Chapter Thirty Aria
Chapter Thirty
Aria
Intonations whisked through the rumblings of thunder that cracked overhead.
“End her. End her. Think of how she will scream. How her blood will feel drenching your fingers. She’s the one in the way. He must have her heart, and you will have your reward. You will reign with us. Powerful beyond measure.”
Only the voices weren’t in the heads of the deviants who’d kidnapped me. They were there. Above, in the clouds.
Flagrant and audible.
It was as if they were being played on a distorted record, the influence of the wicked so much more powerful as the Kruen dripped their poison into the ears and hearts of the men who danced around in deformed glee.
Oh God.
How was it possible?
The Kruen were here. In this realm. Unless I’d been intercepted again, taken to an unknown plane I’d never known existed.
But this felt so real.
Too real.
As if a fracture had opened up between Faydor and Earth.
It was all driven by Ambrose, who I could almost feel hovering in the distance.
The way it felt as if the blood in my veins had crystallized and frozen.
I could smell him.
The nasty smell that he emitted.
Fear clashed with the light that glowed hot inside me, an urge to do something. To release the power that burned deep inside.
So intense I could barely bottle it.
Could barely restrain it.
But I needed to be able to direct it. Control it in some way that assured I might be able to get away.
I still wasn’t entirely sure how to use it. If I even could use it on humans like this.
A defense.
A weapon.
My mind spun through the scenarios. Worried if I loosed the energy too early—if they weren’t close enough—I wouldn’t be able to strike them all. Worried I wouldn’t be able to incapacitate them all.
More than that, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to harness it again once I expelled it. That it’d be used up, and I’d be drained and completely weakened.
Then I’d be completely powerless.
I wasn’t sure I could risk leaving myself that way.
Not when I didn’t understand the strength any of us possessed.
How the impossibility writhing in a sky that sagged too low above me was going to affect the men.
Not when I didn’t know what would happen if I used the rage inside me that begged to be delivered.
I railed against the two monsters who held me by either arm as they hauled me up toward the other three, who frolicked like fiends below a colossal tree, waving their knives in the air as they chanted, “She’s the one, she’s the one.”
I could smell the stench of alcohol that oozed from their pores, though it was bloated by something foul. Something sickeningly cloying that saturated the atmosphere in a thick mist that rained from the toxic heavens.
My spirit screamed as it called for my Nol.
Pax, Pax, Pax.
I could almost feel him racing along the fringes of my consciousness, his fingertips ghosting over my soul as I silently begged for him to be okay.
He had to be.
He had to be.
I couldn’t believe I would feel him so strongly if that blow had killed him. And that connection had only grown stronger with each mile that should have taken me farther away from him.
Once we reached the clearing below the wide arch of the tree, the men restraining me threw me forward. It sent me stumbling through the mushy earth and grass toward the other three men.
The ground was cold beneath my bare feet. So cold it sent a chill curling up my legs. Frozen chains that clawed and sank in my flesh.
I whirled in every direction, and the long locks of my hair whipped around my face as I frantically searched for a place to run. Terrified of trying to fight them all off while something untapped inside me screamed.
Shouted that I must not succumb to the fear. To the horrors of a simple girl who wanted to drop to her knees and wail. To beg to finally wake up from this nightmare.
But there was no waking from this.
My purpose.
My calling.
My fate.
All five of them encroached, creating a large circle that caged me in, a writhing ring of barbarity. “She’s the one. She’s the one that he wants. He will be pleased when she bleeds.”
“She’s the one,” the voices sang overhead. One man stepped forward and slashed his knife. The tip just barely nicked my arm, which was already bleeding from the broken glass, the loose tee I wore torn and tattered on that side.
On a jolted gasp, I spun away from him, the oxygen heaving from my lungs as vapor as I dove in the other direction. Only the man who’d struck Pax with the crowbar whipped it through the air. It whooshed in front of me, just missing my face.
I whirled again, around and around as I attempted to keep them at bay while the energy churned inside me. Stronger and stronger, it grew. Almost sickening in its strength.
The compulsion.
The need.
I put my hands out in front of me as if I were surrendering, while I focused on the light that brewed in the deepest recess of my being.
Focused on amplifying it.
A charge that I hoped would be enough to bring them all to their knees. Then I’d run for the truck that was still idling about a football field’s length away.
I could do this.
I had to.
“You little bitch,” the one who’d dragged me out of bed snarled, his lips twisted in a sneer.
“I know what you’re thinking. Go ahead and run; I’ll enjoy the hunt.
Will enjoy tracking you through these woods.
I won’t mind the taste of your fear on my tongue.
You won’t get far. You can’t because your time has come. He told me you were mine.”
“It’s time, it’s time,” the other four chanted.
Terror clotted my insides, my blood turning to sludge, barely pumping through my veins. But I refused to yield. To submit.
And I swore I could hear it. A different voice that wisped through me on the trickling of fresh, clear waters.
“Rise up, dear Valient. You are the chosen. You must lead.”
Valeen.
I wanted to shout for her. Beg her to finally show me what she’d promised I possessed. To reveal it.
Only there was something inside me that told me I was the one responsible for finding it.
Straightening my spine, I slowly turned in a circle, gauging each of the men, who came closer and closer with each pass. My hands were pushed up in front of me as if they might hold the power to create a barricade between us.
The glow inside me burned and burned. Gathering in potency and volatility. I allowed it to become larger than it ever had before. Coerced into what I prayed would suffice as a weapon.
And I was shaking. Shaking and shaking beneath the pressure of it.
When I couldn’t contain it any longer, I let it streak down my arms and from my fingertips on a crack of energy.
A shock wave that radiated outward. I wasn’t touching any of them, but it threw each of them back at least ten feet.
Shouts hurled from their mouths as they were tossed onto their backs, each vile beast hitting the ground with a loud thud.
But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to keep them down.
One by one, they climbed back to standing, disoriented and confused as they choked over the rush of debris and dirt that gusted across the land, though the bloodlust left them undeterred.
My body sagged with the wave of exhaustion that slammed into me. Heavy and crippling. I could barely lift my arms. Could barely stand.
I staggered to the side.
It was then that a call ripped through the middle of the confusion, a low growl of a voice cutting through and impaling me in a slash of deliverance. “Aria! Run!”
Pax.
He was there.
Relief thundered through me, pummeling and battering in the midst of the fatigue. I swallowed, searching inside myself for resolve.
For strength.
I started to stagger in his direction where he was coming up the hill through the high grass, but one of the men rebounded and stepped in front of me to block my path.
He slashed his knife from left to right, driving me backward toward the rest, who were right behind me.
A clash suddenly broke out.
A rush of footsteps and a clattering of spirits.
Chaos as Timothy and Dani emerged from the shadows just as Pax raced toward the man who had edged me backward. He slammed the butt of his gun across the back of his head. The man roared, but he didn’t fall—he only spun and flung his knife toward Pax.
Pax used his gun as a shield, battling him back.
Grunts and shoves and punches thudded and echoed, and I slowly turned, my muscles mush and my mind hindered.
Timothy fought with two of the men, each warring for dominance.
But it was Dani, standing off to the side of the clearing, who sent an alarm hurling through me.
She was trying to draw one of the men toward her.
The blade of the knife she held glinted beneath the strikes of lightning, and I could see it trembling in her hand.
Could see what she was willing to sacrifice.
Could see the depravity in the glimmer of the man’s aura as he turned toward her, his voice twisted and not his own as he wheezed, “You’re one of them. It’s time to meet your end.”
From above, the voices chanted their agreement.
“End her. End her. End them all.”
Frantic, I gathered what strength I had left and forced myself to run. To do something. To stop this.
I hurtled across the space, my bare feet sinking into the damp dirt. Spindly roots that jutted up from the ground and the weight of my limbs fought to hold me back, but I pushed through as I searched for the light inside. For the energy to amass once again.
But I couldn’t conjure it. Couldn’t invoke it.
The only thing I could do was slam into the man from the side, throwing my full weight at him as I rammed my shoulder into his ribs.
Distracted by his debased thirst, he was unprepared for the impact, and it knocked him to the side. He skidded on his boots, and one heavy sole caught on an exposed root and toppled him to the ground.