“Fight them,” he bit out. “I’m trying to pull them out but I need your help.”
I tried to do as he asked but I was too weak to do anything. Despite my lack of strength, I felt them releasing their grip on me. A shudder wracked my body when the last vardoger dissipated into nothingness and finally I was the only one left in my body.
Ryan was breathing harshly, trying to catch his breath. I struggled to sit up. Now that the vardogers were gone, my only thought was to destroy my father before it was too late. Fear propelled me to stand, my heart almost stopping when I realized the room was empty except for me and Ryan.
“Where are they?” I cried, panic setting in.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan said as he stood up. “I couldn’t stop them without letting you die. Your father left and took your mother and Simon.”
Desperation clawed at me. The idea of finding my mother only to lose her again was unthinkable. But now Simon… he had warned me not to be fooled by my father, and my stubbornness had resulted in him being taken. I should have just destroyed my father when I had the chance instead of listening to his empty promises. I had no idea if he would just kill Simon or take pleasure in torturing him. I had a feeling it would be the latter since he seemed to have an affinity for “experimentation.” I almost got physically sick at the idea of my father hurting Simon. My hate, anger and fear threatened to consume me and I felt something break inside of me. I had vowed to not let my father hurt another person close to me, but I had allowed him to hurt the person I loved most in the world. The hatred for my father was only rivaled by my hatred for myself.
“We’ll find your father. We’ll save them,” Ryan said, but his words were an empty promise. We would be able to find them due to his tracking skills, but he couldn’t guarantee that we could save them.
But I would die trying.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was pitch black outside as we pursued them. Ryan drove fast but they were moving quickly.
“How strong is my father’s energy?” I asked, staring out into the night, not trying to think of what could be happening to Simon and my mother. I felt an odd mixture of numbness and shattering emotion. I would feel nothing until a sharp slice of emotion would gut me, forcing me to push back the feelings so that I could concentrate on the task at hand. Otherwise I would fall apart.
“They’re moving fast but I still have a strong hold of your father’s energy. Don’t worry, we won’t lose them.”
Despite everything, I was grateful to have Ryan with me. Not only had he saved me from the vardogers, but with his tracking ability I would be able to catch up to my father.
“I never thanked you for saving me,” I said quietly. We were on a country road with no other cars, and it felt as if no one else existed in the world besides us.
“You don’t need to thank me,” Ryan answered, looking straight ahead at the road. “I would do it a million times again if I had to.”
“You must be incredibly strong. I couldn’t even count the number of vardogers that attacked me, yet you were able to destroy them all.”
“It helped that your energy was fighting them back as well. It wasn’t all me.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t have anything left to fight with. It was all your doing.”
Ryan didn’t answer and I didn’t push him. I knew he was a strong seer, but I didn’t realize he was strong enough to destroy so many vardogers at once, especially since he had seemed amazed when I had been able to do it. I wanted to
question him further about it but I refrained, wanting to respect his privacy. I said nothing as I went back to staring out the window.
“We have to be careful of Philip,” he said, breaking the silence. “He’s shown that he’s an incredibly powerful vardoger. He must be the one that’s able to sustain other vardogers that are unattached to bodies.”
“Like Claudia,” I whispered. “But he’s even stronger. We need to capture him alive because he’s the key to saving my mother.”
Ryan’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “You need to be prepared for the worst. Even if your father is telling the truth, that your mother’s soul is still inside her body, we don’t know the state of her mind. A person’s sanity can only take so much before it breaks.”
“I don’t care.” I clenched my hands into fists, sickened by the thought of what my mother had endured for all these years. “All that matters is that my mother is still alive. I saw her, she looked straight at me and I recognized her. I’m going to save her and I’m going to save Simon. There’s no other alternative.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened but he didn’t say anything as he continued to drive. I wished that we were driving on a more populated road. The one we were on was poorly lit and the lack of other headlights made it seem even more desolate.
I glanced at Ryan and noticed that his grip on the steering wheel had tightened so severely that his knuckles were white and his arms were trembling. Beads of sweat were trickling down his face, which had turned ashen.
“Are you okay?” I asked concerned. I wondered if fighting all those vardogers had taken too much of a toll on him.
Ryan nodded his head almost imperceptibly but kept his gaze forward, not looking at me. My concern deepened when his whole body started to tremble, making the steering wheel shake. The car started swerving from his erratic movements and I swallowed a scream when we narrowly missed hitting a guardrail.
“Ryan, pull over!” There was something seriously wrong with him. As much as I needed to catch up to my father, getting into an accident would make it much more difficult. Ryan seemed to be suffering through some sort of seizure and we needed to stop the car before it was too late.
I was relieved when he was able to follow my direction and pulled off onto the shoulder. He was still gripping the steering wheel and shaking. I grabbed one of his arms to pull his hand off the steering wheel, but he recoiled as if my touch were painful and flung my hand forcefully away. I stared at him, shocked by his behavior. Shock turned into fear when he turned towards me. His face had drained of all blood but his eyes were bloodshot, dozens of angry veins stark red against the whites of his eyes.