Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
ELLISON
Sleeping on the ground is not my favorite. Asmodeus was the only one out like a light while the rest of us rolled around and tried to find positions without rocks digging into our kidneys.
But just when I’m finally reaching sleep from pure exhaustion, I feel someone grab me. The hold is so tight that I jerk awake.
“E-Ellison, I think I hear a bear,” Lex whispers.
“As I’ve explained many times, there are no bears in these woods—” The rustle of the brush makes me freeze. It must be a deer, right? It sounds rather large. But aren’t deer mostly out at dawn and dusk? Maybe they’re out at night too.
“Holy mother of all that’s holy,” Landon gasps. “August, there’s a bear.”
I can’t see anything in the dark, and when I flick my phone’s flashlight on, it does very little to light up the area. I didn’t bother bringing a flashlight with me when I was told they would already be at the campsite we’re supposed to be at.
“Where is Deus? It got Deus,” Landon cries. Asmodeus was lying horizontally along our heads because Landon declared that our heads should be protected by Asmodeus’s body, seeing as he knows how to brawl a bear, but if the bear already got him—
What the hell am I talking about? There are no bears in this park!
“There are no—”
I hear more noise that quickly silences my declaration.
“When it comes within sight of us, I’ll freeze time,” August assures us.
“It’s okay! I’ll just like… pummel it to the ground!” Landon shouts as he tears a dead tree out of the ground and tries to whack the creature he can’t even see. The dead tree catches on another and then shit is falling every which way.
A startled owl—who’d probably been using the tree to chill in and search for mice—leaps from it, flying right at Landon who cries out and throws himself in front of August, like he’s going to save him from the ravenous owl who is simply confused why its perch went flying.
“I’m too pretty to be mauled by a bear!” Lex declares, like his looks will safeguard him from the bear.
“There are no bears—”
A crash stills me. It’s definitely louder than a raccoon or a rabbit. My eyes are straining, but I can’t see shit as the creature rampages toward us.
“What are you guys doing up?” Asmodeus says from right behind me. Lex screams, and Landon whirls and tries punching him, but his hit is stopped by Asmodeus’s hand. Zacia just chills in Landon’s other arm, along for the ride.
“Where the hell were you?” I ask, not wanting to admit that I was a little anxious when he was just gone.
“Me? Oh, I went out to search for the camp so we’d know where to go in the morning.
I knew that with the direction that August was going, it had to be within two miles of here, and that the river was half a mile from the camp.
I figured out the river is one point seven miles from our current location, which I deduced by running there and back and calculating the time it took me to run.
With that knowledge, I scanned along the perimeter and finally found it. ”
“There’s a bear! That’s far more concerning!” Landon says.
“Bear? The only thing out here is Wyatt. When Valerie didn’t hear from us, she got concerned, so she and Wyatt were waiting at the camp when I arrived.
I told her for the low, low price of two hundred and sixty-nine, sixty-nine, I’d tell her where the rest of you were.
She claimed I must have killed you and was preparing to wear your skin.
She’s so hilarious. I then charged her two hundred and ninety-nine, sixty-nine and she finally paid up.
Then Wyatt came to help move things and…
did you kill him? Is that what you did, Landon? ”
“Fuck… Wyatt? Wyatt… buddy, are you out there? Are you okay? Deus is the one who threw the tree at you… not me.”
Wyatt comes out of the trees looking a little dirty and more than a little disgruntled. He’s an employee of Superheroes United, and he handles security for Valerie, August’s manager. He’s a pretty relaxed kind of guy who just goes along with things… even getting trees thrown at him.
“So it was a bear after all,” Lex says, even though I’m not quite sure that Wyatt is bi or gay.
“You guys and your bears. Do I need to show you the difference between a bear and a human and why you should not find bears attractive?” Asmodeus asks.
Ignoring that, I ask him, “So… while we slept, you moved all our belongings over to the campsite?”
“Sure did. It took me like four trips to get all of Landon’s books there. I thought about dragging them, but whenever something happens to one of Landon’s books, he turns feral and I really didn’t want to have to be the one to put him down. I want to leave that option up to August.”
“Why would I…” August trails off and smiles at Asmodeus, likely realizing how much work Asmodeus saved him by suffering the weight of Landon’s books. “Thank you for doing that.”
“Does that mean we get to go home?” Landon asks, sounding hopeful.
“No, it means I’ll take you to the campsite, where you can at least sleep in tents for the rest of the night,” Wyatt says as he brushes himself off.
“I’m really sorry that Lex forced me to nearly murder you,” Landon tells him.
“Excuse me, Lex did no such thing,” Lex declares.
Somehow, we end up enjoying the next two days of camping.
Landon even tries some of the fish that Asmodeus catches, but he won’t try the squirrel and chooses the hamburgers that were packed instead.
He also barely has time to even read one book since August and Asmodeus keep us busy—August with fun little camping games and Asmodeus by trying to teach us how to survive in the wilderness… which I never plan on doing.
“I’m going to sleep for a week when I get home,” Landon says from where he hangs over Asmodeus’s shoulder while we make the trek back to the car. We’ve all decided that August will never lead again and are instead letting Asmodeus go first.
“I… think we have to get back to work when we return. This was supposed to be our vacation,” August explains.
Landon gapes at him. “Excuse me, what? Whose idea was any of that? I’m positive that you are wrong.”
“I’ll ask whether we can have a couple of days off. Hopefully, there’s not much going on and we can have a lot of time off.”
“What if I rob a couple of banks and we live off that? That could be fun. It’d take me like ten minutes tops and we’d be set for life. I’d be your sugar daddy.”
“You… you already are, and no, we can’t become bank robbers.”
“I’m interested,” Lex says.
“Lex, you can start a fire in the bathroom as a distraction while I steal the money from the vault. Deus, with your invisibility, you could do it all for us.”
“I would rob a bank for you without any hesitation,” Asmodeus says. “Tell me which bank and how much and I’ll have it to you by tomorrow.”
“We are not criminals,” I try to remind them since it’s very clear they’re not joking. “Well… we’re not criminals besides Landon… and Asmodeus.”
“How did I become a criminal?” Asmodeus asks.
“How many people have you assassinated?” I counter.
“This week?”
“You killed people this week?” I ask in disbelief.
“Yeah, August was out doing his ‘Look at me, I’m so handsome’ wave to a bunch of people when some man tried to assassinate him. I assassinated him first,” Asmodeus casually says, like this is not a strange occurrence.
“What the fuck, why didn’t you tell us this?” Landon asks.
“I put it in the invoice!”
“We really need to start reading these invoices,” August mutters.
“Only a fool doesn’t read my invoices,” Asmodeus declares before nodding to the right. “Wildlife.”
We all look—well, besides Landon, who is stuck on Asmodeus’s back—at three deer and a fawn who are watching us closely.
“Aww, look at the fawn!” Lex says.
“Aww! I want to see! Deus, turn around so I can see them!” Landon cries, but instead, Asmodeus deposits him on the ground.
“Deus, dammit!”
I freeze when I see something behind us, just the shadow of someone moving. I press a hand to my chest and rub it as I slowly step away from the others.
Hesitantly, I walk into the brush, where I see them rush off before disappearing.
“Hey,” I say a moment before I hear a noise behind me.
I turn, expecting one of the others, when someone darts up to me and pain tears into my chest. With a simple thought, my illusions burst out, putting a barrier between me and whoever that was.
They were dressed in black, so I didn’t get a good look at them, and now that my illusions are here, they’ve drawn back.
I grab my chest as pain eats into me. I know I need to send one of my illusions after them, but I can’t even seem to focus.
And when I lift my hand, I discover that my fingers are coated in blood.