After a few hours of sleep, a noise woke me. I quickly shielded everyone, and turned us invisible as the door was flung open. Jordan and Mrs. Sullivan stood there. My friends sat up quickly, and I shook my head, telling them to be quiet.

  “They have to be here,” Jordan said, shaking his head as he looked around the room. To him, it appeared completely empty.

  I noticed a granola bar wrapper in the corner that wasn’t under my invisibility shield and tensed up. If they saw it, they would know we had been here at some point.

  “Don’t worry, Jordan. We will find them. They can’t be far from here. We will check every room in this warehouse and the surrounding ones. They should be asleep right now so we can catch them unaware and find out why they ran away.”

  We watched as they exited the room, Mrs. Sullivan giving it one last look.

  “What happened? How did they find us again?”

  “They have another tracker on us, but it’s not as good as the phones were. We need to find it and get rid of it, or we will never be able to find the portal. They will stop us.”

  “What could it be?”

  “Maybe they put one of those bugs on us like the Pulhu did at the school. Except maybe these track us instead of listening to us.”

  We dumped out the contents of each of our bags and started going through them. We didn’t find anything, so the guys turned around while Abby and I checked our clothes. I found one small rectangular disk sewn into the tongue of my shoe and cut it out. I wasn’t sure if it was a tracker, but the other shoe didn’t have anything in it, so I took it out to be safe.

  Abby didn’t find anything, and we finished up so the guys could check their clothes. They didn’t find anything either. When I showed them the rectangular disk, they agreed it was probably a tracker. We left the warehouse and walked through the town, careful to stay away from everyone else. When we walked past a shopping center, I wedged the disk into the door of a car. Hopefully, it would take Mrs. Sullivan and Jordan a while to figure out I didn’t have the disk on me anymore.

  We made our way to the other side of town and found another building to camp out in. Richard left with Adam to find out exactly where we were and how to get where we needed to go.

  Abby and Tider stayed with me since I was easily recognizable to the Pulhu. We played cards until Richard came back.

  “What took so long?”

  “The whole town is crawling with Pulhu. They definitely know you are here somewhere. I saw Mrs. Sullivan and Jordan too. They didn’t see us, but it was close. We are going to have to be extra careful. He pulled a brown hat out of the bag he was holding and handed it to me. “Here, put this on if you need to leave. It will help hide you.”

  I put it on and made a face. It was too big and drooped over my eyes.

  “Good, no one will recognize you.” He handed me a matching ugly brown jacket, and I slipped it on. “If you keep your hair hidden under the hat, no one will be able to tell it’s you,” he said proudly. I made another face but agreed. I barely looked like a girl in the jacket and hat.

  “We need to get out of this town tonight,” Adam said. “There are too many people here that want you.”

  “How are we going to save Cecilia?” I asked.

  “I have an idea, but we need perfect timing. There is a truck stop right outside of town. We can try to hitch a ride on one of the trucks without them knowing. I doubt anyone is going to take five teenagers with them willingly,” Richard replied.

  “Let’s do it,” I said. We grabbed our belongings and snuck out of the building. We split up, Adam taking Abby and Tider while I went with Richard so we wouldn’t be as noticeable. Two or three kids walking together was a lot more normal than five. I didn’t use my invisibility. I couldn’t keep everyone invisible for that long while walking the roads. Not to mention all the people on the streets that would run into us and be alarmed about running into invisible people.

  Richard kept me on side roads and looked at his map every time we came to an intersection. He would check out each street before I came around the corners. Multiple times we had to backtrack and go a different way because of the Pulhu or Mrs. Sullivan and Jordan.

  It took us a long time, but we made it out of town and snuck into the woods. Our friends were waiting for us. They ran into a bunch of Pulhu but managed to get away without the Pulhu suspecting them. We traveled through the woods, keeping the main road in sight until we reached the truck stop. There were only two trucks parked, and neither one looked like we would be able to ride in it.

  We made a small camp in the woods and waited for more trucks to pull in. It was a long wait. We were in a small town in California. Not many trucks passed through each day. As the sun started to dip below the trees, the perfect truck pulled in. When the driver walked inside we ran for the truck. I jiggled the handle, but it was locked. Adam used a small amount of magic to melt the inside of the lock, breaking it. We opened the door enough to slip inside and pulled it closed behind us.

  We didn’t create any light because we didn’t want anyone to see us if there were any holes in the truck. We found spots to sit around the many boxes in the truck. We were almost settled when the engine came to life, and we heard a door slam shut. The driver was back. We headed down the road, and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. We were heading toward the girl. We needed to save her.

  The sound of the tires lulled me to sleep, and it wasn’t until we hit a particularly large bump that I woke up. I rubbed my forehead where I knocked it on the crate I was leaning against. I woke everyone up and carefully moved to the back of the truck. I could tell we weren’t going very fast, and I wanted to get off the truck before it stopped, so we didn’t get caught.

  I carefully opened the door to the truck. The morning sun streamed in, and I blinked rapidly. After my eyes adjusted to the bright light, I tried to figure out where we were. We weren’t on the main road. My friends made their way to the back too.

  “Jump?” Tider asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think we better get off the truck now before we end up farther down this back road than we want to be.”

  Everyone agreed so we grabbed our stuff. We would each use a tiny amount of magic to keep ourselves from getting hurt. I covered Abby in a bubble of air to protect her. On three, we jumped. The air set us down gently a few feet off the side of the road and we crouched down. I didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean anything.

  Richard used his magic to fly above the trees once we were in the forest and check our location. There was a small town a few miles ahead of us that he thought might be where the Pulhu were getting their supplies. The prison was only a few hours walk from the town.

  We stayed in the trees, making our way closer to the town. By midmorning, we were near enough that there were more cars on the road. We stayed hidden, not knowing if the Pulhu were in the town. We would wait until evening before going any closer.

  We spent the time going over our plans for getting Cecilia out and for going into the town. We were going to do the same thing we did last time we snuck into a town. I would stay invisible, and everyone else would sneak in and meet up somewhere. Richard was going to try to get some more food for us too.

  As soon as the light started to fade, Richard headed down the street. Abby and Adam followed a few minutes later. They went together, acting like friends out for a walk. Tider waited until I got the all clear from Richard. Being able to communicate through our connection instead of using phones made sneaking around so much easier.

  I stayed with Tider using my shield of invisibility to hide from everyone on the streets. A few people looked at Tider questioningly, but no one stopped him. We kept walking until we made it to the warehouse. Richard was waiting inside, and we slipped in quickly. Adam and Abby were already there.

  Richard managed to find a few blankets for us to use, and he grabbed a pizza too. We sat down and ate while he told us what he found out. There were definitely Pulhu scattered throughout the town, but they didn’t appear to be worried about anything, and they weren’t really keeping an eye out for anyone. It seemed like they were there on their time off. Maybe some of them stayed in this town when they got a break.

  Richard tried to listen to one of their conversations while he was waiting for his pizza, but he wasn’t able to hear anything important.

  “That’s alright,” I said. “We can look around the town tomorrow and try to figure out more information before we head out to rescue Cecilia.”

  “You will need to stay invisible,” Richard said. “I’m sure they will recognize you. All the Pulhu know what you look like. The rest of us need to be careful too,” Richard said. “Maybe we should try to use a small glamor. Something that won’t use a lot of energy but will make us look different.”

  “I can’t do a glamor,” Tider said. Neither could Adam or Abby.

  “We learned how to do glamors, but we aren’t any good at them,” Abby said.

  “Richard, you can do a glamor. I think if Tider, Adam, and Abby are careful, they will be fine. Tider is the most likely to be recognized so he can wear my hat,” I said, handing it over to him.

  He put it on his head and pulled his coat up, scrunching his shoulders a little.

  “That’s excellent,” I told him. “No one will recognize you.” I laughed as he walked around the room slowly. “You are more likely to have the cops called on you because you look like a thief.” He scoffed at me and took the hat off.

  “Ok. Tomorrow we will go out and see what we can find for a couple of hours. We will meet back here at noon to see what everyone else has learned. That should give us enough time to come up with a plan and head to the Pulhu prison.”

  Chapter Six

  It didn’t take long to get ready in the morning. We left as soon as we ate a small breakfast of granola bars and cereal that Abby managed to sneak out of the facility. It was a bit squished from sitting in her backpack, but it tasted great.

  I was the last to leave, and I used my invisibility shield before I walked out of the warehouse. I stayed out of everyone’s way so they wouldn’t run into me and wonder why they hit something solid that they couldn’t see.

  I slipped into a breakfast place as the door was closing behind two people. I found a nice corner to sit in while I waited for more customers to show up for breakfast. I was hoping I would catch some of the Pulhu coming in.

  I waited for over thirty minutes, staring at the door before I heard a gasp come from the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen and saw a group of workers clustered around a TV. I moved closer so I could hear what was happening.

  A news anchor was on the screen, and behind her, fires could be seen in the distance. It looked like a large city. There were skyscrapers with smoke pouring out of them, and the smaller buildings had flames shooting through the windows.

  The news anchor finally said the name of the city, and I almost gasped out loud. It was Sacramento, California. We weren’t far from there.

  “There have been numerous attacks on different cities around the world. It appears the terrorists have been planning these attacks for a long time and hit every major country. The entire world is in an uproar demanding answers to who could have done this. No governments have been able to answer that question yet,” she said as videos of other cities popped up behind her.

  “How could this have happened?” one of the girls around the TV whispered.

  “Who knows, maybe they deserved it,” another girl said sharply as she turned and walked away. The first girl looked shocked. The other people around the TV nodded along with the mean girl and turned away too.

  I was sure this wasn’t the act of terrorists. It was a sign of the darkness taking over. Even here in this small town, people were being affected. I remembered what I read. Only a small handful of people wouldn’t be affected by the darkness. This girl might be one of them. She was the only one surprised by everyone’s behavior.

  I started to reach out for her but stopped myself. Just because she wasn’t affected yet didn’t mean she wouldn’t be eventually. I began to walk away, but a small sniffle behind me made me freeze. I couldn’t leave her to figure this out on her own. If she really wasn’t affected by the darkness, she wouldn’t understand why everyone was becoming so mean.

  I followed her to the bathroom when she went to get a tissue and locked the door behind me. She heard the click and froze, looking at the door. She started to run over to it, but I let my shield drop, and she let out a small shriek. I quickly placed a silence bubble around us so no one would hear her.

  “Relax,” I said. “I’m here to warn you.”

  “Warn me about what?” she asked, backing away.

  “Warn you about what is coming. You were the only one out there who cared that the cities were being destroyed.”

  “I don’t know how they can act like that. They are usually good people. Ever since this bad stuff started happening, they don’t seem to care anymore. Maybe they have seen too much and can’t process it all.”

  “Wait, what other stuff?” I asked.

  “You haven’t heard? Countries are declaring war on each other. Fights are breaking out everywhere, even at school, causing the police to be overrun. Sometimes the police don’t even show up anymore. It started happening here too. Everyone is going crazy.” She started to tear up again.

  “They aren’t going crazy, but they are being affected by a great darkness that is coming to destroy this planet. I’m trying to stop it. People like you need to go into hiding. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

  “Why? What darkness? Who are you?”

  “That’s not important. All you need to know is something is coming, and people are going to continue to act aggressively. It would be best for you to gather as many supplies as you can and go somewhere safe.”

  “Where is it safe? Even my parents are acting mean lately.”

  “I don’t know, but I know it won’t be safe around people, including your parents if they are already being affected. Maybe you can find others like you and hide in the woods somewhere. Try to stay out of the cities.”

  She tried to ask me more questions, but I held my hand up.

  “I need to go. I have a lot I need to do and not much time.” I turned to walk out but looked back at her. “Have you seen anyone around that works a few hours away. They probably aren’t the nicest bunch.”

  “I know exactly who you are talking about. They are the only people that don’t belong in this town. They have a rented house down on fifth street. There are always a few of them hanging around.”

  “Thanks, and stay away from them. They are very bad.” She shivered as I put my invisibility shield back up.

  “Wait, how did you…” she trailed off as I disappeared, and the door opened seemingly on its own.

  I headed out of the restaurant, only stopping to wait while someone came in the door so I could slip out unnoticed. I moved down the streets looking for fifth street. I couldn’t find it and finally had to stop in an alley to take my invisibility shield down and walk down the road to ask a stranger for directions. It was a risk, but I needed to get to their house and see what they were planning. Things were worse than we thought. We didn’t have as much time as we were led to believe. The whole world would be ruined if this kept up.

  As soon as I got directions, I found a hiding spot and became invisible again. I walked as quickly as I could down the streets until I came to fifth street. I didn’t know which house was theirs, so I walked along the road, peeking into windows, trying to spot the Pulhu.

  Eventually, I found the right house and stood at the window, watching as two men sat on a couch discussing something. I couldn’t hear what it was, so I quietly tried the front door. It was locked, but something caused them to get up and come investigate. They came outside, looking around the house for any sign of an intruder, and I was able to slip in unnoticed.

  I reached out to Richard, letting him know where I was as I found a hiding spot in the living room. He tried to yell at me, but I told him to be quiet so I could concentrate. He was quiet, but I could feel him lurking in my mind, keeping tabs on what I was doing as he made his way through the city toward me. I didn’t call my other friends. Too many people heading this way would arouse suspicion.

  The Pulhu came back into the living room and sat down, complaining about the kids in the city. They thought kids were trying to break into their house. They didn’t suspect me at all. They went back to talking about how the world was falling apart and started laughing. They were enjoying watching all the chaos. One of them said it wouldn’t be long before the darkness ruled, and the Pulhu would rule by his side.

  They really thought they were going to be spared by the darkness. They had no idea what was in store for them. The darkness wouldn’t spare anyone. It was using the Pulhu to help make it easier to take over the earth. They didn’t mention anything about the prison, and I started to get cramps in my legs from standing still for so long.

  I was about to try moving when I heard the door open, and the two men looked over at it. A man and a woman walked in and greeted the first two men. After talking for a few minutes, the two men got up, saying they didn’t want to go to work that evening. The lady reminded them that if they didn’t do a good job, Mr. Damon would hear about it. That got the men moving quickly. Even the Pulhu were scared of Mr. Damon.

  I heard Richard telling me he was at the house, and I told him to hide until the men left. The man and woman shut the door and moved into the kitchen. I could hear them talking and decided not to leave my spot. The woman looked a lot smarter than the two men who just left. I didn’t want to get caught by her. I reached out and let Abby know to tell everyone else what was going on. I told her Richard was here too and to stay hidden until I contacted her again.

  She wasn’t happy, but she agreed, and I let our connection drop, focusing on what the Pulhu were saying.

 

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