The Blood of Three

Chapter 23

The next time I woke up I was being carried.

Opening my eyes, I found myself in Kyle's arms as he sprinted through the woods. "What...?" I began.

"Hold on," Kyle pressed. "I'll explain soon. First, we need to get out of here."

"I can run, too," I assured him. "You can put me down."

He glanced at me for a second, then looked back in front of him. "You have a hole in your leg; you'll slow us down," he reasoned.

He ran across the boardwalk and into my house. "What are we doing here?" Without answering me, he locked the door, ran down the hall, up the stairs and into my bedroom. Dropping me on the bed, he jogged to my closet and pulled a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from my closet, throwing them on the bed. After dropping a black drawstring bag from his shoulders, he stuffed the clothes inside before grabbing my forearm and leading me back down the stairs.

We stopped again in the living room. I didn't bother asking what we were doing because he hadn't answered me the time before. He ran into the kitchen and brought back five bottles of water.

He put four of them in his bag then poured the fifth on my thigh wound. "Kyle! What are you...?" Right before my eyes, the wound began healing. It had already been healing from the water yesterday, but this sped up the process. "How does this work?" I asked, gesturing to the healing.

He shrugged, swinging the bag over his shoulder. "You can ask your dad about it later. Right now, we need to go."

"Why?" I asked.

"You'll know soon enough."

"Kyle, where are we going?"

"As far away from here as we can possibly get." That being said, he jogged out the door and gestured for me to follow. I didn't feel any pain in my leg, thanks to the nectar I had taken a few hours before.

As we started down the boardwalk, I was about to ask if Terran knew about this, when I heard shouting. "Crap!" Kyle cursed under his breath. "I was hoping we'd have more time." He took off running down the rest of the boardwalk and toward the woods. I sprinted after him.

"Will you please tell me what in the world is going on?" I asked more loudly than I should have. We darted through the woods, dodging trees and jumping over rocks. I couldn't go along with a plan I knew nothing about.

"Fine," he gave in. "While you were asleep, a phoenix showed up and pecked on my window. The gods had sent it. I opened the window and let the bird in." Before Kyle could continue, an arrow sailed past us and hit a nearby tree.

"That was meant for us, wasn't it?" I guessed with wide eyes.

"Yep," Kyle answered, taking deep breaths.

I noticed him struggling under a boulder of stress, which increased my worry about our mysterious situation. "We need to stop; you're getting tired."

"No. I'm okay," he assured me. "I need to get you out of here."

Suddenly, we were rolling on the ground. He had tripped over a tree root and I had run into him. We rolled down a small incline, hitting many bushes and tree roots on the way down. I stopped with a thud against a tree trunk.

The nectar was wearing off on my thigh, leaving a dull throb. I stood up only to have a sharp pain shoot through my leg, making me groan through gritted teeth. My eyes searched for Kyle in the darkness. No wonder Kyle tripped; I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

I wouldn't have found him if it hadn't been for him loudly grunting in pain. He was under a bush, awkwardly lying against the trunk of a tree. As I plopped down beside him, he rolled over to face me.