Page 29 of Kingdom of Chaos (Creatures of Chaos #2)

Eighteen

Imogen jerks and then cries out in pain a moment before Talon reaches her.

With a gasp, I start for them when a muffled pop, fast and startling rings through the air.

Twisting back, I watch Noah take an unsteady step before crumpling to the ground.

Violet stands behind him on the stairs in a sleep tank and shorts, her eyes wide and wild.

One of the weapons is grasped in her hands and pointing at where Noah stood the moment before.

“I’m bleeding,” Imogen screeches, and I snap my gaze over to her to see Talon holding her arm.

Blood seeps from a wound on Imogen’s bicep. She yanks her arm free and takes a menacing step toward Violet, murder burning in her eyes. But before she can get any closer, Talon steps in front of her, his stormy gaze fixed on Violet as he both stops and shields his cousin.

Violet scrambles back, tripping on a step and falling onto the stairs.

“Wait! Please!” she says, dropping the weapon and then holding her hands up in front of her to show us she’s unarmed.

“I didn’t know what they were planning. I was asleep upstairs until I heard all the noise.

I wasn’t part of all this,” she says, sweeping her hand in front of her to indicate the carnage from our short battle. “I can help you. I promise.”

Talon’s gaze narrows, but something in my gut tells me she’s telling the truth. She did also just take Noah out for us.

“How can you help?” I ask, and Violet’s shoulders sag in relief.

“I can help you get to New York to look for your friend,” she says, and then pushes to her feet.

Talon lets out a low warning rumble that’s almost a growl, and Violet freezes mid-step.

“What did you do to him?” he asks, jutting his chin toward Noah.

“Oh. Tranquilizer gun,” she says. “He’ll be out for hours.”

“Gun?” I say, testing the unfamiliar word.

Violet’s eyes widen. “You don’t know what a gun is?”

I shake my head. “We don’t have them where we come from.”

“You’re probably better for it. Tranq guns aren’t so bad, but the real ones .

. .” Her voice tapers off as her gaze shifts to Imogen glowering at her from behind Talon.

She clears her throat. “Well, let’s just say you were lucky,” she says to Imogen, who scoffs.

“If someone points one at you again, be very careful. Bullets are no joke. Someone could put a hole right through your skull by only squeezing the trigger.”

Nausea bubbles in my stomach. It sounds like an awful weapon, and I’m glad we don’t have them on our world.

Keeping a wary eye on Talon, Violet slowly descends the stairs with her hands raised. She grabs a set of keys off a hook by the door and says, “Come on,” before leading us outside.

We’re all on edge, keeping an eye on the wooded area around the house, looking for potential threats. Just as we reach the bottom of the stairs, Titus rounds the side of the house. Ensley’s arm is draped around him, and although her eyes are open, he’s basically dragging her forward.

With a gasp I run to them. Getting on the other side of Ensley, I put her other arm around me to help support her weight. When she looks over at me, her eyes are only slits.

“Locklyn?” she says, her voice slurred.

“I’m here. We’re going to get out of here,” I tell her.

She moves her head up and down in a sloppy nod.

“I found this stuck in her shoulder,” Titus says, holding up what looks like a cross between a dart and a needle, a couple inches long.

She must have been hit with a tranquilizer dart. I’m just glad it wasn’t one of the real weapons. The kind that puts holes through you.

“I think she’s going to be fine,” he says, but his “I think” sounds a lot like, “I hope” to me.

“She will be,” I assure him, and then explain what Violet told us.

“Makes sense,” he says. “I used my powers to try to heal her. I was able to fight off some of the medication in her system, but not all.”

I’d forgotten Titus had that type of magic. He’d been able to heal Talon of the shade ivy poisoning after one of the Chaos trials. Whatever was in Ensley’s system must be stronger, or perhaps it’s just so foreign to Titus he didn’t know how to heal her completely. But at least she is awake. Kinda.

Talon is chucking our backpacks into the truck when we reach them.

One of them must have gone back into the house for them.

When Violet comes around the truck, Titus comes up short.

He lifts a hand in the air in front of him like he’s ready to blast her with faelight if she comes any closer.

Spotting him immediately, she throws her hands up in surrender.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” she says. “I want to help you get out of here.”

“Why would you help us?” Titus asks, his voice thick with suspicion.

Violet’s eyes dart to the teal house and then return to us. “Because I believe you,” she says. “I think you’re just here to save your friend.”

Titus stares at her, and I can tell he’s weighing her words. But the facts are that she hasn’t tried to hurt us like the others, and we need her right now. I don’t see another option but to trust her.

Titus scoops Ensley up into his arms. “I’ll get her into the truck,” he says, and then walks around Violet without a backward glance.

Coming up to me, Violet hands me the keys. “Take the truck, but ditch it as soon as you can find another method of transportation.”

Opening the passenger side door, she reaches into the glovebox, pulls out a couple folded pieces of paper, and then goes around to the front of the vehicle and spreads one out on the trunk’s hood. It’s a map.

“This is where we are,” she says, pointing to a spot in the lower right portion.

“And this is New York City,” she says pointing to another spot higher.

“You can take I-95 almost the entire way. There’s a map of the city as well.

I’ll mark the location of the Order’s chapter in New York, but I’m not sure if you’ll get the same ‘welcome’ there as you did here.

We don’t have much interaction with them.

Even though we’re all part of the Order, the chapters act pretty independent from each other.

But to be safe, I’d advise staying away from them. ”

“You don’t say,” Imogen says sarcastically with a pointed look at her injured arm.

“I’m sorry,” Violet says. “It never should have come to this.”

“Why did your group attack us?” I ask, wanting to understand what happened.

Violet’s brows pinch. “We were always taught that the pathways between our worlds were closed down to keep us safe. That if creatures make it into our world, it could mean the end of it as we know it. I’m not saying what they did to you was okay, but I believe they thought they were doing the right thing. ”

It was hard not to scoff, but fear can lead someone to make rash decisions. World domination isn’t on any of our checklists. We truly just want to get Becks and go home. If only Tobias had believed us when we told him why we’d come here, this night never would have happened.

Violet casts a worried glance at the house. “Are they . . . dead?”

I catch Talon’s eye over the hood of the truck. He gives me a sharp shake of his head to say they aren’t. I don’t know why, but I’m relieved to hear it.

“Just knocked out and injured,” I tell Violet, who immediately looks relieved.

“We’re not bad people,” she says. “We’ve dedicated our lives to protecting humans. That’s what they thought they were doing.”

“Let’s go,” Talon barks, his hard gaze on Violet.

Titus has already gotten into the back seat with Ensley. He has her on his lap with her head resting against his chest.

I turn to get in the truck, but then pause, looking over my shoulder at Violet. “You promise she’s going to be okay?”

She nods. “It’s just a sedative. A strong one, but it will eventually wear off. She just needs to sleep it off.”

She’d better be telling the truth or I’ll figure out a way to make her and the others pay.

Imogen gets in the back next to Titus and Ensley, her hand putting pressure on her bloody wound, and I jump into the passenger seat next to Talon. He casts me a look out of the side of his eye that I can’t interpret and then cranks the engine.

Violet backs up to get out of our way, and within seconds Talon has the car turned around and we are heading away from her. The sky has already started to lighten, and when we reach the end of the driveway and turn onto the road, the first ray of light peeks over the horizon.

I take a deep breath, my body heavy as it starts to come down from the adrenaline high.

That was close. Too close .

“Why didn’t you use your powers?” Imogen snaps at her cousin from the back seat.

He glances at her in the rearview mirror with a hard look. “I wasn’t trying to kill them.”

Her mouth drops open. “Why the heck not? They were trying to kill us.”

“We don’t know that,” he says, and Imogen gestures to the makeshift bandage wrapped around her bicep.

Talon winces, but doesn’t comment. It’s then I notice he has his hand pressed against his side again, and in the dim morning light I can now see that his dark T-shirt is wet under his palm. I lean over, getting a better look, and then gasp when I realize there’s blood on his hand.

“Talon, you’re bleeding!”

Imogen leans between the seats

“What happened?” she asks.

“It’s nothing. I’m fine,” Talon says, brushing it off. But when I look closer, I see the tightness in his expression and the way the color has drained from his face.

I twist in my seat, looking back at Titus. “Can you heal him?”

Titus shakes his head. “My healing power doesn’t work like that. It’s fae magic, so I can help cleanse the body so that it runs better. That’s why I could help him during the trials and also lessen some of the sedative effects in Ensley. But I can’t knit wounds back together.”

I turn back to Talon and I can tell he’s annoyed. What did he expect? That we’d just let him bleed out?

“Pull over so I can look at the wound.”

Talon shakes his head.