THE EVERLAST SERIES: Books 1-4

Chapter 24

24

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, 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 continue with our plan to go to Cathedral Rock. Brock knew where we were going. If he was with those creatures, they know now 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 by him.

“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 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 in 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. It looked 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.”

“We’re on it,” Micah said.

We wished him good luck, and he wished us the same after asking to be called and informed of any changes.

“Morgan is alive,” I whispered, resting back on my seat. At least there was one piece of good news among so many tragedies. “But Omi is after us.”

The parking lot of the Back O’Beyond trail seemed as if it had been abandoned for many years. The grass surrounding the dirt lot was dead and the low wooden fence that delineated the place was cracked, brittle.

“Now for the bad part,” Micah said as he examined the rotten board covered with a map of the trail. He had my bag over his shoulders. Before we left the car, he’d shoved some survival stuff into it, like extra water and power bars, and offered to carry it up the steep climb. I stared upward at the towering spires and was grateful he was playing pack mule.

I approached him. “What?”

“We have to walk almost a mile up the trail to reach Cathedral Rock.” He pointed to the trailhead. “And it’s steep. Not even bikes or horses can be used for this part.”

“You’re kidding,” Victor said. “It’ll take hours to reach the top.”

Micah beckoned toward the trail, inviting us to follow him. “Better we start soon, then.”

I turned to the trail and almost bumped into Victor. He looked down at me and my breath caught.

“Excuse me,” I whispered as I walked past him.

I saw, from the corner of my eye, his hand stretching, coming toward me, but then he pulled it back and, with a sigh, followed me to the trail.

The path was marked by small piles of stone, showing us where to go. Despite the darkness from the sky and the death-defying situation, every once in a while I looked back, amazed by the gorgeous view. Even with all the darkness, I could see very far away from up here. After forty minutes, the trail became unbelievably steeper and trickier; I was thankful for the footholds carved into the stone.

I wasn’t a good hiker. My palms sweated, my breathing and my pulse sped up, and occasionally dizziness and nausea overwhelmed me. It wasn’t easy to keep up with the guys, and being so near Victor didn’t help me. He kept looking over at me, which caused my heart to skip some precious beats.

Once, when I caught him shooting me a sidelong look, I missed a foothold and slid a few feet down the rocks on my knees. He caught me and held my arm, saving my slippery mishap from becoming a b****y accident. Under Micah’s observation, Victor hauled me up and, feeling my scraped knee, I bumped into him.

“Are you okay?” he asked. His hands snaked around my waist, steadying me, but I was determined to ignore his touch.

“Yes.” I glanced down my leg. “Just my knee, but I think it’s nothing.”

“Let me see.” He knelt and leaned against the steep rock.

I felt stupid as my cheeks warmed. He touched the scratch through the tear in the jeans and I winced. Victor tugged me down to sit beside him. “It’s not much, but you should be more careful.” He put his finger under my chin and forced me to look at him. “I know I’m distant and on the defensive sometimes, bu—”

“Sometimes?” I interrupted him without meaning to, but the words were out of my mouth before I could think.

His lips curled up in a faint smile, and I dreamed of kissing him again. “Most of the time. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings.” Hmm, I was hooked. Maybe I’d been too hasty back at the diner when I’d shut him out. “It’s hard for me to—”

“Hey, pretty boy and vision girl,” Micah shouted from above the rise, interrupting the words I was now dying to hear. “Pause the melodrama and drag your butts over here. We don’t have much time.”

He glared at us, and I noticed the mood was now dead. Victor was back on the defensive. Clearing his throat and extending his hand to me, he helped me up. However, this time he sent me ahead in case I slipped again.

I returned my attention to the trek. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him. What had I learned about this Victor so far? Was he the same Victor from my dreams or not? There were times when I simply didn’t know. There were times my heart beat for him the way it had for my vision Victor. Or was I imagining that too?

According to Micah, we had reached Grandmother Rock, which was the name of the saddle between two rising spires on top of Cathedral Rock. The splendid view amazed me.

“So, where to now?” Victor asked.

“No idea.” Micah shrugged. “We’re at the top, and I can’t see anything around us. No aura, no signature. Maybe we’re at the wrong place.”

Victor scowled. “Yeah, that would be perfect.”

Then it came. I felt it. The same vortex of spirits the tourists came here to feel. I sensed it, and it was strong. However, what I sensed wasn’t the energy of spirits. It was pure energy, pure life, pure power.

Victor was about to say something, but Micah shushed him, his gaze on me.

Smiling, I closed my eyes and let the vortex wrap around me. The energy touched my skin. I gasped as its current ran through my veins, lifting me into the air. A vision took over, and I saw the place we were in. The Everlasting Circle symbol was drawn on the floor with ten circular signs I didn’t recognize drawn tangent to it; each of us stepped into one of those signs.

The vortex died out and, in slow motion, I dropped down to where the center of the Everlasting Circle sign should be.

Victor stepped toward me. “What the hell was that?”

“Do tell,” Micah asked, serious and unmoving. “I felt it too and, damn, it was strong.”

“It’s here,” I whispered. “We need to draw some symbols.”

“With what?” Victor asked, sounding irritated. “A red pen? Perhaps a marker?”

I glared at him. God, I hated his mood swings. At least they served to remind me he wasn’t the Victor I thought he was—the Victor I wanted him to be.

“With this.” Micah produced white chalk from my bag. “During the rite Morgan performed, I felt this chalk was different and … I ended up grabbing some.” He didn’t seem too embarrassed for it. “I wanted to examine it better.”

I grabbed the chalk from him. A shock ran through my fingers. This was the right tool to draw the symbol with. “In other circumstances, I would reprimand you for stealing.”

The guys stood still, Micah smiling and Victor glaring, while I knelt down and drew the Everlasting Circle symbol and the other nine smaller signs around it. I didn’t know them, but I could still see them clearly in my mind. Some had wavy lines, another had spirals, and others had hard lines, and all of them were enclosed in a circle.

When I finished, the jolt ran through my fingers once more and the lines shone a faint white light.

“That’s it?” Victor asked, crossing his arms.

Pure energy flowed inside my chest and I smiled as I said, “Now, we step in.”