Page 135 of Walking in Darkness

“Do you see him, Aria?” Uncertainty filled Dani’s murmured question, and she sent me a look of disbelief. One of shock.

“Laven,” Timothy said from his position.

But he wasn’t from our family.

The man seemed to cower, slowing his approach when he realized we were staring at him. Emitting turbulence and fear. His brow knitted in something between solace and grief when a stake of his own recognition seemed to strike him.

Though he remained there, wavering, unsure.

Worried it was a trap.

A loud explosion suddenly erupted from the middle of town. A shock wave blistered through the air and trembled the ground.

A yelp ripped from Dani, and we all dropped to our knees to take cover as a bulbous plume of fire rolled high into the heavens. Lighting everything up for one disturbing beat, our vision going red and our skin glowing with the heat.

Terror rebounded as a slew of screams carried on the gusts of wind.

Moisture burned at the back of my eyes, and my nails sank into the damp dirt below as I tried to catch my breath. To press out the panic that threatened to keep me pinned as ash rained down, turning pasty as it mixed with the icy rain.

Pax was suddenly right there, curling an arm around me where I was hunched at the side of the car.

“Are you hurt?” His hands rushed over me, palms smoothing as they shook, searching to see if I’d sustained any injuries.

“No.” I gulped. “I’m fine.”

Timothy remained low as he scurried around the car to get to Dani, whose breaths heaved as she whimpered through the bedlam.

“Is everyone okay?” Pax hollered.

“Yeah. Just startled. Don’t think any of us are prepared on how to handle this shit,” Timothy replied.

The man we’d seen lumbering through the field was suddenly right there, staying low as he came toward us, crying, “What’s happening? Are you ...? Oh my God, are you Laven? How are you here?”

Twisting out of Pax’s hold, I forced off the trepidation as I faced the man. Revealing to him the distinction of my eyes.

A gasp choked out of him, and he ripped at his hair, mumbling, “I have to be losing my goddamned mind. What is happening? I don’t ...”

“We are Laven. All of us.” I stretched a hand toward him. “It’s okay.”

He warred for another second before he scrambled the rest of the way to us, remaining crouched down as he warily looked between us.

“You’re a Laven. And you came?” It flooded from me on raspy astonishment.

We weren’t the only ones being called to this place. There were others.

A spark of faith flickered within me, coming to life when the hopelessness had nearly trampled it out.

My gaze rushed over our surroundings, finding more and more people wandering through the fields.

Laven.

They were here, as disoriented and confused as they were drawn.

The man in front of me frantically shook his head. “I couldn’t not. I had this twisted dream three nights in a row, something telling me that I had to do something. Demanding that I get up and move. It was like there was some kind of rope attached to me and I had no choice but to follow where it was pulling me.”

“We had the same,” I told him.

Disbelief puffed from his mouth, and he roughed a hand through his hair, which was as white as Pax’s. The man was probably in his early forties, wearing jeans and a tee and a thin rain jacket. A large scar marred his right cheek, and another sliced through his left brow.