Shelland Conall has always believed herself to be ordinary, and she's never had reason to suspect otherwise. Not until an enigmatic stranger seems to show up at every corner, and he's claiming to be the one that saved her life. Thing is, Shelland do...
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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I come to at a rotted wood door. My skin is hot, sticking to plastic as I push myself up from a blue tarp. The foul stench of manure attacks my nose and I cringe, biting back the vomit stirring in my gut.
I groan. My body aches in places I never thought possible. My joints pop as I stretch out my arms, trying to shake some energy back into them.
Damn, I need a Redbull.
Though a little unstable at first, I manage to stand up and survey the area. The sky's still grey and snow coats the ground, but bits of green poke through it in patches, as if the snow started melting overnight.
I take a few steps forward and the nausea hits me like a freight train. I push up against the wall, closing my eyes as the wave subsides. It's like my equilibrium evaporated with the snow.
Where the hell am I?
A bit off in the distance, there's a fence made of wood and barbed wire that rolls from the edge of this barn and disappears over the hill. Past that, all I see is open sky and a few black dots indicating either animals or people.
When the first door handle I find doesn't budge, I make my way around the building until I find another latch that does. It takes my sight a moment to adjust to the dim, the only illumination coming from the broken window to my right.
The barn is mostly empty, save an old lawnmower and some horse equipment stacked on top a dresser. I move toward it, quickly checking each section until I come across a pair of forgotten jeans in the bottom drawer. They smell like old dirt and have oil stains where there aren't holes, but they're enough coverage to let me venture without shifting again.
There's an old winter coat on a hook near the door and a pair of rubber boots hidden below it. I put them both on quickly, and make my way from the barn, taking a left down the driveway that parts the forest.
I don't I recognize my surroundings. The trees, the fields...hell, even the air is different here. There's nothing familiar about this place. There's not even a trace of magic in the air. I can't really say I'm disappointed in that, though.
Last thing I remember was shifting. Shifting in the cold, dark forest near the school. Was that yesterday? Two days ago? I've blacked out after shifting before, but the longest I've gone rogue was three days, tops. If I knew how long it's been this time, I'd debate shifting again, just to get the hell out of dodge faster. But then I remember the excruciating pain of that first Elite shift, and I resort to sticking to the path instead.
I listen intently as I walk, searching for any sort of highway sounds or low-flying planes, but all I hear is the wind, sometimes followed by a deafening silence.
