Eternal [HS]

Chapter Thirty-Four

SHATTERED GLASS, WHISKEY SOAKING the cozy fabric of her socks inside of her boots, a look of wide-eyed horror on the face of a man who yearns for control of the situations around him, and the sick sensation of her stomach dropping into the pit of her abdomen like it does on rollercoasters—those are the insignificant details of the moment that her happiness was whisked away on the returning breeze that will stick with her for the years that follow this.

The bottle slipped from her grasp. Jo didn't even notice she dropped it at first, it was like her mind lost all control over her motor skills in the second—the second that flitted past faster than her human body or mind has the ability to react to—that it took for those anonymous figures to leap from the brush to take her happiness away.

Her entire body, her world, everything has stopped functioning in the wake of seeing it.

Only half a second has passed. They haven't even managed to drag him away any more than another twenty feet as her kicks and fights with all of his power, Niall hasn't even hit the ground with the force of the arrow that punctured his left shoulder, and yet the limited time she remains frozen in shock feels longer than all of their lifespans combined.

Three hundred and one years, two hundred and fifteen years, one hundred years, and twenty-five years have nothing on the fraction of a second it takes for her to witness two people she cares for being hurt and kidnapped and burst into action.

Her feet are already moving in the direction of danger when she screams so loudly, her throat burns, "NO!"

And if Mitch hadn't already seen what happened and started running to her as fast as he could, he would've started at the sound of her bloodcurdling scream. He and Niall are already following behind her sprint in the wake of where Harry is being carried away from her at a supernatural speed she is incapable of matching.

The muscles in her calves, now toned from self-defense lessons and exercises at the gym with Harry, do not ache for help as much as they once did when she ran for her life from Issac in this very forest, but they cannot keep up no matter how much stronger they are compared to last time. Her mind is too muddled to think to have either of them pick her up and carry her, but Mitch, not wanting Niall to put any strain on the shoulder still sporting an arrow pushed through it, is one step ahead.

A pair of arms scoop her up, and she almost screams out under the assumption that she too is being taken by the same people, undoubtedly members of Sacrosanct, that are taking Harry before she is thrown around onto his back. Her heart does not stop pounding hard enough to be felt in her throat, but she lets out a sigh of relief at the sight of the person who she clings to with her arms around his shoulders and legs around his back.

The blanket tied around her shoulders flutters left and right in the wind as Mitch runs at the same speed as the people carrying a now unconscious Harry, Niall running somewhat slower behind them. She did not see what they did to knock him out, since she was too busy being picked up and thrown onto Mitch's back, but it makes her lip wobble with the urge to cry.

Yet even with the accelerated speed they follow them at, the head start they got is far too great for them to dream of catching up with them. As much as she wants to deny it, as much as she tries, a part of her knows they cannot physically catch them at the speed they're moving at. Deep down, there's a hopelessness hidden beneath layer after layer of blind desperation that knows they won't reach him.

Branches snap in her face and scratch her cheeks with a brutal force that makes her cry out in pain and hold onto his shoulders as tightly as she can until her focus narrows back onto the unconscious man thrown over the shoulder of a masked male figure fading through the blurred terrain ahead. The other person, obscured by the rapidly moving environment surrounding her, runs ahead of them with a speed and strength she hasn't even seen Harry move with, and they never seem to run out of energy.

In all fairness, neither does Mitch. Niall lags behind a few steps, but an arrow to the shoulder tends to hinder the physical capabilities of a person. And the familiar churning feeling of sickness rising through her stomach in reaction to the unnatural movement would make her stop to throw up in any other circumstance, but with Harry's life on the line, nothing else matters.

All she can think about is him. Her mind screams it loudly enough to rattle her brain around within her skull, it screams his name over and over again like the screeching sound of an alarm blaring overhead. It warns that he's in danger, that he is feeling pain and fear, even while unconscious, and it takes her a second to realize it's the blood bond connecting them that is crying out for help.

Not only is it her natural fear for his life, but it's also the blood bond that sets every protective instinct in her body on with a flip of a switch. There's the familiar ache from when she had the urge to make the bond with him, but it's ten times as powerful, and she feels like her heart is going to be torn out of her chest if they don't make it to him in time—

Her body is sent flying, twisting through the air too quickly for her to suck down gasps of oxygen, and crashes into the earth with a loud 'thump' along with the subsequent sound of crushed leaves and twigs beneath her rolling body. The impact on her legs running up to the side of her hip is an agonizing, pulsating pain that should force her to remain sedentary on the forest floor, but it doesn't.

She doesn't have time to wonder why she fell, or figure out that it had to do with them crashing point-blank into the thick trunk of an old tree. All she has time to do is look up at the moving people only feet away from where she lays on the ground as they drag Harry's unconscious, limp body through the space between two trees with large sigils burned into the bark.

In the split second she has to react, her memory is thrown back to a long conversation she had with Harry after she discovered what he is. He said that Niall, after fighting off the men who tried to kill her long enough to pick her up and escape, carried her through two trees with twin sigils burned into their trunks. Those symbols, on her side of the gateway between realms, would've been invisible to her, but now that she's on this side...

The milliseconds it takes for her to force herself into action feel too long. The aches and pains shooting down her muscles, making her cry as she rolls over onto her front and pushes herself up from the ground, are not merciful.

They make each step a torturous endeavor that she isn't sure she will complete before stumbling, not quite recovered from the fall yet. Her arms tremble with the wavering strength in them, but she pushes herself up, pushes herself forward, and surges toward him as his body is being forced through the glowing, inky black darkness of the portal.

She rushes forward, putting one foot down after the other in thundering strides that take her to the entrance to her human world faster than she has ever run in her life. For him. Only for him can she push herself through pain and having the air knocked out of her to chase behind him in a fool's wish to catch up with supernatural creatures much stronger than she is.

Yet she does it.

Her pulse is still strong enough to be felt thumping in the front of her throat, and her chest throbs as though it has been cracked open the further he disappears through the darkness. The nausea is an urge yelling at her from the bottom of her stomach, but she wills it down. Soon, the only part of him that remains visible is the arm flopping limply at his side, yet it doesn't matter. She is going to make it, she's going to reach him. All she has to do is reach out and hold onto his wrist so they will drag her through with them.

Her fingertips brush the cold surface of his wrist, then—

Two sets of hands grasp either one of her arms and yank her away from the dark portal with a strength that sends her legs swinging beneath her from being lifted off of the ground like a bird's prey captured between claws.