Bound by Shadows (Kissed by Shadows Series, Book 2) Page 18

  I fire towards Dax, but the motion throws off my aim, and the shot misses him. Dax flicks his wrists, and the ground lies flat, but it’s no longer solid. It’s quicksand.

  I try to move forward, but I’m sinking. The sand is moving now, forming small peaks around me. I fight to move my legs, the anger and frustration at being unable to move building inside of me. The peaks of sand get taller, and suddenly, they lift from the ground and form a cyclone that whirls around me.

  My legs are no longer sinking, and I try to take a step forward. I’m blinded by the sand as it gets in my eyes. I can feel it clogging my throat, and I’m suddenly afraid I’ll choke.

  The pull of the cyclone gets stronger and I’m dragged from side to side, thrown around in the center like a rag doll. I am lifted off my feet, tossed and thrown this way and that. I can’t see, can’t hear.

  I’m going to die. The only regret I have is not being able to save Atlas. I stop fighting the cyclone; I can see there’s no point. I accept my fate and close my eyes.

  I feel myself falling, and I land with a hard crash on the floor. The sand is gone. Dax stands in the same spot, a wicked grin on his face.

  “Well, that escalated quickly. But you gave up much quicker than I expected.”

  “What are you talking about?” I snap as I get back to my feet.

  I need to find a way to get to Dax that he doesn’t see coming. His power is much stronger than I gave him credit for, and it’s going to take more than brute strength to get the better of him.

  “That was a simulator cyclone,” Dax says. “It feeds off your panic. Once you give up and accept that you will die there, it releases you. Your will to live is pretty weak.”

  The cyclone was never meant to hurt me. Its sole purpose was to humiliate me. I can feel the rage building back up, but I try to hold it back. I can’t let him goad me into rushing him. I know that’s what he wants.

  “You think I didn’t know what that was? Why do you think it was over so quickly? I knew exactly how to get out of it,” I say.

  Dax laughs again.

  “You lie worse than you fight. I made that up. I released you because I’m not done toying with you yet.”

  That does it. The rage in me overtakes me, and I can no longer hold it back. How dare he play games with me like this? Who the fuck does he think he is? I’m not just some lower-level demon. I’m the fucking Keysu, and he’s about to learn why I should be respected.

  I run at Dax again with a roar of anger. I fire at him in quick succession. He doesn’t react as quickly this time, and I’m gaining on him. One of my shots hits him in the shoulder, and he screams a sound of pain and anger.

  He stumbles, but he doesn’t fall. He waves his hands again and my jaw drops when I see what he’s conjured up.

  A dragon made of fire dances towards me. It looks like one of the dancing dragons from a Chinese carnival if the carnival was in Hell and everything was on fire.

  I feel the heat searing my skin and singeing my hair before it’s even close to me, and I back away.

  I need water to douse the flames, and what’s the one thing missing in a desert? Yup. Water.

  I glance around quickly as I continue to back up. What can I do with this thing?

  I try firing at it, but it doesn’t even notice. I can’t use mind control—it doesn’t have a mind. And anything I can throw at it is just going to be eaten up by the flames.

  If I can somehow get around it, maybe I can kill Dax while he’s distracted by controlling it. I stop backing away and start edging to the side. The fire dragon follows me, its gaping mouth a parody of a smile.

  I manage to get it turned around to where I want it, and I am slowly gaining on Dax. He isn’t as distracted as I hoped he would be though, and he sees me coming.

  He flicks his wrist and the dragon roars and sends a wall of white fire blazing towards me. I see my chance, and I throw myself to the ground and roll. The fire misses me by less than an inch.

  I keep rolling towards the head of the fire dragon. If I can get underneath it, then it won’t be between us to protect Dax.

  I close my eyes as I roll towards the fire dragon’s legs. I roll through them. The pain from the fire is so intense I almost black out, but I force myself onwards.

  I emerge on the other side of the fire dragon and spring to my feet. I take half a second to survey the damage I took. My jeans and T-shirt are all in one piece, and there are no marks on me. The pain is gone.

  The fire dragon is an illusion. It couldn’t do any lasting damage because it wasn’t real. I felt the pain of the burns because I expected to feel it.

  Dax is good. He isn’t attacking my body; he’s attacking my mind. But now that I know that, I have the upper hand. I just can’t let him get into my head.

  I run towards Dax, and I raise my hand, ready to fire a lethal shot.

  Dax disappears, and in his place stands Atlas.

  “Liam, no. Please, don’t hurt me,” she cries.

  I deflect the shot just in time. It bounces down beside her and tears a hole in the ground. A hole that was almost in her.

  “Disney. You have to get out of here. It’s too dangerous,” I say.

  I run to her and stand facing her. Tears stand out in her eyes.

  “You were going to kill me,” she says softly.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you.”

  I reach out and stroke her cheek. She reaches up and places her hand over mine, rubbing her face into my touch.

  “I thought… I thought you were someone else. I would never hurt you,” I add.

  I have to stop her from getting that key, but she looks so scared, so sad, that it breaks my heart.

  “You have to leave here,” I say. “Forget about the key and go.”

  She looks up at me.

  “Make love to me,” she whispers.

  That’s when I know. This isn’t Atlas. She wouldn’t just abandon her mission like that. And now I come to think of it, she wouldn’t have stood around begging me not to hurt her. She’d have fought back.

  I reach out and put my hands around her throat and start to release my power into it.

  Fuck, I hope I’m right about this. I have to be right about this. It’s another one of Dax’s mind games.

  I know I’m right, but I still feel a flood of relief wash through me when Atlas disappears and becomes Dax again. His mouth gapes open and closed like a fish out of water as he tries to breathe. The pain I’m sending through his body makes it almost impossible.

  I should end him right here, right now, but then I’ll still have the problem of the key. I relax my hands a little, loosening my grip, and the pain Dax is feeling reduces down to a bearable level.

  He gasps and pants, the fear in his eyes obvious to see.

  “Destroy the key,” I say.

  “Why? So you can kill me anyway?” he says.

  I shrug.

  “Yes, but I’ll make it a lot less painful if you do as you’re told,” I tell him.

  He nods.

  “Okay, but you’ll have to let go of me. I can’t do it like this.”

  He gestures to where my hands still hold his throat. I release him and take half a step back.

  “Try anything, and you’ll regret it,” I warn him.

  He reaches for the chain and pulls it from his wrist. He holds it in his right hand, and he raises his left hand and points his palm at it.

  Without warning, he throws the key hard to his left and runs to the right.

  “You want it, get it,” he shouts.

  I don’t know whether to kill him or go after the key. In the second of indecision, the key changes course and flies over my head. I reach for it, but I miss.

  I spin around and see the key. In Atlas’s outstretched hand.

  I can still see Dax running into the distance. This isn’t another one of his games. It’s really her. Her team stands behind her, and the portal they’ve entered through is just closing behind them.
r />   “Atlas,” I say.

  “Don’t Atlas me, Keysu,” she snaps. “Thanks for making the key so easy for me to get.”

  She turns away. I have to stall, find a way to convince her not to go to the Isle of Grey.

  “How did you know I would be here?” I ask.

  She turns back.

  “Let’s just say I’m getting the hang of the Shadow world. I knew you’d try to stop me. And when I found out you had a tracker on me, I knew I could play it to my advantage.”

  “How did you know about that?” I ask, shocked.

  Damn Pest. He told me that thing was undetectable.

  “Two can play this game, Kane. I put a tracker on you when we… when I saw you yesterday. You’re always a step ahead of us, so I figured you’d come here and get the key.”

  That’s what Dax meant about her playing me yesterday. Well damn. It might have started that way, but I know she was into it every bit as much as I was by the end. It was so good I’m not even mad at her for using me that way.

  “I saw you were watching me on the screen of your cell phone, and I knew what I had to do. I told the team we had two hours to wait before we could go. Gave them all some bullshit instructions so they thought there was a reason for it. I couldn’t tell them know the truth because I knew you’d be watching. And then I waited for the right moment. It took you long enough to figure out that wasn’t really me by the way.”

  I’ve been completely played by Disney. I should be mad, but I’m strangely proud of her. She learned the rules of the game and played it well. But I still can’t let her go to the island.

  “I just wish I’d thought of it sooner,” she adds. “Then maybe you could have led me to Dax instead of Valerie.”

  Her voice is quiet. She’s gone from a warrior queen to a vulnerable little girl in seconds. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s found a way to be ruthless when she has to be and to retain her humanity too.

  She’s done talking to me. She straightens up and nods to Quinn. Her leader side is back, and the vulnerability is gone.

  “Open up the portal. Let’s go,” she says.

  Quinn nods and does as she’s told.

  “Atlas, wait,” I say, stepping towards her. “You can’t go to the Isle of Grey. You’ll… you’ll die there, dammit.”

  The portal is open, and the team is through. It’s just Atlas and me.

  “Maybe I will,” she says sadly. “But it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  She steps into the portal, and she’s gone.

  “Well, it’s not a risk I’m willing to take,” I say.

  I hurl myself through the rapidly closing portal behind her.

  I tumble through the portal just in time. I feel it brush against my feet as it closes. It spits me out at the other end, and I land in a rather ungraceful heap on a thin strip of sand. I push myself to my feet, brush the sand off me, and look around.

  I’ve heard about the Isle of Grey—who in the Shadow world hasn’t?—but I’ve never actually seen it before. The stories tell of a place the Devil himself would fear to go, and now I can see why.

  “What the fuck is this place?” Atlas says quietly as she takes in the island.

  It’s a good question. The island stretches further than my eye can see. The parts I can see look like an abandoned fun fair. The rides and attractions are all still here, frozen in time, forgotten.

  The once brightly colored paint has faded, and it’s chipped and peeling. A large rollercoaster dominates the landscape, the cars frozen around the track. The bumper cars are scattered on their base, as though the riders climbed out mid-ride and walked away.

  A ghostly carousel powered by an unseen force spins, its horses bouncing up and down. They don’t wear the friendly expressions of carousel horses. They have mean grins and blood-red eyes. One of them is headless, and it says it all about the way those horses’ faces look when that is the least creepy one.

  The huge Ferris wheel towers over the carousel of hell. The cars sway in the wind, rattling and wheezing. The light glints off them, casting long skittering shadows on the carousel and rides below it.

  The air should smell of frying onions and cotton candy, but it doesn’t. It smells like death and decay. Instead of the excited laughter of children and the screams of thrill seekers, the air is still, the ominous silence broken only by the occasional howl of an unseen enemy.

  The place has a sense of foreboding that I can’t put my finger on. I don’t know how I know, but I know with certainty that this place eats people, devouring them body, mind, and soul.

  A shudder runs through me as icy fingers of fear caress my spine. Every nerve in my body tells me it was a fucking mistake to come here. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to turn back. But I won’t. I can’t. Because I know Atlas won’t.

  Atlas points into the distance.

  “That’s the hill. The Hand of Glory is in a house somewhere at the top of it,” she says.

  “Before we get into that, can we address the elephant in the room?” Saudia says, glaring pointedly at me.

  “He’s carrying a few extra pounds, but I’d hardly call him an elephant,” Perry cuts in.

  I roll my eyes. Great. A comedian.

  “Just ignore him. Maybe he’ll go away,” Remy says.

  “With a little luck, he’ll get eaten by something in there,” Quinn says coldly.

  “These guys are a laugh a minute; I can see why you like them all so much,” I whisper to Disney.

  Atlas holds up her hands for silence.

  “Look, he’s here now. Maybe he’ll be useful,” she says.

  “And maybe he’ll kill you the second you turn your back on him,” Regal says.

  Fucking Regal.

  “You need to watch that fucking mouth of yours,” I say, taking a step towards him.

  “Or what?” he demands, stepping forward to meet me.

  Atlas steps between us.

  “Enough,” says firmly.

  She gives me a hard glare and then turns the same look on Regal. She turns back to me.

  “Kane, if you’re coming with us, you follow MY orders, just like everyone else. Got it?”

  I don’t take orders from anyone, but it’s going to be easier to keep her safe if I’m right there with her than if I’m following her at a distance. It won’t hurt to let her think she’s calling the shots until she’s in danger.

  “Your wish is my command,” I say with my hand on my heart.

  She rolls her eyes and turns to Regal.

  “He’s not going to kill me,” she says. “If he wanted to do that, he’s had plenty of chances. We’ve got enough to deal with without fighting amongst ourselves.”

  Regal doesn’t look ready to back down, but Atlas holds his gaze until he gives an annoyed nod.

  “Whatever. But don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

  “Maybe he’s not going to try and kill you, but if you think he’s here to help us and not just get in the way then you’re delusional,” Langston snaps at Atlas.

  “As much fun as it is getting my sanity questioned by someone who thought drinking a dangerous vile was a good decision, I don’t give a damn what you think, Langston,” Atlas says.

  Ouch. Atlas one, Langston zero.

  Langston goes to say something else. Atlas raises an eyebrow and waits. Langston closes her mouth and stares into the distance. What happened between those two is far from over. If Langston tries to harm Atlas again, she might find she bumps Regal from the top of my kill list.

  Atlas turns back to me.

  “You can wipe that smirk off your face. Don’t think I’m happy to have you tagging along. If you hinder us in any way, you’re done.”

  I raise my hands in mock surrender.

  “Whatever you say, boss,” I say.

  “Enough bickering, let’s just get this over with.”

  Her words say one thing, but her body language says another. She doesn’t look like she’s in a hurry to pa
ss through the barrier and into the body of the island. No one does.

  “Once we use the key, we’re on a time limit. We have a limited amount of time to find the Hand and get out of here. Once we’re inside the barrier, we won’t be able to erect a portal until we make it back out. So, if we run out of time, we’re dead, or worse, stuck here,” Quinn says.

  She really is full of the joys of spring, I think to myself as she delivers the blow.

  “How long do we have?” Atlas asks.

  “I don’t know,” Quinn admits.

  “You didn’t think that was important?” Saudia says.

  “No, I thought it would be much more fun to go in blind and hope for the best,” Quinn shoots back.

  She shakes her head.

  “I’ve tried everything to find the answers. No one knows. So, we either risk it or we give up now.”

  Atlas turns to the shield. She lifts the key up and presses the gray D against it. The barrier falls to the ground.

  “I say we risk it,” she says, stepping over the line where the barrier stood moments before.

  I follow her over the line. I glance around and notice that everyone else has followed her too. I honestly expected at least one of them to back out. I have to give the team a bit of respect. As much as they are all thorns in my side, they do care about Atlas, and they’ve got her back.

  “Which way?” Remy asks.

  The hill Atlas pointed out stands at the back of the island. We’re going to have to go through the theme park and then through whatever horrors lurk behind it that we can’t yet see.

  Atlas looks to her left and then her right.

  “Any way we go is going to be dangerous, isn’t it? And we’re on a time limit, so we might as well take the quickest route. Straight through.”

  She steps forward, and we follow her. I don’t like the idea of her being at the front of the group, but she’s the leader of the team, and if I try to get out in front of her, she’s only going to argue and waste time. Time we might not have.

  We step around the bumper cars. On the other side of them is a ghost train. The outside is decorated with various scenes of ghosts, goblins, and other creatures, but the focal point is a large grim reaper, which stands the full height of the ride. I think he sums up what’s going on here rather well.