Authors: Kelley Armstrong
A
S DEREK HELD UP the bullet, my heart slammed against my chest. I took a deep breath and pushed aside thoughts of the Edison Group.
“Are we on Andrew’s property?” I asked.
He nodded.
“But it could still be hunters.”
Another nod. He shifted off me and surveyed the forest. All was quiet.
“Crawl that way,” he whispered, “into the thicker bushes. I’ll get closer and take a look—”
The long grass at our feet erupted. Derek threw himself over me again with a whispered “Stay down!” like I had a choice, with a two-hundred-pound guy over me.
A horrible squawking echoed through the forest, and we looked down to see the dead bird on its feet, wings drumming the ground. I’ll point out, with some satisfaction, that I wasn’t the only one who jumped.
Derek scrambled off me. “Release—”
“I know.”
I crawled to the other side of the clearing, far enough that I didn’t need to worry about the bird trying to jump on me.
“Hear that?” a voice called between the bird’s cries.
As the bird screamed, I concentrated on releasing its spirit, but all I could think was
Shut it up. Shut it up!
Another crack. We both hit the ground. A bullet zoomed over our heads, hitting a tree trunk in a rain of bark.
Still lying on my stomach, I closed my eyes. Derek grabbed my arm.
“I’m trying,” I said. “Just give me—”
“Forget it. Come on.”
He propelled me forward, hunched over, moving fast. Behind us, the bird continued to scream, covering the sound of our retreat. When it stopped, we did. I could hear something thrashing in the undergrowth—the bird or our pursuers, I couldn’t tell. After a moment, the bird started again, its cries taking on an edge of panic that made my skin crawl.
I closed my eyes to release it.
“Not yet,” Derek said.
He led me farther, until we found a cluster of bushes. We managed to get into the middle of them and hunkered down. The bird’s cries subsided, but I could hear it moving.
“What the—?”
It was a man’s voice, cut off by a
pfft
that anyone who watches crime movies recognizes as the sound of a silenced gun. I was pretty sure they didn’t make silencers for hunting rifles…and that hunters didn’t carry sidearms.
The bird’s cries got louder. And the man’s curses got louder still. A couple more silenced shots, then a crack, like he’d tried the rifle, too. The bird’s screams turned to an awful gurgling.
“Jesus, what is that thing? I practically blew its head off and it’s still alive.”
Another man answered with a harsh laugh. “Well, I guess that answers our question, doesn’t it? The Saunders girl found those boys.”
I glanced at Derek, but his gaze was fixed straight ahead, in the direction of the voice. I closed my eyes and focused on the bird. After a moment, those pathetic sounds finally stopped.
When another squawk came, I squeezed my eyes shut, certain it meant I hadn’t released the bird’s spirit after all. But it was only a radio. Derek strained to listen. I couldn’t catch most of what was said, just enough to confirm that these men were indeed an Edison Group security team.
They’d found us. And they weren’t bothering with tranquilizer darts anymore. Why would they? We were dangerous experimental subjects who’d escaped twice. Now they didn’t need an excuse to do what they’d have been happy to do all along: abandon rehabilitation and “remove” us from their study. The only one who might have fought to keep me alive was Aunt Lauren, a traitor. Easier to kill us here and bury the bodies, far from Buffalo.
“Simon!” I hissed. “We need to warn him and—”
“I know. The house is through there. We’ll circle.”
“But we can’t go back to the house. That’s the first place they’ll go, if they aren’t there already.”
His eyes dipped away, his jaw setting.
“I—I guess we have to try, don’t we?” I said. “Okay, if we’re careful—”
“No, you’re right,” he said. “I’ll go. You wait here.”
I grabbed the back of his coat as he crawled forward. “You can’t—”
“I need to warn Simon.”
“I’ll come—”
“No, you stay here.” He started turning, then stopped. “Better yet, get farther away. There’s a road about a half mile north.” He pointed. “You can’t miss it. It’s an easy walk—Simon and I used to do it all the time. When I give the signal, take off. Get to the road and hide. I’ll find you there.”
He started walking away. I wanted to argue, but knew there was no use—nothing would stop him from going back for Simon. And he was right not to want me along. I’d only be one more person to protect. Best to wait for his signal and—
Derek’s earsplitting whistle cut through the night. Then he whistled again, and a third time and I knew that’s what he’d meant by “signal,” not just for me, but for Simon, trying to wake him up.
It was loud enough to wake
everyone
up—and to tell the whole security team exactly where—
The thought stuttered in my head. Then I started cursing him, mentally calling him every name I could think of, including a few I didn’t realize I knew.
He knew his whistles would draw the attention of the entire Edison Group team. That’s why he’d done it, rather than something subtle like throwing stones at Simon’s window. He was drawing their attention to himself, giving Simon and me a chance to get away.
I wanted to scream at him. Those men had guns. Real
guns
. And they weren’t afraid to use them. If they did take his bait—
He’ll be fine. He gave you a chance to escape. Now use it. Move!
I forced myself out of the bushes and set out at a slow, crouching jog, picking my way over open area and avoiding the noisy undergrowth. When I heard footsteps, I glanced around for cover and, seeing none, hit the ground.
Two figures passed just ten feet away. Both were dressed head to foot in camouflage, like army snipers. Even their hats had net screens covering their faces.
A radio squealed, and a man’s voice came over it. “Beta team?”
One of the two—a woman by her voice—responded.
The man continued. “He’s over here. Head in from the east and we’ll surround—”
A rifle shot knocked my heart into my throat. The crash of undergrowth sounded over the radio.
“Did you get him?” the woman asked.
“Not sure. That was Charlie team. Signing off. Get over here.”
Another shot. More distant crashing. I was sure my heart was pounding loud enough for the two to hear, but they kept going, heading for that distant racket. Heading for Derek.
Beta, Charlie…I’d seen enough war movies to know that meant there were at least three pairs out here. Six armed security agents. Enough to surround Derek and then—
Just keep going. He’ll find a way out. He’s got superpowers, remember?
None of which would help him against six trained professionals. None of which would stop a bullet.
I waited until the two were gone, then I scanned the treetops. The last few summers at drama camp, we’d had Survivor days. In most athletic challenges, I’d been a washout, but there’d been one where being small seemed to be an advantage…that and having a few old gymnastics trophies on my shelf.
I raced to the nearest tree with low branches, grabbed one, and tested it. If Derek swung onto it, he’d crash back to the ground, but I was able to get up and onto the next, sturdier one with the branch giving no more than a faint groan of complaint.
I kept climbing until I was confident that the canopy of new leaves hid me. Then I got into a secure position and whistled—a thin, reedy screech that would have Derek rolling his eyes.
What makes you think they’re even going to hear that?
I whistled again.
And even if they do, why bother with you? They know where Derek is. They’ll stick with him.
The distant tramp of boots from the departing pair stopped. A murmur of voices. Then the footsteps returned my way.
Now what are you going to do? You’d better have a plan or—
I shushed the inner voice and gave another, softer whistle, just to be sure they heard me.
The radio crackled.
“Alpha? This is Beta. We think we heard the Saunders girl. She’s trying to contact Souza. Do you have him yet?”
I strained to hear the reply but couldn’t make it out.
“We’ll swing by and help as soon as we have her.”
Meaning they didn’t have Derek.
Or they have him; they just need help controlling him.
The radio sounded again, another transmission I couldn’t make out. The woman signed off, then said to her partner, “They want you to go back and help with the boy. I can handle the Saunders girl.”
Well, that didn’t work out so well, did it?
The man took off. I held still as the woman began searching for me. She passed my tree by at least a dozen feet and kept going. I waited until I was sure she wasn’t going to return on her own, then knocked my foot against the tree trunk.
She turned. For a moment, she just stood there, shining her flashlight beam in a full circle. I prepared to knock again, if she walked away, but she headed toward me, moving slowly, beam skimming the ground, pausing at every bush or clump of tall grass.
When she walked under my tree, I tightened my hold and flattened myself against the branch. As I moved the foot I’d kicked with, it brushed the tree trunk. A chunk of bark fell at the woman’s feet.
She shone the beam down at it.
Please, don’t. Please, please—
The flashlight beam swung up into the branches.
I dropped. I didn’t think about the stupidity of dropping onto an armed woman probably twice my size. I just let go and rolled off the branch, that inner voice screaming
What are you doing?!…
in far less polite language.
I hit the woman. We both went down, her cushioning my fall. I leaped up, ignoring the squeaks of protest from my jolted body. I yanked out my knife and—
The woman lay at the foot of the tree, her head a few inches from it. She had a net veil hanging from her hat but through it I could see that her eyes were closed, and her mouth lolled open. She must have hit the trunk and been knocked out. I resisted the urge to check, grabbed her radio, and spun, searching for the gun. It wasn’t there. No rifle and no pistol…or not one I could see. I took a good look around to see if she’d dropped it. Nothing.
Either her partner had it or she had one hidden under her jacket. I paused, wanting to check, but was afraid of rousing her. One last look, then I snatched up the fallen flashlight and ran.
I
WAS SURE I was heading in the direction Derek told me, so all the security teams should be behind me. But after less than a minute, I heard the tramp of boots again. I dropped and covered my radio. I turned the volume all the way down, even though it had been silent since I’d taken it.
I crawled into the nearest patch of brush and lay on my stomach. The footsteps seemed to be going parallel to me, neither approaching nor retreating.
“Tell me how a full squad of us can lose four teenagers in less than twenty acres of woods,” a man’s voice said. “Davidoff is not going to be happy.”
Another man answered, “With any luck, he’ll never find out. We’ve still got an hour before daylight. Plenty of time. How far can they get?”
They continued walking and talking, their voices and steps receding. When they were gone, I started creeping out, then stopped. If all four of us were out here, should I be heading for safety? Or trying to find the others?
Um, if you go to that safe spot, where Derek expects you to be, you won’t have to worry about finding them. They’ll come to you.
What if they need my help?
You accidentally knocked out one woman and suddenly you’re Rambo?
It felt cowardly getting myself to safety, but my inner voice had a point—if that’s where Derek expected me to be, then I’d better head there and meet him.
But I
did
feel a bit like Rambo—switchblade in one hand, radio in the other, flashlight jammed in my waistband—as I stealthily crept through the thick woods.
Yeah, as long as you don’t trip and impale yourself on your own knife.
I closed the blade.
“Chloe?” a female voice whispered.
I whirled so fast my foot slid on the soft ground. “Tori?”
I squinted into the night. The woods here were so dark I could only make out shapes that could as easily be trees and bushes as people. My fingers touched the flashlight, but I pulled back and kept looking.
“Tori?”
“Shhh. This way, hon.”
The endearment made the hair on my neck rise.
“Aunt Lauren?”
“Shhh. Follow me.”
I caught a glimpse of a figure. It was as faint as the voice, and all I could see was a pale shirt glowing ahead. I didn’t move. It sounded like Aunt Lauren and the figure was her size, but I couldn’t be sure and I wasn’t running after her like a little kid, so desperate to believe that I raced into a trap.
I took out my flashlight and clicked it on, but she was darting between trees, and it was impossible to make out more than her shape and shirt. Then she glanced back and I got just a glimpse of a profile, a swing of blond hair—an imperfect view, but enough for my gut to say
that’s her
.
She waved for me to hurry, then veered left into deeper forest. I followed, still cautious, no matter what my gut said. I was jogging past a patch of bushes when a figure lunged out. Before I could spin, it grabbed me, a hand clamping over my mouth, cutting short my yelp.
“It’s me,” Derek whispered.
He tried pulling me into the bushes, but I resisted.
“Aunt Lauren,” I said. “I saw Aunt Lauren.”
He gave me a look like he must have heard me wrong.
“My aunt. She’s here. She’s—” I pointed in the direction she’d gone. “I was following her.”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“She was wearing a light shirt. She ran past—”
“Chloe, I’ve been right here. I saw you coming. No one else ran—” He stopped short, realizing what he was saying. If I’d seen her and he hadn’t…
My chest seized. “No…”
“It was an illusion,” he said quickly. “A spell to trap you. My dad’s done stuff like that and…” He rubbed his hand over his mouth, then said, firmer, “That’s what it was.”
I’d wondered the same thing, but now, hearing it from his mouth, when it should have supported my own doubts, all I could think was: a ghost. I saw Aunt Lauren’s ghost. The forest blurred, and his hand on my arm seemed the only thing holding me up.
“Chloe? It was a spell. It’s dark. You didn’t get a good look.”
All true. Totally true. And yet…I shook it off and straightened, pulling from his grasp. When he hesitated, hand out, ready to grab me if I collapsed, I stepped away.
“I’m fine. So what’s the plan?”
“We’ll wait here—”
Footsteps sounded. We pushed into the bushes and crouched. A flashlight beam skimmed the trees like a searchlight.
“I know you kids are back here,” a man said. “I heard voices.”
Derek and I stayed still. His shallow breathing hissed at my ear. My back was against him and I could feel the thump of his heart. The flashlight beam kept coming, cutting through the darkness. It passed over our bushes. Then it stopped, came back, and shone full in our faces.
“Okay, you two. Come out of there.”
I could only see a veiled figure silhouetted behind the flashlight’s glare.
“Come out,” he said again.
Derek’s breath warmed my ear. “When I say run, run.” Then, louder, “Put the gun down and we’ll come out.”
“It is down.”
With the light shining in our eyes and the man hidden behind it, there was no way to know if he was telling the truth.
He lifted his free hand and waved it. “See, no gun. Now come—”
The man dropped forward, like he’d been hit from behind. The flashlight tumbled to the ground, beam arcing through the air. Derek shot past me and tackled the man as he started to rise. Simon stepped from the darkness behind the man, hands raised for another knock-back spell.
“Run,” Derek said, holding the struggling man. When Simon and I hesitated, he snarled, “Run!”
We took off but kept checking behind. We could hear the sounds of a fight, but it was a short one; and before we’d gone far, Derek was behind us. When we slowed, he thumped us both in the back, telling us to keep moving. The moon through the trees gave us enough light to see where we were going.
“Tori?” I whispered to Simon.
“We split up. She—”
Derek motioned us to silence. We ran until we saw the glittering light of houses through the trees and knew we must be approaching the back road. We took another few strides. Then Derek thumped us again, this one a hard whack between the shoulder blades that knocked us off our feet. He landed between us. When we tried to rise, he pushed us back down.
Simon lifted his dirt-streaked face and rubbed his jaw. “I kinda like my teeth. All of them.”
Derek shushed him and twisted around to lie on his stomach, facing the other way. We did the same. I followed his gaze as it traveled over the forest, until it stopped and I heard footsteps.
Derek tensed, ready to leap up, but they were still a good distance away when they stopped, footsteps replaced by the murmur of voices. The radio in my pocket chirped. I took it out and checked the volume.
Simon looked past Derek and mouthed. “Radio?” then pointed toward the voices, asking if it was one of theirs.
I nodded.
“Sweet,” he mouthed, then shot me a thumbs-up that made me blush. Derek glanced over with a nod and a grunt that I interpreted to mean,
Good job…as long as you didn’t do anything stupid to get it.
“I found Alpha one,” a man’s voice said, so low I had to strain to hear him.
Simon motioned for Derek to turn up the volume, but Derek shook his head. He could hear fine so there was no need to risk it.
“Where is he?” a woman’s voice answered over the radio.
“Knocked out. Looks like he went a couple of rounds with our young werewolf.”
“Get him to safety. Delta team still has the Enright girl, right?”
I shot a look at Derek, but his expression didn’t change as he concentrated on listening.
“Delta two does. I’m not sure how well she’ll work as bait, so I sent Delta one to get Carson from the truck.”
That got Derek’s attention. Simon mouthed “Andrew” to me. The voices retreated, but a moment later, the woman’s came again over the radio, calling Delta two. A man answered.
“Have you got Carson?” she asked.
“I’m almost there.”
“Good. Your job is to persuade him to call those kids. He’s going to lure them in.”
“He won’t.”
“I don’t expect him to volunteer,” the woman snapped, “but considering he’s in our custody, he’ll do what we say. If he refuses, shoot him.”
Simon’s head shot up, his eyes dark with worry. Derek motioned for him to be quiet as we listened.
Delta two came back on. “Um, did someone move the truck?”
“What?”
“The truck. With Carson. It’s…not here.”
The argument that followed was loud enough that Derek put his hands over the radio speaker, muffling it more. They spent the next few minutes making sure Delta two had the right spot and that no one else had moved Andrew and the truck. But there was no such simple explanation—their hostage was gone…with their truck.
“So Andrew’s safe. What about Tori?” I asked when the radio went silent.
For a moment Derek said nothing, which was better than what I expected—a snapped
What about her?
As quick as he’d been the other day to say that he didn’t care if Tori walked in front of a speeding car, it wasn’t so easy to actually stand by, knowing she was in mortal danger.
“I’ll do a sweep,” he said. “If I find her, great.”
He didn’t say the rest, but I understood.
If I don’t find her, we have to leave her behind.
As bad as that sounded, it was the right thing to do. I didn’t want Derek putting himself in a bullet’s path for Tori. That was an awful thing to admit. I didn’t hate Tori—I didn’t even really dislike her anymore. But when it came down to the cold, hard choice of putting a life on the line to save hers, I couldn’t do it. Not Derek’s, not Simon’s, not mine. And that choice was going to haunt me for a very long time.
“Be careful and…” The other words that rose to my lips were “be quick,” but I couldn’t be that callous—even to think it shocked me. So I swallowed and repeated, “Be careful.”
Derek wasn’t leaving, though. We were. He made us set out first, so he could stand watch. When we were safely on our way to the back road, he’d go after Tori.
We made it about twenty paces before a figure appeared in our path. Simon’s fingers flew up.
“Simon, it’s—” the man said, ending in an
oomph
as the spell hit and he fell backward to the ground.
“Andrew!” Simon rushed forward.
The man rose, giving a wry smile as he brushed himself off. “I see your knock-back spell has improved.”
Andrew wasn’t much taller than Simon, but he was squarely built, sturdy, with a broad face and crooked nose. His crew-cut hair was gray, though he wouldn’t be any older than my dad, and looked like a retired prizefighter. Not what I expected from that cozy, tidy little house.
When he looked at me, his smile faltered, the wrinkle between his brows deepening, like I looked familiar, but he was having trouble placing my face. He started to say something. Then he glanced up sharply.
“Someone’s coming,” Andrew said.
Simon glanced at the approaching shadow, big but moving silently. “It’s Derek.”
“No, that’s not—” Andrew began.
Derek stepped into the light of the clearing. Andrew looked up at him and blinked. He stared at Derek, like he was trying—and failing—to find the boy he knew.
Behind the surprise in his eyes, there was something sharper, a note of worry, maybe even fear, like in that moment, he saw not his friend’s son, but a big, powerful young werewolf. He blinked the fear back, but not before Derek saw it, his gaze shunting to the side, shoulders and jaw tensing, as if to say that was okay, he didn’t care. But I knew he did.
“You’ve…grown.”
Andrew tried for a smile but couldn’t quite find it, and that, for Derek, seemed worse than the fear. He looked away completely, muttering, “Yeah.”
Simon waved at me. “This is—”
“Let me guess. Diane Enright’s girl.”
I shook my head. “Chloe Saunders.”
“It’s the hair,” Simon said. “She’s blond, but we had to dye it because—”
“Later,” Derek said, then looked at Andrew. “They have the Enright girl. Victoria.”
Andrew frowned. “Are you sure?”
Simon took the radio from me and waved it. “Chloe got this from them. We heard about you escaping and them catching Tori.”
“I’ll go get her then. You three, get to the truck.” He told us where to find it, then started to leave.
“I’m coming with you,” Derek said. “I can find her faster than you can.”
Andrew seemed ready to argue, but one look at Derek told him it was useless, so he took the radio from me and sent us to safety.