Thunder Road (Rain Chaser Book 1) (30 page)

We’d come this far, there was no way I’d leave him behind now.

“So sweet,” one of the voices mocked.

“But don’t look.”

“Yes, don’t look.”

“Whatever you do you mustn’t look.”

A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Leo asked. “It’s not like we can see anything anyway.”

“Pick a leader.” Their voices were so bloody cheerful it added an extra level of insult to their mockery. “One must lead, one must follow.”

“Pick. Pick.”

“What are they talking about?” he asked.

A response formed in my mind, but it took a long time for the words to come out. “Orpheus and Eurydice.”

“Huh?”

I squeezed his hand harder, debating with myself what the best way to do this was. The story of Orpheus escaping from the underworld was so oft told and so ancient I had no idea if it was true or a myth. But in the story he had been tasked with leading his beloved from the underworld with the one stipulation that he not look back at her.

Then I remembered the way Hades had told us only one person had escaped the underworld before us, and I knew the story must be true.

Don’t look
.

Pick a leader
.

One of us was going to need to take the first step. And no matter what happened, we couldn’t look back. I trusted myself to go first and not be tempted, but at the same time I had no idea what the Keres or anything else lurking in the blackness might try to do to trick us. What if it worked? What if I looked?

Then Leo would be doomed to an eternity here.

“You go first,” I told him.

It was the only way to guarantee he got out alive. If he looked back, then I’d be stuck, but at least if the Orpheus legend
was
true, he’d still be allowed to leave without me.

“Go first where?”

“Start walking, and whatever you do, whatever you hear, don’t look back.”

Leo went quiet, and I felt certain he must be able to hear the hammering beat of my heart. “Tallulah, that’s nuts, you should go first. I’m wearing the bracelet. You should be the one out first.”

“No. It’s fine. Just don’t. Look. Back.”

“I—”

“Leo, please.”

He was quiet for what felt like a full minute before he finally said, “Okay.” He pulled his hand free from mine and let out a low, shaky sigh. “I hate this.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to like it. Now start walking.”

His clothing rustled, which was the only way I knew he was moving. I waited to the count of five, then started to follow.

“They picked.”

“No changing now.”

“Don’t peek.”

The Keres laughed, and the sound was more irritating than a mosquito buzzing right in my ear. At least with a bug there was something I could swat at and kill.

Each step I took felt like I was being dragged back, like I was in quicksand and if I stood too long in one place I might not come unstuck again. A simple walk had never been such a labor before.

“Tallulah.” This was not the voice of a Keres, but it rang sweetly familiar all the same. “Tallulah Belle, come back.”

My body froze on the spot, and my hands began to tremble violently. I wanted to shout for Leo, to ask if he heard it too, but I was terrified any distraction would make him look for me. That was all this was, a distraction.

I couldn’t possibly be hearing the real Sunny.

She was still alive. She was alive and safe in Arizona. Whatever was speaking to me now wasn’t her, couldn’t be her.

But what if Charon called in your promise?

My legs were made of lead, and the darkness poured in around me, threatening to pull me under an unseen wave and never let me back up for air. Not that I could breathe anyway.

The tiniest sliver of possibility that it could really be Sunny behind me was keeping me anchored in place, at war with myself.

“Tallulah, please.” The voice was so
her
, so perfectly Sunny, it sounded like she was standing right behind me. Pleading with me. Begging.

Tears streamed down my cheeks, and my brain refused to make a decision. If she was real and I looked back, I damned her. But if I ignored her and went on and discovered it had been Sunny,
my
Sunny, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for leaving her here alone.

“Sun,” I whispered. “I can’t.”

“Don’t leave me.”

Some sane part of me broke with that word, and the tears flowed all the more freely. Violent tremors shook me, and I sank to the ground, sitting cross-legged, refusing to budge. I wanted to shout to Leo, to beg him to glance back. He could take the decision out of my hands. If he looked, then I would have no choice but to stay with Sunny. He’d make things so easy for me.

“Sunny, don’t do this to me.” I buried my face in my hands, covering my eyes to keep myself from looking. The temptation to seek her out was so strong I couldn’t bear it. Having her this close and knowing what I was leaving her to, it hurt me to my very soul.

How could I choose when there was no right answer?

She wouldn’t make you choose
, a voice whispered in the back of my head.

At first I thought it might be her or the Keres again, but no, this was different. This was that little voice of reason that had so often been the fine thread that kept me tethered to reality when all else seemed beyond comprehension.

And I listened.

Sunny wouldn’t ask you to stay
.

I caught my breath, trying to coax this new voice to speak louder than the others, because there was a logic to the words I was having trouble believing, and I needed to hear more of it.

Sunny wouldn’t ask
.

It clicked then, all at once, the absolute correctness of this statement.

Sunny
wouldn’t
ask me to stay. Just like I’d never beg her to stay. If our places were reversed and it was me behind my sister, I’d stay quiet. I’d shut my mouth and let her go, because I’d know anything else would be torture for her. That
this exact situation
was one I’d never want to make her endure.

I wasn’t even willing to let Leo bear the burden.

My sister would never, not in a million lifetimes, ask me to stay in the underworld for her.

I stood up abruptly, ignoring the pain and the tears and everything that was trying to trap me in place, and I did the precise thing I’d insisted Leo shouldn’t do under any circumstances.

I looked back.

And there was nothing there.

A huge, shuddering sigh of relief shook my whole body, and I braced my hands against my knees, desperate to catch my breath now that I’d let it out.

“Smart.”

“Too smart.”

“Figured us out.”

“You. Immortal. Cunts.” I spit out each word, fueled by pure, blind rage. “If you three had faces, I would punch them.”

“She has no manners.”

“None.”

“Unfit for the kingdom of Hades.”

A slow, thin smile stole over my face, and I was sure that if anyone could see it, it might be described as malicious. Instead it was visible to only the darkness, and the darkness did not shrink from me.

But this time I didn’t shrink from it either.

Fuck this place. Fuck the underworld, and Hades, and Manea.

I was getting out of here, and there wasn’t a single thing left that could stop me.

I trudged onward, fighting against the resistance but no longer burdened by it. The darkness could try its worst to drag me back down, because for the first time in a week, I didn’t feel helpless. I had hope.

And in the face of unflinching nothingness, sometimes hope was enough.

Chapter Thirty-Four

I felt like I’d been walking for hours when the darkness began to abate.

A small part of me started to worry Leo had looked back, and my punishment was going to be walking alone in the darkness for the rest of eternity.

That would suck.

Instead, I walked on, and the world began to achieve texture and depth. The darkness gained shades and highlights. Things took form.

Trees lined a path, and stones pebbled the road beneath my feet. The landscape had a familiarity to it without being actually familiar.

Finally, Leo appeared ahead of me, standing at a crossroads in the path.

A five-pointed crossroads.

I came to stand next to him, taking his hand without thinking and holding it tight. “You didn’t look.”

His jaw had a grim set, and he said nothing, just stared straight ahead. But he squeezed my fingers, and that was enough. Whatever psychological trickery I’d encountered in the abyss, I hadn’t been the only one.

We’d both come through the other side, though.

Hecate was waiting in the center of the road, wearing her woman’s face as she greeted us. “We meet again.” The greeting could have applied to either Leo or me. Neither of us responded.

I glanced at the paths around me, and then asked, “So which one is this?”

Hecate’s smile broadened, and she tilted her head to give me a glimpse of the hag. “Which do you think it is?”

I wasn’t in the mood for games, but I played along, hoping to expedite our deliverance. “Well, we’re here. So I’m going to guess it’s the path of the wise.”

This made her chuckle, and she stepped to the side, giving us an unencumbered view of the night road. “You’re here, yes. But your journey isn’t done. You have both been at this crossroads before. And you both turned back.”

Leo glanced at me then, and his expression was in between awe and exhaustion. I shared his concern.

Nothing in this trip was going to come easily, was it?

“And?” I asked, knowing there was another shoe, and it was about to drop.

“You cannot take that path again. One does not walk away from the crossroads a second time.”

The hope that had guided me here cracked, turning from a glowing light into a thousand little fireflies, threatening to fly away from me at a moment’s notice.

“You can’t be serious. How are we supposed to get back if not by the night road?”

Hecate angled her face coyly to show the maiden. Round cheeks curved up in a grin that almost managed to convincingly convey innocence. Except I wasn’t dumb enough to buy it.

“You dig.”

Leo groaned audibly. “Come
on
.”

The woman face snapped forward, now deadly serious. “Did you think you’d just walk out? As if this was a play you no longer wanted to watch? No. If you want to live, you will
prove
you want to live. Now you will dig, or you can turn around and go back the way you came.”

Her anger was so sudden and fierce it took me by surprise. Leo, too, didn’t seem to know how to respond. Instead of fighting it any further, I dropped to my knees in the center of the crossroads and dug my fingers into the ground.

Though it looked firm and had felt hard beneath my feet, it yielded easily to me now. Large clumps fell away as if it were nothing more than cake, crumbling beneath my fingers. I continued to dig, spurred on by my need to find whatever was waiting for me on the other side. Soon Leo was kneeling beside me, and with his large hands to help, the ground fell away beneath us, and I could no longer see Hecate or the night road.

We dug and dug until the dirt started to tumble down around us, on top of us, burying any hope of an exit. The weight of it pushed down on both of us, filling in the space we’d made until it was a struggle to move our hands for another scoop.

Soon we weren’t digging so much as we were burrowing.

Dirt flooded around me, and I lost sight of Leo, lost sight of anything but the moist, dark earth that tried to force its way into my mouth and nose. I closed my eyes and continued to fight against it, clawing forward until I was sure all my nails were broken and the breath in my one good lung was about to be crushed out of me.

Every part of my body said this was hopeless, that I was struggling in vain, but my mind didn’t agree. My brain made its demands, and my limbs had no choice but to follow orders. So we dug.

And dug.

And just when I felt absolutely certain I had dug my own grave, my fingers passed through something solid and hit cold, fresh air. A breeze tickled my skin, and I almost cried out in relief but didn’t dare for all the dirt trying to drown me.

I clawed at solid ground and pulled myself forward. Only when the night air was on my face did I gasp for breath. I drank it in by the lungful, desperate for it, not caring how badly each inhale hurt, because I was actually able to breathe, and the pain was a worthwhile tradeoff without a doubt.

I wormed my way out of the earth, swiping dirt from my eyes and shaking it off me as I dragged my lower body from the hole I’d made.

A few feet away a rough gasp drew my attention, and Leo emerged in a similar fashion, fighting his way out, his breaths raspy and quick.

It took a moment for me to realize where we’d come up.

The hundred or so corpses lying around us were the big tip-off.

Crumbling two-hundred-year-old tombs helped complete the perfect picture of a Louisiana graveyard.

I staggered to my feet and went to help Leo out of his would-be grave. If I looked anywhere near as terrible as he did, coated in dirt and blood and sweat, we must have made quite a pair. He glanced around, and once his breath was back, he said, “We did it?” as if he wasn’t entirely sure.

I nodded slowly, patting him on the arm. “We did.”

“So…you won the bet.”

Stupid Hades and his bet. I had been so focused on getting us through this I’d forgotten what the stakes had been. A tiny peep of relief escaped my mouth. “I did.”

I hadn’t managed to get Leo to the safety of Seth’s temple, but I’d done one better by lifting the death order Manea had on us both. She might not like it, but for the second time in a week I’d won a bet and taken something she wanted in the process.

I wasn’t foolish enough to believe she’d forgive and forget, but for the time being I felt relatively sure that Leo and I were safe.

“Tallulah?” The new voice was rough, stern, and made my heart swell so big I thought I might pass out on the spot.