Page 5

“I know you’re here.”

The torchlight slid across the branches above my head.

“You think the woods are going to save you?”

I pushed myself deeper into the hollow beneath the trunk. Mud soaked through my coat. Something crawled across my neck, but I didn’t dare move.

The man stepped closer. His boot appeared beneath the lowest branch. Black leather with mud along the sole. There was a dark stain near the toe.

Blood.

My father’s blood.

My stomach contracted so violently I nearly gagged.

The boot shifted.

I held my breath.

Another voice called from farther uphill. “Anything?”

The man beside me remained still.

Then he answered, “No.”

“Keep moving. She can’t have gone far.”

The boot turned away. I waited until the light disappeared between the trees. Then I counted to five. I couldn’t risk ten.

I crawled from beneath the trunk and moved in the opposite direction. My body shook so badly that my teeth clicked together. I pressed my tongue between them and kept going.

I ran again, pushing through bracken and roots in the darkness.

The trees thinned ahead. For one desperate moment, I thought I had reached a road. Then the ground vanished.

I stopped too late. My foot came down on empty air. I fell over the edge of a shallow ravine and struck the slope on my side. Dirt and stones carried me down.

I landed in freezing water. The shock punched a cry from me. The stream was shallow, but the current pulled at my clothes. I rolled onto my back, choking as water closed over my face.

For one terrible second, I couldn’t tell which way was up. I pushed until my head broke the surface.

Torchlight flashed above the ravine.

I flattened myself against the bank.

“She came this way.”

I slipped deeper into the stream.

The cold was unbearable. It seized my legs and drove needles of pain into every cut along my skin. Water soaked my coat, dragging at me with every step.

I turned downstream and moved beneath the overhanging bank.

The men reached the edge behind me. A beam swept over the water. I ducked beneath a tangle of exposed roots and pressed my back to the mud wall.

“She could’ve crossed.”

“Not that quickly, you idiot. She’s hurt.”