novelraw Chapter 564: Where To Now?
Chapter 564: Where To Now?
Caerwyn noticed the moment Perdition stopped trying to hold them.
It wasn’t dramatic. There were no alarms, no collapsing walls, no last-ditch enforcement protocols snapping shut behind their heels. The wild west town simply... let go, as if it had finally understood that whatever authority it thought it had was no longer relevant.
They walked out of the sheriff’s office and onto the main street, ignoring all the eyes on them.
Sera moved at the center of them, her stride steady despite the injury she refused to acknowledge. Ashkar stayed close at her right shoulder, his presence a constant heat, controlled and deliberate, as if the fire inside him had decided that restraint was now a choice rather than a necessity.
Aerenyx flanked her left, silent as ever, his attention on her balance, her breathing, the micro-adjustments of pain she thought no one noticed but everyone was freaking out over. Psycho prowled a step ahead, restless energy contained only because there was nothing left to fight here.
And Luci...Luci was already gone.
Caerwyn had seen the moment the dire wolf peeled away from them, slipping into the wilderness and the dense forest that surrounded the town like smoke. There had been no farewell, no acknowledgment, and no attempt to call him back.
Sera hadn’t reacted. It wasn’t the first time the dire wolf had disappeared, and it wouldn’t be the last. If he wanted to find her, Caerwyn was sure that not a single thing in this world would stop him from doing so.
They continued to walk down the main street, and for a moment, Caerwyn thought for sure that Mae would pop out and say something, but not even she appeared. In fact, if he couldn’t feel the eyes on them, he would have thought that the entire town was a ghost town.
They had only taken a few more steps when Ashkar stopped suddenly and put his hand on Sera’s shoulder. "You are still hurt," he grunted, his eyes going to her stomach and chest where she had been carved in two. "You aren’t walking any further. You have done too much already and probably have hurt yourself worse."
"Just because I have a scar doesn’t mean that I am hurt," Sera replied, looking up over her shoulder at the Fae Lord behind her. "I am healed."
"Still," replied Ashkar, causing Psycho to smile and Caerwyn to shake his head. "Just because you can walk doesn’t mean that you have to. We’ll be more than happy to carry you."
"Too bad she is out of cars," said Psycho, shaking his head. "Well... I guess we were a bit hard on them... getting shot at and all that."
"Who said that I don’t have a truck?" interjected Sera with a snap of her finger. "I might refuse to be a Fae Princess, but that doesn’t mean I’m not happy being a passenger princess."
A black truck, the same one that they had had in City H when the world had ended the first time around, appeared in front of them. It was beaten up, the paint job nowhere near as shiny as it had once been, but the familiarity of it was enough to cause some of the Lords to drop the tension in their shoulders.
"We’re not staying here," Sera continued, like it wasn’t glaringly obvious that none of them wanted to be in Perdition longer than it took to get the hell out of it. "It used to feel like... a safe place... but now..."
Her voice trailed off, and something about her tone was rubbing Caerwyn the wrong way. "Good," he said, taking her hand and leading her toward the truck. "Because Seelie or not, there is no way I wanted to stay here."
"I never thought I would agree with a Seelie Lord," sniffed Aerenyx as he opened the passenger side door. "But I agree. I don’t want to be here longer than absolutely necessary. I might put up with two Seelie High Lords, but anymore and I am going to break out in a rash or something."
The tinkling sound of Sera’s laughter echoed around the five of them, and any linger tension or concern about the future had completely disappeared.
It was settled. Now that everything was done, the four men were going to spend the rest of their lives trying to get Sera to recreate that sound again.
"So," announced Psycho, getting into the back seat and making himself comfortable. "If we aren’t staying here, where are we going?"
"Does it really matter?" asked Caerwyn as he finished buckling Sera into her seat and closing the door. "As long as we are together, anywhere can be home. I say we drive until we stop."
"No," replied Ashkar, getting into the driver’s seat and glaring at Caerwyn. "That leaves too many variables open. We don’t know where is safe here. Country M hasn’t been all that hospitable since we crashed into it. There are too many people for the end of the world. Not to mention government agencies, scientists, labs, stupid zombies, mutated zombies, homesteaders, red-necks, and people with guns who have no business owning guns. No. We are not going to pick a random direction and go that way. Absolutely not."
"You know," purred Psycho when everyone was in the truck and Ashkar was driving down the only street in Perdition and into the forest. Not a single one of them looked back as they merged back onto the main highway. "We do know a place where most of the people should have died. I mean, most of them wouldn’t be able to survive an actual flood and then ice age... right?"
"You mean we head back to Country N?" asked Aerenyx, cocking his head to the side as he looked out of the window. "The insane one does have a point. There wouldn’t be that many humans to annoy us. Not to mention we are perfectly suited to survive decades in the freezing cold. Not to mention we can always throw Psycho out if we want takeout."
There was a stretch of silence as everyone became lost in their thoughts.
"Then it’s settled," said Sera softly after a moment. "Let’s go home."