Chapter 7 Arabella
Chapter Seven
ARABELLA
As we made our way out of the forest, I noticed it was oddly quiet.
And not just that—no nightmares crossed our path or attempted to bother us.
I would have thought it was unusual, but I could feel power radiating off Ashur, probably warding them off.
He walked on his own while everyone else had paired up.
Razar walked next to me, a hand on my lower back, as Amun intertwined the fingers on my other hand with his own. Behind us, Saint and Zain were lightly debating something that had to do with violence—I had heard ‘blood’ and ‘screams,’ which were more than enough for me to mostly tune them out.
In front of us, Blackwell and Damian volleyed answers back and forth about Under, something that Cy had asked about, his face filled with a relaxed curiosity.
While he was listening to them, I also noticed he was keeping a sharp eye on Ashur.
It was moments like this that I was reminded how dangerous my quiet basilisk really was.
While he could be the man who spent hours seemingly content with just holding me, he was also lethal.
He was beyond protective, and I had a feeling that Cy had less moral boundaries than someone like Razar.
I loved Razar, but the man had a lot of ‘no’s in his life, all of which seemed to revolve around me and my safety.
I both loved and hated it. I didn’t want him to take that burden completely on his own.
I wanted him to be able to enjoy himself, to enjoy time with me, without always worrying about what could go wrong.
As we neared the entrance of the forest, I squinted at the small amount of light that broke through. When was the last time I’d seen sunlight? I was pretty sure it had been dark nearly the entire time we were here… Maybe that was why Ashur was more comfortable here—his eyes were used to the dark.
Before I had a chance to ask, we all came to a full stop at the forest line.
Was I seeing what I thought I was? There was no way they would be that dumb, right?
“This is why I hate humans,” Amun grunted.
“Only reason?” Razar asked, amused.
“They are truly idiotic,” Blackwell murmured.
“It’s a wonder they’ve survived so long,” Damian agreed.
“They haven’t,” Saint mused as Cy came up behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist and resting his chin on top of my head to watch the shit show.
“They do have a rather impressive talent for dying,” Zain said, causing me to nearly snort.
“What are they doing, exactly?” Ashur finally asked. “Are they trying to get into the vehicle?”
I stared at him curiously. He had totally left the forest before.
I mean, between the house with its modern amenities and knowing about vehicles…
Did he leave out of boredom and loneliness, or was there some other reason?
I nearly asked him in front of everyone, but the sound of a gunshot had me looking back towards the humans.
“They are failing at trying to get into the vehicle,” I muttered, wondering how many times they would try before leaving—hopefully before night.
Although, now that I was right on the edge of the forest, I craved more than ever to stay in the darkness.
In the shadows. I was starting to understand the appeal of being here, completely removed from the problems of the rest of the world.
A full war could break out, and the Oceanic Forest would still stand. I absolutely knew that even though I had no proof of it—it was simply timeless.
Maybe we wouldn’t have an option. Maybe we would have to stay.
I knew we couldn’t—there was important shit going on—but I had no desire to go out there right now.
The entire parking lot was filled with human law enforcement and several bands of men and women wearing vests with MAM on the back.
I had no idea what had gotten them to this point or if they were just simply assuming it was a nightmare-owned RV—an odd assumption, to say the least—but they clearly thought they would gain something by getting in…
With guns.
Yeah, they were attempting to blast in the windows and door of our RV with guns. Or maybe they thought we were in there. Anger surged through me at that—at the concept of them wanting to hurt my nightmares.
“Are we worried about them getting in?” Amun asked quietly. “I know you have some important items in there.”
It was sweet that he remembered that.
Dread caused my stomach to drop as I saw a red light flash on at the front of the RV, a small beep alerting them to the danger they were courting. They wouldn’t listen, of course.
“They won’t get in,” I assured him, “but the RV will blow up and kill all of them if they keep shooting.”
“We need to stop them,” Razar pointed out. “Or else we won’t have a vehicle.”
I knew he was right, but that was a ton of humans in a landscape we weren’t entirely familiar with… I just didn’t know how to go about this.
“Are we ready for a fight?” I asked while turning to face them. It was one of the only possible fixes.
“I’m always ready for a fight—”
A high pitched whistle sounded through the parking lot and interrupted Saint’s words. I closed my eyes in defeat, refusing to see what I knew was right behind me. “Did it just blow up? Did they just blow up our fucking car?”
“No…” Zain hesitated. “But it did just slaughter all of them.”
Of course, I knew that. The defensive system would have countered their acts.
Then a massive boom sounded, this time the sound of tires popping and metal hitting the ground echoing through the clearing. That would be the RV’s self-destruct feature.
Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.
“Why did he put that in there?” I grumbled to myself. I mean, I knew why, but I hadn’t really expected the humans to do something like this. This was past the point of inconvenience.
“Just in case it ever needs to be abandoned, it activates after four days of us being gone, or not checking in… Or in this case, the defensive system signaled the threat and kicked it into gear,” Cy explained.
My eyes widened as something occurred to me. “How long exactly has it been?”
I had thought Ashur was being hyperbolic when describing how time works in the Oceanic Forest.
“Around five,” Blackwell murmured.
“Oh no.” I groaned, running a hand over my face as something else occurred to me.
“What?” Amun demanded, appearing next to me.
“My shoes were in there.”
“Well this is messy,” I murmured, standing only feet away from the slaughter of about twenty-five humans. “Any chance anything survived that explosion?”
Not the humans.
I had felt a momentary surge of guilt that they’d gotten killed, especially since I wasn’t a fan of loss of life in any form—until my boys had broken into their nearby cars.
Then I’d gotten pissed. The amount of anti-nightmare propaganda they had and the mass of weapons for what should have been just a ‘check’ to see if anyone was in the RV was outrageous.
Of course, we were well aware it wasn’t that.
In fact, we found paperwork for a call that had been made by a park ranger about the suspicious group of people that had entered the west side of the forest.
Apparently, we were ‘suspicious looking’—not positive what made us that, but either way I was no longer feeling any type of guilt about their deaths.
“Like what?” Zain asked curiously, pushing one of the bodies over with his foot.
“Technology, documents, clothing…not my shoes,” I murmured with a scowl. Honestly, I could replace the shoes, but it was making my day markedly worse.
I watched, more than a bit impressed, as Razar and Blackwell moved a piece of metal that was easily double their size and put it to the side to reveal the remains of the imploded RV.
Everything was blasted to smithereens, but when Damian approached what used to be the bed, I smiled happily, remembering that I’d used the metal base and drawers to store a lot of our stuff.
It hadn’t been for that purpose, but it looked like the object had taken less damage than others, so maybe some of the things inside were salvageable.
Damian and Blackwell easily worked with the metal that was still searing due to the explosion, pulling items out.
I looked around the empty parking lot and tried to figure out what to do.
We needed a way to contact my father on a secure line.
We also needed some type of transportation.
We could use one of the police or MAM cars, but that could draw a ton of attention to us.
“Do any of their cars have cell phones in them or anything?” I asked.
Zain and Amun both looked out of the cars they were searching with a shake of their heads. Damn. Well, what else could we—
I arched a brow as Cy pulled out the wooden coin Kalinda had given us and flipped it in his fingers. His voice was calm and measured. “Just an option.”
“No. I do not want to call them,” Saint growled.
“Why not?” I asked, approaching the two nightmares. Razar was sorting through some shit nearby, and I could tell he was listening. “Do you think they’re a threat?”
“A threat?” Saint huffed. “No. But I don’t like them.”
“I didn’t like that one bastard looking at her,” Razar agreed.
“Which one?” I tried to recall their faces, but I did briefly remember one of the guys making me super uncomfortable.
“It may be our only option,” Zain admitted.
“Nothing in any of these either,” Amun grunted.
“Ashur?” I called out, noticing he was going through some of the wreckage as well. He looked up and shook his head before standing and walking towards me, his face contorted in confusion.
“Humans do this type of thing often?”
“Far worse than this,” I sighed. A darkness crossed his gaze as he nodded, seemingly trapped in his thoughts. I had no idea what he was thinking about, but I leaned into him, wanting to make him feel better.
“Sorry your things have been destroyed, my moon,” he whispered, his eyes tormented as if my things being ruined was his own fault.