Damaris glanced at one of the neighboring campfires. “We’re still trying to get water to boil so I can sterilize my equipment. That’ll take another ten or fifteen minutes.”
“I…” I frowned, glancing back at Reese, who was carrying a bag of supplies from the cargo truck to the SUV. “If it happens again while we’re on the road…”
“I’ll be there to help.” Eli stepped into the circle of light from our campfire with a backpack over one shoulder and a full duffel over the other. His voice was still hoarse and his neck was red. “I’m going with you.”
“The hell you are!” Reese stomped toward us from the direction of the truck, his thick arms swinging at his sides, his eyes narrowed in fury. “It’syourfault Grayson’s missing.”
“That’s part of the reason I’m going,” Eli insisted. “I owe Grayson a debt, and I’m going to help you get her back. And it’s my sacred duty to release Naomi’s and Serah’s souls. Also, if Melanie goes into labor, you’ll need me,” he added, tossing a reassuring glance at both me and my sister.
“Reese,” Finn said, “he’s a good fighter, and we can’t afford to turn down help.”
“Fine.” Reese stomped backward toward the cargo truck. “But he’s riding withyou.”
“Agreed. But we’re taking the SUV.” I turned back to Finn. “Could you move some of our stuff to the back of the cargo truck to make room for Eli in the SUV?”
“Of course.” Finn headed toward the edge of the campsite while Melanie and I said our goodbyes to the Lord’s Army, thanking Eli’s friends and family for everything they’d shown and taught us, as well as their company. With any luck, we’d be back with Grayson and my sister would still be pregnant. But we’d learned never to rely on luck in the badlands….
By the time we got to the SUV, Finn was on his way to the truck with our extra supplies and Eli was wedging his belongings into the SUV’s cargo hold.
“Here, some of that can come up front with me.” Melanie handed me her bag, then headed toward the rear of the vehicle, where Eli had dropped his crowbar on the ground to free up both hands for wedging luggage into the tight space.
“Thanks,” he said as I leaned into the third row to set my sister’s bag on the floorboard.
A thud echoed from the back of the car, and I froze, startled. “Mellie?” Goose bumps rose on my arms as I stood. The back hatch closed with a heavy clunk, and the light from the cargo area went out, which left me staring into the darkness behind the SUV. “Eli?”
“He was in the way.” My sister stepped into the light pouring from the backseat of the car, and the first thing I noticed was that she held herself strangely. Instead of caressing or rubbing her stomach, which she’d been doing nonstop for months, Mellie stood with both arms hanging at her sides. Her right hand held Eli’s crowbar. “I might have swung a little too hard. Let’s hope I get it right this time.”
She raised the crowbar, and fear leapt into the back of my throat, bitter and acidic. “Mellie?” I tried to back away but bumped into the open rear door of the SUV. Melanie raised the crowbar with a grunt, and in the instant before it hit the side of my head and darkness slammed into me, I realized Mellie wasn’t the one swinging a metal club at my head.
My baby sister was already dead.
Iwoke up to a crick in my neck and the familiar rhythmic bumps of tires on cracked pavement.The SUV.We were on the road again, and I must have fallen asleep after…
What happened?
My eyes flew open, and when I lifted my head, pain shot through the left side of my skull. The entire world…wobbled.
I moaned, but that only made the pain worse. The daylight shining through the windshield was so bright that we might as well have been driving on the surface of the sun.
“Mellie?” I said, and the syllables came out all mushy, yet they slammed into my head with the force of a sledgehammer.
“You’ve got a hell of a concussion,” she said, and when I turned to face her—why was she driving?—the world spun around me again. “So you should probably sit still.”
“Why are you…?” I tried to touch my throbbing head, but my arm was stuck behind my back. When I wiggled my fingers, pins and needles shot through my hand, as if I’d been sitting on it for too long. “How did I…”
I closed my eyes and images flashed across the backs of my eyelids.
Mellie stepping into the light, holding Eli’s crowbar.
Light glinting on the metal as it swung.
I moaned again as the pieces fell into place in my head. Shock tightened around me, threatening to squeeze all the air from my lungs, when I realized my hands weren’t just stuck behind me, they weretiedbehind me. When I tried to move my feet, I discovered my ankles were bound as well.
I’d been abducted by the demon possessing my sister.
“Noooo…” I hardly recognized my own voice. “No, give my sister back.Please.”
“You know it doesn’t work that way.” The monster wearing Melanie’s face faked a sympathetic frown as she steered around the stripped-clean corpse of a Jeep blocking the center of the neglected highway. “She’s not in here anymore. If I vacated this body, all the organs would shut down and within minutes her physical form would be as dead as the rest of her. Your sister’s gone for good, Nina.”
