Elements

Chapter 6

Lyla

            Lyla reached for Sean’s arm just before he slammed his head against the car window. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted quite suddenly. She barely managed to keep him from hitting his head, and possibly giving himself a concussion. What was going on? What had just happened? Lyla had never been this exhausted - or confused for that matter – in her life. It was a mental, as well as bone-deep physical exhaustion. Her brain wasn’t functioning right. It felt like ages since she had brought Joey’s soup to him and found him missing.

            Double-checking that Sean was all right, Lyla turned to Aaron and saw that he was still staring around confusedly. “Hey” she said tentatively, quietly. “Didn’t you hear him? We have to go!” There was no response for several seconds and then Aaron seemed to shake himself and look at her for the first time since he had awoken.

            “Drive…” he said slowly, “Right… drive. Okay.” Saying it aloud seemed to help him understand it because suddenly his eyes widened and he reached for the key to restart the car. After a couple tries – and several muttered oaths – the car finally started. He carefully put it in reverse and slowly backed away from the tree that could have killed them all. Lyla breathed a sigh of relief once they were back on the roadway again, and immediately turned to check that Joey and Sean were okay. They seemed to be fine.

            While Aaron drove, Lyla turned around in her seat to look for the things that were following them. The seemed to be keeping the same distance as they had before, no more than about fifty feet behind the car at any time. But there were even more of them now, if that was possible. There must be at least a hundred of them following the car.

            After about five more minutes of driving at a steady, but careful, pace, Aaron pulled the car onto a dirt road on the side of the highway. He drove like a maniac in order to lose the things following them. He swerved around trees with so much skill it was like he wasn’t even looking.

            After going a couple hundred yards into the forest, he swerved the car into an underground parking garage that appeared so quickly that Lyla barely had time to figure out what it was, before the door closed behind their car.

            Aaron sighed in relief the second the door closed. He smoothly pulled the beat up BMW into one of the empty spots. Lyla stared in awe: there must be at least 30 cars in here, and they were all luxury cars. How many people lived here? Lyla envisioned hoards of people running around in sync, as if at some kind of boot camp, training to be hunters.  Her heard skipped a beat. Surely someone would have noticed something like that? With a jolt Lyla realized these people could just eliminate anyone that discovered them. She swallowed in fear. Was that the fate that awaited Joey and herself?

            Aaron swiftly opened the car door and ran over to some kind of door leading to what Lyla assumed was the rest of the Academy. Lyla didn’t know what to do so she just decided to sit there and take in her surroundings. She wanted to be able to escape if she had to, but she didn’t see any kind of exit besides the door Aaron was standing in front of. What had happened to the entrance they came through? It was gone, without even a trace of it left. Even if she did somehow manage to escape, where would she go? Where could she take Joey when he was like this?

            Aaron pressed a button and spoke briefly into an intercom. After several seconds he jogged back over to the car and reached his head in saying, “Do you think you can grab the boy? I’m gonna take Sean and Boss is on her way to carry Cam upstairs.” Lyla nodded curtly and reached for Joey, carefully wrapping her arms around his shoulders and waist, avoiding the scratches on his torso. She didn’t understand what was going on at all, but she decided to just do what she was told for now without asking any questions, at least until she was in a position where she could get some answers. Aaron pushed the driver’s seat forward and helped her get Joey out the door, holding him while Lyla climbed out of the backseat. She finally escaped the car with a huff and reached for Joey again, taking him carefully into her arms. She walked over towards the door Aaron had approached and – not knowing what else to do - waited for him to get Sean out of the backseat.