Page 13

Four in the morning was a hell of a time to be leaving. I set four alarms, just in case. After my tense discussion with Jones, I wanted to make sure nothing went wrong on this trip. Fortunately, everything went off without a hitch, and we landed on the eastern side of the Sierras four hours later, where we planned to meet up with a crew of soldiers stationed nearby. The mountains flanked us to the west with a gorgeous landscape, despite the Leftovers. They were green and moldy looking. Their sad trees made me think of evergreens left to rot on a curbside after Christmas morning.

The morning sky lightened as we stepped out into the area. It was sunny, but a cold chill filled the air. Snow topped the ground and the rooftops of the nearby buildings, which still remained on the outer edge of this particular Leftover spot. I could make out a faded green sign that said, ”Welcome to Greenspring.”

Whoever lived in Greenspring had to be crazy to stay so close to the Leftovers, and yet I was informed that there were plenty of local residents in this area who’d remained after the meld. The town was fairly small and rural, the kind of place that, as a kid, I would’ve easily traded for the cramped apartment I’d grown up in. I had fond, frustrating memories of washing dishes while dodging toys thrown by my wild siblings. In my house, it was easy to get an elbow in the face at our crowded dinner table of six kids, where I’d had to play co-parent to my mother and often-absent father. I spotted fancy houses, but quainter ones lay just behind the luxurious homes. They matched up better with my idea of a mountain town. Beyond those cottages, the Leftovers sliced through the area and consumed the mountains behind the town and more. It was a perfect line of weirdness, especially in their lake. The body of water seemed to be cut in half by the boundary with a blurred hazy edge. The water on the Leftover side was a sickly shade of green that gave off a nuclear vibe. How promising.

“Captain Taylor, we will gather the citizens so you can interview them about the monster incidents,” an older man named Clinton told me. The soldiers in this area had given me a rundown of information similar to what Hindley had told me, but with greater detail. Now, I needed to hear from the locals. I squinted into the distance. An older citizen was already walking down toward us from the mountain path to his cottage.

“Looks like they’re already on their way,” I said.

”All the fish died,” the grumpy old man, who introduced himself as Louis, told me. He sat himself down with a cup of coffee out on one of the picnic benches near the town sign. It looked like it had been a nature outlook for families. The local soldiers had recommended meeting here with the locals, since it offered seating. They brought additional tables for us, to accommodate my team. ”It used to be you”d come out here with your grandkids or wife and watch the sun come up. Then, my fishing lure melted. They used to call us Greenspring because of our plants over here, but I guess now they have a new reason.” His sad gaze settled on the toxic water. I grimaced, not sure what to say.

“I’m surprised you even tried to fish,” I admitted. I wouldn’t recommend anyone eat whatever came out of that water.

He gave me a grin, showing off one gold tooth. “Life stops for nothing, not even strange magical earthquakes or whatever the hell happened. Interesting team you’ve got here.”

I glanced around. He must’ve been familiar with the soldiers who were stationed here and immediately recognized us as newbies. The Hellraisers had spent some time getting comfortable with the new location. The twins watched as Holt showed them something on a scanner, while Jones and Evans chatted with a handful of other soldiers. I tried to ignore how Jones was eyeing me every so often. I can handle talking to elderly men, thanks.

Greenspring was the town closest to where the disappearances had happened. Louis said it was at the far end of the lake, way down the road. They’d had three people go missing, which matched up with my latest report.

”The reports said a Mr. Johnson was pulled into the forest. It was witnessed by someone named Gloria Rodriguez. Is Ms. Rodriguez still in the area?” I asked, squinting at him in the bright light of the day. He smiled and nodded. He told me that she lived nearby, but it looked like we wouldn”t need to seek out the other residents. The other neighbors were already walking up to our area of their own accord.News of our arrival had spread. As they reached us, Louis introduced me to Ms. Rodriguez.

“Oh, I saw it all,” Ms. Rodriguez told me, clutching a turquoise necklace tight around her neck. “No one new came through town after that. Usually, tourists love this area, but they avoid it like the plague now.”

I checked my notes. “You said that the last person was taken on the fifteenth?”

“Yes, poor Fred,” she said, and shook her head sadly. “He was so stubborn, you know. He was a retired engineer and thought he knew everything. I told him not to get so close to the line by the lake, but it was too late.” She launched into a tangent about Fred’s pottery hobby, and I slowly led her back to the topic at hand. It was a difficult line to toe, being gentle with people while simultaneously asking them about horrific experiences, but I found myself surprisingly good at getting people to talk.

“What happened exactly?” I pressed and leaned in conspiratorially. “We’ve been told that you’re one of the only people who really saw anything.”

Ms. Rodriguez nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, I was. It was the strangest thing. We heard this funny wail at night. The soldiers had gone farther down the road to do something with their scanners. I spotted Fred out there and ran after him. He’s such a stubborn neighbor, you know, always the one to mow his lawn too early in the morning and such. But we all try to look out for one another here. I begged Fred to leave it be—there was this funny smudge of mist in the air—but he kept going closer and closer to the woods around the lake. I stopped far away from it because the soldiers had told us not to get too close. And then it happened. Suddenly, a monster materialized right next to him, snatched him right off his feet, and dragged him into the trees. It was so terrifying. Poor Sheila’s daughter saw it from afar while she was out taking the dog for a potty break. She’ll need therapy for a bit; you know how impressionable children are. The soldiers gave us a strict curfew after that…”

Little Sheila’s daughter is gonna need a lot more therapy if her mom decided to stay after all that. I thanked Ms. Rodriguez, and she settled in beside Louis a few yards away to chat about how terrifying this all was. I was convinced these people were either incredibly brave, or just stupid… She could only tell me what she remembered, but hearing about invisible creatures made my stomach clench with worry. The invisibility part had been missing from the report. Perhaps the soldiers hadn’t believed her. We’d had experiences with invisibility in the Immortal Plane with the Coalition, but the invisibility had come from manufactured magic.

As I was thinking about asking Ms. Rodriguez if there was any smell accompanying the creature, my muscles tensed. My heart rate spiked with the familiar sensation of a new voice breaking through my thoughts—a voice I knew well. Why does he have to show up now, when I need to have my full attention on the mission? Is he okay? Part of me, deep down, wondered if it was truly him.

“I’ll protect you. Don’t worry,” Kane said. Once again, he was haunting me with his thoughts or words, and none of it seemed meant for me. My shoulders dropped with disappointment. Kane could handle a lot, but he sounded like he was in trouble during these snippets of connection. I wished he were here to tell me that he was alive and okay.

The twins loped over to join Louis and Ms. Rodriguez. I slyly stepped closer to them, just in case.

“You’re sure that your friend didn’t just get snatched up by a wolf?” Jessie asked. I resisted the urge to yank her back by the collar for asking such a blunt question. Thankfully, Ms. Rodriguez seemed amused, if anything.

“Oh no, we don’t really have wolves here anymore. Most of the dangerous animals actually avoid people around these parts… Besides, most of them rushed as far away from the weird part as they could, went down south or up into the mountains where it’s safe.” She shrugged.

“Things will be okay in the end. We need to look for others,” Kane said. I could really punch him right now if he were here, even if I was grateful to hear his voice. I just wished his messages were clearer. There was no way for me to talk to him like this, and he wasn’t going to exactly start narrating his life perfectly to let me know what was going on. His words only gave me vague glimpses.

“Did you have your glasses on?” Jordan asked, pointing to a pair of glasses attached to the tiny chain around Ms. Rodriguez’s neck.

She smiled. “No, these are only for reading. I’ve got great vision when it comes to things that are far away. I wish I could give you a better explanation of what I saw.” She glanced up and caught me staring. “It just appeared out of nowhere. If he had been able to see the creature coming, I think even Fred would’ve run.”

A retired engineer who was a wizard at pottery getting himself killed over nothing more than curiosity. It made my heart hurt.

“You’ve got to protect your face more,” Kane snapped, sounding protective and angry. “Don’t leave me an opening.”

I missed sparring with him. A bit cruel for my mind games to happen now. And then another phrase came, much softer than the others: “They have to learn how to fight. They won’t make it out here like this.” He was in trouble and with others. Who was he speaking to?

“Did anyone try to go after him?” I asked Ms. Rodriguez, realizing I hadn’t clarified that point. She gave a sad shake of her head.

“We had already lost two,” she said softly, as if it truly pained her now to think of it. These people are in deep shock. “We always think of ourselves as hardy, but Fred made a bad decision. We couldn’t risk anyone else, though we told the soldiers when they came back.”

A faint whine from somewhere beyond this moment buzzed in my head. Every time his voice came, it was like a pulse ran through my entire being to warn me. Surely, this was an effect from the nearby Leftovers and the time I’d spent around it. You’re not insane, Roxy. Keep rolling with this.

“There’s nobody like her to fight with,” Kane whispered. “I miss taking punches from her. Roxy—”

My heart thudded hard against my chest. Okay, that was harder to ignore.

“Roxy?” Now, it was Holt by my elbow, showing me a scanner. Luckily, the twins were chattering away with the two locals. I glanced down to see light fluctuations blipping across the screen.

Kane was out there, maybe. He was also maybe thinking about me and how much he missed sparring. I forced myself to concentrate on the fluctuating graph. This was what mattered right now.

“It just started happening?” I asked, and Holt nodded grimly. He pointed toward the end of the lake, where the edge of the Leftovers lay.

“It’s stronger if I point it over there. Guess that’s no surprise, since that’s where everyone vanished… or got snatched,” Holt added.

Poor Fred never had a chance. The disappearance and strange sounds had happened there, from what I understood. I rounded up the team. Kane’s voice faded from me, but I heard my blood rushing in my ears. It felt like I was walking through a fever dream as I instructed everyone to come with me. We left the locals behind and told the other soldiers to keep watch over them. We couldn’t risk any more curiosities.

”We have a few options,” I told my team as we headed over. ”I want to minimize our risk from the beginning. The creature hasn”t been spotted for a few days, but that doesn”t mean it”s not coming back.”

Jones sucked in air. ”You think that old bat was serious? She claimed an invisible force grabbed her neighbor.” He stifled a laugh, but only partially. He was trying to unnerve me. Colin cleared his throat awkwardly, and we exchanged a look. Colin knew the Immortal Plane and what creatures affected by the meld’s weirdness were capable of, but the others had less experience.

Jessie shot Jones an annoyed sidelong look. ”The military has some type of cloaking technology. Captain Taylor”s had experiences with it in the Immortal Plane.” I controlled my face, hiding the surprise I felt. She”d clearly read my field notes or listened to my stories at some point. That was nice. Although Jones was pressing me, we needed to move past that and brainstorm.

”Let”s talk about ideas for scouting,” I told them, and looked at Evans, who had been quiet for most of the day. ”Any thoughts?” It was wild to see the gorgeous mountains on one side of us, the town behind us, and the approaching madness in front of us.

”The locals said the sounds grow louder at night,” Evans pointed out. She’d been talking with a few of the soldiers. ”During the day, we might have a better chance of luring the beast out.”

It was a good point. I had noticed a line like that in the reports, but it seemed the soldiers were doubtful about some of the observations from the locals. It seemed to me they’d had a reaction like Jones—naturally skeptical, but ignorant of the real possibility that such a thing was happening.

“The fluctuations are staying light,” Holt said as he glanced at the scanner.

“Don’t think about missing her,” Kane whispered. “Don’t do that.” I clenched my teeth briefly. Who are you talking about?

“Maybe we can set just the tree line on fire,” Jordan mused.“Smoke it out.”

Jessie snorted. “Sure, if you don’t mind burning down the town. It’s way too dry to set a fire, and it won’t make the thing visible.”

“Smoke could,” Jordan argued. Their voices buzzed at my ears like annoying insects. My attention span was dangerously thin at the moment, split between my worries over Kane and the reality in front of me.

I studied the edge of the Leftovers. We’d stopped several yards away. There was a chilly breeze, but it was coming from behind us. As it blew into the sparsely forested area near the Leftovers, the wind cut off suddenly when the breeze hit the forest. It should’ve made a whistling sound, but it was like the trees had an invisible forcefield. It unsettled me.

Evans crossed her arms, her brow furrowed as she thought. ”This situation reminds me of what we did with the annoying vlogger. Could we use someone as bait?”

”We have to watch out for one another,” Kane said. I wished he would shut up for just a moment.I cared about him, but it was hard to concentrate on both the mission and Kane. My heart yearned to know where he was, but my brain screamed to concentrate on the task at hand. It was a tug-of-war competition for my attention.

”It”s an idea… as long as we can prevent another kidnapping.” I didn”t want to lose anyone, least of all my siblings.

”Jordan could be great bait. He”s loud and grating,” Jessie said with a smirk as she elbowed her twin. Yeah, that’s not happening.

”You”re the two newest members,” I said. ”It”s better to use someone more experienced.”

Jordan scoffed. ”What”s-her-face wasn”t exactly a soldier, was she?”

”But I was there to escort her away,” Holt said, backing me up. I was thankful for that. Jones watched me with a heavy gaze. Since I’d stopped the twins, it might look like favoritism. If I chose someone like Jones or Evans, he might accuse me of attacking them. Colin was the best shot we had, and if it came to shooting the monster as a last resort, it would be best if he was in position to attack, so he wasn’t an option. Holt was a good choice, but if anything happened to me as leader, he was the one I wanted to put in charge. It would be better if I played the bait, to keep my team safe while using their skills to the highest capability.

I had to take a risk.

”I”ll do it,” I offered. Irritation coursed through me underneath it all. It was so hard to juggle everything. I missed when fights involved just running to attack whatever my captain pointed at. Now, I had to deal with team politics and my responsibilities as a leader, on top of hearing voices. How the hell did Lyra do all this, on top of juggling a relationship with a vampire? I might have attempted to call her, if she wasn’t too deep into her mission… but then I might just confess that I was hearing Kane”s voice, and she might call Hindley to sic a Bureau crisis counselor on me.

Wherever she was, I hoped she was doing better on her mission than I was on mine. Maybe she would find Kane before his voice drove me absolutely insane.