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)
Chapter twenty-six
Time stands still as the giant white beast continues to charge at me.
For a moment, I’m transfixed by the unbelievable creature, long fangs snarling beneath black lips and its featherless wings spread wide and tall, black veins zigzagging through their several-foot expanse. He’s too close, I think. My eyes lift to that of the beast, and his intent is clear. He’s coming for me.
“Ember!” Micah shouts at me, and he does it from the other side of the river—the bastard—but my anger at him is the jolt I need, and not a moment too soon. I roll out of the path of the beast, and when it meets empty space, its head tilts skyward as a furious roar escapes its lips.
I don’t dare take my eyes off of it as I scream across the raging water, “Are you kidding me, Micah? I don’t even have a weapon.”
“Use your magic. And keep moving. It’s slow, and it lacks agility.”
Easy for him to say when he didn’t just dodge the thing, I think, but at this point it’s rotated my direction again, and I don’t wait for it to lunge. With my heart racing and adrenaline almost too intense to manage, I haul it toward the woods, a plan forming in my mind. It’s big. I’m not. That wingspan alone has limitations, and if I can just find a cluster of trees that are close together, it will never get to me. Slow and lacking agility, I repeat in my mind, but as I glance over my shoulder, the damn thing is almost on top of me. Apparently, I’m slow and lacking agility. No. Just slow. I can shift directions much faster than the beast.
Empowered by how this helps me, I’ve reached the line of trees again, and I enter the forest, cutting right into the thick of it and running as fast as I can. The silent screams start again, mingling with muffled voices, somehow everywhere and nowhere, cluttering my mind and confusing me, and I suddenly wonder if the beast is one with them. The creature grunts, and I turn around just in time to see it tuck its wings, and when it does, it’s half its size. No. No. No. This plan is not working as well as I’d hoped. I whip around and dig my feet in, racing forward and dodging left, right, left, right through the trees and forming a figure eight. And I don’t stop until I’m finally in the center of a cluster of trees so tightly aligned that I barely fit, and even then, I go deeper and deeper, only to find the trees seem to be spreading out. It’s as if they are literally moving.
I whip around to find the beast almost upon me again, and it’s clear I can’t run. I have to fight, and I have no weapon. I’ll go for its wings, I think, if I can get him to open them again. I start searching for anything I can use as a weapon and realize that rocks cluster around the bottom of the trees. I step to the edge of a tree with a hefty supply, only to have the tree move further away. I try again. Same result. I manage to grab two rocks, and not a second too soon, considering I can see the damn thing’s fangs again.
I throw the rock at his mouth, and it zips past his teeth to, I assume, his tongue or throat. Yes, I really did throw it that well, when I normally can’t even hit a trashcan. He shakes his head and opens his mouth wider, the black flesh inside positively disgusting, but I take advantage of the larger target, and I chuck another rock. This time, I miss and hit him in the jaw.
The beast spits out the rock from the previous hit and roars furiously, so clearly, I haven’t succeeded in choking him to death with a rock. His wings shoot out to his sides, but any win I’ve achieved is lost when the trees close in on me, imprisoning me. I swear the beast smiles, actually smiles, and starts stomping toward me, as if he knows what I do not, only I think I do. The trees are going to hand me over to him. I’m about to be beast soup, and my heart pounds with such fierceness that I think it might burst out of my chest.
That thing, whatever it is, stomps another two steps closer, and I’m freaking out. Micah! I scream, and I think it’s out loud, but it’s not. It’s in my mind. I feel the moment we connect, the fireflies sparking my path, and then I’m rocked to that reality, to his mind. Did you just bring me here to kill me? Help me!