The Wolves and the Vipers

Chapter 19 - Dead of Night

The wind nipped at my bare arms. Unlike Kara, I had proper clothes on, but I was also lacking any shoes. My socks didn't do much to take the sting out of the stones and branches underfoot. It was hard to run at full speed in those conditions. Trees were obvious. The mess of plants at ankle-height was not. Twice, my foot snagged in something and came close to tripping me.

I couldn't see Kara at all — I hadn't caught a glimpse of her since she had climbed over the wall — but I could hear her. There was no way to move in this forest without making some noise. I moved towards it as best I could, stopping now and then to let my ears work.

"Emma! I'll get her!" I heard Tyler shouting from somewhere far, far behind me. "Just— Ah, shit. Emma? Where did you go?"

It would have been sensible to listen to him. To walk back into that nice, warm house and wait there while more 'expendable,' better trained people hunted Kara down. But the problem with 'sensible' was that it relied on you doing the objectively safest thing in every situation. It meant that risks were off the table. Right here, right now, my risk-taking was giving us the best chance of getting everyone home safely tonight, not just me. I was nearest to Kara. I didn't trust that Tyler wouldn't waste twenty minutes taking me back to safety before going after her.

"Emma."

I kept running. I was so close to her. I knew that I could catch her, given a few more seconds. There was a thumping sound as she stumbled and fell on the uneven ground. But just as I was closing the gap, there was a strange shrieking noise from behind me.

My heart skipped a beat — or two or three. It made me lurch to a halt and turn to face it. Branches screaming in the wind, probably. Definitely. Nothing else made a sound like that — and I certainly couldn't see anything except tree trunks. But it was still difficult to turn my back on it and carry on.

Where had Kara gone? Was that her, off to the left? Or was it just leaves rustling?

Dammit.

I headed in the direction I had last heard her. It was a constant game of stop and start as I strained to listen for any sound. I should never have stopped — there was a good chance I wouldn't find her again now. New Dawn's territory covered miles of woodland, all of which was unfamiliar to me.

There was a bone-shaking rumble of thunder from the mate bond. I ignored it for as long as I could. But when that rumbling turned into pain, and that pain made me sway on my feet, I was forced to let my walls drop. He wasn't really talking to me — no, it was more like he was projecting his thoughts straight into my head.

Show me where you are.

"You're going to get me killed if you keep distracting me," I snapped into the link.

Show. Me.

I did, for all the good it did. One bit of gloomy forest was hard to distinguish from all the other bits of gloomy forest. I realised that I desperately needed some help, but I suspected that Jace, like Tyler, was not trying to help me. He was trying to stop me.

"We're west from the house," I told him. Useless information, given how far I had run. "Is that where—"

You'll be fine as long as—

I felt his distraction. He turned away from the bond, and the razor-sharp focus of his mind made me think he was probably fighting. For a while, I heard nothing from him. Not even a whisper of stray thought. And then he was back to finish his sentence. This time through the link, as if he didn't dare split his focus by coming back into my mind.

"—as long as you don't turn north."

I was still creeping forwards and trying to listen, but the forest around me had gone dead silent. At some point, I had got turned around. I knew that much. I was only about seventy percent sure I was still heading towards Kara. The wind was blowing hard around me, making it nigh on impossible to catch her scent.