AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Three days ago. No time at all, and yet it felt like a lifetime had passed since he’d taken the biggest—best—gamble of his life. He’d stared down at a smiling Adam, borrowed some of his confidence, and leapt, skipping across the water with the Devil in his arms, all the way across the Bay and north. He’d used the last of his Daylight and had risked exposure and death because Adam was worth it. Had proven as much every day since. Unlike the power-hungry murderer in the back seat. “You’re not worth flying for.”
Vincent laughed, and Icarus slumped in his seat, focused instead on appearing calm as they approached the quarter-mile tunnel that cut through the rocky outcrop that had survived the Rift. The neighboring isle had not, but Huchiun’s bedrock—its spirit and ghosts—had held firm, prickling as they drove beneath the tunnel’s arch and lifting the hairs on Icarus’s arms. Atlas stopped speaking midsentence, Brock clutched the wheel so tight it creaked, and Icarus straightened in his seat. Not appearing tense flew out the window.
Vincent noticed. “What’s going on?” he asked, a rare quiver to his voice. “What’s that smell?”
“Hush,” Atlas ordered his master in a rare show of defiance.
“Consecrated ground,” Icarus said. “It doesn’t like you.”
“Wha—”
The tunnel lights flickered.
A flash of green.
The car slowed.
Icarus steeled himself for the pain that would come from yanking against the cuffs.
The van behind them blew its horn, and Brock hit the gas. Icarus slammed back against his seat, and in the back, Vincent cursed. “Dammit, Brock!”
Atlas slapped the back of Brock’s headrest. “Go!”
Brock kept his foot on the gas, hurtling them through the short tunnel, so close to the lead van that Icarus couldn’t see the other SUV’s tires. Adam would have to time the attack just right. As the end of the tunnel neared, Icarus mentally ran through the possibilities.
A road blockade.
An assault from above.
An explosion, man- or magic-made.
Flickering median lamps outside the tunnel reflected off the roof of the lead car, then on the hood of their SUV, climbing the windshield.
They cleared the tunnel.
The cuffs around his wrists disappeared.
And then... nothing.
Their SUV continued charging forward, and it took everything in Icarus to not whip around in his seat and glance back, to confirm with his own eyes, what his mind was telling him. That Adam had deserted him. That he’d read her message wrong.
His heart rebelled.
His heart.
He closed his eyes and blocked out the other voices and heartbeats in the car, the rumble of tires over uneven concrete, the waves crashing below, and searched for Adam’s heartbeat.
Nothing.
He opened his eyes and shifted enough to see in the rearview mirror, the most he could do without being obvious.
Nothing still.
Just Vincent in the back seat, turned the way Icarus wanted to be, staring back at the now-deserted tunnel. “What the fuck was that?”
Bright green eyes clashed with Icarus’s in the mirror. Atlas was as confused as him as to why they were still moving forward without incident. His calm and even voice, however, didn’t give his shock away. “Like Icarus said, consecrated ground. Prepare for more of the same at the shellmound.”
Would the attack happen there? Icarus didn’t think so. He didn’t think she would risk the coven or the remains of the Indigenous people buried there either. What the fuck was going on?
