Chapter 47

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Ellery

"Are you coming?" Ryker demanded.

I tore my attention away from the trees and looked at Ryker. While I'd been examining the trees, he'd walked fifty feet away before stopping to wait for me.

"Yes."

Unable to resist, I gently patted the tree before hurrying to catch up with him. I was only a few feet away from him when a subtle shift moved the earth beneath my feet.

Frowning, I glanced around while searching for the source of the vibration but didn't see anything. When I looked at Ryker, he seemed unfazed.

Am I imagining it?

I tried to convince myself of this, but I couldn't deny the strange shaking under my feet. Ryker showed no signs of having felt it.

"Let's go," he said.

"Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

Before I could reply, the earth beside me split open. Dirt spilled to the ground in a cascading waterfall as a long-fingered hand emerged from the soil.

It twisted as it sought to break free of its earthly confines while reaching toward the sky… stretching toward me. At first, I was so astonished by its emergence that I could only stand and gawk as I tried to process the fact a corpse was rising from the ground.

No, not a corpse and not a hand… roots!

The palm of the handlike structure flattened against the ground as, a second later, another emerged. I was so focused on the strange creature that I didn't realize another was rising a few feet away until a cracking sound drew my attention.

"Ellery!" Ryker shouted.

That was when I saw another emerging from the ground between us. I stepped back before stopping myself from getting any closer to the trees. I didn't understand what was happening, but I sensed they had something to do with it.

Turning my head, I discovered another behind me. It used its stringy hands to pull itself higher until its head emerged.

Earth spilled from the sharp tip on top of its head. Long, thin roots wiggled in the air as they protruded from the point, but those roots wouldn't stop this thing from spearing someone through.

As the thing continued to tear itself from the earth, it exposed its tall, thin body that matched the bark of the trees surrounding me. When its head turned toward me, two trunk pieces peeled away to reveal black spaces where eyes should be. No eyeballs filled the empty places, but I knew it could see me.

Its mouth unfurled, and from within, another root emerged. It slithered toward me as the ones on its head and hands did the same.

My heart raced as a cold, clammy sweat coated my body. Oh shit. Oh shit.

The two words ran in a loop through my mind as every instinct I had screamed at me to run. I had nowhere to go.

I couldn't open a portal; they were too close and would only follow me into it. Plus, they'd be on me before I got it open.

It felt like it took forever for them to emerge, but it was only seconds before they surrounded me. For some reason, they had decided I was a menace.

Or perhaps this was how the trees fed. They lured their unsuspecting victims beneath their boughs, wrapped their roots around them, and dragged them beneath the earth to devour their carcasses.

My hands instinctively went for an arrow and my bow, the weapons I was best with, but I hesitated. I didn't know what those weapons could do to stop these things.

I suspected they didn't have a heartbeat. Maybe there was a brain I could puncture, but I believed their real thought process came from the trees themselves.

I shuddered at the possibility as the first root brushed my arm, and an excited gurgling sound issued from all the creatures. Overhead, the leaves rustled as the stillness encapsulating the trees since our arrival broke.

I'd always loved the sound trees made when they swayed in the breeze, their branches clicking together and their leaves whispering. The sound these things issued was nothing like those comforting noises and everything like the dead rising to destroy.

My shock gave way to survival instincts as I slapped the twisting root aside, lifted my hand, and unleashed a torrent of lightning into the thing. I couldn't use my bow and arrows here, and while the dagger at my side could cause some damage, it wouldn't be enough to fend these creatures off.

Panic fueled my ability, as did the training Ryker had put me through for the past couple of weeks. I'd grown stronger, which was evident as my lightning slammed into the creature, lifted it off the ground, and flung it backward.

The tree monster didn't go far as roots tethered its feet to the earth. The rustle of the leaves intensified, though no breeze stirred the humid July night.

That can't be a good sign .

Before I could move again, roots from one of the creatures behind me ensnared my arms and pulled me backward. As I drew on the electricity in the earth, lightning crackled across my fingertips, and the strange creatures dragged me backward.

Overhead, the branches unraveled from each other.