I waved at him, chalking up what I saw in Penny’s eyes to paranoia. “Kyle the control freak. Never gets old.”
“You got that right.” She linked her arms with mine. The picture perfect friend. To the boys, she said, “We’ll take it slow, guys. Go on ahead.”
I added, “We’ll be fine.”
Dillan and Kyle shared a glance then shrugged at the same time.
Penny and I giggled.
“Boys,” she said.
“Boys.” I sighed. This was good. Time outdoors. Some fresh air. The company of a good friend. Just what I needed.
I matched my pace with her ambling as Kyle’s and Dillan’s long legs ate up the trail. I said a silent prayer of thanks that Penny wanted to go slow. The beauty of the Presidential Trail would have been wasted if we went as fast as the boys did.
Nature upon nature. Snapdragons, sunflowers, and violets scattered everywhere, giving the abundance of green from the pines a much needed punch of color. The cool breeze spread the woodsy smell of the place. I breathed it in deep.
The guys had just disappeared around a bend when a prickly sense of anxiety beat with my heart. An invisible hand slowly closed its clammy fingers around my neck. My eyes darted to Penny. My friend’s expression stayed content. But her silence was unusual. She should have been talking my ear off about the other things she’d learned about Mt. Rushmore. Or at least ask me about my talk with Bowen.
The feeling of something being really wrong twisted in my chest. Searching for the source, I didn’t notice Penny had pulled away from me until I saw her walk up to a snapdragon at the side of the trail. The sense of being watched choked my every breath. The guys were too far away now to call out to without shouting. No one else walked the trail with us. Odd. The number of tourists who visited the site should’ve meant we were never alone.
When I returned my attention to my best friend, debating whether to tell her what I felt or not, she smiled at me. My small measure of relief shattered when she stepped into the forest. Gut twisting panic overrode the voice inside my head warning me not to go after her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dillan
Field Trip Pines and Needles
Dillan glanced back just in time to see Selena dart off the trail into the forest. His heart dropped. Shit. He grabbed at Kyle’s shoulder too hard.
“What the hell, Sloan!” Kyle yanked back, adjusting his shirt.
“Selena just went off the trail.”
“What?”
He pointed in the direction Selena disappeared from. The invisible line that connected him to her tugged, becoming tauter every second that passed. Soon the mind-numbing electric wave would come. His instincts told him so. “I don’t see Penny anywhere…”
Kyle didn’t wait for him to finish. He bolted toward where they’d last seen the girls. Dillan chased after him. Panic rushed through his body like a nasty case of chills. Just before Kyle left the trail, he grabbed his arm.
“Let me go, Sloan!”
He ignored the murder in the other guy’s eyes. “I’ll go after her. You stay here.”
“And do what?”
“If we’re not back in ten minutes, get Rainer. Don’t blow your cover now by going after her. She already knows what I am and what I can do.”
Kyle let out a slow breath then nodded once.
Not waiting for verbal confirmation, he darted into the forest, his sword already manifested. Whatever forced Selena off the trail couldn’t be good. The air around him sizzled with energy. He cursed leaving Sebastian in Newcastle. He’d insisted the hellhound continue searching for the Maestro’s lair.
Fifty yards from the trail, he spotted Selena and raced to her. She tripped on a rock sticking out of the ground and stumbled forward. He caught her before she face-planted.
“Where’s Penny?”
“Dillan!” She gulped in a lungful of air and said, “I don’t know. We were on the path and then she ran off and left me.”
He scanned the area, using his energy to feel everything out. Like a rubber band, it snapped back into his body. He cursed his limitations. They might as well be sitting ducks in these woods.
She panted and continued, “I called out to her, but she started running. Then I lost her.”
“You’re never walking behind me again.” He rubbed her arms, using some of his warmth to ease her trembling.
“We have to find…” She stopped, her gaze darting from one spot to the next. “Something’s here!”
Something whooshed past them. They ducked instinctively. A needle the length of a barbeque stick, three times as thick, stuck out of a tree directly above his shoulder. It reminded him of a porcupine quill.
Three more came after it.
Not willing to become a pincushion, he grabbed Selena’s hand, winced at the shock then shouted, “Run!”
They ran side by side. Dillan used his body to block any of the needles that they might not dodge. He set a bruising pace, zigzagging between pines. Selena gripped his hand, keeping up with him.
“Where are they coming from?” she shouted over the blood roaring in his ears.
“I’m not sure,” he answered through the noise. “Just keep running.”
Something sped past him. He stumbled, hitting the ground hard. The barrage of needles suddenly stopped. A burst of pain emanated from his side. He clutched at the wound. Selena slid to a stop then scrambled back to where he landed. Like a trained soldier, she yanked him behind a large pine. Then she crouched at his side and squeezed his arm. He grunted from the electricity that came with the contact as he leaned heavily against a tree. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore when she pushed aside his hands.
Her eyes widened a fraction. “You’ve been hit.”
“It’s just a scratch.” Sweat drenched his face.
“Let me see.” She bent down. He looked down with her. An angry cut bled out just above his hip. A purple haze surrounded the wound, spreading across his skin fast. His already rapidly beating heart sped up even more.
“It burns,” he said. “Son of a bitch, it really burns!” He breathed through his teeth. “The needles must be poisoned.”
Selena grabbed his sword and cut across the wound until blood gushed out. He bit down on another scream as pain spasmed through his body. Flaming pin pricks spread all over his torso. His blood felt like acid eating away at his insides.
As she began to bend over the wound, he stopped her. “What are you doing?”
“I need to suck out the poison.”
He shook his head. “We don’t know if it’ll poison you, too, if you do that.”
“It’s spreading fast. If I don’t get it out, who knows what will happen to you.”
Ignoring his continued protests, she bent over him and sucked at the wound she’d created. Embarrassing heat flooded his face at the touch of her lips on his skin. He hardly felt the succeeding electric shock upon contact. His body shook so hard his teeth chattered. She spit out a mouthful of blood and returned to the wound a second time. Seconds later, his eyelids drooped, but he couldn’t stop staring at Selena. She embodied some wild creature then, saving his life without concern for her own. By the third time she bent over him, the pain subsided.
“It hurts less,” he wheezed out. “How are you feeling?”
She turned aside and spat before speaking. “Nothing. Maybe the poison only works when it’s in the bloodstream.” She studied the wound. The purple haze was smaller now. She bent over it two more times.
About to pass out, he upended his sword so the moonstone at its pommel hovered over the cut. He’d be really weak afterward, but if he didn’t close the wound, he won’t be able to stop the bleeding. “Where’d you learn to do that?”