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“You’ll slow me down and make too much noise. Alone, I can take light steps and throw them off the path.” Titus unhooks Atticus’s arm from his neck and sets it around Lilith’s instead, then twists toward me. “Get to the truck. No matter what happens, you make sure you get out of here.” He grips my face, and the irritation of this, the lack of options, brings tears to my eyes.

“What if we fight them, instead?”

“They outnumber what’s left of us three times over.” He presses his lips to mine, and a terrifying feeling creeps into my chest. Uncertainty. For the first time since I’ve been with Titus, I don’t know what the outcome will be. The hope I’ve clung to is lost to fear.

“I’m afraid.”

“Remember what I said about fear and courage.” It must be written on my face that his response doesn’t make me feel better, because he brushes his finger across my cheek, a look of assurance hardening his fiery eyes. “I won’t engage them, I promise you. I’m just leading them away.”

“But if they find out you’re an Alpha, they’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”

“I’ll have plenty of cover in these woods. They’ve no idea what I am. As far as they know, I died in Remus’s camp. I’ll see you on the other side. Now go.” Not a second later, he takes off in the opposite direction, toward the north end of the building, making his way down the hill on the outskirts of the men below us.

The crackling sound seems to draw their attention, as some of them raise their guns in his direction. Most of the men head in that way, leaving only three behind guarding the trucks, perhaps awaiting our return. With a nudge, Lilith leads us the opposite way, rounding the other side.

Two of the men lift their guns, as if hearing our footsteps, before edging toward half the group that continues down the path. Lilith, Atticus, the boy, and I approach the guards from behind, taking careful steps so as not to rouse their attention. I slide one of the blades out of my satchel. Once close enough, I throw it, just as Titus taught me, nailing one of the men right between his shoulders. As he grunts and turns, reaching behind his head, the other twists around and fires a shot that whizzes past. I toss another blade, this one hitting the man in the gut. When the first soldier raises his gun, I reach for another blade, but one of the members from our group who ventured along the opposite path beats me to it and slides a knife across the man’s throat from behind. The injury of the second guard allows Atticus to hobble toward him and finish him off with a snap of the guard’s neck.

“Where’s the third?” Lilith asks, scanning the surroundings.

The woman who sliced the guard’s throat wipes the blood on his clothes and shoves the blade into a side holster at her hip. “He took off toward the road.”

“Load up. We don’t have much time.”

Taking careful footsteps toward him, I stare down at the man on the ground. There’s a familiarity about him that I can’t quite figure. I know him, though, and images pass through my mind in rapid succession trying to place his face.

My memories pause on a man with his arm drawn back, seconds before he hurls a rock.

The bird.

“Oh, God,” I whisper, while the icy tendrils of realization creep up the back of my neck. “One of Remus’s men. Why is he here? What is he doing here?”

“Who’s Remus? What does that mean?”

Heart slamming against my ribs, I shove the boy toward Lilith, but he boomerangs back into my chest, wrapping his arms around me. “Take him! Take him! I have to warn Titus!”

“Warn him of what?”

“Remus!”

“Who is Remus?”

“The man who nearly killed him!” The man who could kill him with a single, poisonous dart. I give a harder shove than I intend, hoping the boy can see the unspoken apology in my eyes when he looks back at me, his own eyes wide with shock.

The crack of gunfire skates down my spine, and I snap my head in the direction of the north woods where Titus went.

“No. You’re not going after him. He said to leave. No matter what.”

“Fuck off. I am going after him.”

“I’ll go.” Atticus stumbles toward me, grunting with some unseen pain as he rests his hand over his ribs.

Shaking my head, I brush my hand across my bag, jangling the remaining knives held inside. “You’re injured and weak right now.”

Another shot rings out. And another.

In the front pocket of my satchel, I feel for the vial of lobelia that I stuffed there, and as I lurch in that direction, a hand grips my wrist. Growling, I spin to face Lilith, who promptly releases me.

“Be careful. We’ll wait for you.”