Streamfield Shifters: Hide & Seek

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I didn't remember that there was a pit beneath the Gate until I popped out on the other side. By then, it was too late to do anything about it. Momentum carried me forward; arms pinwheeling, I pitched into a tumble, every muscle tensing up in preparation for impact.

Oh, shit—ground ...?

To my surprise—and relief—my outstretched foot did not pass through air; instead, it made contact with soft dirt. Apparently, the police had everything filledback in. But my brain, still convinced I was falling, didn't pass that information on to my body. Instead, I tripped like a champion and plowed face-first into the backs of two adults.

Face positively burning with embarrassment, I thanked the two women for their help and dusted myself off. Did anyone else see that?

Some hero you are, I griped to myself. Who does that?

Above my head, a bird chirped, steering my attention away from what could have been a painful series of scrapes and bruises. Tilting my head back, I stared up at a familiar canopy of oak and elm trees. A warm spring breeze rustled the branches as if to welcome me home.

Home.

In the distance, a car horn honked, making me flinch. It was quickly followed by the deep, groaning rumble of a tractor trailer.

Why was everything so loud?

No sooner did that observation cross my mind then the low hum of the Gate abruptly ceased. I twisted in the dirt and watched as the opaque film faded away. The massive silver obelisks disintegrated into tiny motes of light, cascading to the ground where they simply vanished. All that was left of the Gate were two silver stones.

I squinted and leaned forward. Had the stones grown in size since we first left? As I reached out with one hand to touch the stone on the right, the wail of multiple police sirens split the air. I jerked back, whirling to face the elementary school.

All around me, the former captives began to panic. Oh, no ...

"Aly! Aly!"

I rushed from person to person in a vain attempt at getting everyone to calm down, but it was futile. It was apparent that many of them had been gone for so long that they no longer recognized the environment and freaked out. The children, already exhausted from our journey, picked up on the adults' confusion and fear and began crying on the spot.

In an instant, our neat and orderly troop dissolved into a complete shit-show.

"Aly!"

Rachael grabbed me by the shoulder as I tried to soothe one child and spun me around. "What?" I spat out, wild-eyed with my own brand of panic. God, why did this have to happen now?

"I called Mom and Dad. The cops are on their way."

No shit, Sherlock, I grumbled to myself, biting my lip to keep those words from coming out. None of this was Rachael's fault; she was just doing the right thing.

"Where's Jimmy?" I asked instead, hopping up on my tip-toes in the hope of spying a little blond head with one white streak. God, if we brought Jimmy home only to lose him ...

Rachael stared at me as if I'd gone completely crazy. "Right here." She jerked her thumb to the left. Standing at my cousin's elbow, looking for all the world as if he were seriously reconsidering his opinion of me, was Jimmy.

I feel so frazzled, I thought despairingly. Anyone have a glass of wine handy? Taking a deep breath, I pushed an errant lock of black hair over my ear. "Oh, there you are," I said as the whine of sirens intensified.

"You okay, cuz?" Rachael asked, cocking her head to the side.

I sighed. "No?"

Rachael pursed her lips, studying me. "Didn't think so."

"No!" I called out as a group of teenagers began to drift away. "We have to stay together!"

Just as the last shreds of my sanity began to unravel, a familiar voice rose above the chaos: "Michaels!"

Lord help me, Detective Merrickson waded through the sea of bodies to stand in front of us. And I was never so happy to see that man in my entire life.

"What's this all about?" he thundered, hands on hips.

Well, that gratitude lasted all of two seconds.

Rachael put her arm around Jimmy's shoulder and drew him forward. "Look who we found."

And that's how my sixteen-year-old cousin managed to render yet another powerful man speechless.

I'd like to say that everything was wrapped up neatly in a bow after that—happily ever after and all that lovely, childish jazz. But that would make this a faerie tale, and real life is rarely like faerie tales—even if it does prove that elves truly exist.

The next few weeks following our return were spent in a tiny white room in some nondescript building in Boston, being grilled at various points by members of the United States military, CIA, FBI and Secret Service. (Not without clan lawyers present, thank God.) They wanted to know every detail of every minute that we spent in Atlantis—as well as accurate maps of the area. I made one general extremely angry by telling him five times that at no point had I looked at a map. Then Rachael pissed another one off by not giving him an encyclopedic entry on the Convergence.

The elves themselves didn't quite understand the impending event, so how could we?

During this time, the rest of the missing teenagers and adults emerged from the Gate. Marines tried to storm the portal as they exited, but were thrown backwards as soon as they crossed the threshold. I suspected that the Summer elves took my words to heart and were prepared for such an attempt.

Failing in that endeavor, the military tried to dig the Gate up—which, if they had listened to me, was an exercise in futility. The Streamfield Police Department took a shot that once and look where it got them. Then the Army came in and tried to blow up the Gate—which brought no less than forty lawsuits against the government from neighbors and the Streamfield School Department after the detonation blew out all of the elementary school windows facing the woods.

Still, the stones remained.

Lastly, they tried to get Rachael and me to activate it. Which we couldn't, of course, because neither one of us could remember the phrases and hand gestures Leihalani had used. The generals really didn't like that.

Eventually, someone was smart enough to realize that there was nothing left to gain by asking us any more questions and we were allowed to finally go home.

On the day that Rachael and I returned from our extended trip to Boston, Detective Merrickson stopped by the clan compound with a curious request: If any other such cases came up, would we like to be called on as consultants?

Rachael was all for it, but I sat there for a while, thinking it over. I had been so gung-ho in the beginning, but the reality of the situation quickly made itself known in tough and often painful ways. If the detective had asked me in the moments after our arrival through the Gate, I was quite certain my answer would have been "No". But now that those events were behind me, I was able to look back on the whole experience with a discerning eye.

The purpose I'd been searching for while seated behind that reception desk spread out before me, as clear as day. I wasn't a hell-for-leather adventure seeker, but despite the hardship, tears and, yes, pain, I was looking forward to something like our trip through Atlantis again.

So, I agreed.