Page 93 of Finding Her
“Perfect.” She rolled her shoulders back. “Now we just drive and wait for that sound to speed up.”
“What’s the plan once it does?” I rested the bulky machine on my thigh.
“We conceal the car under some low branches and find the facility on foot.”
Graysen
We were well into the second night since Faeryn had gone missing, and I was starting to think the damn contraption was broken. It had been beeping at that mockingly slow pace for hours. Mykie had a device that allowed her to speak with Ragen over long distances, and he confirmed Faeryn still wasn’t home. Nobody in town had seen her. I was sure now that we were going in the correct direction. Along with the tangible evidence, I felt an inexplicable pull in my chest as we drove as if a magnetic bond between us was increasing in tension the closer we became.
“Did that seem faster to you?” Mykie asked, suddenly cutting through the repetitive silence.
I listened for a moment, counting between each beep. “Maybe?”
The rate of the beep suddenly sputtered to life and raced double-time. Mykie slowed the vehicle and scanned the road for foliage that suited her hiding plans. We didn’t drive long before a particularly gnarly tree came into view. Its jagged branches arched toward the ground with just enough room for the vehicle under their harsh canopy. She pulled off the road into the grass, slowly squeezing the car under the coverage of twigs and vines.There was a grating scrape accompanying the process as the plant protested the vehicle’s intrusion.
Mykie turned off the loud device and car, plunging us into the eerie noises of our surroundings. No time to hesitate, we crawled over the seats, each toting a bag onto our shoulders. We pushed out of the trunk, immediately hit by the suffocating thickness of the air. I wasn’t bothered by the heat, but I couldn’t imagine how Mykie was feeling. Droplets formed on her cool scales, which she wiped away only once before resigning herself to the problem.
“We need the coverage of the woods,” she whispered, gesturing with her head away from the road. “I have the van’s location marked for our return.”
The “crrrrooooowl” bellowed nearby suggested that might not be the best idea, but I wouldn’t argue with a professional.
I nodded, following Mykie’s silhouette into the thick of the trees. My night vision was decent, but in this density of blackness, I still had to concentrate on where I placed each step. I carefully summoned parts of my natural state that would benefit us in an emergency, while suppressing the rest. It was difficult to mute my emblem while extending my claws, but we didn’t need a beacon catching the eyes of any sight-based predator. It felt like removing undergarments before clothing; not uncomfortable, just unnatural and difficult. My talons were extended, my teeth sharp for tearing, and my muscles bulked just enough to make the uniform that much tighter.
Something nearby gurgled. We stopped in our tracks simultaneously.
“Whatever happens,” she whispered so quietly I could barely hear her. “No fire.”
A colossal shadow fell from a branch above Mykie, sending her crashing to the ground. The rush of adrenaline doused my self-control, my glow roaring to life and flames spurting into the damp grass.
The light from my emblem revealed the grotesque creature snapping at Mykie. Its pincer-like fangs dripped white mucus down her face. Her hands pushed against its bony jaw to keep its bite from clamping around her throat. The monstrosity had six long limbs, all bone thin and arching off a swollen, fleshy abdomen. Two frontal limbs ripped at her arms with barbed hooks, her uniform thankfully resisting their tearing. Its other four legs crouched a foot or so above her, bending at knobby joints as it bore down.
My brave friend didn’t call for help, instead positioning her leg to kick at its abdomen while its fangs drew closer. I was frozen for a moment. How could I kill something that had my dearest ally in its fatal clutches?
Desperate to intervene before it was too late, I tossed some flames at the beast despite Mykie’s objections. It’s pale flesh singeing brown, the creature shrieked in protest and leapt from her. She scrambled to her feet and pulled a dagger from a strap I hadn’t noticed was there. The beast stood on four legs, its head twisting unnaturally and its pincers clicking. Its spiked front limbs reared up and flicked in our direction in agitation.
“Douse your fucking light or so help me,” Mykie hissed through her teeth.
“You’rewelcome.” My breaths shook as I tried to compose myself enough to dim. I pulled gloves out of my pocket and slipped them over my claws carefully, hoping I wasn’t ridding myself of my most effective defense. The woods slowly began to return to darkness, revealing the reflective eyes of a hungry audience surrounding us within the nearby trees.
The horrific creature stomped in place, eager to attack, but reassessing us. We might have looked like an easy meal at first, but we’d proved agitating. In an environment overpopulated by the top of the food chain, I assumed measuring up an opponent was a routine judgment call, one this being must have made correctly many times to grow to its dominating size.
The most upsetting part of the whole ordeal was that this thing wasn’t my enemy. It was a mindless eating machine doing what it did every day, probably multiple times a day, to survive. I didn’t care what happened to it. What Ididcare about was getting to Faeryn, and this standoff was slowing us down. If the beast couldn’t decide how to proceed, I would.
Without hesitation, I launched myself onto the abomination, tackling it to the ground. The rolling guttural noises of its surprise shifted to an ear-piercing shriek when I sliced my claws through its flesh. I aimed a blow toward its eyes, but the violent thrashing threw me off, and I sunk my claws into its sinewy shoulder instead.
I barely had the time to regain my footing before a barbed footpad struck me in the temple. My neck snapped to the side from the impressive strength of the bony kick. I felt a stream of blood flow from my hairline to my jaw and run down my neck.
The spiked, rounded paws caught my shoulder next, pushing an obscene amount of weight onto me, trying to force me to the ground. I began to understand this creature, how it liked to kill. The snapping pincers just behind its forelegs were waiting for their opportunity once I was pinned. My knees shook against the pressure. One lapse in focus or strength, and I’d be overpowered. If that happened, Mykie didn’t have flames to shoot out and save me.
I searched for weak points, eyes darting around it’s strange body. It’s turgid, fleshy abdomen seemed like a good place to start. I allowed my legs to buckle just enough to slide myself under the beast, ripping into its stomach with my talons on the way down. Viscera spilled across my chest and stomach, and I raised my arm to try to protect my face from the slippery gore.
The creature crumpled toward the ground, granting me only a moment to scramble out of the way before it collapsed into the grass. I wasn’t sure I could provide a mercy kill without a known weak spot, but that wasn’t my priority. Leaving it behind would distract the looming predators from us while they feasted on the incapacitated meal. It may buy us valuable time getting to Faeryn.
I turned to face Mykie, who had been oddly quiet. She was pre-occupied with a veiny winged creature with a long beak and beady eyes flapping over her head, taking threatening bites of the air around her. At every attempted strike, Mykie slashed out with her dagger. Neither of them was landing a hit, and it was wasting our time.
I let out a frustrated sigh and pulled my glove up just enough to spurt flames at the creature before fastening the leather back securely. The winged beast shrieked, and the distraction was just enough to give Mykie her opening, where she promptly pulled the creature down by its foot and stabbed it repeatedly.
“What the fuck did I say about flames?” she growled as she stood up from its twitching carcass.
