BEFORE THE FALL - A Dark Breed Novella Page 0,9
to make her feel better. He was trying to save her life. That was far more than she could ask for.
“Shh . . .” he covered the earpiece with his hand and listened intently for several seconds. “We’re being ordered to land in Daytona.” He pointed over his shoulder. “Inside the table is a key that will unlock the shelves at the back of the plane. See if there’s anything you’re comfortable using. When we land, I want you armed.”
“I have my gun.”
“I told you, it won’t do you any good. You need silver to weaken most of them long enough to kill them.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“And Shanna?”
“Hmm?” She was struggling with her seatbelt, struggling to remember how to stand the hell up.
“Drink some water. Eat a sandwich. We’ll have to land in about ten minutes.”
It took Shanna what felt like an eternity to pull herself together and unlock the weapons case at the back of the plane. The water had helped, but the sandwich was sitting heavy in her stomach and she wished she hadn’t forced it down. But now, the cop in her was coming alive at the sight of all the weapons in front of her. She instinctively reached for a set of knuckle rings on the lowest shelf and pocketed them, their sharp spikes stabbing her legs through the denim.
“What else am I supposed to grab?” she called out, gravity shifting as the plane dropped altitude. They must be getting close to Daytona. Shanna wished they weren’t. She felt safer up here than she did on the ground, where the world wasn’t her world anymore.
“Anything you know how to use!”
“What about you?”
“I have my own.”
She grabbed a shotgun and a box of shells, then fisted a couple of daggers and something that looked like a foot-long nail. She found the bag he’d been carrying beside the guitar case and crammed the weapons inside. “I know you said guns won’t work, but I grabbed a shotgun anyway.”
“It’ll work. The shells are silver.”
She worked her way back to the cockpit. “What’s with the guitar?”
“What about it?”
“You never told me you played.”
“I don’t.”
“Oh.” She wrung her hands together and sat down.
“It’s only an hour to St. Augustine from Daytona. We should be okay, right?”
He answered with a smile that wasn’t quite reflected in his eyes. She knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t offer her any false promises. So he kept quiet.
Shanna realized she’d never been more afraid in her life. Not even last year when she’d had a gun pressed to her temple and a very noble stranger named Zach had distracted the perp long enough for her to take him down.
“Time to land?” she asked.
“Either that or risk being shot down by a nation in panic.”
Chapter Five
8:16 p.m.
3 hours and 44 minutes before the fall . . .
The minute they touched down in Daytona, a dozen armed men rushed the plane and hurried Shanna and Zach off the runway. The country was officially in red-alert mode, and all aircrafts were to be either grounded or shot out of the sky. The government was treating the situation like a terrorist attack, and in a sense, they weren’t wrong. But all the red alerts in the world weren’t going to protect against an enemy they didn’t know how to fight.
If Zach knew anything about the Order, they were quickly pulling shit together to keep the humans as safe as possible. That meant bringing officials in on the truth and trying to temper the reactions of the world as they discovered demons and gods weren’t just creatures of myth. They were real.
As one of the security guards rushed them toward the exit, Zach adjusted his hold on the guitar case and weapon bag, and grabbed Shanna’s hand, unwilling to risk losing her in the crowd outside the gate.
“All of Florida being evacuated or just the south?” he asked the guard.
The overweight man grunted and fumbled with the gate locks. “All of Florida is being urged north. Don’t know what’s happening, dude, but Florida don’t get earthquakes. This is fucked up.”
He had no idea.
“But if earthquakes are happening everywhere, where is everyone supposed to go?” Shanna asked, turning her hand so her fingers linked in Zach’s.
“Don’t know. Sent my family to Carolina an hour ago. Doesn’t look like much is happening there yet.”
As the guard shoved them through the gate and locked them out, he walked away grumbling, “Just so fucked up . . .”
They started toward the terminal. A golf cart