“A what?”
“You’ll see,” I answer.
I run off with Emmy still on my tail. The guards are still chasing us, I can hear them, so I push myself to use every last drop of adrenaline coursing through my veins.
When I reach the tracks, I stop and look around. There’s a clearing on two sides of the track, but not a train or station in sight. However, all tracks end somewhere … and that somewhere is definitely a town or a city. But which way do I go?
“What is this …?” Emmy mutters, staring at the wooden planks embedded into the soil.
“Train tracks,” I explain.
“What do they do?”
“We gotta follow them. See if we can find a station or a train to hop on,” I say, and I choose the northern route.
I don’t know where we are or where we’re going, but as long as it’s the opposite of where we came from, I’m good. It’s almost nightfall, and we can’t stay out for much longer without losing to the cold. The spare fuel our bodies are running on won’t last us long. We gotta find clean clothes and shelter. It’s the only way to escape them.
And if I know Noah well enough, he won’t stop until he’s found me.
But I won’t give up that easily.
In the distance, I spot some lights. “Look,” I say, pointing at them. “There are some houses up there.”
Emmy’s panting like crazy, and she doesn’t even reply. She must be out of breath, but there’s no time to lose.
“C’mon,” I say as we hurry toward the lights.
The closer we get, the more the hounds bark behind us, and it’s making me sweat. The tracks we’re following lead to a station not too far ahead, and there’s a train there waiting to depart.
My heart swells, and courage fills my veins. “The train! Yes! We can make it,” I yell at Emmy.
I run as fast as I can, as fast as the wind and my legs will take me, along the tracks and up onto the stone path. The conductor is about to make the signal. The front doors are closing.
I glance over my shoulder. From the left side of the forest, two hounds emerge.
My eyes widen. Emmy’s head turns, and a squeal follows.
“Natalie!” she squeals.
I jump onto the train and enter just in time, but I stick my head out to take a look. Emmy’s right there, running as fast as she can, but she can’t keep up. The hounds are right behind her, and they’ve almost caught up. I wait inside the train with an extended hand, reaching for her.
“Grab my hand!” I yell.
“I can’t!” she yells.
“Yes, you can!” I yell back.
I won’t allow her to give up, not when she’s given me so much trouble already. “JUMP!”
She makes the jump, and one of the hounds nips at her feet.
Our hands lock. I pull her inside right before the hounds grab her. The door closes.
A hound jumps against the door, bumping into the glass.
I jolt back, afraid it might burst through the windows.
Emmy’s hand is entwined with mine, my heart racing as the train begins to move.
The hound outside howls with excitement and defeat as more join. Five in total.
But they can’t come in here, so we’re safe.
Still, I hold my breath, unable to shake the feeling of dread.
I peer outside through the glass. Their handlers step out of the forest with grimaces on their faces and lights and axes in their hands.
We’ve escaped, and they know.
They watch the train leave and eventually turn around and go back into the forest. Back to the community, I presume.
Emmy’s face turns dark, and she swallows hard, as do I, and for some reason, our hands clutch even tighter. As though the mutually shared panic and despair have brought us closer together somehow.
Chapter 2
Noah
I stare at the stick that’s almost crushed in the palm of my hand.
The extra line it shows means everything to me… and now it’s all been ripped away from me.
Natalie and my unborn child have fled the community along with another initiate, Emmy, whom she shared a hut with.
My wife and child… gone.
I close my eyes with a sigh. Where could she have gone? She can’t possibly run that far on foot, can she? The guards should’ve found her by now, if not their hounds.
I told them to bring her back alive, safe and sound, without a single scratch, but I wonder if that’s even possible. She’ll probably fight them to regain her independence.
Grinding my teeth, I almost crush the stick to bits.
I should’ve taken more time to ease her into this place and allow her to bond with the people. I should’ve invested more into gaining her trust, and then I might’ve had a chance to stop her from running, but I was too busy with day-to-day life and keeping things running smoothly here so no one would notice what I had done … that I had brought back the president’s daughter without him realizing it.