Chapter 12 #2
“I’m sure you’ll get a front row seat when we have to stop for gas. She haunts gas stations, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. Every damn time,” Jayden says.
“Seriously? Why a gas station?” Kira asks.
“Hell if I know. That’s just where we always see her. I guess it’s easier to beat us with her cane out in the open than anywhere else.” Greyson shakes his head.
“Did the fates know that we would be the first demigods to have mates? Was that just another slip like Aggie screaming at Jayden not to make me choose?” I ask no one in particular.
“Your guess is as good as mine, B. They are definitely meddling, though.” Raven leans forward in her seat.
“But they can meddle from the sidelines as they have for millennia,” Kira says. “Why show themselves now?”
“Aggie is… uhhh… slightly unhinged,” I say.
“Slightly?” Jayden scoffs. “She chased me all over the gas station, screaming and waving her stick at me. That’s a bit more than slightly unhinged.”
“Um, Jayden?” Thad sits forward in the middle seat, squinting at the road ahead. “What in Hades is that?”
I turn to face forward and my heart pounds in my ears at what’s in front of us. There’s almost like a film coating everything and the highway turns into a dirt path not one hundred feet in front of us.
“We need to stop,” I shout.
“I can’t. It’s like it’s pulling us in. I have my foot slammed into the brake but we’re still moving.”
The acrid scent of burning rubber fills the car and I gag. That’s awful but it doesn’t stop pulling us as if this portal or whatever it is has a gravitational pull all its own.
“There’s no stopping it. Stop trying before you wreck the tires and we’re even worse off.” I grip Jayden’s arm.
“Do we even know where this place it’s pulling us to is?” Kira yells.
“Nope, it could be taking us to another country for all I know.” I shake my head.
The sensation of thousands of ants crawling down my skin makes me shiver as we pass through the gauzy film into the unknown.
“Is everyone still in the SUV?” I ask, turning to the others.
“Yeah, no one got left behind,” Draven says from the back.
“Um, I think we have a much bigger problem on our hands,” Jayden says.
A shiver rolls down my spine and my stomach drops as dread fills me. “What’s the problem?”
“The SUV won’t go. The engine is dead.” Jayden turns the key but nothing happens, not even a click.
“That’s not possible.” Kira sits up straighter. “We did a full diagnostic on it just yesterday to make sure we were ready for anything. Ben made sure.”
“It’s not even pretending like it works. It’s just dead. Where the fuck did we end up?” Jayden asks.
“The only way to find out is to keep moving, I guess.” I remove my seat belt.
“I can check the engine and see what’s going on.” Kira taps on Draven’s shoulder to get him to move out of her way.
“Okay, but I’m going with you. We have no idea where we are or what we’re dealing with.” I open the door and hop out of the vehicle.
Kira pops the hood but she’s too short to lift it up high enough so she climbs up on the front and latches the stick into the hood so it doesn’t crash on our heads. I touch my shield charm, calling the sword that Claud made for me. The back of my neck tingles and I scan our surroundings.
We’re being watched. Jayden shuts the driver’s door and calls his shadow sword. It crackles with energy as he stands next to me.
“Something isn’t right,” he hisses.
“We’re being watched. I don’t know how many there are, but I can feel it in my gut. We’re not alone out here.” I scan the tree line repeatedly.
“I have a sinking suspicion that we’re not in California anymore.” Raven sidles up to my other side.
“I don’t think we’re on Earth anymore,” I whisper. “This is crazy.”
The leaves on the nearby trees have a slightly blue glowing tint to them. The shrubs appear to glow as well. The flowers are vibrant shades of pink and purple unlike anything I’ve ever seen before and they sparkle in the sunlight.
“Hermes warned us that we could end up lost in another realm.” Jayden runs a hand through his hair.
“There is nothing wrong with this SUV,” Kira says as she jumps down off the bumper.
“Well, this is just great. We ended up in a different realm where vehicles don’t work. We are being watched by an unknown entity and we’re stranded.” I punch the piece of junk SUV that’s useless to us now and scan our surroundings again.
There has to be a way to get back. We can’t be trapped here while Hermes ceases to exist and our world is on the brink of nuclear war, again.
“I wonder if the locals are hostile or if we could just wander down the path until we find the first town and get someone to help us,” Jayden says.
“The aggression I’m feeling in the stares of whoever is watching us would tell me that’s not gonna happen.” I sigh.
“Well, why don’t they just come out here and face us, then?” Raven yells, spinning in a circle.
“Are we sure it’s wise to antagonize whoever is watching us?” Jayden asks.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Raven twirls her sword in one hand.
“We don’t have any idea how many of them there are. They could be surrounding us as we speak.” I smack her arm.
“Well, they aren’t being very nice so if they are going to stare at us with hate, then I can antagonize them.”
“You’re going to get us all killed,” Jayden hisses.
“Let’s just move along. Maybe they won’t bother us. I have no issues with them,” I say loud enough that everyone can hear.
I wave to the others to get a move on and grab my bags from the floorboard of the SUV. We have to keep moving, especially if we’re on foot in a different realm with possible enemies at our backs.
There’s a loud grunt. I spin around, finding a large man with a sword at Jayden’s throat. Twenty others surround us. So I guess any hope of finding a way out of here without a fight is dashed.
Just fucking great.