Jennifer Armentrout - Apollyon

Aiden checked his phone. “Nope.”

I wet my lips as my gaze fell back to the scorched vehicles. My heart pounded and my head ached. “There must be a lot of firebug pures in there…”

“No doubt,” Aiden muttered, both brows rising.

Solos appeared on Aiden’s side of the car, running a hand through the dark strands of hair that had escaped his ponytail. In the shadows, his scar was less visible. “You think the Covenant did this?” He gestured at the vehicles. “Their version of torch security?”

“It’s possible,” Aiden replied, but I wasn’t sure he believed it.

“I can’t get hold of them, so I’m assuming you can’t, either, right?” When Aiden nodded, Solos folded his hands behind his head and stretched so that his back bowed. “I guess we can make it through.”

“We can from what I can see.” Aiden sat back, thrumming his fingers off the wheel. “We’ll have to go slow.”

As I watched the two Sentinels, I knew in my core that Aiden and Solos didn’t want to do this. We were blind to what lay ahead. It could be a murderous band of grizzly bears, or a legion of Sentinels waiting to make S’mores out of us. We just didn’t know.

Solos sighed and dropped his arms. “Well, I guess we do this.”

“We really don’t have any other option.” Aiden shifted the gears back into drive. “Let’s do this.”

With a curt nod, Solos loped back to his vehicle. I squirmed in my seat as the Hummer lurched forward. Easing around the torched cars wasn’t an easy feat. It was like driving a boat through a china shop. Thank the gods that Aiden was driving because I would’ve plowed through the wreckage on the first narrow turn.

More burnt-out cars lay by the side of the road every so many feet, and with each one we passed, the scorch marks looked fresher, the acrid smell thicker… as if each time someone had tried to reach the University, they’d made it a little farther than the group before them. And farther up, deep orange flames crawled across the hood of a Hummer, licking at the smoke-filled air.

Oh, this was so not good.

“How will they know we’re friends?” Deacon asked, thinking along the same lines as me. He leaned between the seats, face pale. “Aiden, we should stop—”

Aiden suddenly did stop, but not because of what Deacon was saying. Debris was strewed across the access road, choking the lane. As far as I could see were scattered skeletons of cars. Many of them still smoldered, glowing hellish red in the pre-dawn dark. The apocalyptical landscape was something straight out of nightmares.

“Gods,” Aiden muttered darkly.

My stomach twisted into knots as I undid my seatbelt. “This isn’t good.”

No one said anything for several moments, and then Marcus spoke, “We’re going to have to walk it from here.”

“How many miles?” I asked.

“We’re about three miles out.” Aiden killed the engine, leaving the headlights on.

All of us climbed out of the Hummer, casting anxious looks at all the burnt-out cars surrounding us, feeling like we’d been driving around with a giant bull’s-eye on us.

Quickly, we weaponed-up with daggers, sickle blades, and Glocks. As I strapped a gun on, I looked over my shoulder and saw that the crew with Solos was doing the same thing.

We looked like we were preparing for war as we came together between the two Hummers. In a way, we were—we had been this whole time. We were at war.

A chill suddenly snaked its way under my skin. We stood in a circle, the nine of us, silent with the exception of titanium clips clicking into place, daggers snapping onto our sides. We were nine. But somehow—in a way I couldn’t explain but knew to be the truth—I knew we weren’t going to return as nine. At that cold realization, I looked at the faces of those around me. Some had been virtual strangers, others enemies until recently, and a few I’d considered friends from day one.

And then there was Aiden.

I took a breath, wishing I could forget the fatalistic feeling taking up residence around my heart. But the somber faces of those around me pretty much told me that I wasn’t the only one who was thinking the same thing at that moment.

As a unit, the nine of us turned. Ghastly, flickering flames lit the road ahead The weight of the daggers and guns was sobering and grounding. We had no idea what waited ahead of us, other than the big, fat unknown, and most likely a big, fat kick in the face. The gravity of that was killing me—killing us .

I squared my shoulders. “Release the Kraken!”

Several sets of eyes settled on me.

“What?” I gave a lopsided shrug. “I’ve always wanted to yell that since I saw that movie. Seemed like the perfect moment.”

Aiden laughed.

“See! That’s why I love him,” I told the group. “He laughs at the stupid crap that comes out of my mouth.”

In response, Aiden leaned over and pressed his lips against my temple. “Keep talking about loving me,” he murmured, “and we’re going to scar some of these guys for life.”

I flushed beet red.

Someone cleared their throat. Another groaned, but I was grinning as I lifted my gaze back to the road. Jokes aside, everyone was waiting for one person to take the first step, so I did. And then we all did.

Our eyes adapted to the darkness, but I stayed beside Aiden, who stuck close to Deacon and Luke, as we carefully made our way around the shells of vehicles. I didn’t look inside them, absolutely refused to, because there was a certain stench in the air…

The night was eerily silent with exception of our footsteps. In South Dakota, I expected to hear the chilling call of the mountain lion, the scurry of tiny creatures, and the squawking of birds that could probably snatch up a baby, but there was nothing.

Dead silence.

The creeped-out vibe didn’t go away after we started making quick progress, covering well over two miles. The destroyed cars littering the roadway didn’t help. There were so many of them.

“Gods,” Lea whispered, stopping beside one of the charbroiled piles. “Oh, my gods…”

I told myself not to look at what so obviously horrified her, but I rarely listened to that little voice of common sense. I turned and almost lost the Skittles.

Behind the charred wheel of a Hummer was a body… or what was left of one. Burnt, blackened fingers still clutched the steering wheel. Nothing else about the body was distinguishable. It could’ve been a male, female, or a hydra. And it wasn’t alone. Charred remains were in the passenger seat…and in the rear seats.

Someone sucked in a sharp breath. “The plates are crispy, but these are New York tags.”

“Gods,” someone else said.

People were moving backward, checking the plates on cars that’d received less damage, but I already knew in my heart. These weren’t Lucian’s Sentinels coming to fight. These were people—innocent pures and halfs—seeking sanctuary.

In the furthest seat of the Hummer, some of the clothing remained, just bits and pieces of singed material, but the color was a deep forest-green. Council robes, I realized slowly.

Mother-freaking Council robes.

It dawned on me suddenly that it was a really good thing that we’d gotten out of those damn Hummers, because these people—they’d been trapped. And this whole road was nothing but a graveyard.

“We need to get out of here,” Aiden ordered, and my heart dropped. “We need to go now.”

Lea whirled around. “But where are we going to go? This has—”

A ball of fiery light split the darkness ahead, casting an eerie glow over the debris and the burnt, twisted ground. It flew past the car I stood by, smacking into a small juniper tree, enveloping it in flames and thick, bitter smoke.