Invincible (Invisible #3 SAMPLE)

Invincible Chapter 5

5: A Promise or A Threat

(Mason)

Everyone gasps for breath as soon as we reach Earth again. Hands on my knees, I suck in as much air as I can get. Traveling between worlds is not comfortable in the least. Once I feel like my lungs aren’t going to burst, I look up to make sure everyone else is okay.

Olivia is bent over, but grinning at her accomplishment. Poor Sloan looks a bit freaked out, but otherwise okay. Fittingly, Robin seems to have had the worst time. I don’t do anything to help her as she rolls around on the ground struggling to breathe. Neither does anyone else. I stare at her wondering how in the world we’re going to manage tracking down Hayden and the Mother with her trailing behind us everywhere we go.

“Where are we?” Sloan asks.

Olivia straightens and takes in our surroundings with a smile. “My backyard. We’re home.”

“Not for long, though,” I remind everyone. I was a little worried we’d end up coming back to Earth up on the cliff above the reservoir where we fought the Sentinels, but somehow Olivia managed to bring us straight home. I’m about to suggest we get out of the open, but a crash from the porch yanks all our attention toward the noise.

The screen door bangs back against the frame behind an utterly shocked Evie. “What… where… Mason? Olivia?” She glances at an awkward looking Robin looking even more confused, but a second later she tosses it away all and bolts down the steps to throw herself into her sister’s arms. “Olivia!” she cries with abandon. “I thought I’d never see you again!”

Nobody says anything while Olivia holds her sobbing sister. It’s only when I hear little feet pounding down the hall that I turn away and open my arms to Molly flying out of the house and straight into my arms. She’s too hysterical to say anything, so I pick her up and wiggle her legs back and forth as I squeeze her in a massive hug. Olivia’s parents appear somewhere in between all that, and the next thing I know, we’re all being scooped up by them.

“Who are all these people?” Sloan finally asks, a panicked look on her face.

Laughing, Olivia struggles away from her family and begins the introductions. “Sloan, these are my parents and my little sister Evie. Molly, over there with Mason, is his little sister.” Gesturing to Sloan, now, she tells her family, “I know you guys can’t actually see her, but we brought back someone to help us. This is Sloan, Levi’s sister. She volunteered to help us save Hayden and find the Mother.”

That simple sentence inspires a whole host of questions. They all start shooting out of people’s mouths at once. Chief on the list is what happened to Hayden. “His parents have been inconsolable,” Olivia’s mom says. “We’ve tried to help them as much as we could, but not knowing what happened to him has been tearing them apart.”

“Wait,” I say. Something doesn’t seem quite right about what they’re saying. We’ve only been gone a few hours at the most, right? Suddenly the worn out, run down way everyone is carrying themselves clicks. “How long have we been gone?”

Olivia’s dad sounds nearing breaking as he says, “Three days.”

Looking over at Olivia, I don’t know why I expect her to have an answer, but I can’t help hoping. When she only shrugs, I feel lost. Traveling there and back was excruciating, but it only seemed to last a few seconds. Could it really have taken so long? Or does time flow differently in the Aerling world than it does here?

I realize there might be someone more knowledgeable to answer this question and turn to Sloan. “Do you understand what happened? Why we’ve been gone so long when it only felt like a few hours?”