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I should trust my gut.

WE HAD BEEN ON THE RUN FOR THE PAST THREE
weeks. Max got better and better as the days progressed. To my surprise he was a healer in training and was only supposed to observe Elliot. He’d never used his healing abilities himself, up until now. It was amazing to watch him heal himself every night. His hands would light up as he touched the slight dark veins the Shadow Caster had left him with a month ago.

We were supposed to be safe by now, but he couldn’t locate the Compound, so we had to make a move for another, in Mexico.

I’d always wanted to go to Mexico, but never thought in a million years that it would be while I was on the run.

Still, Mexico was quite far and I thought we would never reach it in this lifetime.

When we weren’t stowaways on a truck going in that direction, we would camp for the night, either in someone’s garage or a building that wasn’t in use anymore. There were plenty of those around after the recession.

The trees were also our sanctuary and I had to admit, I felt safer up in one than I did on the ground.

Max wasn’t so bad either, but I got what Elliot said about Margot and Max, how the two differed from one another. Max only spoke when he needed to, which was usually at our training sessions or when he didn’t like the way he felt toward things. Guess Leigh wasn’t lying when he said that Casters had to trust their gut as Max’s led us away from so many dangers.

I sighed as I thought about Leigh. I hadn’t dreamt of him the past three weeks, which made me worry a bit. Why had he stopped looking out for me now?

One way that Max differed from his sister, was that he was extremely polite - that was if you didn’t mind the cussing through all his sentences. Margot had the tendency to speak her mind, not caring how rude she sounded, at least when she’d been alive.

A horrible feeling crept into my gut just by thinking ill of her. She was dead and her soul should rest.

We didn’t just run, Max taught me to fight with anything that was worthy to fight with and we stole an aluminium baseball bat from one of the sporting goods stores we passed during our first week. The thing had become my best friend ever since, but it wasn’t the only stuff we took from stores. He grabbed food daily and clothes too. We both had backpacks filled with stuff we needed. We had to survive and although I didn’t like it much, I understood why we had to do it.

The bat was a bit heavy in the beginning but with the two of us practising our swing shots it became lighter and lighter. A part of me was dying to try it out on a Shadow Hound, but that was a really small part.

We also did a lot of fighting against each other, sparring was more like it and he was quite surprised at how fast I picked it up, well he thought I was a fast learner. I didn’t tell him that Mom had drilled me for three weeks before Fox and her team found us.

Fox.
My heart still ached when I thought about her and their bodies stacked like that on the wall. It haunted my dreams daily.

Still, Max was a master when it came to Martial arts, Judo an
d
Taekwondo and I saw my ass each and every time I tried to do one of the things Mom taught me.

It always led to Max finding a way to get me strangled up in one of his super grips which I couldn’t escape, no matter how hard I struggled. I thought I would never be able to get out or dodge one of his grips, but to my surprise that day came too.

Running hills toward our next destination was his way of getting me fit, which wasn’t that hard as I was already fit, thanks again to my mother’s drilling.

Still, it was like it wasn’t enough for him. He didn’t like that I wasn’t ready to practice with my sand and taunted me about that every day.

I gave him many reasons why I wasn’t ready and my last reason made him back off a bit.

I told him that I needed to control my emotions first before I was going to start experimenting with my sand. I didn’t want to turn dark, although he didn’t know that little fact about me, and argued on numerous occasions that I wouldn’t turn dark as my sand was golden, I wasn’t ready to take that chance and put it to the test.

I learned a lot about surviving in the Outer with Max and I didn’t know what I would’ve done if he hadn’t made it.

It was no surprise to me that he’d had to do this before.

It was how they ended up at Elliot’s Compound.

They used to be bigger, but three of his Casters died the night they found Max and Margot.

His situation was similar to the one we were in now. His dad used to be a Guardian of another Compound. It wasn’t a big Compound and it was hidden, or so they thought when three Shadow Casters killed both their parents as they tried to enter Revera.

Max and Margot got away, the Casters got into Revera but didn’t make it very far as Revera’s Guardians found them and ended their lives.

I learned a thing or two from Max about the Shadow Casters. He had dealt with so many of them in his short life.

Where the Shadow Casters only had about four Level Four casters, Revera had a couple of hundred.

I wanted to know how it was possible for Revera to have so many Level Four casters and the Shadow casters so few and the reason was simple. Inside Revera every Guardian can reach a Level Four, where in Oblivion you have to be born from a special line.

It really made me think about Mom again and why my uncle was attacking the Compound, time and time again. He was looking for me. I was 100% sure about that fact now.

Was it to kill me? I didn’t think so anymore.

If only special bloodlines can become Level Four Casters, they were desperately in need of me, but that also meant that they must have found Mom. How else would they have known about me? It wasn’t a wonderful thought to ponder on.

Still I was lucky to report that there were no more Shadow Hound incidents after that night at the barn, but I didn’t know how long it was going to stay that way.

“Chas.” Max shoved me hard and I opened my eyes. “Let’s go,” he said and jumped off the still truck.

We constantly hitched rides, it wasn’t that hard since we were completely invisible to the owners and it was the best way to stay off the Shadow Casters’ radar.

I picked up my backpack and my baseball bat and pulled it through the straps.

The huge “Mexico” sign was right in front of us and we walked past the cops, through the border without being detected.

The dogs barked like crazy but that wasn’t exactly new.

I’d gotten used to being invisible and it was quite awesome to be hidden to the rest of the world, especially when you were on the run.

The sky was turning orange and a soft pink with dark edges and I knew that we only had an hour or two at the most left in this day.

Max didn’t say anything and we hopped onto another pickup that was parked just outside the border.

Ten minutes later we were back on the road.

Around seven, we jumped off again. It was a small industrial part of Mexico and to be honest I didn’t like the vibe that surrounded us. My gut differed on a daily basis with Max’s now, but he’d done this kind of thing before where I hadn’t.

The streets were extremely dark and eerie and I just wished that Max loved the city as much as I did, but he had this paranoia of us being detected too easily by other Shadow Casters in cities.

“Elliot told me once about the Mexican Compound. It’s the biggest Compound in the Outer and also the strongest. If they let us in, we might actually be okay, Chas. We can finally get word to Selene that we’re okay.”

“You think she sent Casters after us?” I asked for the gazillionth time.

“I told you before, I’m sure she did.”

“Then why haven’t they found us yet?”

“We’re always on the run. How do you expect them to find us? We never stay in one place more than two days.”

It didn’t make sense to me. I mean these people had gadgets, most of them I didn’t even know about, and they couldn’t find two Casters on the run?

Max took all the back roads. Some of the small convenience stores were still open, but most of the little streets were dark.

We passed a couple of factories. They were huge and it took us a quarter of an hour to clear a street.

Adrenaline constantly pumped through my veins and I was on edge the whole time, just scanning the buildings waiting for the day Shadow Hounds and their Casters were going to attack.

I pulled my hoody over my head and had to run-walk to keep up with Max’s huge strides.

It was a miracle that he’d found a way for us to stay safe this long.

I started to understand why the life spans of the Casters living in the Outer were so short.

I slammed into Max when he just stopped in the middle of the road. I could tell that he was on alert. Something caught his attention and I can’t say how many times his gut had gotten us free from situations that could’ve turned ugly.

I listened too, real hard, and closed my eyes. Took in the sounds around me, trying to turn them softer, until I found what it was he was hearing, just like Max had taught me over the past few weeks. He was a great mentor and taught me a lot about surviving in the Outer, especially when you are far from your Compound. Still we needed Compounds. They were our safe havens and we needed our rest just like all living things.

I finally heard it. It was the snarling of hounds and shrill and sadistic laughter. I snapped out of it. I knew what laughed like that and I wanted to get the hell away from there as fast as I could.

“No, Chas. There’s someone in there that desperately needs our help, a Light Caster,” he said with eyes closed. He was still in the zone, fine tuning his hearing. “They might be from the Compound. It’s our duty to help them.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“No. You want good food and a warm bath every night, this is your chance, the only one we might get.”

I pulled my face, took out my baseball bat and nodded. “Fine, you sold me on the hot bath.”

His lips curved slightly and he walked across the street. I was right behind him and wished that by some miracle there wasn’t a full on battle going on in there.

We slipped through an opening and crawled behind huge crates.

The warehouse was big, most of the equipment was gone, but there were still mouldings in the floor that had been used to keep the machines in place.

I peeked to see what it was we were dealing with.

Three huge hounds were clawing at the wall. They made low growling sounds. For some reason it reminded me of a dog and cat game. The cat was hiding inside the hole in the wall, and the dogs were desperately trying to drag it out.

Max lifted two fingers, with the sign for North East.

You sure
? I mouthed and he nodded.

I took a deep breath.

Three hounds and two Shadow Casters, that didn’t sound right, usually there was a Shadow Caster for every hound.

One of them laughed again, egging one of the dogs to get it, whatever it was.

I hoped Max was right, that it was a Light Caster and that we weren’t going to put our lives on the line for a stupid cat or mouse.

I hated how sadistic this all was and that these Casters got high on fear.

Max drew a shield and a couple of knives from his dust and nodded his head.

He jumped up from behind the crate and I saw how three of his knives left his hand really fast.

“Now, Chas,” he yelled and I ran as fast as I could with my bat clutched inside my hands toward the group of hounds.

The one hound turned his gaze around and my bat connected hard with his ugly mutt.

He didn’t yelp like the one that attacked us inside the barn had, no this one turned to dust.

The second one jumped on me, pinning me and my bat down.

Slobber ran over my face and my heart beat so fast that I didn’t know if I was going to live another day.

One of Max’s knives hit him and a ton of black dust showered on top of me.

I rolled backwards the minute I was free, pushed myself up onto my legs again and shoved the bat hard into the gut of the last hound just as it was making its leap.