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I squeezed back.
A joyous whoop went up behind us, echoing through the trees. They were coming. Already?! I looked back down the slope and my heart started to pound. It felt like we’d barely moved!
We ran harder but the slope was still getting steeper and soon we were scrambling, hanging onto trunks and branches to haul ourselves up the hill. Each time we glanced behind us, we could see the trees moving as the men advanced through the forest. The ones who were out of shape were a fair way behind but the younger, fitter ones were right on our tails.
Cal knew the forest and could lead us on the fastest, easiest route. And I was used to long hikes, now, and could keep up with him. But as the forest thinned out, we hit a problem. We had to keep to cover, sticking to the trees so that they didn’t catch sight of us and open fire, whereas they could just move in straight lines across open ground. And where we had to move stealthily, in case they saw a bush move and took a shot at it, they could make as much noise as they liked.
Second by second, the hunters crept closer.
A sick fear spread through me, chilling me from the inside out, and it got worse with each excited yell and drunken cheer from behind us. It was the power imbalance, the feeling of them being all-powerful and us being...nothing. Just prey. However fast we ran, they’d catch us. However well we hid, they’d find us.
The panic set in and I started to make mistakes, stepping on twigs I knew to avoid, dislodging loose rocks that went rolling down the hillside, giving away our position. I tried to move faster and that just made it worse. They’re going to catch us. They’re going to catch us and then— I knew Cal would die before he let them touch me. I’m going to get him killed. He’s going to get shot and it’s my fault—
Cal stopped and turned to me, his big hands stroking down my upper arms. “Stop,” he said softly.
I stared at him, gulping in air in huge panic breaths. Stop? But they’re coming!
“You can do this,” he told me. He wasn’t even out of breath.
I shook my head.
“Yes,” he told me, “you can.” And his voice took on that tone that left no room for argument. “You’re braver than you think. Tougher than you think. You got away from these bastards once. You’re going to do it again.” Those cornflower blue eyes looked right into mine and—
He believed in me.
I swallowed and nodded. The panic didn’t disappear but my breathing eased a little.
He took my hand and pulled me into a run.
We pushed hard and a half-hour later, we finally made it to the top of the hill. Then the blessed relief for my aching legs of going downhill, not uphill, and at last, it felt like we were putting some distance between us and them. The sun was getting low in the sky and the trees threw out long shadows to help us. I started to think that maybe, maybe, we could make it.
But then the hunters started to crest the hill. They came down the other side with horrible speed: they were fresh, they’d spent the day lounging around at the mansion whereas we’d hiked all the way to Jacques’s and back. Our pace started to slow. That sick fear started to grow in my stomach again. They were going to catch us.
We reached a clearing and Cal stopped and turned to me. By now, even he was panting. “We have to stop,” he told me.
“What?!”
“It’s our only chance. Hide and let them go past. Once we’re behind them, we’ll have the advantage.”
I stared at him, then turned to look behind us. I could hear them crashing through the undergrowth, only a minute or two behind us. Every instinct was telling me to run. But I trusted him. I nodded.
He looked around the clearing. There was a gentle, bowl-shaped depression off to one side and he led me over to it. He quickly scooped out the dead leaves that had drifted into the depression, covered it with a tarpaulin from his backpack, and then pushed the leaves back over it. I quickly got the idea and helped, camouflaging the tarp until it was invisible. Then we got down on our bellies and slithered under it.
It was pitch black. Twigs were poking into me in about a hundred places but before I could fidget and get comfortable, I heard footsteps approaching. Next to me, Cal went utterly still and I tried to do the same.
The scrunch of boots on dried leaves. More than one man. A group of them, moving together. Our little hollow was off to the side of the clearing. Their instinct would be to walk right through the middle...right? I pressed my cheek against the ground and tried to be calm, to think of nothing, to become stone.
