“Maybe they’ll feed me something other than gummies.”
“Eat these. Don’t feed the trees.” The words had become his mantra over the past three days.
She took them and shivered in the chilly night. Food and sleep had become luxuries during their travel. Gabriel handed her the food and water gummy cubes she’d first had in Hell. While they took away the fatigue and gave her energy, she could think of nothing but chocolate sundaes and pickles. Together, maybe with caramel sauce. She considered throwing the tasteless food cubes to the trees he warned her against feeding every day.
Lost in the food fantasy, she didn’t see Gabriel disappear into the jungle. Katie blinked and looked around, still uneasy with the snakelike branches that moved of their own volition overhead. She didn’t know what kind of creatures followed or what other critters would live in the Immortal jungle, but she wanted nothing to do with such a weird place.
“C’mon,” Gabriel said with some urgency, reappearing to her right.
“Gabriel, what are we doing, walking in circles?” she asked as she obeyed.
“Buying us some time.”
“Time for what? I thought we had to reach a Sanctuary. Can’t we just go through the shadow world?”
“No.”
She waited for more to his explanation. He said nothing but followed a trail she couldn’t see. A startled bird with three wings darted with a squawk from a tree overhead. Gabe had become edgier over the past day, and she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been when he was around her. Although exhausting, their journey had been relatively peaceful.
“So the people pursuing us. What are they?” she asked, looking up.
“Assassins like me.”
“An army of Gabriels.”
“And demons.”
“And they hate circles as much as I do?”
Gabriel glanced over his shoulder at her with a look of tired amusement. She waded through the brush of the possessed jungle, unwilling to admit just how scared she was. She’d seen demons and what they could do, and the size and strength of Gabriel was enough to warn her she never wanted to meet another of him.
Looking back, she couldn’t help but think they were being followed. The sense was unlike any other: the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and someone’s warm breath brushed the back of one ear. She saw nothing other than the trees in the dark and started forward again.