Chapter 10

“What the…?”

I sprinted after Zoe, catching up to her as she struggled to open the door of the vehicle, since the glowing cord…thingy tying her hands was giving her a bit of trouble.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

She shot me a hostile look as she continued to struggle with the door.

“We’re here to help you. Don’t you recognize us?”

“I know who you are,” she snapped. “And if you’re here to help me then help me open this damn door.”

“Don’t you understand? We came here for you. To jump you out of this world. I know that sounds crazy—"

“Jette, look out.”

I ducked on instinct as Starke pushed me to the side, covering me with his body as the laser collided with the cab of the truck and burnt through it like a lit ember through cardboard.

I spun around, just as the guards emerging from the lake tried to take aim again. I guess my dunking hadn’t been as effective as I thought. Dammit.

“What are they shooting at us?” I huffed as the four of us scurried around to the other side of the truck and hunkered down away from the guards. “Lasers?”

“Light bullets,” Zoe responded as a couple more shot overhead.

“What?” I stared at her, not comprehending.

“Bullets made from light. How much clearer do you want me to make it?”

“That doesn’t make sense. Light isn’t something you make bullets from.”

“Why you arguing with me on this? I didn’t freakin’ name the things,” she snapped. “Get in the truck.”

“No. We need to jump,” I yelled, as more of those laser lights pinged off the truck.

“You can’t jump, idiots,” Zoe snarled. “Not here. And not with me. Get in the truck. We need to get out of here before backup arrives.”

“Backup?” Jill questioned.

“Yeah. These guys never hunt alone.”

“She’s right,” Starke muttered, looking over my shoulder past the back of the truck. “There’s a dust cloud on the horizon. That possibly means another one of these moving vehicles is on the way here.”

“I don’t understand,” I shot at the girl. “Why can’t we jump from here? What did you mean?”

“Oh my God.” Her hazel eyes were filled with disdain. “The universe finally sends people to help me and they are complete morons. Get in the truck.”

Another laser light whizzed over our heads.

“Okay, enough of this shite.” I gathered magic in my sai and leaped to my feet, ready to drag these assholes to the bottom of the lake. I aimed my sai, commanding the water to do my bidding once again. Nothing happened. I felt the magic arc through the air but it sputtered away to nothing long before the water responded to it. The four guards sloshed their way through the shallows, coming to shore. What the heck just happened?

“Let me guess,” Zoe quirked a brow as I slunk back down. “It didn’t work.”

“Truck it is,” I growled sheepishly as I yanked open the door. Zoe practically pushed me out of the way to jump inside. Only she settled herself in the back seat of the cab instead of behind the wheel.

“Hope you can drive,” She yelled as she threw a fob at me, striking me in the chest. “Let’s go already.”

“Wha?” I caught the fob and glanced at her in panic. “You want me to drive?”

“Well not like I can with this.” She shook her tightly tied hands in front of my face like I hadn’t noticed before. “Come on. The Preservers you dunked in the lake are about to fricassee your butts.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Yup. No time for arguing. I leaped into the cab, Jill and Starke on my heels. Frantically I began waving the fob around the massive wheel, desperately hoping to hear the engine start. Nothing.

“Oh for…see that green button that says start,” she yelled at me from the back seat. “Touch it to there.”

“Stop yelling at me,” I screamed over my shoulder in panic, but did as she said. The engine came to life with a hearty roar as air conditioning blasted out of the vents.

“Yes!” I yelled, as I revved it a few times. I glanced in the rearview at Zoe and Jill. “You’re gonna want to buckle up.”

I hit the gas and we lurched ahead, nearly running over the four guards who scattered as I bombarded through them. The dirt road we were on was only as wide as the truck and I had no idea where it led, but it beat turning this beast around and heading back in the direction of the dust cloud Starke had mentioned. A glance in the side mirror confirmed what he’d seen. A cloud of dust was moving in. Another vehicle was approaching fast.

A tree popped out of nowhere to my right and I veered to the left, panicking a little. Fighting the wheel for control, I finally got us back on track, glancing over at Starke as he wordlessly buckled himself in just as Zoe and Jill had already done.

“Do you know what you are doing, Jette?” he asked, the casual question belying the concern etched on his face.

“If you’re asking me if I know how to drive? The answer is yes,” I gritted at him through clenched teeth. “If you’re asking if I know how to drive well? Maybe we should just avoid that answer and hope for the best. I mean, we’re on a dirt road in the middle of a forest. How hard can it be?”

I glanced over my shoulder once more. “I hope you know where we’re going?” I snapped at Zoe.

“Keep driving until you get to the end of the lane, then turn right and don’t stop.”

Great. Just the words I needed to hear. White knuckled, I gripped the wheel, lowering my face enough to wipe the sweat from my eyes with my sleeve. I didn’t dare let go of the wheel for one second. I sped along the side of the lake as the lane converged into another grove of trees, blocking the view ahead. My eyes jumped back to the side mirror. The truck following us was no longer a dust cloud in the distance. It was close enough now for me to see it was an exact duplicate of this one, only that truck had a driver who knew what they were doing.

“Keep going,” Zoe shouted from the back. “Don’t stop. As soon as we emerge from the trees down here, you’ll have to cross a divide and then turn right onto the freeway.”

“Freeway?” I shrieked, even as what she just told me played out in front of my eyes. As we emerged from the trees, the lane ended abruptly. What the hell happened to the dirt road? All that laid ahead of me was a barrier of green grass. I lifted my foot off the gas to hit the break but like Zoe knew, she screamed from the back, “Don’t slow down. If they catch us, we’re good as dead. Get us onto the freeway.”

“Argh!” I screamed as the truck hit a bump in the divide and we dipped so far to the right I thought we were about to tip over. Only luck kept us upright as I tore across the field toward the freeway in front of us. The freeway containing dozens of fast-moving vehicles.

I wasn’t sure who was screaming the loudest as I hit the gas and we barreled up over the side of the highway forcing our way into the line of traffic. I squeezed my eyes shut as car horns and brakes squealed, bracing myself for impact.

“Jette, watch where you’re going,” Starke yelled in panic. The side of the truck scraped terrifyingly against the concrete barrier separating us from the lanes of oncoming traffic, and I opened my eyes, yanking the wheel a hard right. Adrenaline shot through my veins as the truck swerved dangerously before I finally got it back under control.

“I got this. I got this.” I muttered under my breath. Didn’t know who I was trying to convince. Myself or the others. I let out a woosh of air and sucked in more, but it felt like I couldn’t suck enough in to fill my lungs. Was I hyperventilating? Oh Lord, please tell me I wasn’t about to pass out in the middle of a high-speed car chase.

I glanced in the side mirror again. No sign of the other truck.

“Starke, you see anything in your mirror?”

He studied the mirror before glancing my way. “No. I think they stopped chasing us.”

“Famous last words,” Jill screamed from the back before our pursuers flew up over the side of the highway and landed behind us with a crash of metal and sparks.

I’m not sure who was screaming the loudest in the cab, but it was deafening. I was fighting for control of the vehicle, trying to keep from hurtling into the other cars and trucks as we flew by them at a breakneck speed.

“They’re catching up. Go faster,” Jill screamed.

“I can’t,” I shrieked back. “I’m not a good enough driver.”

I watched in horror as the truck grew bigger in my mirror. They were gaining on us. As much as it terrified me, I accelerated and laid on the horn as I practically melded with the massive, weirdly shaped wagon cruising in front of us. I didn’t recognize the makes of any of these vehicles. I could only thank my lucky stars the gas and brake pedals were still in the same position as in my world.

“Move outta the way,” I screamed at the person in front of us, waving one arm frantically. I caught their terrified gaze from their rearview mirror as they too hit the gas to pass the truck blocking them in the right lane. They sped ahead of the truck, narrowly missing being clipped by it as they pulled over. I tore past them, squeaking a ‘sorry’ to the old man shaking his fist at me through the window as we sped by. Same as always, making friends wherever I go.

A shriek escaped me as the truck pulled up on our asses and rammed our bumper, causing me to swerve all over the road again. At least the other drivers had enough sense as to what was happening by now and were backing off, giving us open access to the freeway. The only thing that kept us from slamming into them.

The truck rammed again, and I lurched forward, swearing as pain radiated down my neck into my injured shoulder.

“Anyone have any great ideas on how to get these pieces of shite off our ass?”

Starke swerved in his seat to find Zoe. “Why didn’t Jette’s magic work on them the second time like it did the first?”

Her eyes were huge in her heart-shaped face. “Their suits are specially warded against magic and adapt to it. Your magic was enough to defeat them the first attempt, but by your second try, the suits had already upgraded. No matter what you throw at them, they learn and grow stronger.”

“So does that mean we can’t fight them with magic anymore?” I threw over my shoulder.

“Not while they wear the smart suits.”

“How about their vehicle?” Starke asked as he tried to steady himself with one arm planted against the truck’s dash as we got rammed again. “Is that warded as well?”

“I don’t know,” Zoe answered. “Maybe not?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“No!” Zoe and I screamed at the same time, but I really didn’t think it was for the same reason.

Ignoring us both, Starke slid the passenger window down and leaned out up to his waist.

“Get inside you idiot,” I screamed at him, trying to reach for him and stay on the road at the same time. The truck behind us rear-ended us once again and Jill screamed from the back as I veered, and Starke almost flew out the window.

I couldn’t see what he was doing but I heard words being muttered. He was doing some sort of spell. The air around us radiated with power as electricity sparked so bad in the truck’s cab, I swear my hair stood on end. I felt Starke’s magic sucked from the cab as I watched it collide with the truck behind us. The truck fishtailed all over the road as the front of it exploded in a blast of flame, finally smashing head on into the concrete barrier and coming to a stop. I watched it trail away in the side mirror.

The cab fell silent as Starke eased his way back inside and slid up his window like blowing up a truck full of bad guys was a normal, everyday occurrence.

“Yes!” Jill’s scream vibrated around the cab, causing me to swerve all over the road again.

“What the hell is wrong with you,” I screamed back at her once I had the truck, and my heartbeat, back under my control.

“What?” she responded, her face animated with excitement. “Starke, that was amazing. You did it.”

“Yeah, you did it alright.” Zoe’s tone held none of Jill’s relief or excitement. In fact, the condescension in it was unmistakable.

I glanced at her in the mirror. “I get it that you’re not one for thank yous, or gestures of gratitude, but try to curb your enthusiasm next time, okay?”

She leaned forward, her curly head between Starke and me.

“We need to get off this freeway and dump the truck. We need a trader to erase the residual magic and cover our tracks.”

I shot her a look of confusion. “What we need to do is get to a safe place so we can jump.”

“I can’t jump with this.” Zoe snapped and shook her still tied hands at me. The glowing rope around them and the collar around her neck seemed even brighter up close. “You idiots don’t even realize what you’ve done, do you?”

Really? Again with the idiots. “No. Why don’t you fill us in, Karen?”

I knew none of them would get my sarcastic jab, but it made me feel better just saying it. This chick was getting on my last nerve. I wondered if it was in the elemental’s genetic makeup to be sarcastic little witches.

“You’ve used magic, not once, not twice, but three times. Every Preserver within a two hundred-mile radius will be looking for us now and the mile-long residue you’ve left behind. We’ll be all over the airways. In every com. Wanted fugitives. You’ve caused me more trouble than what I was in to begin with.”

That seemed to be a trend lately. Zoe wasn’t finished.

“You think you would have researched this world before coming here and realizing you couldn’t use magic without giving yourselves away. That would have been the smart thing to do before leaving Endova.”

There were so many things I wanted to remark on, but one thing in particular had me confused. “You knew who we were. And that we came from another world. How did you know that? Neither Jill nor I remembered anything about Endova or our past lives.”

Zoe switched her gaze from me to Starke and I swear the temperature in the cab dropped ten degrees, her eyes were that cold.

“I remember everything. I know who you are. Who we all are. I know what happened to our families and who was responsible.” Her voice deepened to a snarl. “And I know exactly who you are, Prince Starke.”

Starke refused to cower under her glare or angry words. Instead his look was just as cool as he stared her down.

“Trust me, air elemental, not everything is as it seems. All will be explained in time.”

“Hmph,” she snorted. “On this world, time is not a luxury afforded to wanted fugitives.”

“Wanted fugitives? How can we be fugitives here?” Jill squeaked. She looked like she was about to cry. “We aren’t criminals. We’re magical beings.”

Zoe dropped back against the seat and sighed as she stared out the side window.

“Which on this world is a title you do not want. Magic is illegal here. Anyone with magical abilities are hunted and prosecuted. Shackled and imprisoned, or even worse, executed. If you have magic here, you hide it or face the consequences of being hunted and dragged away, never to be seen again. Having magical abilities here is a death sentence. And you, my friends, just announced your arrival to the Preservers with all the pomp and circumstance of a tickertape parade. Real smart.”

I lost my patience. “Enough with the attitude, okay? That is not helping. Not in the least. Let’s focus on what we need to do. You said we can’t jump. Why not? What do we need to do to get you and us out of here?”

She glowered at me through the mirror like she wasn’t going to waste her breath, at first. Then, dropping contact with me, she began to speak.

“First of all, we need to dump this truck as soon as we get in the city. We need the millions of auras the city offers so we can get lost there and make our residue harder to follow. Secondly we need to get to a trader to help me get rid of these.” She held up her cuffed hands. “Third, we need to get to the free zone. That is the only way we’ll be able to open a portal and jump. But I warn you. It won’t be easy.”

“Great,” I muttered under my breath as my fingers flexed on the wheel. “Another dangerous road trip. Just what we need.”