Looking into my eyes, Mom pulled something out of her pocket. A rough, pale crystal attached to a thick silver chain. “This is your father’s amulet, an anting-anting. It’s made of a very rare salt mined beneath the Paulanan Mountains of Biringan.” She placed it in my hand. “Your dad gave it to me, to hold until you were ready.” She got quiet, like she was remembering something, and then shook her head. “Anyway, it’s yours now.”
I rubbed my thumb against the grainy exterior. It was rough, yet it twinkled like a gem and seemed to glow from within.
“Here,” she said, taking the amulet from me and slipping it over my head. “Keep it with you. Protect it at all costs. Because it will protect you.”
“How?” It was pretty and everything, but I didn’t see what protection it offered.
“If used correctly, it repels evil.” She reached for my hand, and when I looked up, I saw that her cheeks were wet with tears. With a start, I realized that she still loved my father deeply and had sacrificed being with him to hide me from his enemies.
It was so dark now that we needed headlights to see in front of us, despite it still being early afternoon. I could also tell it was getting harder to control the car, with gusting winds pushing it onto the shoulder. I looked out the window, but there wasn’t much to see. All the streetlights had blown out. There were no other cars on the road either.
More thunder rumbled, and it seemed to stretch on and on,forever. Lightning bolts flashed all around us. Elias’s jaw was clenched tight; his hands gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white.
More lightning again—red this time—like veins full of blood against black clouds. It made everything around us look like it was on fire. I held on to my mom’s hand as the car picked up speed. We flew down the highway, passing signs so fast I couldn’t even read them.
Bright flashes of yellow and red and even green and blue. Then something smacked against the windshield. I screamed. “What is that?” Whatever it was kept coming—smack, smack, smack. Like globs of mud hurled at the car.
No one answered me. Then I spotted what it was: frogs.
It was raining frogs.
“Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” I shouted.
“It’s the insurgents. They want us to give up,” Elias yelled back. “They think we’ll be cowed by their show of strength.”
Their show offrogs, more like. Although, to be honest, itwassort of gross. When the frogs hit the windshield, they splattered their amphibian guts all over the place. Eeks. Point to the insurgents.
The car veered suddenly, yanking us to the right.
We were headed straight into the mountains.
Lightning flashed. I spotted something in the rearview mirror. Another car. Without headlights.
“Someone’s following us,” I announced.
Elias nodded. “I know.”
I started to turn and look, but he blurted out, “No, Princess!”
I sank down in the seat so my head was below the window.
Along with the car, the storm clouds trailed behind us. “How do we lose them?”
“We get to Biringan,” my mother said through gritted teeth.
“What happens if we don’t?” I asked.
“Everything you’re seeing now and worse. Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes erupting. You name it. Everywhere in the entire world,” Elias replied. “Except none of us will actually be around to see it.”
He hit the gas. I looked at the speedometer. Well over one hundred miles per hour again. And still the car behind us seemed to be gaining ground.
Elias glanced at the side mirror. “Come on,” he muttered.
Just then, there was a terrible crashing sound, metal crunching. I heard it before I felt it, and noticed everyone else in the car being whipped around before my brain registered that it was happening to me, too. I felt my mom’s arms reach out to protect me as the car rolled, then finally came to a stop.
I tasted blood in my mouth.
There was a second of silence.
