Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Jeremy snarls, the sound is not animal or man, not anything I’ve ever heard. It echoes—two voices, not one—and climbs inside me and twists, sharp and cutting in its intensity. He isn’t dead, as I’d hoped, though I am not sure I’d call Jeremy alive, either.
Jeremy’s inky black eyes seem to expand and find me. “So glad we could play together, Ember. I’ve missed you.” He laughs that devil’s song again, and now the men who launched on him fall to their knees, both gasping for air as if attacked by some invisible force.
Micah captures my arm. “Let’s go.”
But I can’t move because of the shooting pain in my scalp. Somehow, even with Micah touching me and attempting to shield my mind from Jeremy’s influence, Jeremy still holds my mind in a crushing grip. And I can hear him. I can hear Jeremy talking to me in my mind. Running away will be painful, Ember. You will stay by my side where you belong, he commands, and a second wave of pain shoots through my body, all but rattling my bones. I fall to my knees, and Micah goes down with me, beside me. On some level, I’m certain that his collapse is the definition of the word screwed in any dictionary. Jeremy is controlling us, driving us to destruction.
Only Micah isn’t down because he’s in pain. Micah is with me, here for me. He grabs my shoulders and drags our foreheads together. “Breathe through the pain,” he orders. “You’re strong enough.”
“I’m not…like you,” I pant out.
“You’re stronger. You just don’t know it yet.”
Gunfire explodes, and Jeremy roars again. I can feel Micah using the distraction, pushing into my mind. He breaks Jeremy’s hold on me, the splintering through my head lessening. Micah must feel it, too. He releases me and heaves himself to his feet.
“You’re writing your own death sentence, Crystal Seer,” Jeremy hisses at Micah, who ignores him and hikes me to my feet—something I know only because I’m standing, though I can no longer feel my extremities. I’m numb, frozen to the bone. Whatever filter I had protecting me from this knowledge is now gone.
Micah drags me into a run toward the snowmobiles, and I stumble. I really can’t feel my feet. He catches my waist, anchoring me against him, and we never miss a step. We’re directly beside Jeremy now, and impossibly, I feel him shove himself into my mind again and sliver about, and suddenly, I’m reliving that moment when his tongue slid over my cheek.
I can’t breathe, and then he’s just…gone.
I glance over my shoulder, and we’re behind him now, and I wonder if this works in our favor, perhaps misdirecting his magic.
Jeremy laughs, and it snakes through the air in our wake, the sound echoing inhumanly, evilly, as he proclaims, “I’m going to enjoy watching her kill you. You and all your pathetically weak cronies.”
I don’t know if he means me or Micah, and it doesn’t matter. He’s still not dying today. That much is vividly clear. This isn’t over, but at least for now, we’ve reached the snowmobile, and Micah straddles the seat. I don’t have to be told to follow. The minute I’m behind him, he pulls my arms forward and shows me a handle on each side of him. I grab them, and he shouts, “Hold on.”
It’s a warning of the wild ride to come, I have no doubt, but I’ve never been so cold and so relieved in my life as I am the instant Micah shoots us into action. Still, I cast one last furtive look over my shoulder, assuring myself Jeremy can’t follow. I don’t find what I’d hoped to find, whatever that might be. The anchors are lying in the snow, and so are the men who’d shot them. Jeremy is gone. My gaze jerks everywhere and anywhere, frantic to find him, to know if he’s coming after us, but Micah launches the snowmobile off the road and into the wooded, snowy terrain. The jolting movement slides me to the left. I scream, and Micah reaches behind him, grabs my arm, and pulls me back onto the seat.
To heck with looking behind me and to heck with cautiously holding these stupid handles. I fling myself forward and press myself against this stranger, who I am suddenly becoming more intimate with. But at least for now, he is safe, and his body heat is warm where I am cold. I don’t bury my face in his jacket, thankful the snow has stopped falling, though the wind is still wicked. Its surface lashes, biting at my skin like little shards of glass.
The dull hum of engines roaring behind us permeates the wind’s guttural howls, telling me we aren’t alone. It’s Micah’s men. I feel this. I sense this. I also sense that many are fighting for their lives. I don’t know if the men by the anchors will live to see tomorrow, and I want to go back to save them, but we do nothing but push forward.