CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
My heart thudded hard in my chest, my lungs feeling tight and restricted. A lump built in my throat, making it difficult to breathe. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and my mind screamed to run, but I was frozen in place with his angry eyes fixated on me.
My voice was shaky, but I managed to get out the words. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled, the edges of his mouth curling up sinisterly.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said.
He laughed, shaking his head in amusement. “Actually, Annabelle, you couldn’t be further from the truth. After all, this is Burnwood’s most important event of the year.”
He stepped forward and I stepped back, constantly working to keep the distance between us as far as possible. He moved slowly, almost deliberately. It was like he could sense the fear in me and wanted to drag it out.
“There are too many people around,” I said, feeling strong again. “Someone will hear me scream.”
He stopped turning the tiny coin like object between his fingers and looked at me. “Do you plan on screaming?”
With one quick motion I flung my hand forward and slapped him across the face as hard as I could. I felt his cold, death-like skin against the palm of my hand and even though it stung, it felt amazing.
His eyes blazed red and he moved for me, but it was too late, I was already racing through the woods toward the Founder’s Hall. I was moving fast, faster than I had ever moved before, but I knew that wouldn’t matter. He would catch me. I couldn’t outrun a hybrid, no one could.
I could see the big white building through the gaps between the trees and for a second I thought I would actually make it, but by the next second I was tumbling to the leaf-covered ground, hard. I rolled to a stop, the back of my head throbbing where he must’ve struck me. I reached back and felt for blood. It hurt, but at least I wasn’t bleeding.
My vision was blurred, but I could make out the just of everything around me, including the dark figure slowly approaching, like a cougar stalking its prey.
“They will know it was you,” I said, scurrying backwards. “My uncle will know it was you and he will tell the police what you did in the woods this morning. It’s too soon after an incident like that not to be the prime suspect.”
“That may be true,” he said, pausing momentarily before stepping down hard on my ankle. “But no one would ever suspect that I would try again so soon.”
I cried out, the pain in my ankle radiating up my leg.
Why had I been so stupid? Of course no one would anticipate this. And worse, no one will be looking for me.
Yury reached for me, his hand gripping my neck. He lifted me up from the ground and slammed me hard against the tree behind me. I could feel the bark scraping against the exposed skin on my back and it hurt.
I struggled to break free, kicking and scratching at him. He tightened his grip around my neck. I fought to breathe, gasping for air, but my efforts were futile. I could feel my life slipping away. I was too tired to fight any more. I could barely keep my eyelids open and soon I could do nothing more than dangle from his hand and wait for it to be over.
He leaned in until his face was just inches from mine, a triumphant look upon his face. “With you gone the plan will go on without disruption.”
My eyelids fell closed and the darkness overtook me. I felt another hard thud and I was sure that my lifeless body hit the ground, except I wasn’t dead at all. In fact, I could breathe again.
Crack!
I jumped to my feet and looked around. I couldn’t see anyone, including Yury. I heard another sound and followed the noise. There were busted trees every few feet, indicators that I was headed in the right direction.
Crack!
This time the sound was louder and I knew I was getting closer. I started to run towards the noise, not sure what I was running toward, but something in my heart wouldn’t let my mind change directions.
Crack!
I was close now. In fact, I didn’t even need the noise to guide me anymore as I could see a lot of movement straight ahead.
My head throbbed and I was still disorientated, but I could make out two figures in the distant battling back and forth. One threw the other into the trunk of a tree and it split with one loud crack. The figure got up and with a quick movement of the hand a ball of flame hurdled toward the other figure, striking him in the chest and sending him soaring through the air and into another tree, splitting that one as well.
I knew I was running towards the very person I was trying to escape, but it didn’t matter. I knew who I would find when I got close enough and I had to help him.
I crept forward until I could make out their faces. As I had anticipated, it was Carter.
I knew it would be him and confirming it made everything feel so real. In that brief moment, I watched my whole life flash before my eyes with every blow he took. His face was battered, blood dripping down his lip. Yury looked just as bad, but he wasn’t tiring as quickly.
My mind went numb, a kind of blind panic. I had to help Carter, but how? I was no match for Yury and I wouldn’t dare run back to the Founder’s Hall for Alec and leave Carter to face him alone. No, I would have to find a way.
I frantically scanned my surroundings, desperate for a quick solution. It didn’t take me long to see it. There was a large boulder sitting precariously at the top of a small ledge. It wasn’t a large drop, but if I could find a way to move the fight in that direction, I was sure it would cause enough damage to get Yury down, even if only temporary.
We just need enough time to get back to the Founder’s Hall. It will give us that.
I raced for it, ducking behind trees along the way as I carefully avoided the chaotic battle standing between me and the destination. Luckily for me, they were making far too much noise to hear my footsteps passing, and I arrived at the boulder undetected. I gave it a gentle push and it didn’t budge. I shoved it hard, but it remained motionless. Finally, I dug my heels into the ground and pushed with all my might. It was impossible. The rock wouldn’t move no matter how hard I tried.
I peeked around the corner and looked down at the destructive battle waging below. Carter was in rough shape. His face was bloody and his clothes were torn and singed. Yury was relentless, and he was healing quickly, as quickly as Carter should’ve been healing. Something was wrong.
I tried pushing the boulder again out of sheer panic, but to no avail. I wanted to scream and slam my fist into that stupid rock. He needed me and I couldn’t come through. I was failing him.
Suddenly, I remembered something about leverage from my advanced physics class. I hastily scanned the area until my eyes fixed upon a thick hiking stick leaning up against a nearby tree. I hurried to retrieve it, trying not to focus on how slowly I was moving in my ball gown. With every step I took it I could hear another tree cracking open against the force of another one of their powerful blows.
Finally, I got the stick and wedged the end of the branch under the boulder. There was a log not far from where I stood and it proved easy to roll into place. I gave the stick a little push downwards, and the boulder immediately jiggled out of place. Perfect! It was ready. Now, all I needed was a distraction.
I thought about throwing something at them, but I wouldn’t be able to get close enough to hit them without leaving the boulder, and I couldn’t risk that. The tree line between the boulder and Yury was narrow, but Carter could easily get in the way. I had to find some way to get Yury’s attention.
I jumped out from behind the rock and screamed, “Get away from him you coward!”
It wasn’t my best work, but I needed to do something quickly and thinking on my feet was clearly not one of my strengths.
They stopped, both turning to look at me. Carter’s face was bleeding badly now and he looked weak. Yury, on the other hand, seemed to have recovered almost instantaneously. His cut flesh sealed together, leaving no evidence of any trauma. His broken arm snapped back int
o place as he shook it out. Even his body seemed strong, as though the last several minutes of chaos was nothing more than a casual jog.
“Annabelle, run!” Carter shouted, holding his wounded shoulder. He took a few steps forward, but Yury shot him back with a force like nothing I had ever seen before. Even for a hybrid, that was remarkably strong.
Yury started for me and I retreated back behind the boulder. I grabbed hold of the branch and threw all of my weight down on it. The boulder rolled forward, quickly gaining momentum as it cascaded down the steep drop. It was heading right for him, but he wasn’t moving. He was waiting for it.
I knew that look in his eyes. He would dodge it, that much I was sure about, and then I would be left unprotected and vulnerable with nowhere to run.
He crouched down, positioning himself like a football player ready to charge. The boulder was seconds away from hitting him and I found myself standing by just to watch. I knew I should be using every spare second I had to run the other direction, but I couldn’t turn away.
Three, two, one.
I braced myself of whatever was to come, but a split second before the collision, Carter sped forward and knocked Yury off his feet. The boulder rolled over his left arm, pinning it to the ground. Yury cried out in pain as he tried to wrench his arm from under the giant rock, but it was useless. The rock was wedged into place, supported by two thick trees on each side.
I hurried to Carter, kneeling beside him. His face was bloody and bruised, but I could tell it was already starting to heal.
“Carter, are you okay?” I asked, gently sweeping his blood soaked hair back with my hand.
He pushed himself up, slowly getting to his feet. “I’m fine.”
“Ha,” Yury barked. “Get this rock off of me and we will see about that.”
Carter walked over to where Yury lay pinned to the ground and stood over him, staring down vengefully. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there glaring down at Yury with deep-seeded hate.
“Carter,” I said, taking his hand as I spoke softly to him. “We need to go back to the hall and get help.”
Carter moved forward and placed his foot on top of Yury’s free hand. He stepped down hard, snapping every bone in the hand. Yury clenched his jaw and grinded his teeth.
“Carter,” I said, this time a little louder.
He didn’t respond, at least not to me.
“What do you want with her?” he asked.
Yury grimaced, saying nothing.
Carter shifted his weight, slowly moving his foot from left to right. This time, Yury cried out in such a way that it almost made me forget that he had just tried to kill me. For a second, I actually felt sorry for him.
“Carter,” I said, pulling on his arm. “Let’s go.”
“If I were you, I’d listen to her,” said Yury.
“And why is that?” asked Carter.
Yury’s eyes flared red. “Do you really think I would come back to Burnwood alone?”
Carter and I glanced at each other and then turned to survey our surroundings.
“Carter,” I said, pointing up to where I had let the boulder loose.
At first, there was only one set of red eyes gazing down on us, and then another pair appeared beside the first, and then a third pair shortly after that.
Yury laughed as he too gazed back at the three pairs of gleaming red eyes.
“Shut up!” Carter shouted as he stomped down on Yury’s hand as hard as he could.
Yury screamed out in pain and Carter raised his foot to do it again.
“Carter!” I shouted.
He stopped, his foot hovering just above Yury’s mangled hand.
“Look,” I said. “They’re gone.”
Carter stepped up beside me, wrapping his arm around me protectively. He surveyed the area until his eyes fixated on something too far away for me to see.
“What is it?” I asked.
His eyes widened and then, in a blink of an eye, he had me pinned to the ground under his body weight as a flaming projectile passed over us.
He pulled me to my feet. “Run!”
“What about you?”
He pushed me behind the cover of the nearest tree. “Don’t worry about me. Just get back to the hall as fast as you can.”
I took his hand in mine. “I won’t leave you.”
He paused, if only for a moment, and took the side of my face in his hand. He kissed me, his soft lips pressed to mine. I closed my eyes, letting myself get lost in the moment. I felt a gust of wind blow through my hair and when I reopened my eyes, he was gone.
I didn’t bother to try and follow him, it would be useless. The only thing I could do now was get to the Founder’s Hall as quickly as I could.
I could see a glimmer of the white lights from the trees outside the hall. I ran as hard as I could, keeping my focus on those tiny little lights of hope. I was out of breath when I finally reached the perimeter to the Founder’s Hall and my legs refused to move at a pace any faster than a slow jog. I was just about out of the woods when I saw Alec walking back towards the hall.
I launched forward, opening my mouth to yell…
Suddenly, a foul-tasting hand clasped over my mouth, pulling me back into the cover of the woods. The movement must’ve caused some noise because Alec stopped dead in his tracks and turned. His eyes didn’t glow red, so I knew he couldn’t see me.
I fought to get free, but my captor was much stronger than me. I could barely squirm under the force of his arms. All I could do was hope that Alec would tune into his senses and find me, but when he started back for the hall, all that hope dwindled away and disappeared in his absence.
I bit down on the hand clasped over my mouth until I could taste blood. He shoved me forward and I fell to my knees, the palms of my hands scrapping across the hard dirt ground. I turned around just in time to see his deathly red eyes closing in on me. In the darkness, he looked just like Yury with pale skin and jet black hair, except his was much longer and hanged down around his face. He was wearing all black, which made his head look like it was floating on thin air.
“You…” He stopped, the red glow fading from his eyes until all I could see was the same blackness I saw in Yury’s eyes. He fell to his knees and toppled to the side, hitting the ground with one loud thud. His body lay motionless as Carter stood behind him with the man’s bloody red heart dripping from his hand.
He dropped the organ without so much as a second glance and wiped his hand on his pants before helping me up.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked, quickly looking me over. “Are you okay?”
I was stunned, unable to divert my eyes from the heart lying on the ground beside the lifeless body it once belonged to.
“Annabelle,” he said again. “Can you keep going?”
I nodded, still unable to find the words. We hurried for the hall once again, barely making it five feet before two more dark figures with beaming red eyes blocked our path.
“The other way,” said Carter.
We turned and ran deeper into the woods.
“I can’t outrun them, but you can. You can make it to the hall.”
He shot me a serious look as we ran. “Don’t even think about it.”
The red eyes were nowhere to be seen, but they would be on our trail in no time, and there was nowhere else to go without getting farther from the place we needed to be.
I stopped running. “Carter, it’s the only way.”
He lifted me into his arms. “I’m not leaving you! Even if I have to carry you myself.”
He raced through the forest, our surroundings shifting into one big black blur until he came to a stop.
“Where are we?” I asked as he lowered me to my feet.
“Redburn Mountain. There should be a shallow cave somewhere here.”
I looked around. “Do you think they’re still following us?”
He nodded. “I rounded a few trails, hopefully that will buy us time. We’re c
lose to home now. If I can get you to my house, we’ll be safe.”
“Great,” I said, feeling like we had already won the battle. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
Carter shook his head. “They’re gaining on us. I can sense it.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We aren’t going to do anything, Annabelle. You’re going to wait here until it’s safe. If I don’t come back, you stay here until daylight and then get to my house. You remember where to go from here, right?”
I knew I would be lost in the woods without him, but I nodded anyway and squeezed his hand tightly in mine.
We found the cave and he guided me inside. It was too dark for me to see anything, but the moonlight was visible from the mouth of the cave and I focused on that.
“Don’t leave,” I pleaded. “Stay here with me.”
“You’re going to be okay,” he said, kissing me softly. “I promise.”
“But what about you?”
Before he could answer the question a strong gust of wind blew through the air. They had found us.