Beyond the Between by Anna Webb

Author:Anna Webb [Webb, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18 – Allyra

The road was dark and isolated, a scene taken directly from a horror movie. Massive oak trees towered over it on both edges, thick foliage blocking out the pale moonlight. But the road was a little too well maintained, and the patches of lawn between the trees were too perfectly mowed—manicured carpets of green—for it to be a true horror movie. There was nothing run-down about this place, and every little detail screamed money.

The night was still with only a feeble wind brushing through the trees, the sound of it lost to the distant rush and ebb of waves crashing into the shoreline.

“This is where you wanted to get a drink?” Allyra asked incredulously, keeping her voice to a whisper, unable to shake the feeling that they weren’t supposed to be here.

“Just trust me,” Jason replied shortly, striding briskly down the road.

It didn’t build confidence that he too kept his voice to a whisper. As a precaution, Allyra reached out with her Gift but found nothing to suggest they were anything but totally alone—on a deserted road, in the middle of nowhere. Maybe she had stumbled into her own personal version of a horror movie.

“Explain again why we couldn’t have driven down here?”

After an hour of driving from the Elemental College up toward the sparsely populated West Coast, Jason had chosen to stash the car in some bushes a couple of kilometers back.

Jason turned to her with a wicked grin. “Well, we’re not strictly meant to be here.”

Allyra ground to an abrupt halt, and Jason rolled his eyes at her.

“Come on,” he said, “live a little.”

“You said a drink, not trespassing,” she replied scornfully. “And I prefer not to end up in a jail cell.”

The dim light did nothing to hide his exasperated look. “Don’t you ever get tired of following the rules? Don’t you ever just want to throw caution to the wind and taste a little danger?”

“Danger?” The word burst from her lips, her voice lifting in disbelief. “I’m a Competitor in a competition with even odds that I might lose a limb or even die. I just lost a friend in the most horrific manner. Trust me, I’ve tasted more than enough danger to last me a lifetime. I’d prefer to live a boring little life.”

Jason took a deliberate step closer to her, pushing himself into her space. He seemed to come alive in the night—his normally dark eyes glittered, like fire reflected in ebony glass. “You’re lying,” he said, his voice no more than a whisper, a caress in the night. “If that were true, you would’ve run after the Elemental Trials—disappeared into obscurity and normalcy. Gone to have your two point four kids with Jamie in a house with a white picket fence. But instead, you chose to stay.”

“I have my own reasons for staying, and they have nothing to do with being an adrenaline junkie,” Allyra retorted.

Jason shrugged. “Maybe, but I think it’s more than that. I saw it in your eyes today, as you beat Jeong.

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