Genesis (Extinction Book 1) (18 page)

Eve fought to keep up with her father’s frantic pace. Stumbling over exposed roots and rocks that had only moments before been two feet below the water’s surface, she narrowly avoided planting one of her floundering feet on a spadefish.

Caught between the rocks, stranded by the fleeing tide, his sides slapping at the rocks around it, the fish made wet sucking noises that somehow made his silent gasps for liquid oxygen much worse. At the site of the struggling fish, confusion gave way to panic.

The storm off the coast seemed to draw the light out of the day as shadows lengthened and the world took on an otherworldly glow. Wind, sudden and fierce, slammed into Eve’s back, propelling her forward as if they had worn out their welcome and it meant to drive them all the way back to Syracuse.

Thunder, which she felt as much in her running feet and chest as she heard, exploded. As they neared the minivan, Eve chanced a look back just in time to see Talia’s ankle wedge between two rocks. Her momentum launched her forward and she went down hard, her head rebounding as it struck one of the last rocks between her and the asphalt stretch that would carry her to the safety of the van.

Richard, caught up in the professor’s panic, grabbed Talia’s arm, pulling and dragging her forward while she struggled to her feet. Blood, too bright in the darkening day, soaked the left side of her face in seconds.

Eve had only a moment to register the empty bay behind them before her father shoved her head first through the driver’s door. She crab-crawled over the console and into the passenger’s seat as wind–that had only moments before been as warm and soft as a lover’s touch–slammed into the side of the van, rocking it and swallowing her father’s screams to hurry.

The side doors slammed back to the stops. Steve and Sharon were yelling at each other, over each other, as they crawled in, but the wind ripped their words away. A growling, rumbling engine filled the darkening air, traveled up through the frame of the van and into their bones.

Eve’s attention was torn between the horror of the blood that covered Talia’s once beautiful face as Richard shoved her toward the open back hatch, and the wall of darkness that pushed toward them from the ocean. The minivan cranked to life and for one terrifying moment Eve thought, in his panic, her father would drive off before they could get in and shut the door.

Steve and Sharon had fallen silent as they stared out at the angry waters beyond the bay. Richard half shoved, half rolled Talia into the back of the van screaming, “
Go! Go! Go!
” He straddled Talia’s body and grabbed the hatch to slam the door closed, only a moment before Eve’s father hit the gas.

The sudden surge forward slammed Richard face-first into the rear glass. His nose left a bloody print on the window that faded as what little light had been left in the world drained away.

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Extinction: Sacrifice

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