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“We have proof!” Arella continues. “Shipping logs that prove how he’s been lying to you all.”
My thoughts are still too twisted up. I can’t make sense of this. “They’re lying,” I say. “They’re lying.”
“How?” he says. “How do you know?”
His voice is so earnest, reminding me of the way he gave me his medicine. Some of these people are too trusting, too desperate. They’ll believe anything they hear—especially if it reeks of scandal.
I think of Violet with her romantic ideals of Weston and Tessa.
“Say something,” Maxon urges. “Do you want me to get their attention? What do you know? Did you hear something in the Royal Sector?”
“No!” I almost shout it, and I tamp my voice down to a whisper. “No, don’t say anything.” The absolute last thing I need is for anyone from the palace to notice me in the crowd. “I need to get out of here.”
Then someone else cries, “The night patrol!”
Screaming erupts, and people leap up from the logs and stumps, tearing into the woods.
“No!” calls Captain Huxley. “You’re doing nothing wrong! I’ll call them—”
But his voice is drowned out by the melee. These people have already been besieged by the night patrol over stolen medicine. They’re not going to wait around to see what happens.
I’m not either. “We need to run.”
Maxon grabs my hand and tugs. “Come on. I know a way.”
At first, I follow, but we’re heading south, and I need to go north. I need to get to safety. But I quickly realize that Maxondoesknow a way, because the path seems densely packed with underbrush, but he’s quick and sure-footed and we dart under branches and over fallen trees. I’m wheezing hard, but I will my lungs towork, to go just a bit farther.
A whistle splits the night, and wood cracks. Maxon cries out.
“A crossbow,” I gasp. “Run. Just run.”
We run. Another whistle and crack, but we keep going. His hand is still tugging at mine, like we’re friends, like we’re more, like we’re not strangers who just met an hour ago.
But after a while, the cracks stop, fading into the distance, and we slow, gasping for breath, eventually drawing to a stop. We’ve run in a bit of a loop, turning north at some point, but we’re well away from what just happened. My thoughts are tumbling over and over, replaying what I heard in the clearing, while also considering how very close I came to taking a shot right through the back.
I’m still breathing hard, but Maxon isn’t. “Are you all right?” he’s saying. “Fox, are you all right?”
“I will be.” I cough once, then try to slow my breathing. “You likely saved my life.”
“Hardly.”
“You did,” I say. “I’m in your debt. Believe it or not, that’s no small thing, Maxon.”
“Well.” He smiles, and it’s a bit shy. “I’ll be looking forward to figuring out whatthatmeans.”
That makes me smile in spite of myself. “Not what you’re imagining, I’m quite sure.”
He blushes, and it’s endearing. Charming. I can’t think of a single time in my life that I’ve ever made someone blush.
“Come on,” he says. “We need to get out of the woods.”
He grabs hold of my hand again.
I let him.
A whistle blazes through the woods, and the point of an arrow bursts through the center of Maxon’s chest.
Then another. And a third, all in rapid succession.
