Return (Awakened Fate Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

only thing keeping him standing. Swallowing hard, I crept to the top of the staircase.
    Earl lay on his side at the base of the steps, his arm pinned under him and his legs still sprawled on the stairs. On his skin, the cracks had mostly faded. His eyes were closed. But for the slow movement of his chest beneath his green flannel shirt, he showed no sign of life.
    “Come on,” Zeke said, moving past me and cautiously descending the stairs.
    I followed, not taking my eyes from Earl. We reached the first floor and, heart pounding, I stepped past the man, waiting for him to wake and grab at me again.
    He didn’t move. The rain pouring down like water from a hose was the only sound.
    I drew a breath, trying to keep myself from shaking while I looked around the living room. We needed to get out of here. He’d been talking to someone else on the phone. Someone like him, who wanted to hurt us.
    Someone who, from the sound of it, could be on their way here right now.
    The shaking got worse. With a trembling hand, I ran my fingers through the rat’s nest tangle of my hair.
    My gaze landed on his car keys on the table beside the door. I froze, shivers running through me for a whole other reason.
    I looked over at Zeke to find him regarding the keys too.
    He met my eyes, and from his expression, he seemed to have the same thought as me. “You drive?”
    I nodded.
    He went for the keys.
    My heart still racing, I looked back at Earl. At the wallet in his pocket.
    We’d need money. We’d need gas and maybe food.
    I couldn’t believe myself. My life. Any of this.
    Barely daring to breathe, I approached him. He didn’t move when I crouched down, as far from him as I could be while still keeping him in reach. Gingerly, I drew the wallet from his back pocket.
    He groaned.
    My heart scrambled up my throat. Straightening as fast as my muscles could move, I backpedaled from him and retreated to Zeke’s side. His eyes fastened on the man, Zeke pulled open the door.
    We headed outside.
    The night beyond the porch was pitch black and rain gushed down in a torrent. With legs that felt like rubber, I jogged across the sodden yard toward the truck, with Zeke coming behind. The doors weren’t locked, and when we pulled them open, the smell of dust and old motor oil filtered into the rainy night air.
    We climbed in, the musty bench seat squeaking loudly beneath us. The engine growled when it kicked over, and the gearshift by the steering wheel locked into reverse at my frantic tug.
    The front door opened again and light from the house spilled into the yard. One arm hanging awkwardly at his side and the other bracing him on the wall, Earl gave a furious shout at the sight of us in his truck.
    He started down the stairs.
    I flattened the pedal to the floor and sent the truck flying backward. Crushing my bare foot to the brake, I took only long enough to throw the gearshift into drive and crank the wheel in a turn, and then we were off again.
    The truck raced down the dark road, carrying us away from Earl.
     

Chapter Two
     
    Zeke
     
    I didn’t know where we were going and I was fairly certain Chloe didn’t either.
    Though I doubted either of us cared.
    My ribs ached from hitting the rails beside the stairs and my body felt like it’d been run over by the rig of a deep sea trawler. For her own part, Chloe looked like she’d gone a dozen rounds with a giant squid and barely survived. From the darkening skin around her neck to the marks I’d spotted on her shoulders and arms, there didn’t seem to be an inch of her that wasn’t banged up somehow.
    I hated the sight of it and my stomach roiled at the thought of what that bastard had been about to do to her. In all of dehaian history, I’d never heard of anything like the monsters we’d encountered in the past day. But between that Noah guy and now Earl, I was starting to wonder how many people over the years who I’d thought were human had actually been those greliaran things in