Blood trickles down, and smoke wafts up. Up and, as I hold my memories of the guys firmly in my head, to my right.
Now I know where I’m going.
I set off at a swift lope, my braid swaying against my back. The concrete building that holds the arena stands between several decrepit industrial buildings on what appears to be the outskirts of a town—or maybe even a city. I mark the position of the nearest highway when headlights cruise by and keep a healthy distance from the few cars passing by this late.
The shabby warehouses give way to scruffy fields and then stretches of farmland with weathered wooden fences and the occasional darkened house standing at the end of a long drive. I keep the same pace whether I’m jogging through rows of corn or along the edges of pastures.
After several houses, I come across a bike leaning against a post just down the drive. I yank it up and hop on.
Pumping the pedals, I can move so much faster, but I need some kind of firm path beneath the wheels. Thankfully the cars come even fewer between as the night creeps on.
I stick to desolate lanes when I can and sprint along the highway when I can’t. Every now and then, I slow enough to squeeze more blood and smoke from my cut to confirm I’m still heading in the right direction.
It still feels too slow. I don’t know how many hours of darkness I have left.
When I duck down in the ditch as a transport truck rumbles toward me, I decide to make a gamble. I drop the bike and dash over the shoulder at the last second to leap at the back of the truck.
Hooking my legs around the metal bar beneath the doors, I grasp one of the metal supports it’s attached to. The truck keeps roaring forward with no sign that my intrusion has been noticed.
I prod a steady stream of smoke from my arm. It wavers through the ruddy glow from the lights on the back of the truck, pushing forward despite the rush of the wind.
We’ve sped past the fringes of another city, a couple of small towns, and a long stretch of forest before the dark wisp abruptly veers to my left instead of ahead.
With a hitch of my pulse, I spring from the truck. I roll over the grassy shoulder and stop with a smack of my side against a tree trunk.
It’s only seconds before I’m on my feet and hurrying onward again.
Hustling through the underbrush, I stumble on an overgrown dirt lane… where the tufts of weeds have been recently pressed flat by tire treads. My senses go on high alert.
I run onward, gulping down air both for oxygen to fuel my muscles and for any trace of pheromone-emitting humans nearby. The lane weaves through the woods, across a stretch of tall grass, and into a denser sprawl of forest.
I don’t encounter anyone. But then, the guardians would mostly be concerned about their wards gettingout, not about anyone comingin.
When I spot a fence up ahead around a bend in the lane, I slow, still sticking to the shadows at the edge of the road. Slinking closer, I ease farther into the shelter of the trees.
Then I come to a stop several feet from where the forest thins. The certainty rings through every inch of my body that this is the place.
I don’t think it’s the same facility where the guardians held us before, but that’s not really surprising. Their security had been partly breached.
It’s a similar setup, though: a clearing the size of a few football fields surrounded by forest, with a lone concrete structure not far from the gate, looking no larger than a bungalow. There’s no way to tell just looking at it how deep and wide the building extends underground.
No cars are in sight. The guardians must have added some kind of underground parking garage to keep them out of unwanted hands.
The fence is taller, about twice my height, with barbed wire coiled all the way around its top. Cables that run between the metal posts just above the barbed wire give me pause.
Then it clicks.
The fence is electrified as well as barbed. The guardians want to tear into anyone who tries to breach it in every possible way.
I wet my lips. I don’t have much time. Dawn is creeping closer with every thump of my heart.
It doesn’t appear that anyone has sounded the alarm about my escape so far, or else if they have, the guardians aren’t worried I’ll already have made it here. I only spot a few armed sentries ambling across the field around the building.
Even if my nerves are screaming for me to race straight to my guys, I have to be smart about this. I’m not screwing up what’s probably my last chance.
I prowl around the edges of the field until I’ve fully charted it. One pine stands close enough to the fence and tall enough that I plan to return to it later.
Before I can do that, I need as many of the guardians as possible diverted by other concerns.