Page 20 of Outcast Fae
“Help,” she mouthed, her face disfigured in terror, her feet dangling in the void.
If my wings would only work, I could fly down and help her up, but they still weren’t responding. Frantically, I searched around and got a hold of one of the larger palm fronds. It was heavy and, with all the shaking, hard to pull closer.
Suddenly, the earthquake stopped, the grumbling of the earth quieting gradually. Utter silence was left behind, and all I could hear were my own agitated breaths.
“Shit!” Wally exclaimed in a drawn out breath. “Shit, shit, shit. They want to kill us.”
“And at this rate,” Elon said, “it won’t take them long. You idiots have to stop breaking the rules.” He shot me a dirty look that let me know he blamed me for this.
“Help, please,” Daniella’s voice echoed weakly up the broken ground, pulling our attention back to her.
“Just fly and get her,” Wally said as if annoyed I hadn't thought of that sooner.
“I can’t. My wings won’t work.”
They all glared at me with disgust as if I were lying.
Forgetting the others, I rose to my feet and with steadier movements found a frond that seemed to be the right length. Quickly, I dragged it toward the edge of the cliff and lowered it toward Daniella.
“Grab hold of it.” The frond was long enough to reach down to her waist. All she had to do was reach for it.
“I can’t,” she said, too afraid to let go of the boulder.
“You have to.”
She shook her head.
Vaughn and the others drew closer to the edge and peered down.
“Umm, if you don’t want to be swallowed by whatever that is,” Wally said, pointing into the depths of the pit, “you’d better get a hold of that branch.”
From the depths of the earth, something was rising. I squinted, trying to figure out what it was, then discovered it was dark smoke, quickly filling the width of the large hole.
“Quick, Daniella, take the branch,” I yelled, shaking the frond with insistence.
Her eyes grew as big as the coconuts that had rained down on us a few moments ago. She seemed paralyzed with fear, and if she didn’t act quickly, she would get swallowed.
“Come on, Daniella. You can do it,” I said between gritted teeth, holding the branch with both hands, readying myself for her extra weight if she decided to save herself.
She glanced sideways at the frond, her eyes then flicking downward to check the progress of the rising tide beneath her.
“No one else can save you. It is all up to you. Take the branch.” I spoke gently—the way I would have talked to Arryn and Linas or any of the other children.
The fog had risen to only inches from her feet when she finally took hold of the frond. Her weight yanked me downward. I fell to my knees, pain ripping up my arms.
“Climb, climb,” Wally shouted from the other side of the crevice.
As light and small as Daniella appeared to be, her weight pulled on me, threatening to dislodge my arms from their sockets. I clenched my teeth as the frond swung from side to side with her climbing efforts.
She scrambled upward like a monkey, hand over hand, the dark fog rising and skimming the bottom of her boots. When she was close enough, I snatched a fist full of her shirt and heaved her up. She helped me, her feet pushing against the side of the crevice. As she got clear of the pit, we fell backward with athud, Daniella crashing on top of me.
Gurgling and hissing, the fog reached the edge of the hole and stopped rising.
There, it roiled and bubbled, slowly settling, until finally solidifying into earth, covering the crack completely and leaving the ground as if nothing had happened.
I stared, open-mouthed, struggling to believe the evil imaginings of humans. Wally was right. They were trying to kill us. Dean McIntosh had confirmed as much in my vision. None of us would get out of here alive.
I was still trying to recover from my shock when Vaughn and the others marched in our direction. Maybe I expected Vaughn to look somewhat glad that we were alive, but the only emotion on his face was anger. The panic that had etched his features while Daniella hung from the boulder had left no traces behind.
