Because if this truck turns, if they stop driving, both he and his human will be dead by sunup.
You
It’s morning when you wake up.
Bright, blinding sun flashes into your eyes.
Wait.
No.
That’s not right.
Those are the headlights of a car.
And they’re pointed right at you.
“They’re here,” says one of your kidnappers, standing up. Hauling you back to your feet and giving you a shove in the direction of the waiting car. “Sure took them long enough.”
You’re barely awake, half-alive, struggling just to stay conscious.
One moment you’re being held by the kidnappers, hands bound behind your back.
The next, a kid who can’t have even graduated from high school yet is helping you up into the seat of a beat-up old truck.
At least it’s not the back of a van this time?
“Incompetent fools,” rasps an elderly, female voice from somewhere in the night outside. The kind of voice that echoes like thundering water over stones. A voice as old and weathered as time itself. “What have you done to the Chosen One?”
Right. The Chosen One.
Is that supposed to be you?
You don’t feel ‘chosen’ to be anything right now. If you could, you’d choose to be back in your apartment getting some nice rest, with Ziros by your side.
That’d be nice.
Instead, you’re…here.
Out in the great, empty darkness.
“Drink this,” rasps the elderly woman’s voice from the shadows, and it takes you a moment to register that she’s leaning over you on the seat, uncorking a small vial and holding it up to your lips.
It smells…like lemonade, actually. That’s a pleasant surprise. For a second there, you were expecting something quite a bit more toxic.
Then again, maybe the lemonade smell is just a trick. Maybe it’s a drug.
Surely it is.
But—
Is it agooddrug, or a bad one?
That’s the question.
“Hurry,” she insists, tipping it slightly, trying to pour it into your mouth. “There’s no time to waste.”
40
