Displaced

Chapter 15

She was having the dream again. Back before all of this, back when she hadn't been on her own, Samanta had found her occasional lucid dreams fun. That was before the dream started, before it haunted her every night with terrible visions she was powerless to escape.

The caravan thundered down the path, the noise loud enough to make her ears hurt. The wagon shook like an earthquake as they sped along the dirt road, each bump so jarring that she worried they'd break a wheel or axle. She could recall other times in her life when her father had pushed the pace, but never this fast or for this long. She could see the foam spittle flying off the garophs' mouths as they raced forward with the rest of the caravan, all the various wagons pushing themselves to keep up with the pack.

They were afraid. Samanta could see the fear in the eyes of her father, the woman driving the wagon behind them, and the man holding the reins on the wagon beside theirs. Most concerning, however, was that she could see the fear on her mother's face. Mother wasn't like the others. Not once in her life had Samanta ever seen her mother show fear—at least, not until about an hour ago.

Mother looked out towards the front of the caravan, where a single yellow flag had been raised above the lead wagon. "What are they doing, signaling a slowdown?!" she snarled. "We're nowhere near safe yet!"

"The pass ahead is too precarious to take this fast, honey," Father told her.

"More dangerous than what we're running from?" she snapped back.

"It's too rocky up ahead. If somebody in front of us breaks an axle, then what? We'd be stuck! Beli and Peli can't take much more of this, anyway. You know garophs aren't meant for speed."

Mother's lips drew into a thin scowl, but she didn't argue as the caravan slowed. Instead, she turned to Samanta and glowered her way. Samanta shrank back beneath her mother's hot gaze.

"Samanta Zemzaris, what under the moons were you thinking?!"

"I..." Samanta hesitated.

"Mom, what is going on?" her brother Kenatt stepped in. Samanta felt a moment of gratitude for her older sibling. Nearly sixteen years old and almost of age, he could talk back to their mother in a way that she could never get away with. Normally, however, he was too busy being a stupid jerk to bother. "It's been more than an hour now. Isn't it time you explained what happened to make us abandon our stop like that?"

"Samanta ran into the escaped Elseling, and instead of running away, she decided to talk to him!" Mother snapped.

"What?!" both Kenatt and Samanta gasped.

An icy fear lanced through Samanta's insides. The Elseling?! The one they said was responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Otharians since his escape some days back?! The one that the heroic Apostles of the Church were hunting across the nation right now? That Elseling?!

"No way!" her brother asked, his eyes wide with excitement. It figured that he would be too stupid to be afraid. "What was he like?! Was he scary?!

"You should have run to me the moment you found him, you stupid girl!" Mother berated her as they both ignored Kenatt's outburst.

"Maritha, enough. She's just a child," Father said from up front.

"That's no excuse!" Mother shot back.

"I... I didn't know it was him!" Samanta protested. "I would have run, but I didn't know!"

"How could you not know?! We all watched the Many and saw what happened!"

"B-because I had-"

"Did you forget, Mom?" Kenatt laughed. "She got the runs and missed it all! The Elseling had escaped before she was finished!"