The Silkie Runner by Aaron Galvin

Author:Aaron Galvin [Galvin, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aames & Abernathy Publishing
Published: 2020-03-03T22:00:00+00:00

7

CHIDI

Henry led Chidi out of the cornfield, his hand clasped around the back of her neck.

She did not fight it, figuring it was better to let him take her away to give Allambee and Zymon a better chance of escape.

Chidi glanced skyward. The night felt darker here than most places, almost like the home she remembered as a girl. She loved the nights her father would build a fire and tell them stories.

Such times had long since been stolen away.

She pushed the memories away as they reached the gas mart.

The SUV that had been her escape lay flipped on its side between the fuel islands. The police unit Henry drove looked the worse for wear. Smoke drifted into the night sky from beneath the hood that had crinkled at the onslaught to the SUV.

Chidi offered a silent prayer for the remote location and time of night. Any persons chancing by to witness the horrors Henry left in his wake would surely join them. She no longer held any notion someone might happen along to rescue her. Such folk existed only in fairytales. Chidi knew only nightmares.

Henry paused and stopped Chidi with him when a groggy voice came from inside the SUV. “Ah, man . . . what happened?”

“I dunno,” a second voice answered. “My head is killing me.”

“You’re bleeding bad, bro.”

The door behind the driver’s side opened. Gravity closed it again. A male voice cursed from inside. The door opened again. Stayed open. One of the teenagers that Racer had rescued from the Crayfish’s bus peeked his head out like a gopher emerging from its lair. The teen’s face had purple bruises and flecks of glass in his cheeks, but otherwise, he looked unharmed. “Where are we?”

Henry squeezed Chidi’s neck, guiding her forward.

The teen surveyed the damage. “Whoa . . . Marrero, you gotta see this, man.”

“What is it?”

The teen stopped short upon seeing Henry. He cursed again and climbed out of the wreckage. “C’mon, Marrero! Let’s go!”

“What, man? Tardiff, what is it?”

Henry shoved Racer’s bloody Selkie suit into Chidi’s arms. He released his hold on her then ran for the SUV as the teenager, Tardiff, stood atop the SUV pulled his friend up and out.

Chidi’s mind ticked off the mistake. Her conscience noted the irony of the thought that he should have abandoned his friend. That she judged Tardiff so quickly when she had made the same error in the same night.

I might still be running now. She told herself, looking toward the cornfield, praying Allambee and Zymon had continued on without her rather than suffer Racer’s fate.

At the SUV, Henry pulled Tardiff down. He slammed the teen against what was once the roof, now a wall since tipped on its side. Henry brought the black dagger to Tardiff’s throat and held it in warning before the other teen could assault him. “Get down,” Henry commanded.

Tardiff panicked, shouting at his friend. “Marrero, do what he says!”

Marrero did. “Fine, man. Just chill, okay,” he said to Henry. “I’m coming down. Nice and easy.

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