Enchanted Chaos (Enchanted Chaos 1)

“Fine. Whatever,” Foster grumbles. “Let’s just get this over with.”

A quietness settles across the land.

Wondering what they could possibly be doing, I muster up every ounce of courage I possess and peer around the tree trunk I’m hiding behind.

Nothing could prepare me for what I see.

Foster has moved into the center of the circle, and his hands are crackling with lightning bolts. That’s not even the strangest part. Each Everettson has their hands out in front of them, and a ray of light is streaming from their palms and toward Foster. Even crazier? The rays of light match their eye colors.

“Holy shit,” I gasp out as I slowly back away.

Blue and silver electricity cracks across the sky, and I tense, trying to get my breathing under control.

Calm down. You’re going to be just fine.

Foster’s eyes snap open, and his lightning charged gaze welds with mine. He looks possessed. Demonic.

I recall the screams I heard last night.

Just who the hell are the Everettsons?

Panicking, I reel around and run like hell in the direction I came from, not looking back, even when I hear cursing from behind me.

When I stumble from the trees, I rush back toward the house and barrel inside. Then I sprint straight up to my room and start shoving my clothes into a backpack.

I need to get the hell out of here. Now. I can’t be here … not after what I just saw. Not when I have no clue what they were doing. Plus, I’m worried they might hurt me for finding out their secret. After all, I heard Max, Easton, and Foster verbalizing their concern for me discovering their family’s secrets. This has to be to what they were referring. I mean, what else could it be?

The idea that there could very well be even more to this makes me shiver.

Grabbing my phone, I send Nina and Gage a text.

Me: Can someone pick me up? It’s an emergency.

I move to hit send when my phone powers down. And not because it has a dead battery.

“Fuck. I need to get out of here.” My heart thumps in my chest as I shove my phone into my pocket, sling my bag over my shoulder, and hightail it out of the house.

My plan is to run to town and borrow someone’s phone so I can call Nina and Gage and tell them to come get me. Where I’ll go from there, I haven’t got a clue. But I’ll figure it out.

But what if they come looking for me? What if they find me? What will they do to me?

I swallow hard at the many ideas flowing through my mind and accelerate from a run to a full-on sprint.

By the time I reach the gated entrance, which is thankfully open, a hailstorm is blowing in. With how upset I am, I’m not shocked. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if a blizzard soon blew in.

Positioning my bag over my head, I squeeze through the gates and run out onto the street. Chips of ice plink against my body, pelting my arms and legs, but I continue on, my breaths fogging out in front of my face as the temperature plummets.

I don’t make it very far before Gabe’s truck pulls up behind me, the windshield wipers moving a million miles a minute against the hail.

I quicken my pace, refusing to slow down, and deliberate whether or not to duck into the trees lining the road to escape them.

“Sky!” Gabe calls out over the hammering hail.

Doors slam shut, and then footsteps thud against the asphalt behind me.

I run faster, the sizes of the hail growing bigger.

“Sky, wait up!” Max shouts. “Fuck, what is with this hail?”