"We get five minutes here," said the herbivores" counselor. "Then you have to give us a head start."
Leech began to say, "No probl-"
But he was cut off by a sound from the trees. A call, starting in a low pitch and rising steeply to a high screech at its end. "Ooouup!" "Ooouup!"
We looked around wildly.
Now an answering call, from nearby: "Ooouup!" "Ooouup!"
Everybody peered into the trees.
"Ooouup!"
"CITs?" Xane whispered.
The calls seemed to be coming from so close that someone should have been able to see them. Unless...
I looked up. Thick branches, fans of needles... And then I saw a shadow, high up against one of the trunks.
"They"re in the trees!" I shouted, and even by the time I had turned to run, they were swooping down on us, on ropes they"d tied in the branches. I saw that they weren"t my CITs; this was a team of others. Five of them, coming from all sides.
"Ooouup!"
"Ooouup!"
"Run!" Leech screamed.
Our group had two steps on the other half of our cabin, and that turned out to be the difference. We careened around the side of the cougar pen and blasted down a path that sloped steeply downhill through the trees. Behind us, I heard Jalen cursing as his team was caught.
"That way!" one of the carnivores shouted. Footsteps pounded after us.
Our legs wheeled beneath us. The path dropped steeply and then flattened out and opened up at a tiny pond bordered by tall gra.s.s and weeds. We broke out into the sun again, all turning around to look for our pursuers.
"See anyone?" Leech asked, breathless.
"Nothing," I said, and the others agreed. The forest behind us had become eerily silent.
"Why would they let us go?" said Beaker.
"They"re probably collecting tokens from the other group," said Leech. "I think we"re safe."
I turned, hands on my knees, catching my breath. My eyes fell on the little pond, its surface reflecting the sky.
But beneath that, something moved.
"No, we"re not," I said, scrambling backward to my feet.
"What?" asked Leech.
But the tan water was already starting to bubble and roil. As I stumbled back, my fellow monsters burst out of the pond.
"It"s a trap!" Noah shouted.
They surged out of the frothing water, Evan, Marco, Aliah, and Lilly, skin and bathing suits glistening, and, only apparent to me, gills tucking themselves away.
Or maybe Leech noticed them, too. "Fish monsters!" he shouted.
In the second before I ran, I caught Lilly"s eye. She was smiling wickedly at me, and I knew our game was on.
My team scattered. I sprinted into the trees, the crashing of footsteps seeming to come from everywhere.
"Ooouup!" The call came from up the hill. Silhouettes hurtled down toward us. The other CITs were joining in the pursuit. Now they had us pinned from both directions. The call came from up the hill. Silhouettes hurtled down toward us. The other CITs were joining in the pursuit. Now they had us pinned from both directions.
I ran to my right, figures flying on both sides of me, everyone darting and flicking among the trunks.
Behind me I heard a scream like someone had been grabbed. Technically, the rules were that if someone in your group was caught, that was it, but I saw Leech still sprinting, and I kept going too, sure that Lilly would be doing the same.
Someone came flying down from my left. A CIT I didn"t know. I angled down the hill, vaulted a fallen log, amazed I even landed the jump, heard a sc.r.a.ping of dirt, and looked behind me to see the CIT girl tackling Xane in a spray of pine needles.
I raced on, glancing back over my shoulders. Bodies still moving back there. Where was Lilly?
I wove through the trees and emerged into another patch of sun. I was at the far edge of the little pond. A stream burbled out of it, through tall gra.s.s and then down a cascade of rocks, disappearing into the dark woods in the direction of the lake. A narrow trail ran beside the stream. I started that way.
A b.u.t.terfly dropped down, bouncing on the air nearby. It had teal wings with jewel-green dots, and seemed to hover, facing me, and I wondered if, up in the Eye, someone was monitoring our locations in the Preserve.
Then footsteps, pounding, close behind me. The sound of the stream had masked their approach.
I glanced over my shoulder, smiling, ready for the chase- But it wasn"t Lilly. The figure was too big, still-wet shoulders working. Eyes peering at me coldly.
Evan.
I turned and sprinted down the little trail, pressing as hard as I could with each step, telling my legs to do all of this faster, this moving up and down and still avoiding rocks and roots, things they were not good at.
I could hear him closing.
The stream and the trail leveled out and left the trees again to meander through a flat area of high bushes. I could barely see over them. Their branches sc.r.a.ped my arms and thighs.
The trail made a sharp turn. Ahead was a tiny wooden bridge over the stream- "Gotcha!" Arms wrapped around me and shoulders slammed into me and I was falling forward, to the side of the bridge, into the tearing fingers of the bushes then out and down a dirt bank, weight crushing on top of me, down to the stream"s edge, my hands smashing against rocks, my face ending up right by the water.
Hands flipped me over.
"What"s up, flavor of the moment?" Evan leered down at me, his princely face twisted with malice, and now I knew that Leech wasn"t the most dangerous predator in these woods.
I didn"t answer him.
He punched me in the face.
The fist hit jaw, nose, temple, and the world went out of balance and the sun got brighter in my eyes and there was a second where it hurt so much it didn"t even hurt.
Then the pain spread in white-hot waves all across my face. I tried to struggle to get free, but my movements were little more than loose flopping.
"Whatever," Evan spat at me. "You"re all head over heels, but do you think she loves you or something? You"re just the next distraction. Which I guess makes me an idiot for being the last one. But at least I was smart enough to push back against her crazy ideas. With you being her little yes-boy, she"s going to ruin everything here!"
I stared up at him, realizing that at least part of this fury was meant for Lilly. I was getting punishment for two. But I had no comeback, my face useless, my body pinned tight.
He raised his fist again.
I watched it. My cheek tingled in preparation. I tried not to wince.
Then I noticed the curious green light that appeared on Evan"s chest. It moved to his neck. His fist began its descent.
But before it could reach me, the dart thwipp thwipped into his neck, a silver needle with shimmery blue feathers, nearly five centimeters long.
"Tch-," Evan coughed. He thrashed backward and slapped at his neck. The dart popped free in a little splash of blood.
Its work was done, though. Evan"s eyes bugged wide and he pitched forward, his sweat-smelling torso meat crushing down onto me.
I struggled to push him off, which dumped his body facedown at the water"s edge.
I rolled over, dug my elbows into the slick dirt and got a few feet away, then collapsed on my back. My whole face was pounding.
What had happened?
In the bright slice of sky above me, the teal b.u.t.terfly appeared, bouncing to its wingbeats. It hovered over me, and for once I was almost glad that someone had an eye on me.
There was a pop of air, and the b.u.t.terfly jerked back and disintegrated in a burst of sparks, a little rain of electric debris falling on and around me.
Footsteps clomped onto the little bridge. Those feet landed, burly high-laced boots beside me, half in the water. The figure above was a shadow, backlit by the bright sky.
A whistling sound. This person whistling. Now a response from nearby. Sounds in the underbrush. Bodies emerging. More predators, but these weren"t CITs.
Chapter 14
"YOU"RE SURE THAT"S HIM?" ONE OF THEM whispered. whispered.
Three people standing in front of me now. Three adults in ragged clothes, denim and flannel and LoRad fleece jackets. All the clothes were originally other colors but had been dyed in a camouflage of dark greens and grays and blacks. Their faces were painted, but not with lively designs. Mud brown. Simple. And the paint didn"t hide all the purple lesions or crimson boils. The effects of exposure, of a life spent on the naked surface of the earth. They held rifles.
"Definitely. Check the photo." The Nomad woman held out her subnet phone, showing the others the screen.
"That"s him," one of the men replied.
"Okay." The woman had short, spiky black hair and a chiseled face. She spoke into her phone. "Robard, this is Beta Team. We have our target. Any word from the others?"
"None yet," the voice of Robard replied. "You guys get out of there, p.r.o.nto."
"Who areeyyou?" I asked, the words slurred by Evan"s fist. I knew, though, despite the cloud from my now swollen eye, that they were Nomads.
"Relax, Owen," said one of the men. "We"re your rescue team. We"re going to get you out of here."
"Out of here?" I mumbled.
"It"s okay." The woman knelt down. Her brown irises swam in whites that had been irradiated to pink, the blood vessels singed to near black. "I"m Pyra, and this is Barnes and Tiernan. We know who you are, Owen. We know what what you are. Our contact here alerted us to you." you are. Our contact here alerted us to you."
"What I-"
"Sshh. Don"t talk." Pyra was fiddling with something in her hands. She held up a circular piece of fabric between her fingers. She reached to my neck, pressed it there, and a white wave of unfeeling spread through my body.
My words came out as whispers. "What did you do?"
"Neuro dampener," said Pyra. "To ease the pain. Don"t worry, you"ll still be able to move."
Barnes and Tiernan lifted me up and slung my arms over their shoulders. They were both lean and strong, Barnes with a wiry brown beard, Tiernan with thick gla.s.ses and one of those false ears made of pale-pink plastic. I could distantly feel my feet on the ground, but they seemed far away. Pyra was right, I could still move, but not enough to try to escape.
"We"re going to take you out of here," said Tiernan. "Get you away from Project Elysium before it"s too late. And once we"re out, we"ll explain everything. Promise."
"But right now we"ve got to move," said Pyra. "Fast."
They dragged me back up to the trail and we crossed the bridge. I heard some commotion of the game back toward the pond, maybe even the shouting of names, but we were headed in the other direction. Were they looking for me? Would they even notice I was gone?
Up a hill, and then we turned off the trail, weaving through the trees.
I could barely control my movements. My feet were stumbling along almost on their own. At least the pain in my face had been numbed.
I heard Pyra talking into her phone. "We"re en route to the extraction point, copy."
"Good," Robard replied. "Alpha Team?"
"We are holding position," another voice replied, "and looking for an opening to acquire our target."
A woman"s voice spoke on the phone. "This is Skull Team, over. We"re almost to the temple. Disabling the alarms and cameras took time, but we"re at the nav room now and are about to try-"
A sharp crack cut her off, then an electric shriek tore out of the phone.
"Agh!" Pyra jerked it away from her head. "Robard? Come in, do you copy?" No one replied.
"They could be jamming us," said Barnes.
"Sounded like rifle bursts," said Tiernan.
Pyra tried again. "Robard? Alpha Team? Anyone copy?" The only reply was a hiss of dead air.
We jogged through the forest, moving up a series of undulations. I thought we were maybe parallel with the pond, and then likely past it. I couldn"t tell how long we"d been going. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe more.