Page 125 of Walking in Darkness

We were being compelled.

I blinked, trying to process what the visions meant. Where it was leading us. “I’m not sure ... but ... I think the area is close. I think I can feel it. Maybe a few hundred miles away.”

It was only then that I heard the wailing of sirens. So many of them in the distance. That and thethwomp, thwomp, thwompof helicopters as they flew overhead.

Dread soured in my stomach. It had started. The chaos we’d known was coming.

Timothy suddenly appeared in the doorway, a tower behind Dani. “We gotta go.”

His features were a contortion of grimness and determination.

“I know.”

“We need to think about this.” Pax’s words slashed into the air, and he shook his head as if he could throw off the disorder. “We don’t know what we’re going to come up against. There was a crack in Faydor, and Kruen were jumping through it.”

Dani wheezed, “Oh God.”

“Yeah. We found it deep in the recesses of Faydor. It’s why the Kruen were acting strange. They were drawn toward it. No clue how many of them we’re going to encounter. What kind of strength they’re going to have on this plane. We can’t take them all on ourselves.”

Pax’s teeth ground as he said it, anger spilling free. The memory of what we’d come upon last night in the farthest reaches of Faydor.

The crack.

The rending.

The ruin we knew would already be waiting for us.

“We don’t have any other choice.” I tossed off the covers and hopped out of bed. “We have to go. Now. It doesn’t matter what we come up against. You know we’re fated for this. You know it’s the reason we’re all standing here together. There’s no cowering now.”

Pax radiated his reservations. The need he felt to protect me butting up against the truth of what we were destined for.

My guardian.

My shield.

My husband.

The one who saw everything inside me. My purpose and my dreams.

The one I knew already had his answer, even though he wanted to fight against it.

He scrubbed both hands over his face before he gritted out, “If we’re going to do this, then we’d better fuckin’ show up prepared.”

“Ah, now I like the sound of that.” A big grin spread across Timothy’s face.

“What the hell does that mean?” Dani glanced between the two of them.

Pax shoved off his covers and stood from the bed, too. “It means we do whatever it takes.”

The four of us looked at each other as reality sank heavily on our hearts.

We either stopped Ambrose today, or we’d meet our end.

Thirty minutes later, we were peeling out of Dani’s garage in her Civic. Pax and I were in the back, Timothy in the front passenger seat, and Dani at the wheel.

It was early, dawn just breaking at the horizon and cracking through the sky.

A sky that was intact above us, though I still shivered at the sight.