The Box Omnibus #1 (The Box, The Journal, The Sword) Read Online Free PDF Page B

isn’t bad enough—and looks directly at me. All of those lessons kick in and I react without thinking, pirouetting on my right foot and bolting as fast as I can into the darkness of the trees.
    “Bad bad bad,” I say as I run.
    “What?” Al’s voice is tight with fright. “What is it? What’s happening?”
    “Creature.” I gasp. “Bad.”
    It’s gaining on me. I can practically feel the heat of its breath. A glance over my shoulder and I see it’s not breath I feel. The bloody thing is shooting fire. From one of its mouths. I am so dead.
    As I’m turning to face forward again so I can pick up speed, I realize at the last second the creature’s muscles are tensing as it prepares to leap. I stop and spin around to the side, my arms guiding the huge beast past me as I’ve done a hundred times for normal human attacks in practice. Most people don’t have teeth and claws to rip at your skin as they pass. With the creature facing the wrong way, I run back in the direction of the car. The size of the thing, I should have a decent head start before it can turn all the way around. Plus, I should be helping Cindy. I guess.
    I’m wrong. It’s fast. Faster than anything its size should be able to move. This time when I turn to meet the attack, I do a spinning kick my master would be proud of. My foot lands hard on one of the heads, knocking it back for a second. The problem is the kick only seems to surprise the creature rather than hurt it. When I kick again, it easily dodges out of the way and sweeps its snake tail around to whip the back of my legs.
    I fall to the ground and attempt to scramble away, but it’s no good. Holding the lipstick container hard against my chest, I wait for the inevitable pain and death.
    “Sorry Al,” is the last thing I say.
    It doesn’t bite.
    No scratching either. It freezes. With my eyes closed, I wouldn’t have known it was still there if it weren’t for its hot, stinking breath and deep growls.
    I force myself to take a breath and then another. Why isn’t it killing me?
    “Why isn’t it killing me?” I ask Al. Good thing he’s inside the container or else he’d be long since crushed in my sweaty palm.
    “It was sent to find you, not kill you,” he tells me. “Not many can control a chimera. Those who can aren’t people you want to meet alone in the woods.”
    “Great. Thanks.”
    Ok, maybe I should have been more grateful for the information, but what I really wish he would tell me is a way out.
    “You should run,” he says as though reading my thoughts.
    Though it would be nice if he suggested a new idea.
    “Tried. Didn’t work.”
    “You have to understand,” Al persists. “This thing can only kill you. The people who sent it will do far worse.”
    “Far worse how?”
    I feel my heart rise in my throat. Al sounds scared. He didn’t sound afraid when he first fell onto my shirt, but this creature has his voice shaking. His fear makes me terrified.
    “Trust me. Run.”
    Before I can move, crunching footsteps warn me of the arrival of someone else.
    “Good girl, Farah,” the man says to the monster like a normal person would say to their pet dog. “And she’s still alive. Very good work.”
    I swear, if he starts scratching it behind the ear...
    “Lou?” Cindy asks.
    She sounds fine, though maybe a bit grumpy. I manage to peek around the two-headed creature—Had Al called it a chimera? He couldn’t have—and find Cindy with her arm gripped tight by a man wearing a long dark leather trench coat and brown cowboy hat. His face is scruffy like he hasn’t shaved in a few days, and there doesn’t look to be a piece of him not covered in filth.
    I answer her question with a whimpering sound. I think she gets the message.
    “Try running again and Farah here’ll rip you apart,” the man warns. “I don’t get paid if you’re dead, so I’d prefer if you don’t run.”
    “Yeah, she gets it,” Cindy says in her most unimpressed voice. “Who’s