Uprising (Alternate Earth Series, Book 2) by S.J. West Read Free Book Online

but you’re not!” Mason counters heatedly.
    “Guys,” Jered says, reminding me that our conversation isn’t exactly private. “We have another flock flying up the highway. It looks like they’re following a small caravan of vehicles driving north.”
    I look down at black stretch of highway below us, and see a battered pickup truck with two cars behind it, doggedly being followed by a small cluster of birds. The birds are weaving in between the vehicles, making me wonder how the drivers can even see where they’re going.
    “The birds are too close to the cars,” I tell everyone. “We’re going to have to draw them away from the vehicles before we can kill them.”
    “Fly as low as you can,” Malcolm instructs me. “They should follow you as long as they can see you.”
    “Be careful,” I hear Mason say; no longer mad, just worried.
    “I always am,” I tell him as Leah and I dive down towards the small convoy.
    The birds sense us before we’re even twenty feet away from them. Like a free- flowing fountain, they begin to fly straight towards us. I change our trajectory slightly, and glance over my shoulder to make sure all of the birds are following us. Even one left behind could cause the death of an innocent. As soon as I’m sure we have them all, I instantly spin us around to confront them. Then, something I hadn’t considered before happens. I must have spun us faster than I’d thought, because the suddenness of the action makes Leah lose her grip on her staff, causing her to say a cuss word I didn’t even know she knew.
    I immediately make a nose dive towards her staff as fast as I can, but I remain acutely aware that the flock is following close behind us. I’m not extremely confident Leah will have enough time to pick up her staff and use it before the birds reach us.
    While we continue to make our rapid descent, I see Mason run across the field towards Leah’s staff. He picks it up and holds it up in the air so we don’t have to land to retrieve it. Leah reaches out and pulls it from Mason’s grasp as we zoom past him. Without slowing down, I try something I’ve never done before: flying backwards.
    “Get ready!” I tell Leah before I spin us around to face the oncoming birds, while continuing to fly away from them.
    Leah and I join the power of our talismans together, and summarily destroy the flock.
    “Way to go!” Mason tells us.
    “Thanks,” I reply, looking back down at the road to see that the three-vehicle caravan has now come to a complete halt. Feeling a false sense of security, the people inside the vehicles step out of them.
    “Does anyone see anything else coming?” I ask urgently.
    After I hear everyone say no, I breathe a sigh of relief and fly us down to the road to see if the people we just helped need any more assistance.
    “Don’t land too close to them,” Mason cautions. “We don’t know who they are or what they’re capable of.”
    “I won’t,” I say, agreeing with my husband’s assessment of the situation.
    We land about thirty feet away from the truck that was at the head of the small convoy. From the air, I couldn’t tell what type of truck it was. It’s not until I’m standing in front of it that I see it’s a charcoal-grey Dodge Ram.
    I immediately recognize the vehicle, but it doesn’t lessen my shock to see the owner of the truck standing beside it with his wife and daughter.
    John Austin looks just as handsome in this reality as he did in ours. His short brown hair and deep brown eyes bring back memories of one of my closest childhood friends and Faison’s long dead fiancé. Her grief over his death is what propelled her to travel through the Tear to this reality all those years ago. Now, to stand in front of this Earth’s version of John Austin, I’m forced to remember how much he meant to me as well. All of the buried emotions over the loss of my friend seem to bubble up at once, forcing me to take a steadying breath. I fight back