea how special you
are.”

His cold fingers ran through my hair; he lifted a lock to his nose and sniffed. He snickered under his breath. “You are going to make me very
happy.”

My eyes felt dry, but a single tear ran down my cheek as they skidded shut. I couldn’t bear to look at him directly. His face was gruesomely contorted.

When his unnaturally cold hands grabbed my wrists, I jerked and screamed as much as I could, hoping that someone would hear me. As I fought with the little movement I had, his rough laugh stopped. There was a thud, his slithery fingers vanished, and then there was silence. A second later firm, warm hands enveloped my shoulders and
shook.

“Zara! Zara, it’s me,” an angelic voice said through the darkness.

I unhinged my stiff eyelids slowly and peered through slits. Lucas’s face was centimeters away. My eyes flew open, and I frantically searched around us. The man was
gone.

I panted, looking back to Lucas in confusion as he sat me up and threw his arms around
me.

“I won’t give up,” he said, anguished.

I closed my eyes, shaken and lost, and pressed him closer. His hand moved up and held the back of my head closely. I winced at the pressure, but he only squeezed me tighter so that I could rest my chin on his shoulder. His warm scent of coconut and ginger comforted me, and I broke down and
sobbed.

“I’m so sorry,” Lucas said into my shoulder.

When he let out a long sigh of agonized relief, I noticed Gabriella standing behind him. A glimmer of blue burst like a star over the char-black lines of her tattoo. It was beautiful, with feathers and flowers. Her eyes were on us as she calmly stroked the coat of the jaguar at her
side.

The man and woman from Lucky Pin stood next to her—his parents. The woman looked alarmed.

My head pounded. I held it as I tried to
stand.

“Where is
Jett?”

“Jett?” Lucas loosened his grip just enough to study my tormented
face.

“They got him. He was just right over there.” I pointed to the opposite side of the
bridge.

Alarm flashed on Lucas’s face, and he yelled in Spanish to his parents. At once they moved faster than I could even imagine, disappearing into the shadows of the trees in a
blink.

“Zara, how are you feeling? What hurts?” he asked, drawing my hair back to survey the
damage.

“My head,” I admitted. I tried to rub the soft spot in the back, but his hands beat mine there and gently moved them
away.

He picked through my hair softly, observed for a moment, then looked at me. “Don’t rub it; it’ll get
worse.”

“Why are you here?” I asked, confused.

Before he could answer, Gabriella had bent down next to
me.

“I have to lie down,” I begged. My head did feel worse. His hands were already firm against my back, pressing me up as I tried to lie back
again.

“You need to sit up, Zara.” He pulled me against his chest, and I rested my head against his rib cage. It felt wet and
sticky.

“What’s wrong with my head?” I
cried.

“You just cut it . . . you will be fine.” There was a slight stutter in his response that made me feel he wasn’t telling the whole
truth.

I ignored his orders and reached for it, but again he grabbed my hands, this time insistent when he pushed them down on my
lap.

Lucas turned to Gabriella. “Go get Malik. Leave Niya with
us.”

Gabriella disappeared where the first jaguar had run off, somewhere by the river. Moments later, Lucas’s parents appeared at the other end of the bridge. His father held Jett in his arms. The limp body was bent unnaturally.

“We found him in the woods. He’s still breathing,” the mother said, her accent beautiful, as the man carefully laid Jett next to us. I leaned over Jett and cried. His face was pale and scratched.

“Zara, this is my mother, Valentina, and my father, Andrés,” Lucas
said.

Before I could speak, Gabriella returned to the bridge with the jaguar. “Malik and I are here
too.”

I couldn’t help but stare at the large black cat that heeled next to her. His spotted coat was clean enough to shine in the dark. He watched me closely, as if he was reading me. I squirmed, a little uneasy, and moved my eyes from him to the other jaguar, Niya, who paced back and forth with random hisses. Though she would not sit, somehow I didn’t feel threatened by
her.

“Where’s Dylan?” I
asked.

The calm jaguar, Malik, looked up behind me and released a violent roar. I jumped, but Lucas shot up so quickly it was as if I’d never sat next to him, my legs and arms perfectly supported on their own. Lucas followed Malik’s gaze to the tree line, to a dark figure moving toward us. I heard the voices again in the rustling of the trees, and I was anxious for Lucas to come back to me. The demons were returning.

“Put Zara and Jett in the middle!” Lucas yelled, angling himself in front of
me.

Without argument the family formed a circle to shield Jett and me. Lucas faced the approaching demons, guarding me with his arms outstretched. His tattoo glowed a faint bluish-green through his sleeve. Valentina stood next to him. As she stretched out both of her arms in front of her, palms facing down, her tattoo blazed turquoise on the inside of her
wrist.

Thunder crashed above, and both jaguars roared. I forced my eyes to look beyond the luminous blue into the dark woods near the stream. In the shadows of the forest, multiple clouds of black smoke moved slowly toward us. Their whispering chant grew louder. Malik’s ears pointed up, but he and Niya remained in place, flanking Gabriella, ready to pounce, lips curled back to bare sharp
teeth.