Free Descendant by Eva Truesdale

didn’t—although I did have a pretty good guess. As Vanessa turned back to Kael, I threw a quick glance toward my sister’s room. The blinds were inched up just high enough for her to peek out.
    “Well this is wonderful,” Vanessa said.
    I turned back to the two of them.
    “They’re just the police, Vanessa,” Kael replied calmly. “We can handle them.”
    Vanessa’s eyes went wide. “Um— no. No. We’re not handling anybody! Don’t you think our kind have had enough publicity over the past few weeks?” The pitch of her voice was getting higher, like it had when she was upset at the lake the other day. Kael seemed to find it amusing.
    “Relax. I was kidding,” he said calmly. But the look on his face was clearly a disappointed one.
    “They’re coming,” Vanessa said suddenly as two car doors slammed in succession.
    “Then we’re leaving,” Kael said.
    “What about…”
    I felt Vanessa’s eyes on me, and for the mil ionth time that night I considered running back into the house and bolting the door shut behind me. But again, something kept me rooted in place. Curiosity? Insanity? I think it might’ve been a little of both.
    “She’s coming with us,” Kael said.
    I barely had time to protest before Vanessa was no less than an inch from my face. “I’m real y, real y, real y sorry about this, Alex. I—”
    “Vanessa!”
    “We’re coming, Kael!” Vanessa screeched. Then she bent down and swept my legs out from underneath me.
    “Hey! What are you doing? I know how to run!”
    “Not nearly fast enough, I’m afraid,” Vanessa replied.
    I might’ve argued, except at that moment she shot off across the yard, and the wind was rushing into my face so fast it was impossible to even open my mouth to speak.
     

CHAPTER 6: elias
    “Will you please put me down?” I said for about the tenth time. “I’m pretty sure we can slow down now—there’s no way they’re going to catch up to us.” Several miles into our trek, I’d insisted on switching to piggy-back mode as opposed to being carried, and so it was from my place on Vanessa’s back that I saw her shake her head ‘no’.
    “I’m sorry Alex, but we just need to—”
    “Make sure,” I interrupted, finishing the reply she’d given for about the tenth time. “I know,” I groaned. “But we must’ve gone like ten miles by now—I doubt we’re even within county limits anymore.”
    “You’re exactly right,” Kael said as he came up beside us.
    “We crossed into Avery County about ten minutes ago. But we’ve gone more like twenty-five miles.”
    “How are you guys so fast?” I asked.
    “How are you so calm?” Kael replied. “You realize you’re being kidnapped?”
    “Kael…” Vanessa began, throwing him a sideways glare.
    “Well ?” he asked, ignoring Vanessa and looking at me with a curious gleam in his eye.
    For a moment I couldn’t focus on his question— I was too busy being amazed by his ability to run so fast and still avoid running into any trees, even as he kept his eyes focused on me. It was a fair question though, and now that he mentioned it I realized I had absolutely no idea how to answer it.
    Why was I calm? Any normal person would’ve yelled for those police, or at least tried to run—though I realized now, of course, that I couldn’t have outran them anyway. Still , I could’ve tried. It wasn’t like me to give in without a fight.
    But fighting these two had never even occurred to me. I knew it was stupid. I needed to know what was going on though, and I was so desperate to get answers at this point that I think I would’ve gone just about anywhere with them.
    Besides, even if I had managed to get away, something told me all of these strange people probably weren’t going to just leave me alone.
    “Answer my question first,” I said to Kael. I didn’t want to try and explain the logic behind my calmness to him. It barely made sense to me.
    “Vanessa,” he said, turning away. “We’re