Power

"What have you done, brother?" Kaden demanded. The King laughed his low, terrifying chuckle.

"I have taken retribution for what was done to me." The King replied and in the next instant he had crossed the space between us and grabbed me by the throat.

"I should have killed you myself, little girl." Growled the King, holding me off the ground. Kaden yelped and grappled at his throat too, and the King laughed madly.

"A fortuitous side effect of the link brother. Looks as though I can kill two birds with one stone." He crowed and squeezed my neck harder. I scratched at the King's hands, trying to free myself.

'Kaden!' I screamed in my head 'Use the link! Turn it on your brother! KILL ME!' Kaden's head jerked around and despite the panic in his eyes, he shook his head no. There were stars at the edges of my vision, when suddenly something shifted in my body. The hands that were scrambling at the Nightmare King, suddenly latched on tight, and a purple sparks started whirling around them, disappearing into my skin. The King's grip lightened slightly and I pulled a breath in through my tightened airways.

"What? What are you doing to me?" He looked incredulously at Kaden.

"Using the link, bitch." Kaden replied and I saw the purple swirl faster around me, going through me now, to Kaden. The King dropped me in horror and in that second, Kaden and I both sat up in the SUV, coughing and taking deep breaths as quickly as possible.

"What the HELL is going on?" Yelled Brie fearfully from the driver's seat. "You guys sounded like you were choking and I couldn't get you to reply!"

"I mean, sorta..." I rasped out.

"You can stop driving now Brie, we're never going to find him in your world and he's killed all his minions." Kaden wheezed. Brie pulled over onto the next dirt road she saw and parked in an empty field.

"What do we do now then?" Brie asked with worry.

"Well... I think it's time to try my idea." Kaden's eye's lit up.

"And just like that, we've ventured into crazy-town." I said suspiciously, eyeing him. "What new torture have you devised?"

"Ah just this." Kaden answered, placing a hand on me swiftly and purple light swirled into me. He reached for Brie and did the same to her.

"And that was for..." Brie prompted.

"This!" Kaden said happily, wrapping his arms around me tightly as shadows swooped up and swallowed us both.

I screamed and felt my body tug in two different directions. The sensation was like somebody was trying to rip me in half. Then the shadows disappeared, leaving me in some place I couldn't accurately describe if I wanted to. It shifted in and out of focus like it existed, but didn't. There was damage everywhere when it appeared, and everything was pitch dark. The shadows flowed around things like they were alive, and I could only briefly see objects in them before they were covered over again. Things floated and moved in the darkness, and I squirmed a little, afraid of not knowing what they were.

"What?" I asked dumbfounded. Kaden was grinning from ear to ear. He let me go and looked at me proudly.

"I knew it would work! Being around you two so much has made me so much stronger, and I know it's been affecting you two positively too! It's like our two species were always meant to work together closely! Why has no one done this before?" Kaden exclaimed happily.

"Knew what would work? What did you DO?" I demanded with irritation.

"Hold that thought, I'll be right back!" Kaden grinned and the shadows swallowed him.

"Kaden!" I shrieked, but it was too late, he had completely disappeared. He reappeared abruptly with Brie in his arms, who promptly got sick and threw up.

"Now I know what Rue meant in that forest." She groaned holding her stomach. "Please don't do that again." The shadows were drifting around her vomit like dogs attracted to a smell. I watched them with trepidation.

"Uh Kaden-where are we?" I asked.

"So, uh, you know how earlier today I said I had never been this close to humans and the cool things happening and how I wanted to try something?" Kaden nervously hedged. I glared at him, and motioned him to hurry it up. He stammered quickly through what he had done.

"You transported us TO YOUR WORLD WITHOUT ASKING!?" I screeched, then punched him-hard.

For the sake of stopping the Nightmare King, I had to let things for for a while, but I warned Kaden I would be making sure he felt my wrath later. Kaden explained that imbuing us with the shoe's energy, energy from HIS world, made it a little easier to transport us, and that he was confident he could bring us over, because that energy belonged here. A possibility he had considered before with me, since there had been such interaction between me, Kaden, the creatures and his brother. Every time any of them spent time in my head, they left little traces behind, and a much time they had been spending walking around in my head... Well let's just say there was a veritable payload in my head. He wasn't as sure about Brie, until he had access to the shoe's energy through my link with the Nightmare King. Once he passed some of that on to her, viola, here we were. I was still angry that he violated the terms of our agreement, and it enraged me that he couldn't have been sure we could even survive here, but for the moment....

We were running in what Kaden said was the direction of his brother. Brie and I couldn't see well in this world, so Kaden had taken the lead. It was terrifying to be running through the dark, unable to see anything clearly with little snatches of views of what was around you. The number of times I tripped couldn't be counted, and I won't even mention the one time I ran into...whatever that was.

I let out a huff as I ran into Brie, looking around her to see why we had stopped. There was a purple light up ahead.

"What are you planning to do here?" I hissed and Kaden handed me a pack of matches.

"Burn the shoes." He said grimly