Free Hidden (Book 1) by Megg Jensen

You don’t like holding hands with dead
guys?” he asked her, joking. It had been a long time since Bastian had teased
her like that. It almost felt like old times. Almost.
    “Can anyone else hear us?” Tressa shouted
again. They’d only taken a step. Hazel wasn’t far away. It would give her
comfort to know they were safe. Bastian and Connor shouted the names of
Connor’s children, but there was no response.
    “Let’s move ahead,” Connor finally said.
    “Can you see anything?” Tressa asked.
    “Not unless you count dark mist right in front
of my eyeballs,” Bastian said. Tressa imagined him squinting, trying to see
more just like she was.
    “So now what?” Connor asked. “Do you think this
is always what happens? Step into the fog and wander forever in blindness until
you die?”
    Tressa shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    “Let’s keep walking.” Bastian tugged on
Tressa’s hand and she yanked on Connor’s.
    “Don’t let go,” she said to both of them.
Placing one foot in front of the other, she staggered behind Bastian’s gentle
pull. But Connor’s fingers started to slip out of hers. She squeezed, trying to
get a good grip on him. “Connor! Don’t!”
    “I can’t. It hurts. I can’t move any further.”
His voice came out strangled, as if he couldn’t get enough air to finish his
thought.
    Tressa tugged hard on Bastian. “Don’t move,”
she commanded him, but he continued to tug her forward.
    “Something’s pushing me forward and I can’t
stop.” His fingers started to slip out of hers too.
    Tears streamed down Tressa’s cheeks. They
couldn’t step into the fog, experience the euphoria of
still being alive, only to have some unseen force tear them apart. A poking at
her back reminded her of her hidden guest. Its talons clawed inside the bag,
shredding Tressa’s back into fleshy strips as it struggled to get free.
    The pain was too much to bear. Tressa let go of
both Bastian and Connor, blindly reaching behind her to unhook the toggle
holding the bag shut. If she didn’t, Nerak would claw
her to a bloody pulp.
    With a beating of wings behind her head, the
owl flew free of the bag. Tressa fell to the ground, weak, alone, and afraid.
“Bastian? Connor?” She cried out for both of them, but heard nothing in return.
They were lost to her. Was this how it was to be, then? How long would she last
alone? How long until the fog claimed her, taking her last breath from her
chest?
    She called out once more for Bastian and
Connor, but was only greeted by the oppressive silence of the fog. Maybe she
was already dead, lost to the ether in a blanket of blindness and solitude.
    A small beak nipped at her back, then the
weight of the owl pushed down on her shoulder. So she wasn’t alone. Tressa
reached up, ruffling Nerak’s feathers. If nothing
else, she believed death hadn’t claimed her. Yet.
    “What can we do now?” she asked it. The owl
responded with a hoot. Warmth spread, a power unlike any she'd experienced
permeated her whole body. A faint purple glow bathed the ground in front of
her, illuminating her surroundings for the first time.
    Trees stood firmly, asserting their claim on
the forest no one had successfully traversed in almost eighty years. Dense fog
wrapped its tendrils around emaciated tree branches reaching out to each other
in a silent cry for help. Eerily silent, the forest was devoid of all life.
Tressa shivered, more afraid now than before.
    She rose to her feet, stretching out her full height,
still feeling dwarfed by the trees. "What can I do with this?" She still not sure exactly what she was experiencing.
    Find. Love. Use. Magic.
    Tressa started and looked around. There was no
one but her and the owl on her shoulder. "Was
that you?"
    The owl tilted its head. Nerak . Good owl. Love. The owl bobbed its head up and down, nuzzling its
beak into Tressa's neck.
    "Granna told me stories about
communicating with animals, but I never believed it. No one in my village