“You’ll need all the help you can get,”Uncle Saul said.
A hysterical laugh broke from me. This should be interesting. None of them had ridden with Dad before. “Strap in!”
Dad floored it.
Gritting my teeth, I held on for dear life. Dad drove like a crazed kamikaze pilot bent on suicide. The ATV hit a pile of debris, sailed into the air and slammed down on the other side with a spine-jarring impact.
“What the fuck!” Uncle Saul bellowed.
The ATV blasted through some dead bushes, shot off the edge of a hillside, careened wildly and came to an abrupt stop in the Safeway parking lot.
A gun battle raged inside the store.
A muscle jerked in Kaelen’s cheek.“Your father is a berserker.”
“You got a death wish?” Uncle Saul spat as he climbed out of the ATV.
Dad interjected, “I got us here in under three minutes. We can’t afford to bury any more people.”
Uncle Saul gave him a look.
A woman and her three children fled out the front door.
I yelled, “Who started the fight, Ethel?”
“Jason Avery and Scott Larson. Both are drunk again and fighting over the last case of beer,” Ethel hollered and shoved her kids into her car.
Sonovabitch! Neither of them could hit the broad side of a barn. I scanned the store. “We have three injured, but I’m not sure how badly.”
Dad keyed his mic, “Dispatch, start the paramedics our way.”
“Copy Adam-30.”
“Minor injuries,”Kaelen advised and his power flared. A scant ten seconds later, the firefight stopped.“The males will no longer drink or cause problems.”
“Thanks. Ever thought about becoming a cop? Your mental voodoo works wonders on idiots.”Before I could move, Kaelen slid an arm around me. There was a flash of black and poof! We were inside the store.“Wow! How did you do that?”
“I teleported us.”Kaelen retrieved the hunting rifles from Jason and Scott.
I handcuffed the unconscious men and searched them.“It’s kinda like going through the portal. How far can you port?”
“Up to one hundred of your miles.”
Huh? Not very far.
Avery moaned and twitched.
Since the Tai-Kok started attacking our world, anyone over the age of sixteen was required to be armed. Those who refused to carry weapons usually ended up dead. I confiscated Avery’s backup pieces, boot knives and cyanide pill.“Can you teach me how to teleport?”
“I can, once I have converted you.”Kaelen commented.
Confused, I parroted,“Converted?”
“We will discuss that later.”Kaelen gestured at the cyanide pills I had placed in evidence bags.“Your people take poison deliberately?”
My lips twisted into a bleak smile.“Yep. If you’re captured by the Tai-Kok, you take the pill. Sixty seconds later, you’re dead and it takes about that long for the monster eating you to die too.”
“You carry this pill?”Kaelen’s eyes darkened.
