The roots embedded beneath my skin pulsed faintly, a dull thrum in sync with my heartbeat. It didn’t hurt anymore, but I could feel them—really feel them, like they were a part of me now.

  With a slow exhale, I turned back toward the house and began to walk. The minivan sat idly on the road, its headlights cutting through the darkness and casting elongated shadows across the gravel. The others were waiting, just as they had promised. It seemed I had been gone for less than fifteen minutes, though the weight of the moment had made it feel like an eternity.

  I rolled my shoulders, wincing at the odd stiffness in my joints, then forced myself into a jog. The world felt different, sharper somehow. My footfalls were lighter, my breathing more controlled. Even the air tasted… fuller, like I could sense something beneath the surface of it.

  By the time I reached the van, I’d managed to school my expression into something neutral. I yanked the door open and climbed inside, shutting it behind me.

  “Took you long enough,” Kate muttered, glancing at the clock on the dashboard. “That was pushing fifteen.”

  “Everything alright?” Samantha asked, her tone even.

  “Yeah,” I lied smoothly. “Just had to grab a few things.”

  Helena arched a brow, clearly unconvinced. “Uh-huh. And where are they then?”

  Shit. I did not think this through.

  I looked down at my hands and not only were they empty, but also illuminated far better in the light of the car than the in the twilight outside. What did it matter? Apparently the roots in my hands were a lot more visible in brighter lighting.

  “Max,” Diana spoke up for the first time, her voice quiet but firm. “Your hands.”

  I froze. My fingers were still shaking slightly, and worse—thin, dark lines ran beneath my skin, branching from my wrists like veins made of wood.

  I swallowed hard and curled my hands into fists, hoping they wouldn’t notice just how deep those lines went.

  Kate let out a low whistle. “Damn. What exactly did you ‘grab’ back there?”

  Samantha didn’t look away. Neither did Helena.

  For a long moment, the van was silent except for the faint rumble of the engine.

  Then, finally, Samantha exhaled and turned back to the front. “Whatever. For now, we need to get back before it gets any darker. But we will talk about this later.”

  Kate didn’t need to be told twice. She threw the van into gear and pulled away from my house, the headlights bouncing off the trees as we merged back onto the road. The supplies in the back shifted, wood creaking against metal as we rumbled over a pothole.

  I let out a slow breath, trying to ignore the way my hands still tingled, and the way the others subtly kept their hands near their handguns. They might’ve dropped the subject for now, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet—literally or figuratively.

  The van rumbled along the narrow forest road, the headlights slicing through the thick darkness. The trees loomed on either side, their gnarled branches clawing at the edges of the light. The air inside the van was tense, heavy with unspoken questions and sidelong glances. I kept my hands tucked under my thighs, hoping to hide the roots.

  We’d been driving for about five minutes when it happened.

  Kate slammed on the brakes, and the van skidded to a halt, sending all of us lurching forward. My seatbelt dug into my chest, and I heard Samantha curse under her breath.

  “What the hell, Kate?” Helena snapped.

  Kate didn’t answer. She just pointed ahead. My stomach dropped as I followed her gaze.

  A massive tree lay across the road, its trunk thick and gnarled, its branches sprawled like skeletal fingers. It hadn’t been there on our way in to the house, now it was blocking the road back.

  “That’s… not good,” Diana said quietly, breaking the silence.

  “No kidding,” Kate muttered, shifting the van into park. She leaned forward, squinting through the windshield. “It’s too big to drive over. We’re gonna have to move it.”

  “Move it?” Helena echoed, incredulous. “Do you see the size of that thing? It’s a tree, not a twig.”

  “We have a chainsaw back at the house just for situations like this one, happens often when living in a forest. We just need to drive back for it.” I said.

  Kate groaned, throwing the van into reverse. “Fine. But this is already taking way longer than I wanted. Let’s just hope nothing else decides to fall while we’re—”

  Her words were cut off by a deafening *crack* behind us. My heart leapt into my throat as I whipped my head around. Another tree, just as massive as the first, crashed down across the road, its branches snapping and splintering as it landed. The van rocked slightly from the impact, and for a moment, no one spoke.

  We were trapped.

  “You were saying?” Helena said dryly, though her voice wavered slightly.

  Kate muttered something under her breath, her hands tightening on the steering wheel. “Alright, new plan. We’re not moving those trees. So, what now?”

  Samantha unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for her handgun, her movements calm but deliberate. “Get your handguns out. Lock the doors. There is no way that those trees fell over randomly..”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Before anyone could respond, Helena pointed out the window. “Look. At the base of the tree behind us.”

  I followed her gaze, squinting through the darkness. At first, I saw nothing but shadows. Then, movement. Small, hunched figures darted around the base of the fallen tree, their eyes glinting in the van’s taillights. They were no taller than my knee, their skin a mottled greenish-gray, and their movements quick and jerky, like insects.

  Now that I knew where to focus, I could feel their putrid little auras, now a lot more intensely than ever before the splicing. How did I not notice them sooner? I really need to test out my limits someday.

  “Bloody gremlins,” I said, voice exasperated. “I’ve seen them before.”

  “Gremlins?” Kate echoed, her tone incredulous. “You mean, like, the little troublemakers from the movies?”

  “Not exactly,” I replied, my eyes never leaving the figures outside. “These ones are real bastards, but shouldn’t be anything we can’t handle. They’re small, weak, and stupid.”

  As if on cue, an arrow shot into the windshield, punching through and getting stuck into it when the tip was only an inch away from Kate’s face.

  Her hands gripped the wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Weak and stupid, my ass!”

  The gremlins outside let out high-pitched chittering noises, their beady eyes glowing in the darkness. More of them emerged from the underbrush, their wiry frames skittering toward the van.

  Samantha moved first. She rolled down the passenger window just enough to poke her handgun through and fired. The gunshot roared in the confined space, and one of the gremlins jerked back, a spray of dark blood misting the air. The others shrieked, scattering for cover.

  Helena followed suit, popping the lock on her door just enough to squeeze her arm through and fire off a few rounds. Her shots went wide at first, but one clipped a gremlin in the leg, sending it tumbling into the dirt.

  Kate gritted her teeth and grabbed her gun, rolling down her window just enough to get a clear shot. She squeezed the trigger twice. Another gremlin fell, its small body twitching before going still.

  Diana was the most precise. She leaned back against her seat, braced her wrist against the doorframe, and squeezed off a single, perfectly aimed shot. A gremlin’s head snapped back, and it collapsed.

  All of them were fighting. Defending the van.

  And me?

  I just sat there.

  I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t even know how to use one. My pulse pounded in my ears as I gripped the seat beneath me, useless.

  CRACK!

  My window shattered from a well placed arrow.

  Shards of glass sprayed across my lap as a gremlin tried to lunge inside, its jagged claws reaching for me.

  “Out! Everyone out!” Kate shouted.

  The doors flew open, and the four women scrambled out, guns raised.

  I kicked my door open, sending the gremlin flying from the impact. How were there so many of them?

  The moment I step outside I feel something latch onto my leg from below the van, biting into it, as if the bastard was waiting for me to step outside. I fell over from the pain and the surprise, hitting the dirt road hard, my palms scraping against gravel.

  Around me, gunfire rang out as Kate, Samantha, Helena, and Diana took up defensive positions around the van, two on each side, picking off the gremlins one by one. Unfortunately they are busy with their own targets and don’t see me scrambling on the ground trying to rip off the gremlin on my leg. Bloody hell it hurt. How was I supposed to rip it off??

  I kick and I kick, but all it does is make its needle-like teeth scrape my flesh and sink deeper inside. I kicked wildly, but it held firm, shaking its head like a rabid dog trying to tear off a chunk of flesh.

  My vision swam. My leg burned.

  I grabbed the bastards head with both hands so it at least stopped shaking its head around so much, and the moment I did I felt something.

  What was the difference between the aura of the lightning lichen with which I tried to do alchemy back at the church, and the aura of the gremlin? Why did both have auras? As far as Bryndrel told me, Lightning lichen has the essence of lightning inside of it. Wouldn’t that mean the gremlin here on my leg also has some kind of essence inside of it? And if it’s essence, what if I tried some alchemy?

  As if waiting for it, the roots in my skin pulsed. Even though I couldn’t see any, it felt like roots extended out of my fingertips and plunged into the skull of the gremlin. For a moment nothing happened. But then I tried stirring them.

  The gremlin shrieked.

  Its body convulsed violently, its grip on my leg entirely forgotten.

  The gremlin collapsed onto the dirt, twitching, its limbs jerking spasmodically. It was still alive. I gasped, stumbling back. My hands shook. The roots beneath my skin throbbed.

  Breathing heavily, I looked down at my leg. The wound was deep, blood soaking through my pants. I tried to get up, but the pain was too much.

  Now that I had the time to look around I realized that the gunshots had already stopped at some point. The gremlin writhing on the ground next to me was the last one.

  Kate walked up to me and put a bullet in its head, the sharp crack putting an end to this fight.

  Helena was the first to kneel beside me, her brows furrowed as she took in the state of my leg. “Shit, Max. That little bastard got you good.”

  I let out a shaky breath, still trying to wrap my head around what I had just done to that gremlin. The roots beneath my skin felt like they were still writhing. “Yeah, no kidding.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the others. “Diana, grab the first aid kit from the van. Kate, keep an eye out in case more of those things show up. Samantha, help me here.”

  Diana moved quickly, darting back to the van and rummaging through the supplies. She returned moments later with a small white kit, which she handed to Helena. Samantha crouched beside us, her expression grim but focused.

  Helena opened the kit and pulled out a roll of gauze and a clean cloth. She pressed the cloth firmly against the wound, applying pressure to stem the flow of blood.

  “Hold still,” Helena said, her tone leaving no room for argument. She worked quickly, her hands steady as she wrapped the gauze around my leg, securing the cloth in place. The pressure was uncomfortable, but I could already feel the bleeding slowing.

  “Thanks,” I managed to say, my voice strained.

  Helena didn’t respond immediately, her attention still on the wound. When she finally looked up, her eyes were hard. “You’re lucky it didn’t hit an artery. But we need to get you somewhere safe so we can clean and stitch this properly.”

  Samantha exhaled sharply, tucking her gun back into its holster. “Alright, we need to move.” Her gaze flickered to the fallen trees, then back to me. “We’re not going to make it to town like this. Max clearly can’t walk on that leg.”

  “So, back to his house, then?” Diana asked, dusting off her jacket.

  Kate frowned, glancing toward the treeline. “It’s closer than town, but is it safe?”

  “It should be good enough, the windows are boarded up and we put locks everywhere.”

  Kate rolled her shoulders and walked over to me. “Alright, up you go.”

  I blinked. “Wait, what?”

  Before I could protest, she crouched down, slung my arm over her shoulder, and lifted me onto her back like I weighed nothing.

  Kate just smirked. “Hold on tight. We’re getting the hell out of here.”

  With that, she started walking, and the others fell in step around her. My leg throbbed, my head spun, and the roots in my skin still pulsed with something other—but for now, I just held on as Kate carried me back toward the house.