Page 29 of New Nebraska Home (New Nebraska)

Liz

SHOULD HAVE LEFT

I was too late. It was late when I woke up, still on Cal’s bed, Brock next to me. My heart was beating out of my chest, and a sheen of sweat covered my back as I gasped for air. It was time to leave.

I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew.

“Liz, you okay?” Brock asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“No, we need to leave!” I ran from the room, sliding as I turned the corners, almost crashing into the wall before I made it up the stairs to the main floor then across the house and up the stairs to Leif’s room. He looked so peaceful asleep on his bed, I almost felt bad for waking him.

Almost.

“Get up, kiddo,” I said, shaking him awake. “Pack an overnight bag. As quickly as you can, take only what you need.”

“What’s going on?” he said groggily.

“Just get up and do as I say. Now.”

He nodded and got out of bed. I ran down to my room, fished a duffle bag out of the closet, and started grabbing essentials. First, I grabbed important documents from the fire safe: social security cards, shot records, and birth certificates. Then I started shoving in whatever clothes I could find. Clean, dirty, winter, summer, it didn’t matter.

“What’s happening?” Brock asked, coming into the room, trying to help but instead getting in my way.

“They’re coming,” I answered.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But I know we need to be gone before they show up.” It was just a feeling in my gut I couldn’t ignore. Maybe I was being hysterical, and we would all have a good laugh about this once I knew it was safe. God, I hoped we were all laughing about this in an hour at a Waffle House or something.

“I’m going to call Cal,” Brock said, backing up like he was a little afraid of me.

I got the bag packed just as I heard the chanting. “Death to sinners, keep our streets clean!”

“What the fuck?” Brock said, staring out of the window. A feeling deep in my gut told me not to look, to just run, but I had to. I had to look.

At first, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. A faint orange glow was coming down the street, like a sunrise that didn’t look quite right and was moving towards us.

There were hundreds of people, all holding torches and chanting. There was even a man at the front holding a pitchfork.They were the Frankensteins, not us!

When I used to joke I was going to die by a mob of angry villagers with pitchforks because I was a Longhorns fan, I never expected it to become an actual situation. New Nebraska was becoming all kinds of crazy, at a pace I couldn’t keep up with.

“Liz!” Leif called out as I heard glass breaking.

“You get the kid, lock your room door, and hide in your bathroom with him. Cal has to be on his way back with Malik. I will hold them off until they get here.” Brock looked different. In a way that both scared me and reassured me. There was a hardness to his voice, a deep well of strength and power in his eyes, and I knew he would die protecting us if he had to.

I gave him a single nod, not wanting to argue with him. He ran downstairs, and I ran to Leif’s room, picking him up and holding him to my chest as I ran into my room’s ensuite and set him in the bathtub.

“I need you to stay here and be very quiet. Okay? I am going to lock the door, and you won’t let anyone in—only me—when I tell you the secret password.”

“What’s the password?” he asked, his voice shaking and tears filling his big green eyes.

“How about ‘unicorn farts?’” I asked, needing to see him smile, even if it was for the last time.

Sure enough, his lips turned up at the corners for a split second before he nodded. I wrapped my arms around him and held him. It wasn’t until I heard more glass break downstairs that I let him go.

“Remember, I will always love you more than anything, and do not let anyone in the bathroom.”

“I love you, too,” he whispered, and I kissed him on the forehead quickly before drawing the curtain and leaving the bathroom, locking it behind me.

I took a deep breath and looked around me. There had to be something I could use as a weapon. I refused to keep a gun in the house, but I did have a pretty nice baseball bat collection. Both Leif’s and others I’d collected over the years. I grabbed the maple bat behind my door and snuck downstairs.

I was only halfway down the stairs when I saw Brock. He was bleeding from the temple, just a tiny trickle of blood that seemed to piss him off more than hurt. Water was flowing around him in the air, and he was waving his hands, directing it to slam into the mob trying to get to him. I’d never seen someone look so much like a warrior, so strong and powerful.

No one could get close to him. There were so many, even other elementals, one with electricity in their palms, and another with vines crawling through the hardwood flooring, cracking and splintering the boards. If I survived this, that was going to piss me off later.

One woman stayed toward the back, hunched down, and moved around the others. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to sneak around Brock or flank him, but either way, I wasn’t going to let it happen.

My heart felt like a war drum, and I was ready to use the adrenaline it gave me. When the woman rounded the corner, I swung my bat and caught her in the face. As the blood gushed from her broken nose, I realized it was Karen. Ha!

“You little bitch, you’re going to pay for that,” she snarled, pressing her shirt to her nostrils to try and stem the bloody flow.

I didn’t even bother hiding the satisfaction her pain gave me. She’d cornered my brother and me at the grocery store; I was unarmed then. Now, I had a bat and I knew how to use it.And she was in my home.

I swung again as hard as I could at her ribs. The sickening crack told me I’d hit her hard.

She screamed and lunged for me, but I had the high ground; I kicked out, hitting her square in the chest, which would have been so much more badass had she not held on to my foot, sending both of us tumbling down the stairs.

She managed to get on top of me during the scuffle, and I smacked my head on the bottom step, disorienting me for a moment.

Karen took advantage and had me pinned under her, my hands under her knees, as she straddled my hips and started throwing punches. I must have hit my head harder than I thought because while her punches hurt, I didn’t feel them as much as I should have. The way she was hitting me and the force she was using should have been turning my face into ground beef. But I could take it, and I could fight back.

She smiled down at me, blood dripping from her teeth in the most psychotic smile I had ever seen. It was like Barbie was tripping on acid and thought she was a killer clown. It would haunt my nightmares for years.

“Whore, I am going to kill you and that little—”

Her words were cut off when I lifted my knee behind her, hammering it into her spine, knocking off her balance, and shoving her forward. She caught herself on her hands hovering above me, but it gave my hips just enough room to flip her over and start throwing blows of my own.

“You will keep my family the fuck out of your mouth,” I screamed in her face. I reared up and hit her as hard as I could in the jaw and it was an instant lights out for her.

It was exhilarating. I’d never punched someone out before. I had wanted to, mostly my sister—but I had never done it. Later, I would probably feel bad, but later-Liz could deal with the guilt. Now, I had to focus on keeping Leif safe and helping Brock.

Brock was still fighting off the other elementals. It was obvious they weren’t as strong as he was. He was fighting off at least four that were using different powers to try to combat him. That didn’t mean his magic was infinite. Or maybe it was? I had no idea.

He looked tired, though, and I could hear more people coming in. I grabbed my bat and got to work helping Brock. Taking a page out of Karen’s books, I snuck around the edges and started flanking people, hitting them with the bat until they were on the ground. Hopefully, they’d be smart enough to stay down.

“I told you to stay upstairs,” Brock yelled.

I ignored him and kept swinging, but my arms were starting to burn. My ribs felt like they were on fire, and my head was throbbing. It didn’t matter.

I would protect Leif and our home until my last breath.

A roar sounded outside, so loud it rattled the foundation of the house, almost making me slip in the blood that was spattered in blotchy circles across the floor.

“You fuckers are in trouble now!” I screamed, knowing what that roar meant. No one seemed phased. They weren’t listening to me; they were focused on trying to overwhelm Brock.

I fought harder, pushing myself harder than I thought possible, trying to help Brock and take out a few of the people coming at him. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do, but I had to try.

When the window next to me shattered, I looked out to see Zmei standing on my lawn, a sick smile on his face. An elemental was by his side, his arms outspread, and palms raised to the heavens. Churning with hurricane winds.

I screamed, as I got felt a thump over my head. I fell to my knees, dizzy and nauseous, and just like that, the world around me was gone. Nothing but pitch black.