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  STORM POWER

  Scarlet Jones, Book Two

  D.N. HOXA

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  Copyright © 2018 by D.N. Hoxa

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Also by D.N. Hoxa

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Also by D.N. Hoxa

  Also by D.N. Hoxa

  ———————————

  Winter Wayne Series (Complete)

  Bone Witch

  Bone Coven

  Bone Magic

  Bone Spell

  Bone Prison

  Bone Fairy

  Starlight Saga (Complete)

  Assassin

  Villain

  Sinner

  Savior

  Morta Fox Trilogy (Complete)

  Heartbeat

  Reclaimed

  Unchanged

  Demonic Mage

  Nova Unchained

  One

  We never made it to Detroit.

  Wanna guess why?

  “Take a left, Luca!” Fallon shouted, and the next second, we all slammed into the side of the minivan. Elisa’s hand slipped from mine. We were on the road for barely three minutes when Luca had to change course. Half an hour later, we were still being chased by four SUVs. Luca was doing the best he could to get away. Good thing it was the middle of the night, probably, and the roads were more or less free of traffic.

  I thought about surrendering—for a whole minute. We were being chased by the ECU. There was no way they weren’t going to chase us to the edge of the world if they had to. They were not going to let us get away.

  But then, I thought about Erick Adams, and Melinda—even Sylvester Cain—and decided I’d rather die on the road, fighting, than go back in that basement and let them cuff me to a fucking bed.

  So here we were, wounded, tired, barely able to hold our own weight, but we were ready for a fight, just as soon as they caught us. Or we ran out of gas. Either could happen at any second.

  “If we stop now, we might have a chance. There’s only four cars,” Grover said, breathing heavily. He stood on his knees in between the front seats, holding onto them with both arms, looking out the windshield. I was thankful for it. He was blocking our view.

  “Backup is coming,” Ax said, shaking his head. We had a few weapons, but they weren’t going to help us. And our magic…like I said, we were exhausted.

  After what happened at the ECU research facility in Inwood, I thought they were going to need a bit more time to regroup. We’d brought the demons inside their home…well, I’d brought the demons inside their home, and I’d done it all with a single kiss. They’d killed everyone they could kill, and left the rest unconscious, but the ECU was nothing if not quick to jump to action, and we were witnessing that firsthand.

  The dragon was still around my hand. Just half an hour ago, it had turned into this huge sword made of lightning, able to cut through demons and kill them on the spot, by the looks of it. Now? It seemed like nothing fancier than a cheap, plastic bracelet you could have gotten at the thrift store. The plan was to use it again when the ECU caught up with us. I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to it, though. Whatever this thing really was, I was getting it off my hand as soon as I could.

  “What the…”

  My heart jumped when Elisa suddenly raised her head, her eyes open wide, looking around the minivan. She pushed me to the side with all her strength and rose to her knees, hitting the top of her head to the roof. She was disoriented, terrified—both reasonable.

  Me? I was smiling.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay. We got you out of the ECU,” I said in a rush.

  “Is she awake?” Fallon called from the passenger seat.

  “We need help,” Ax said without missing a beat. “The ECU is after us. If we don’t make them back off, they’re going to catch us.” And Elisa could make them back off. She was a Hedge witch. It was nighttime. Most importantly, she had spells.

  I thought she’d want more explanation, but one look back at Grover, she pushed him to the side and took his place in between the front seats. Hope sprung in my chest. With spells, there was a very small chance we could actually get away from the ECU. A very small chance, but a chance nonetheless.

  That is, if Elisa was willing to help.

  “Where are we?” she asked, her voice low. She didn’t bother to wait for the answer before she started chanting. It gave me some much needed energy, too. I got to my knees and dragged myself closer to the front of the minivan.

  “The Bronx,” Luca said.

  “What can you do? We can open the back doors if you need to.” The SUVs were right behind us, easily accessible for spells. We could protect us from their bullets while Elisa unleashed her magic.

  “I’m too weak for that,” Elisa said with a flinch. “Luca, I need you to take a right here, then the first left. When you see the highest building around here, stop in front of it.”

  “We can’t stop,” Ax said. “Backup is probably on their way.”

  “Can’t you do a healing spell on yourself? If you confuse them or something, we’ll be able to slip away.” It sounded simple enough. All we needed was one minute, and we’d be far away.

  “I can’t,” Elisa whispered, and when she turned to face me, I noticed the blood dripping from her nose. Shit. She looked sick.

  “It’s fine,” I said as Luca cussed and hit the steering wheel with his fists. “Try a healing spell. You’re bleeding.” If she passed out again, we’d be in even deeper shit.

  “What’s in the building?” Fallon asked. “Where are you taking us?”

  “The Twin Parks,” Elisa whispered and my blood turned to stone for a second.

  “Are you out of your mind?” said Grover, terrified even more than before.

  “Just listen to me,” Elisa started but Fallon didn’t let her finish.

  “You want to take us to the only place that’s probably worse than the ECU!”

  “Turn the car around, Luca,” said Grover. But I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Don’t turn the car around. Take us to the Twin Parks.”

  The Twin Parks was also known as The Lair to the paranormal community. Or a part of it was. It’s where practically all of the vampires of New York hung out at some point in the night. Direct sunrays killed them, literally turned them to ash, so the night was the only time they walked out of wherever they slept in the summer. In winter, they had more room to navigate on really cloudy days, but even then, they became very weak when walking outside. The Lair was their hideout, a place they’d claimed for themselves, where they partied all night and did whatever vampires do when they get together. I really didn’t want to know.

  But Elisa wasn’t a vampire. If she wanted us to go to the Lair, chances were, she had a reason.

  “Scarlet,” A
x warned.

  “I know a guy there. He’s going to let us in,” Elisa said, wiping the blood from her nose. She looked even worse now than before. Her legs gave up on her and she fell on her ass. “The ECU won’t dare to go in there.”

  “They’re vampires!” Fallon shouted.

  “Are you sure they’ll let us in?” I asked Elisa. The guys were right, we were heading into the vampire’s lair. Not a smart idea, but what if it could save us for another day?

  “I’m sure.” Maybe it was the paranoia, but Elisa didn’t sound very sure.

  “What if the ECU get in anyway?” Ax asked.

  “They won’t. They never have before,” Elisa said then fell on the bed of the minivan on her back. I rushed to her side and helped wipe the blood coming out of her nose even faster now.

  “Do a healing spell, Elisa. Do it.” I didn’t care if she had energy or not. She needed to heal, right now.

  “This could backfire,” Luca whispered. “They could kill us instead.”

  “Fuck! Go for it,” Fallon said. “I’ll take my chances with some bloodsuckers over power-suckers any day.”

  Same here.

  When Luca turned left, I rose to my knees again, and prepared. The dragon was still just a dragon around my wrist, and not a sword of lightning. The first bullet hit the backdoors of the minivan and made all of us jump back. Ax raised his hands at the doors to keep them from opening, but we couldn’t hurt the soldiers like that. We couldn’t even see them.

  “Kick the doors,” I said to him, raising my own hands. My magic was still weak, my whole body shaking. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be able to hold any kind of shield for long, but damn if I wouldn’t try.

  “Turn it on!” Grover shouted, nodding at the dragon.

  “We’re here!” Luca called and hit the brakes so fast, he slammed us all onto the front seats. The front doors opened and he and Fallon ran out. The gunshots began then, and they lasted for a very long time. Grover jumped between the seats and got out of the car, too. Ax grabbed Elisa by the hands and pulled her up. I helped him get her over, but she was so weak. She’d let go of her body completely and her eyes were barely open, her face and hair completely bloodied.

  “Put up your shield,” I said to Ax when he jumped on the driver’s seat to help Elisa get out. Wind blew inside the minivan once more, pushing my hair back. The gunshots didn’t stop, not until I jumped over and finally saw the huge building behind the windshield.

  And the vampires standing in front of it.

  “Elisa,” I said, slapping her cheeks. “Elisa, look! It’s the vampires. We’re here.”

  But her head fell limply to the side of the seat. The others were trying to fight off the ECU soldiers, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the gunshots had slowed down a bit.

  “Noah,” Elisa whispered. I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly, but before I could ask, something fell to the side of the car, hard. It was Luca, his body completely limp when he hit the ground. No time to think.

  “Noah!” I shouted at the top of my voice, looking at the vampires through the windshield. “Noah!”

  Whoever this guy was, he was our last chance. Even if we somehow managed to get these soldiers off us, others would come, and they weren’t going to stop. Unless the vamps stopped them.

  Come on, come on, come on…

  The crowd of vampires watching us slowly parted and a bear of a man stepped forward. His green-dyed hair shone bright under the moonlight. I sat in the driver’s seat to show him Elisa sitting next to me, and I hoped with all my heart that he’d recognize her. That he’d want to help her.

  I held my breath and waited, and when another body landed on the ground, I didn’t dare turn to see who it was. The soldiers were closing in on us, I could feel it.

  “Turn on!” I shouted at the dragon on my hand. “Please, turn on!”

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I imagined the sword made of lightning in my hand, able to cut through anything, even steel cuffs. I didn’t want to go down without a fight, and I had no energy left in my body to hold my magic even for a minute.

  But when I opened my eyes again, the dragon was still just a dragon. “Stupid, stupid, thing!” I shouted, so frustrated, I didn’t even notice that all the vampires had started to walk forward, until they were all around the car, blocking the street lights. The passenger door moved and my magic hurried to my hands, until I saw a head full of green hair. It was Noah.

  His wide, dark eyes took me in for just a second. That’s when I realized that the gunshots had stopped. The sound of footsteps filled my head. It sounded like a freaking army.

  Noah put his hands under Elisa’s body and took her in his arms. On shaking legs, I got out of the car only to see at least a hundred vampires just walking toward the back of the minivan.

  “Let’s go,” Ax said, grabbing my arm. The sound of a soldier calling for order and telling the vampires to stand down vaguely reached my ears, but I turned my focus to Ax, and Grover who was walking with Luca’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, and Fallon right behind. They were following Noah into the building ahead and we were the only ones to walk in the opposite direction.

  Vampires watched us, some with hunger reflecting in their eyes, some with curiosity. We held our heads down and followed the head full of green hair, quickly disappearing inside the building. Turning to look at the ECU soldiers would just scare me even more than being inside the Lair—the actual freaking Lair, with so many vampires around, I couldn’t even count. So I kept my eyes on my feet, and I didn’t stop until Ax, Fallon, Grover and Luca did.

  Two

  Noah took Elisa into an elevator, and we followed. Neither spoke a single word but the tension grew in the closed space. The room he took us to was small and dirty, but it had a bed, and that’s where Noah put Elisa. It was easy to guess what their relationship was, when he wiped the blood off her face with the sleeve of his shirt, then kissed her on the mouth. Elisa’s eyes opened for just a second, then closed again.

  Noah turned to us, his hands on his hips. He analyzed us and he took his sweet time to do it, too.

  “Who are you?”

  He looked young, and was built like a werewolf, but the features of his face were soft, and the green hair wasn’t something I expected on someone who sounded so…old.

  “Elisa’s friends,” Luca said, clearing his throat. “She saved us a couple weeks ago, and the ECU took her. Tonight, we got her out.”

  Noah flinched and turned to look at Elisa. “The ECU had her?”

  “They had all of us,” said Ax.

  “Thank you for letting us in.” Luca took a step forward, and offered the man his hand. Noah stared at him for a long time before he shook it.

  “Thank you for getting her out.”

  “What day is it?” Luca asked.

  “Thursday,” the guy said. Thursday. It felt like I hadn’t met Thursday in a long time.

  “Guys, we need to leave,” Fallon whispered.

  “Can you heal her?” I asked the vampire, nodding at Elisa. We weren’t going anywhere without her.

  “I can’t,” Noah said. Don’t know why I asked. He was a vampire. They didn’t even carry around spell stones because they didn’t have enough magic to activate them. “But you do need to leave.” He nodded at the window to our side, covered in old newspapers so I hadn’t even noticed it. With my heart in my throat, I walked to it and tore a piece to look outside. “They’re only going to hold them back for so long.”

  They were a flipping huge number of vampires. They had the whole neighborhood locked down. If it wasn’t for the minivan and the four SUVs in the middle, I wouldn’t have been able to even see the soldiers, speaking to some of the vampires, waving at the building. Shit, he was right.

  “Elisa is coming with us,” I said, and turned to walk back to the bed, but when I did, I found Noah right in front of me. Goddamn the super speed. I hadn’t even heard him step behind me.

  “Elisa stays with me,” he said. He wa
s a head and a half taller than me and I could only imagine what his fists could do to my face. Fighting him was not something I wanted to do right now.

  “We need her. She needs us. If she stays here, they’ll find her.”

  “She stays here,” Noah said again.

  “Where the hell are we going to go now?” Grover said, panicked. “Do you have a car we can borrow? Or steal?”

  “How long do you think we have?” Luca asked and moved to the window to see for himself.

  “Five minutes, probably less,” Noah said, his eyes still on me.

  “She’s safer with us,” I said, but I was pretty sure he could smell that I was lying. Elisa wasn’t safer with us. She was safer far away from us. But we were safer with her, and right now, we could really use some safe.

  “She’s—” he spit, very angrily, but he was cut off.

  “You need to separate.”

  All eyes in the room turned toward the bed. Elisa had woken up, and she was dragging herself to sit up. In a blink of the eye, Noah appeared by her side.

  “Hey,” he whispered, his voice completely transformed. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine. We need to go, and you need to separate,” she said to us. “The longer you stay together, the faster they’ll find you.”

  “We can’t separate,” Luca said, a dumbfounded smile on his face.

  “You have to. Trust me, the more of you together, the easier you are to find.”

  “We’re in no condition to go solo,” Grover said. “We have no energy, no weapons, and nowhere to go!”

  “He’s right,” I said reluctantly. “Elisa, we need your help. If we step out there on our own, even if the ECU doesn’t find us, they will.” By they, I meant the demons, and she knew it very well.

  As if she just realized it, Elisa flinched. “How did you manage to get out of there in the first place?”

  The others turned to look at me. Hyperaware of the dragon around my bloody hand, I put my arm behind my back. “Long story.” One I wasn’t very keen on sharing.