A Wind of Change (A Shade of Vampire #17)(16)

I tried sitting cross-legged. Slowly, I was feeling less faint, although my head still hurt like it’d been hit with a hammer. I must’ve spent way too long in the heat. Even though I’d worn a thick headscarf, I just wasn’t used to this harsh climate.

I looked over at the bonfire. Hassan’s father still sat by it with a few other diggers I had exchanged a few words with earlier. Back at the ladies’ toilet, I was relieved to see Lalia had exited and begun descending the steps. She reached for Hassan’s hand and they began walking back toward us.

I had to make it back to the tent. Fixing my eyes on my feet, I stood up slowly so that the blood wouldn’t rush too quickly from my head.

A yell and a scream pierced the night air.

My gaze shot back toward the direction of the toilets.

Shock paralyzed my body as a dark figure collided with Hassan and my sister. It was moving so fast, I could barely even make out what it was. It lifted them both off their feet and dragged them away so fast that after a few seconds their screams had faded into the distance.

I thought standing up again must have caused me to hallucinate, but when I looked back toward the spot where they had been standing, they were gone.

Chapter 5: River

My throat was so tight with terror, I couldn’t even scream.

“Help,” I choked, staring in the direction my sister and Hassan had disappeared. I staggered toward the bonfire. “Help!”

Yusuf was already racing over along with a dozen other men. “Who was screaming? What happened?” he asked, panic in his eyes.

“My sister! Hassan! Someone just took them!” I pointed with a trembling hand. I began racing forward.

“Who?” Yusuf shouted.

“I don’t know! They went in that direction!”

“Someone get a truck!” Yusuf bellowed.

Even as I continued running, several trucks started up and growled, and then one approached behind me. I leapt into the passenger’s seat as it was moving to find Fariss in the driver’s seat.

“Faster!” I urged.

I kept scanning the area, but I could see nothing but empty desert. I couldn’t hear even the faintest scream.

“Lalia!” I screamed out until my lungs felt bruised. We continued to race forward in the truck along with several others who had joined us. We drove further and further into the desert. When Fariss began slowing, I turned on him.

“Why are you stopping?”

“We need to contact the police,” he said.

“But they’ll come too late! Keep going!”

I was close to shoving him out of the truck and taking the wheel myself when my grandfather called out to my right. He was sitting in the driver’s seat of another truck next to Yusuf, both looking as terrified as I felt.

“What exactly did you see?” my grandfather demanded.

“We don’t have time to talk! We need to find them!”

“We need to call the police,” Yusuf said, leaping from the van and walking over to me. He gripped my shoulders through the window. “What happened exactly?”

“My sister… She needed to use the toilet. I wasn’t feeling well. Hassan waited outside for her. Once she finished, they both started walking toward me. Then someone… s-something just crashed into them and dragged them off. They disappeared so fast, I didn’t even have time to scream.”

I felt crazy even as I replayed the vision in my mind. It was like someone had sped by on a motorcycle, the fastest to ever be invented, and kidnapped them. But I’d heard no sound. And who the hell would want to kidnap Hassan or my sister?

Tears spilled from my eyes.

Where has my sister been taken?

She has asthma. What if she has an attack?

I turned back to Fariss. “Please! Keep going!”

The blood drained from Yusuf’s face. “We need to contact the police right away. They can send helicopters. In the meantime, four trucks should continue searching.” He turned to my grandfather. “Samir, return immediately to the city. Contact the police as soon as you can get a signal. River, you should go with him.”

“No. I can’t. I’m staying to search.”

He didn’t try to convince me otherwise and I was grateful for it. He got in the car that I was in, and my grandfather hurried back to the other one and headed back. Keep Dafne safe, Grandpa.

We remained with the other four cars who’d accompanied us out here.

I brushed away the tears furiously and fixed my gaze straight ahead.

We fell into tense silence as the four trucks, their headlights on full blast, roared over the sand dunes. I lost track of how much time we traveled—it must’ve been hours. But we still had not spotted even the slightest clue as to where Lalia and Hassan were. Finally, our vehicle pulled to a stop again.

“We’re going to run out of fuel if we don’t return,” Fariss said, eyeing the gauge.

“Then you return and we’ll continue in one of the others,” I said, already opening the door and stepping out.

To my horror, none of the other vehicles had much fuel left either. And we had to keep enough for the journey back.

I would have continued barefoot with my flashlight if it meant finding my sister, but Yusuf pulled me back in the vehicle.

“We need to return, River,” he said, his voice weak. “We simply can’t go any further or we’ll all be stuck out here. We have to rally the police.”