Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
The traffic was fully stopped there, and Dani slammed on her brakes behind a pickup truck.
Her attention darted back and forth, searching for a clear path. “What do we do?”
“Since you’re no stranger to off-roading, I’d suggest right there.” Timothy pointed at what looked to be a pasture off to our right, down a steep incline and surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.
Dani hesitated for a beat before she threw her car into reverse, pulled back enough so she could make it out from behind the truck, then shouted, “Hang on!” as she rammed it into drive and floored it.
Pax curled himself around me as we flew, barreling down the sharp embankment. A shout ripped out of Dani as we raced toward the fence.
Metal pinged as we busted through the barrier.
Our gasps were harsh as we jolted forward, the tires peeling out and flinging dirt as we wheeled over the field.
We’d made it halfway across when Dani slammed on her brakes. We all stared, panting, the engine running and the headlights spearing the darkness that had crawled over the earth.
A forged eclipse.
None of us were able to move.
Frozen beneath the sight that writhed right over the very center of the town in the distance. Maybe a mile away.
The clouds boiled and seethed. Churning and twisting with depravity.
Whirring and whirring in a vicious cyclone that gusted across the land.
And in the middle of it was a crack.
The same fissure Pax and I had stumbled on last night.
And every sort of Kruen crawled out from it, clinging to the clouds before they dropped to the ground below.
Chapter Forty-Two
Aria
All four of us clicked our doors open at the same time and climbed out of the car.
Frigid air gusted across the field. It was a chill that sank straight to the bone as spikes of razor-sharp rain pelted our flesh.
Each of us hung on to the top of our door as we peered up at the calamity that had been waiting for us.
This reality was something I’d prayed would never come to fruition. But I think I’d known the entire way here that we were going to be met with the impossible.
With the horrible.
I could feel the disbelief radiating from my family as we gaped up at where the sky was split open over the center of the small town in Idaho that I doubted many had even heard of, though now it would earn the most significant title.
The birthplace of the end of the world.
Because hopelessness shuddered through my being as I looked up at the onslaught of Kruen that continued to pour into this plane.
“Fuck,” Timothy breathed.
The sight confirmed everything we’d feared when we saw the Kruen broach the barrier of the realms, their tendrils lashing out as they’d fed their degeneracies into the men who’d come for me.
This would be a massacre.
An absolute, complete massacre that would spread out to infect every inch of the world.
Tortured screams cleaved through the air, carried on the wind to taunt our ears.
“I can’t believe this,” I finally whispered. Tears blurred my eyes as I succumbed to what the surety of this meant.
There was no way the four of us could defeat them. No way we could stop them. And I was sure, in that instant, that the cars that had raced to this town had been called here for a single purpose.
Their drivers were going to be used as vessels for the Kruen. I should have known it then, that night when I’d thought I’d seen the monsters rippling beneath the men’s flesh as they surrounded us.
“We can’t lose hope,” Dani murmured, trying to keep the trembling from her voice. She looked back at me, her big eyes wide and despairing. “We can’t.”
“I’m not giving up.” Just because our fate was likely sealed didn’t mean I wasn’t going to fight until my final breath.
Pax met my gaze from over the roof of the car. White flames glinted in the depths of his eyes. My chest expanded. And I remembered his words from when we’d first met in person. How he’d already believed in his purpose—that he’d been sent to give his life for mine.
And I wanted to save it.
His.
Ours.
Everyone’s.
From here to the next existence.
But how could we overcome this?
I shifted when I somehow felt the movement off to my left, and I scanned through the dim haze that coated the air, looking out into the dead, high grass that covered the field.
Alarm pitched through my body and adrenaline thudded through my veins in a convulsion of trepidation when I saw a man coming up through the pasture, pushing through the grass as he made his way toward the town in the distance beyond where we’d stopped.
Drawn that way.
There were more behind him. It appeared a ton of people had abandoned their vehicles in the gridlock that remained on the main road and were going on foot.