Read Online Soul Seekers by Dean Crawford - Free Book Online Page B

softly.
    ‘
I
put us here,’ he said. ‘This is my fault.’ Siren froze in motion, one fist raised to hit Jude. ‘It’s me you should hit, not Jude,’ Cas added.
    ‘Them’s wise words,’ Jude urged Siren.
    Siren peered sideways at Cas from behind her sunglasses. ‘You figure that how?’
    ‘I should have led us out of that ventilation shaft, not carried on to see what the light at the end was. If I had, we wouldn’t have been sent into the past, my pa’ wouldn’t have been either and none of this would have happened.’
    ‘You don’t know that,’ Emily soothed him, one hand on his shoulder. ‘The experiment might have gone wrong even if we hadn’t gotten involved. There’s no way to tell.’
    ‘But it did go wrong,’ Jude wheezed from where he was pinned to the wall. ‘And now we’re all paying the price of Captain America’s big experiment.’
    Siren’s glare swivelled back to bore into Jude’s eyes. ‘So what would you have done, brave Jude?’ she challenged.
    ‘I’d have faced that machine without fear,’ he coughed back, ‘from at least ten miles away.’
    Siren shook her head and released him. Jude coughed and slid down the wall onto his haunches as Siren turned to Cas.
    ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘you got us into this mess so you can damned well get us out of it. What’s your plan?’
    Cas looked up into the sky, where the sun was sinking toward the horizon through fiery rivers of red and gold. Night was coming.
    ‘You’re not going to like what I’ve got in mind,’ Cas replied to them all. ‘Meet me tonight on the edge of Lincoln Woods, nine o’clock.’
    ‘I can’t stay out that late,’ Emily protested.
    ‘Find a way,’ Cas insisted. ‘We do this together or not at all.’
    Siren frowned and pulled off her sunglasses. ‘What are you going to do?’
    Cas couldn’t believe what he was saying, but somehow he knew it was true.
    ‘We’re going to have a look into the past.’
    * * *

16
    Cas waited until half-past eight before he slipped out of his bedroom window and down onto the porch roof. His mother was downstairs, having sent him to bed at eight as usual. Cas had taken the time to ruffle his duvet up and close his curtains, enough so that she would hopefully not realise he was gone.
    Which he didn’t intend to be for long.
    Cas ran across the front lawn and down the street, the sky above still tinged with the last of the evening’s light. The dense trees of Lincoln Wood ahead were cloaked in darkness, looming over him as he ran toward the edge of the treeline.
    A brief flash of light guided him in, as he saw Siren turn a small flashlight on and off. He ran up to her and saw Jude and Emily waiting alongside her, both of them looking nervous.
    ‘What are we doing here?’ Emily asked. ‘It’s dark.’
    ‘The darker the better,’ Cas replied with more confidence than he felt. He turned to Siren. ‘You’re taking the lead.’
    ‘Why me?’ Siren asked suspiciously.
    ‘Because you know where it is.’
    ‘Where
what
is?’
    Cas took a deep breath. ‘Crazy Jo’s.’
    He heard Jude and Emily suck in a collective breath of shock as Siren watched him with a serious gaze.
    ‘
Now
you want to go there?’
    ‘I’ve had an idea,’ Cas replied. ‘You know the way, right?’
    Siren nodded and turned, striding away into the inky blackness of the woods as she flicked her flashlight on. The white beam of light sliced a thin strip of illumination through the trees.
    Cas followed her with Jude and Emily falling miserably into line behind her.
    ‘This is not a good idea,’ Jude complained.
    ‘You got any better ones?’ Cas challenged over his shoulder.
    ‘We could pretend than nothing ever happened.’
    Cas ignored him as he concentrated on following Siren’s flashlight between the towering trees. The woods were deathly silent, as though they had left civilisation far behind them. Even the sound of their footfalls sounded muted and tiny amid the endless expanses of