“They’ll both stay out of sight,” Marcus says.
I take a deep breath. “Let’s just go. I’m getting nervous anticipation through my connection, and it’s making me jittery.”
“You mean the plants are nervous?” Pax asks, incredulous.
“They can feel what I feel. They know something’s up.”
“My connection isn’t that sophisticated,” he says.
“More like cavemen talking?” Marcus quips. “Me big mad. You kill fast.”
I give him a look and say, “Enough.”
“Like you and the rocks are having deep philosophical conversations?” Pax scoffs at Marcus.
“Let’s do this,” Nova grumbles, joining us. “You two are wasting time and energy with your pointless arguments.”
“Word,” Amira says, the backpack holding the switch securely fastened around her shoulders and waist. “Let’s get this done and find some food before a bitch gets hangry.”
Olin and Ellison are here, too. We all look as haggard and filthy as we feel.
“Anyone have any food?” Nova asks. “Briar could use the energy.”
“I have some nuts.” Olin digs into his pocket.
Amira shakes her head, locking eyes with me. “He has nuts.”
Finally Marcus and Pax can agree on something, even if it is a lame joke about nuts. Everyone’s grinning as Olin pulls out a few almonds and offers them to me.
“Oh, there’s some lint.” His cheeks turn pink as he picks something off an almond.
“Thanks,” I say. “But I’m okay. Who’s the best tracker here?”
“Me.”
Marcus and Pax say it at the same time. Of course.
The smell of cooking fish gives them away. I would have thought they’d be more careful than that, but then, they think they’re the apex predators on this island.
Theron and the exiles are on the beach, three of them swimming in the ocean. One of the men is cooking fish over a fire and a woman is preparing more fish. Theron and a woman are using knives to sharpen wood spears.
Crates of supplies are stacked on the sand nearby. I hope some of them contain food.
Amira climbed a tree, and she’s safely concealed there with her bow and arrows. Ellison and Olin are hiding in a formation of massive rocks nearby. Nova is at the jungle’s edge, ready to fire a gun when needed.
Marcus has a gun, too, but Pax and I are both empty-handed.
Pax looks at me, waiting for my nod. I hesitate because I’m scared. I don’t want to be. I’ve been trying to fight it the whole way here, but that white-hot coal of rage inside me has gone cold.
We need to do this. They’ll continue hunting us if we don’t. But I’m afraid they’ll hurt someone I care about.
I nod because I don’t have much choice.
Pax closes his eyes. I only hear crashing waves, the howl of a wolf, and birds singing to each other for nearly a minute, and then I hear and feel something new at the same time.
It’s a rumble, like an approaching freight train. Pax is shirtless, his hair tied back at the nape of his neck. He looks like he’s meditating, but then his eyes fly open right as snakes fly out of the jungle’s edge.
It’s terrifying, the way the aromium-enhanced snakes can propel themselves through the air like missiles, even though they’re thicker than a man’s calf.
