“Even if you get down this mountain, there’s nowhere you can run where we won’t find you.”
Wade lifts the gun again and points it directly at Severin.
“So maybe I should stop the person most set on finding me before the search even begins.”
“Kill me now, Wade, and you lose what few friends you have left,” Severin sneers.
“I’ll have to make sure I’m not the one to kill you then,” Wade replies.
In what seems like the blink of an eye, Wade flicks his gun and fires two deafening shots, each aimed at the locking mechanisms of two separate lion enclosures. The doorways are immediately broken open, and the beasts hurl their bodies against them to free themselves entirely.
Most of the soldiers have little choice but to withdraw back up to the platform or to other elevated areas within the cavern, Severin included. The few guards with shields use them to protect the others and cover their retreat.
I am so stunned by this change of events that I forget about escaping entirely, that is until Wade once again grabs me and leads me toward the entrance. I glance over my shoulder, worried that maybe some of the soldiers are still chasing us, but then I realize that Wade had perfectly positioned himself so that the lions would drive the soldiers the other direction.
“What’s the next step?” I gasp exhaustedly when we stop at the ledge overlooking the wide gorge beneath the entrance.
“We glide down the mountainside.”
“You mean like a bird?” I puzzle as he removes something from his pocket, a thick leather strap a couple feet in length.
“Yes, now come over here and make sure your pack is closed and secure,” he instructs.
I tighten the strings that hold the contents of my pack together and step over to Wade, who has reached up and wrapped the strap around a long metal wire that runs from above us down across the gorge. I had noticed it before, but didn’t think anything of it. Now I understand how we’ll finish our escape.
“Reach up around my shoulders and hold tightly as though your life depends on it, because it does,” he says with a smirk.
The moment I do, he jumps off of the ledge, and we descend so rapidly that it feels like we are flying. The wind rushes by furiously, which is as terrifying as it is exhilarating. In little time at all, we are already halfway down. I look back up at Sanctuary simply to rejoice at how far away we already are, but my jubilation is immediately brought to an end as I watch a soldier at the top begin swinging his sword at the line.
“They’re cutting the wire!” I yell into Wade’s ear.
He turns his head, and just as he does, it snaps, loosening all of the tension in the metal line and sending us into a fall. Wade thinks quickly and grabs directly onto the wire. I nearly lose hold of him as he swings us with it toward the cliff side, which is only a few dozen feet away.
We violently crash into the rocky wall, jolting my grip free, but Wade reaches out with one hand and grabs onto me.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he jests as I look up at him and smile in relief.
“Plummeting to my death seemed like a good idea there for a second,” I wink.
He pulls me up to where he is, and I begin the fifty foot climb up the rock wall ahead of him. Once we both reach the top, I glance up toward the entrance to Sanctuary, where the soldiers have only just begun their descent down the thin mountain trail. Still, I let myself become slightly dispirited.
“We can’t outrun them forever,” I say almost out of breath.
“Definitely not,” Wade responds rather factually. “Good thing I thought ahead. Let’s keep moving, we’re almost out of here.”
With that, he heads quickly toward the tunnel leading to the bridge. I sprint after him, determined to once again demonstrate that I have the endurance and strength to handle whatever difficulties and trials lie ahead.
When we reach the bridge, Wade doesn’t have us cross it but instead leads me along the canyon wall southeast in the direction of the clouds of steam. We get closer to the river as we move further down, eventually reaching the shore and becoming completely encompassed about by whiteness.
“Here, I’ve found it,” Wade calls out after briefly searching the rock-covered ground.
“Found what?” I say confused.
“Our ride out of here.”
After a few labored tugs on a large, camouflaged canvass covered in dirt and rock, he unveils a small boat kept here in secret right beneath Anastasia’s nose. I was right. We can’t outrun Anastasia’s guards, but a river can.
“And if they see us floating by?”