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His shuffling feet make a smudge of sound against the carpet as he hurries after me, but that noise is quickly overpowered by another, stranger sensation. It almost feels as though something's vibrating inside my skull.
I burst out into the wide hallway, Em just steps behind.
That's when I spot the tracker rushing away from me, Creep leaping after him. To my shock and amazement, the pink-faced beast crawls up the wall like a lizard and darts along the ceiling, which rises twenty feet as he makes it into the lobby.
"Goddammit!" Creep's gaze roams over the high ceiling, looking for a shadow he can portal into.
But there's a hole in the corner of the ceiling I didn't notice when we walked in. Whether it's new, I can’t say. It does, however, let a terrible beam of light stream across the top half ofthe room. That beam spreads out into weaker bands around the space, but it does the work of banishing Creep's shadows. There are no dark corners or inky pools of blackness he can emerge from.
The tracker, almost as if the stupid tooth is sentient and knows that shadows are a danger to it, sticks to the brightest areas as it skitters across the ceiling. I crane my neck and grit my teeth as I glare at its smug, angular face soaked in sunlight.
Em grabs a small candy box from behind the long counter at the back of the room and throws it at the creature, but the cardboard is so flimsy and disintegrated that it breaks open as it flies through the air. Circular candies in every shade of the rainbow fall from it, and the box flops to the ground empty, far short of its target.
I launch my arm back, muscles wrenching, and throw ice darts, but the sun softens and melts the tips just enough that they smash into the tracker's spine but don't stab it through like I want.
Motherfucker. I wish I had a crossbow right now.
Tesq tries to hurl a ball of lava, but it sloshes down onto the floor, too heavy. It burns a hole as it sinks through the carpet, and the stench drifts over us, leaving a bad taste on my tongue.
We are all forced to impotently watch as the monster wriggles through the hole in the ceiling and gets away. Gone to give our new location to his master, no doubt.
Fucking hell. Is this our life now? Running constantly?
"What the fuck is this? Are we Terrors or not?" Creep seems to share my frustration.
But his rage doesn't stop the reality of the situation.
In a fight, my mates are fierce. But in a chase after a lone creature…we need to learn to work together. That much is obvious.
We're also going to have to learn how to hide. I'm not sure it's something any of them have had to do for a long time. I know Creep can—clearly he's fond of closets and shadows. But with a tracker tailing us, we are going to have to set a sentry. We're going to have to be on guard at all times. It's a new experience, one that stiffens my spine and sends an uncomfortable prickle across my shoulders.
Even in the resistance, the monsters typically left us to our forests. They didn't come find us every few hours. A dark sort of dread pulses inside my chest because I can already tell this tracker is going to give us no such reprieve.
With a snarl, Creep turns to me, his eyes flashing furiously. "Back into the hallway. We need to portal out of here. Now."
He's obviously come to the same conclusion.
We stride down the wide, darkened hall, past moldy posters and cardboard cutouts. Dev meets us near the end, striding up nonchalantly in his human form, unaware or unashamed of his nudity. He seems to be completely clueless about everything that just went down.
"Where the fuck were you?" Creep lashes out.
"Nowhere." Dev's response is too quick to be honest.
"The goddamned tracker found us." Creep's harsh words are accompanied by a rough grip on my wrist as he pulls me to his side, tucking me under his arm. "We need to portal out of here.Where are we going to go? Any of my spots are out. That bastard who bred me will have eyes near all of them."
Tesq's lips twist into an angry, frustrated expression. "My favorites are gone. The others won't fit all of us."
I glance up at Creep, who's standing next to me, practically vibrating with anger, and reach out to put a soothing hand on his chest. The quick thud of his heartbeat betrays his agitation. "Don't worry. I know a place."
He stares down at me before grabbing onto my hand.
"So...what do I..." My words taper off.
"Just picture where you want to end up, very clearly in your mind,” he tells me gently.
I nod. "You might want to?—"
But before I've finished my sentence, Creep's sweeping me into his arms, and that uncomfortable squeezing sensation surrounds me. We jolt through space and time, and I keep my eyes firmly closed, not wanting to see the blur, not wanting to end up distracted. I keep our destination front of mind until our feet smack down, and a loudwhacksounds next to me.
