The White Rabbit Chronicles Read online

  My dad’s advice played through my mind. If you fall, go down swinging.

  Yes! I’d trained for this. I could do this. I arched my back, giving my arm more room to fly backward. My palm slammed into the creature’s nose, sending him propelling backward. I lost several strands of hair, but I was freed.

  I straightened, twisted, and kicked out my leg, nailing another creature—the female—in the stomach and sending her propelling backward, too. She ghosted through a car, only to stand on the other side and shake off her disorientation. Her gaze locked on me, and I knew she planned to come back for more.

  She’d have to wait her turn. The one I’d sent to the ground had turned over, was sitting up and reaching for me. My teeth chattered as I kicked his arm, then his jaw, and though he twisted with the momentum, he remained focused on me.

  How was I supposed to disable these things for good? And where was the third one?

  Never lose sight of your enemy. You’ll regret it. My dad had also told me that.

  As with everything else, he’d been right.

  From behind, trunklike arms wrapped around my torso. I felt a humid puff of breath against my neck. Crap! I slammed my head back, hitting the creature with as much force as possible. His grip loosened, even as my brain protested the action with a sharp lance of pain. Spinning, I doubled tapped him in the jaw with so much power, I think I severed his spinal cord.

  As he fell, teeth flew out of his mouth like pieces of candy. But when he landed, he, too, seemed unaffected by the damage. He stood, his head remaining at an odd angle—but still he moved toward me.

  In the back of my mind, I knew something just as odd was happening beyond our little fight club circle, but I couldn’t yet reason out what it was. Something to consider later, I supposed. If I survived.

  I had to survive.

  My three opponents converged.

  I punched one, then another, while kicking the third. All three extended their arms toward me, and I darted out of the way, still punching, still kicking. The more we fought, the harder my heart pounded, and the more excited they seemed to become. The more excited they grew, the faster they moved.

  When one of the males at last managed to shackle my wrist with his fingers, his grip was so strong I couldn’t bust free. He tugged me to the ground. I went down swinging, just as before, but he held on, flashing his teeth at me.

  I couldn’t let him bite me. Couldn’t die like this.

  But no matter how I twisted or how hard I bucked I still couldn’t free myself.

  Both the female and the other monster dropped to their knees beside me. There were only three of them, but it seemed as though they possessed a thousand hands, holding me down, ripping at my clothing, their faces lowering...lowering...when they bit me, I screamed.

  Blistering, sizzling pain struck, though it failed to melt the ice that encased me. I was a toxic mix of too hot and too cold, dying...wanting to die. Their teeth burrowed through my skin, their faces seeming to disappear inside me. It was as if they were actually gnawing on my bones without spilling a single drop of my blood.

  I fought and fought and fought to no avail. One of them finally stopped chewing, then the other, then the other. Though they maintained a steady grip on me, they peered down at me in horror, as if they’d tasted something disgusting.

  Suddenly one of the males seized up, an arrow protruding from his neck. He swatted at it as he fell forward and landed beside me. Without him holding down my ankles, I was able to kick the female in the chin. She stumbled backward. The other monster released me of his own free will.

  Cole was behind the woman an instant later, reaching around and flattening his palm over her heart. A white light erupted between them, blinding in its intensity. It remained only for a moment, a single snap of fingers, but when it vanished, Cole’s arms were empty, the female gone.

  He raced to one of the males, then the other, producing the same blinding white light. A second later, he was hovering over me, and our gazes met. We were both panting, sweating.

  “I...I...” Couldn’t speak. Hurt too badly. Could barely breathe. Darkness swallowed me whole, and I lost sight of him.

  Maim... The word whispered through my head, followed by another, just as bad.

  Kill...

  The urge to do both filled me. Maim...kill...

  Destroy...

  “Don’t say a single word,” Cole rasped. “Stay quiet until I can put you back together.”

  I wanted to tell him to help me, to take me to a hospital, please, please, please, but no matter what I tried I could no longer force my voice to work.

  Maimkilldestroy.

  Yes, I thought next. Yes. I would. I must. That would make everything better.

  Maim—

  Something pricked at my neck, stinging. “This will help,” he said.

  Kill—

  Something heavy fell on top of me.

  Des—

  I inhaled sharply as my mind blanked and my eyelids popped open. Cole was still hovering above me, looking concerned and beautiful and so wonderfully alive. But the pain, even though it was fading, hadn’t gone away. I hurt.

  “That’s the last of them, but more could be on their way.” He grabbed me by the upper arms and hauled me to my feet. My knees gave out, and he swept me up, carrying me to his Jeep.

  “My body,” I managed to whisper. I looked toward the car, where I’d left it. And what a strange thought to entertain. Only, I wasn’t there any longer. How...when...

  I glanced at my arms. My wrists were nicked and bruised, bleeding, as if they’d truly been bitten.

  I glanced at Cole. He was just as nicked and bruised. “Are you...okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He got me settled inside the car, claimed the driver’s seat and revved the engine. As he burned rubber onto the road, he made a call. “Parking lot,” he said. “Ten are down. I checked, but there aren’t any more nearby. Yet. I’ve got Ali, she was bitten, so you need to take care of this.”

  That was it. The entire conversation.

  “What about Kat and the others?” I asked, my voice stronger now, with far less grate. And besides a few minor aches, I was beginning to feel normal again.

  “They’ll be rushed out of there and kept safe.”

  As he maneuvered down the street, I twisted around to catalog the carnage we must have left in the lot. But...there were no bodies. No blood. There were people, though. Many living, breathing people.

  A tremor moved down my spine as the thing that had bothered me while fighting at last crystallized. There were people walking around, talking and smiling, looking for their cars, but they were oblivious to what had happened.

  “They didn’t see us,” I said. How could they not have seen us? We’d been right there, right in front of them, grunting, groaning—killing!

  That last word echoed through my head. Killing. Killed. Kill. I’d helped him kill those monsters. And I was glad the monsters were dead, I was, but... “Will we go to jail for this?”

  “People saw our bodies standing there, not the actual fighting. So no, you won’t go to jail or even to an insane asylum. Plus, no evidence will be left behind.”

  I chose to believe him. I would have freaked out otherwise. Would have? I thought as a hysterical laugh built inside me. I’d hoped to talk to Cole about this, but not like this. “I don’t understand what just happened. We left our bodies.”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  His gaze jerked toward me then back to the road. “Have you never done that before?”

  “No!” I shouted. “Of course not.”

  “Well, you’ve answered one question for me at least. You can see them. Therefore, I’ll answer this one for you.” How calm he sounded. “You can’t fight evil in your natural form. What’s in the spirit realm has to be fought in the spirit realm.”

  Evil. Spirit realm. So...the monsters were spirits? That would explain how they’d disappeared inside my dad and mom. That would ex
plain why they could move, even after receiving deathblows. That would explain why no one else had seen them. But that failed to explain how I had seen them.

  “If they’re spirits, how’d they leave footprints in the forest?” I asked.

  “I never said they left the prints.”

  “But—”

  “I wasn’t saying they didn’t, either. They can leave tracks. But you can’t always assume it’s them. There are always people chasing them.”

  Wait. What? “You?”

  “Plus a group of others, but that’s all I’m gonna say about that.”

  Frustrating! Could he not see how desperate I was for this information?

  Still I said, “All right. I’ll drop the ‘group of others.’ But tell me this, at least. If I fought the monsters while I was in...spirit form, why am I bruised? And how did your crossbow hurt them?”

  “Spirit and body are connected. What you experience outside always manifests inside. As for the crossbow, I brought it with me, like my clothing. Whatever I was wearing on my body was accessible to my spirit.”

  I would never ever be without a weapon again. “So wh—what were those things?”

  “You still don’t know?” he asked.

  “No.” Well, I had already admitted my father had been right. Evil was out there. Evil was real. My silly belief that we were somehow separate from it had been shattered, yes, but now, I knew those pieces could never be glued back together.

  “And yet you knew how to fight them.”

  “Not well enough,” I snapped. What my dad had taught me about hand-to-hand had helped, yeah, but he’d had no idea what he was truly up against because he’d never truly fought. He’d always run.

  “Tell me everything, Ali. It’s time.”

  Yeah, it was. At long last, the things I’d hidden from others and even from myself came spilling out. Maybe because I’d never felt more vulnerable. Maybe because I knew Cole would believe me. Bottom line: I had to trust someone, and for better or worse, Cole was it.

  “My dad saw them. He was so afraid of them, he tried to teach my sister and me how to fight them, just in case we were ever cornered. But we’d never seen them, and we thought he was crazy, so we paid very little attention to his instructions. Not that he knew what he was doing. He thought he could take them down with a gun. Then he died one night, all of my family died, and I saw the monsters for the first time. They...ate my parents.”

  Cole listened, his knuckles bleaching of color on the steering wheel.

  “Why did I start seeing them that night? How long have you seen them? Do the others know about them? If so, can they do what we did?”

  “So many questions,” he said. “Give me a minute to decide how to break this to you.”

  Tell me now, I wanted to scream. Instead, I remained quiet. I wanted the answers, but I also feared them. They would change my life.

  Again.

  Was I ready for another change?

  What would my dad have said about this? His face twinkled through my mind, his blond hair disheveled, his blue eyes glassy. After all the horrible things I’d said about him over the years, all the times I’d shut him down, he and my mom had been the only ones on the right path.

  Daddy, I projected toward the sky, hoping he could hear me. I’m so sorry for doubting you. I’m sorry for every awful thought I ever had about you, and for all the times I wanted Mom to leave you and marry someone else. If I could redo my life, I would take you seriously. I would love you and accept you and help you.

  “First, let’s get something clear,” Cole said. “You can’t tell anyone what happened tonight.”

  “I know.”

  “Not even Kat.”

  “I know!” If I had treated my own father like a candidate for a straitjacket, how would my new friends treat me? Yeah, that one didn’t take a lot of thought. I’d be shunned, laughed at and publically humiliated. No, thanks.

  Cole cursed under his breath. “Grab the wheel and steer toward the suits. Now!”

  “What—” I said, thinking he’d cursed at me. Wrong! Two monsters had ambled into the road, and they were headed straight for us. Right on their heels were five walking hazmat suits.

  “Ali!”

  As ordered, I grabbed the wheel. Cole palmed a blade, and with his free hand wrapped around a lever on the Jeep’s roof, he leaned out of the open doorway. His other hand, the one clutching the blade, stretched out...and kept on stretching, that part of his spirit rising out of his body.

  His blade slashed across several of the suits, a hissing sound filling the air.

  I think I screamed. My brain was too busy trying to figure out what had just happened to be sure. “Those are real live people, Cole!” At least, I thought they were.

  A second later, he was back in his seat and driving, his blade put away, as if nothing had happened. “I didn’t hurt them, just opened their suits to send them home.”

  Okay. I could deal with that. “Next time, do me a favor and go for the monsters.” Wait. Next time? Oh, no, no, no. I didn’t want to do this again. I’d learned my lesson.

  “They weren’t the biggest threat.”

  “But—”

  “If Frosty and the others stumbled upon the hazmats, they’d be in trouble, their attention divided between the humans and the—what’d you call them? Monsters. So to answer one of your earlier questions, yes, my friends can see them.” He flicked me a quick glance. “And now you have another thousand questions, don’t you?”

  “Of course not. But what do you call them, if not monsters? Why were those people wearing suits? I mean, if the suits help, why don’t you and your friends wear them? Or do you?” See, only four questions.

  “We don’t. The suits protect us from being bitten, but they also prevent us from killing. As for that first thing you asked—”

  He cranked up the music.

  Message received. A short while later, he pulled the Jeep off the road and I thought he would stop. But, no. He veered into the forest, following no discernible path. My heart started thumping wildly, as if the stupid organ wanted to run away. Cole knew where he was going, though, and never hit anything he shouldn’t. Finally he parked in front of a secluded log cabin, the car lights chasing away the shadows.

  There were two other cars parked there, both SUVs. The cabin had two windows covered by thick, dark curtains with cracks in the center of each. Peepholes, some part of me guessed.

  He removed the key from the ignition, and the music stopped.

  “What is this place, and why are we here?” If he claimed we were outside of town and he planned to murder me because I now knew too much, I think I’d be fine with that, as long as I never had to be in close contact with those monsters—or whatever they were—again.

  “You’re here because you can’t go home like that,” Cole said, motioning to my clothing with a tilt of his chin. “You need to shower and change, and your injuries should be cleaned.”

  I gave myself a once-over and grimaced. He was right about my need for a shower. My clothes were dirty and torn, with some kind of black goo caked on several sections. I had scrapes and bruises on my legs, and my knuckles were the size of golf balls.

  “This is our getaway home, where we go when we need to relax.”

  No need to ask who “we” were. His friends. “So it’s not your home home?”

  “Nope. That’s closer to the school. We like this place because it’s far more private and monitored twenty-five/eight. There’s nothing here that I don’t want to be here, which makes it the safest place for you.”

  The idea of a safe place really intrigued me. At the moment, I had so much acid churning in my stomach I needed to throw up before I became completely toxic. Or maybe that would make me into a new superhero, like Peter Parker and the radioactive spider. Only I’d be Vomit Girl, capable of grossing everyone out.

  “I told you, I’m not going home tonight. I was supposed to stay the night with Kat,” I muttered. “Can I stay the
night here, and if yes—” no reason to presume “—will you take me home in the morning?”

  “Yes. To both.”

  Okay. That had been easier than expected. “Thank you.” Permission granted from his end, I pulled my cell from my boot to text Kat. “I’m going to tell her that you and I hooked up.” I simply wouldn’t mention that the hookup had happened over monster bodies. “Is that okay?”

  “Yeah. That’s fine. Smart. If she comes to me for details, and she will, I’ll tell her to talk to you, so give her whatever kind of story you think will satisfy her.”

  “Thanks. Where does she think we all went, anyway?”

  “No telling. Two of my boys would have told all four girls they were no longer wanted at the club and would have driven them to Reeve’s. Those same boys will keep guard at Reeve’s, in secret, for the rest of the night.”

  “That’s good.” One less worry. “Okay, here goes.” Took me nearly ten minutes to get my text right—W/Cole. I’m sorry 4 bailing! Don’t be mad, but I’m spending night w/him. Don’t call my grands—but I finally pressed Send.

  Even though I knew nothing would be happening between Cole and me—I wouldn’t let it, and from the sound of it, he wasn’t going to try—I felt as though I’d just placed a giant Tramp Stamp on my forehead.

  Two seconds later her reply came in: Rock on, dirty girl! Give me deets 2morrow. PS: If U C Frosty, tell him I hate him!

  Such easy acceptance from her caused guilt to gnaw at me. She had only ever been nice to me, had accepted me from day one. I owed her so much—even the truth, no matter what I suspected her reaction would be.

  “You did the right thing,” Cole said, probably sensing my regret.

  I stuffed the phone in my pocket and gripped my knees. “I know.” That didn’t make me feel any better.

  He reached over and pried my fingers loose. He brought my injured knuckles to his lips and kissed them. “Don’t worry. You’re part of my world now. I’ll teach you how to survive it.”

  Part of his world. What, exactly, did that mean? “The first thing I want to know is what those things are. I’ve asked twice, but you haven’t said. So tell me. Teach me. What did we just fight?”