“I just like knowing if I need to wake up.” She smiled and tucked the remote into a mesh pocket in the tent. If anything tripped it, the remote would beep. Not loud enough to wake Dani, but Summer had always slept light.
“You’re worse than Ignacio.” Dani stripped off his flannel shirt and shuffled into his sleeping bag, wearing only his pants and a thermal shirt. “There is less wind here than by the beach.”
“I know. It might be warmer.” Nevertheless, Summer kept her pants and socks on. If a bear—or anything else—attacked the tent, she wanted her shoes on in seconds, not minutes.
Dani rolled toward Summer, put his arm around her waist, and tugged her sleeping bag toward his until she could feel his warm breath near her neck. “Sleep well, Sunshine.”
Summer smiled at his affectionate nickname and closed her eyes.
In minutes, she was asleep.
The beeping was insistent. Summer’s eyes flew open and her heart was already racing.
“What is that?” A low voice whispered outside the tent.
She sat up, put a hand over Dani’s mouth, and nudged his shoulder until his eyes flew open. He frowned and moved to pull her hand away, but the voices spoke again.
“A phone maybe?”
“There’s nothing out here that can get signal.” The voices were matter-of-fact. Bored even.
Summer shook her head and put a finger over her lips as she removed her hand from Dani’s mouth. He nodded, understanding the need for silence.
Their tent was a typical backpacking tent, small and compact. Easy to pack and set up, but there was no room to move around without being heard.
Something shook the top of their tent, and Dani sat up.
“Wakey-wakey,” the voice said, amusement coloring the words. “Come on out, neighbors.”
Summer knew these were no friendly woodsmen. Dani took the canister of bear spray from his pack as Summer removed her hunting knife from its sheath. They both slipped out of their sleeping bags. Summer shoved her feet in her hiking boots, and Dani did the same. She eyed her jacket in the corner and took the calculated risk of setting her knife down for a second to put it on. Dani did the same.
Don’t move. Make them come to you. Waste their energy, not yours. Her father’s voice was the one whispering to her now. Her father, who’d been raised by monsters, knew what he was talking about.
A flashlight beam moved around the tent, and Summer concluded that there were two men stalking them. Well… two somethings. Humans were the most obvious, but not the only choice.
Dani whispered, “Summer—”
“Shhhh.”
“Oho.” A man outside chuckled. “I think the city birds are awake.”
“Come on out, little birds.” The flashlight moved to the tent opening and didn’t move. “Don’t make us come in there to get you. That’ll just irritate me.”
Where were the voices from? Summer tried to decipher an accent, but she couldn’t. It was flat California speech with just a hint of surfer.
Dani’s hand gripped Summer’s, and he kept the bear spray aimed at the exit of the tent. If he let it off in an enclosed area, they’d be weeping and sick, but hopefully whomever Dani hit with the spray would get the nastier end.
The zipper on the tent started to move. “Come on out now.”
Fingers were visible at the entrance now, fat callused fingers with black curly hair on the backs.
Dani looked at her with panicked eyes. Summer took a deep breath and tried to breathe through the rush of adrenaline that was starting to course. She held up a hand for him.
Wait.
She motioned to the bear spray and then the tent flap.
Spray them when it opens.
Dani nodded.
Summer pointed her knife at the back of the tent and made a slashing motion. If Dani sprayed the person trying to come into the tent, she’d rip open the back and they could escape away from the sprayed men.
Dani nodded again and took another deep breath.
“You going to be stubborn, are you?” The voice was losing patience. “Fine, I’m coming in. No funny business; I don’t want to hurt you.”
Bullshit.
The tent zipper was ripped open, and a bright light glared in their eyes.
“Now!” Summer shouted before she took a deep breath.
Dani leaned forward and let the bear spray stream into the intruder as Summer slashed through the back of the tent, ripping down and away twice to open a flap large enough to let them both out. She scrambled out of the reeking canvas, her eyes already flooded with tears.
Dani had thrown the bear spray canister at the men coming into the tent when they started screaming, and he scrambled out after her.
She clutched her jacket around her and tried to make her steps wide enough so she wouldn’t trip over her untied boots.
“Back to the trail.” She was coughing and sneezing at once, her body desperate to rid itself of the toxic fumes they’d used to escape. She heard Dani running behind her, wheezing from the bear spray.
Summer used her adrenaline to jump over logs and rocks, heading toward the ocean and the open expanse of coastal bluffs. She could see a light in the camping area on the last bluff they’d passed. If they could just make it there—
“Summer!”
She turned and saw Dani on the ground a few yards behind her. She ran back to help him up and saw a black-handled knife sticking out of his shoulder.
“Shit!”
“Go.” His voice was a painful rasp. “Run!”
She looked up and realized it was too late. Three men were running after them, and none of them were laughing anymore. Summer rose and held her hunting knife in front of her.
The largest one leaned down and grabbed Dani by the leg, pulling him toward them as if he weighed nothing. They were great, hulking shadows in the darkness, three men with broad shoulders and square heads.
Another one of the men yanked the knife out of Dani’s shoulder, and he groaned in pain. Summer’s knife rose, but she didn’t move. The men had Dani; she couldn’t leave him.
“Drop the knife please.” The largest shadow spoke calmly. He wasn’t crying like the other men, nor did he move the same way. Something about him was… different.
As soon as she felt the ground beneath her move ever so slightly, she knew exactly why this one was different. “I know what you are.” She lowered the knife.
Know when to run and when to wait.
She’d never outrun him, never overpower him. Any human attack was a waste of her energy and would only endanger her more. “We’re the wrong prey for you.”
“Oh?” A slight hint of amusement.
“They’ll look for me if I disappear.”
The vampire stepped out of the shadows and into the light of the full moon. His fangs gleamed in the darkness as he smiled.
“They all say that.”
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Afterword
Dear Reader,
You’ve reached the end of Ben and Tenzin’s journey!
Or have you?
This has been a HUGE debate in my reader group and even with myself, because I have been very clear that The Bone Scroll was the last planned book in the Elemental Legacy series.