THE TITAN EXPERIMENT

CHAPTER 4 - Escape to Nowhere

With the stroke of midnight moments away, the crowd at Times Square had yet to erupt into cheers. Sarah's encounter with Wolf and her escape into Central Park had taken mere minutes, but it seemed much longer.

Sarah sped toward the edge of the clearing. She was almost to the safety of the tree line when a whoosh of air diverted her attention from the path ahead. Level with her hip—missing by inches—a dart buried into a cedar. Wolf cursed as she blazed into the thickness of the forest, arms stroking in rhythm with each breath, leaves crunching beneath the blanket of snow.

Twigs peeked above the frosty surface and snapped under Sarah's boots as she sliced through the undergrowth. She ducked under a sagging branch, clipped a lower section of bristles and triggered an avalanche from higher in the tree. The largest portion of the icy powder grazed her shoulder, a flash of winter chill rushing down her arm. She thought she had avoided the worst of it, but a loose clump hit the crown of her head and burst into fine dust, filtering through her hair to the back of her neck. The direct hit shuddered through her body, flared out like a wave, and dissipated. The more she ran, the more she ignored its lingering effects.

Faster. More speed. She had to get away.

Sarah wasn't comfortable carrying a pistol. She would use a gun, but she would rather not. No one had ever trained her to use a firearm, and she saw no reason to use one now. Until this point, she had lived under many aliases without fear or incident for decades. But she wasn't a fool. With the park in reach almost always during her daily life, she had charted out the trails and wooded areas, and hid weapons at various locations, some lethal, some incapacitating, depending on the threat. She knew what she was doing, and she knew where she was going. She would not kill Wolf, but if he pressed her anymore, there was no telling what she might do.

One of her more deadly weapons lay fifteen yards from this exact spot.

Sarah zipped by a tree with the initials of two lovers carved into the bark.

She counted to herself, looking for the fourth tree from the engraved marker—one, two, three, four—there. She ran up the trunk, boot treads gaining traction, and vaulted herself up to a limb ten feet off the ground. Like a gymnast, she swung through the air, tucked her feet at the last moment, and hooked the back of her legs on a higher branch. Hanging upside down, she arched her back and sprang her torso upward where she latched onto another limb—a few feet higher—which allowed her to slide her backside into a sitting position.

Wrapped around the branch above her, a camouflaged sheath awaited her. The sleeves held three daggers with hunter green handles. She shook snow off the hardened material, ruffled it, crunching loose the frozen grip nature had on the small stash of knives. Bracing herself for the chill to come from the cold sheath, she unbuckled the straps and fastened the daggers to her thigh and listened.

Sarah waited, braving the air that blew through the high levels of the trees. Determination aside, she didn't have a desire to freeze like a popsicle. She lowered her neck, attempting to shield her bare skin from the cold. She had no clue how much of a lead she had gained on Wolf. She was faster than him, but determination motivated him to the insane degree. It all hinged on how long it took him to recover from the kick to the stomach. Not long enough, she realized.

Footfalls thumped, thumped, thumped in the snow.

Sarah sighed, tapping her fingers on the hilt of a dagger. She had hoped he'd lost her scent.

There she went again. He wasn't really a wolf. He couldn't sniff her out like he was some predator, an alpha male hunting a... no. She had to stop thinking in such wild circles. Wolf had this effect on everyone he met. Naturally, people shrank away from his ominous stare and his intimidating presence. Except for Sarah.