to break the glass. Two of the doors had padlocks. That left two without. The first one I tried turned out to have some unseen lock and wouldn’t open. Frantic, I ran to the second and heard a shout behind me. The bleach blonde girl had regained her sight and was coming after me. Desperately, I turned the doorknob. Nothing happened. Reaching into my purse, I pulled out what the Warriors had mistaken for hand sanitizer. I dumped it out, spilling acid over the metal knob. It melted before my eyes. I hoped that would kill the lock. I threw my shoulder into the door, and it gave. Then I dared a peek behind me. My pursuer was lying on the ground, another victim of the tranquilizers.
I breathed a sigh of relief and pushed through the door. I’d expected to enter another garage like the one I’d first been taken to, but instead I found myself in some sort of residential building. The empty hallways turned this way and that, and I felt disoriented. Everyone was at the free-for-all in the arena. I passed makeshift bedrooms, filled with cots and partially unpacked suitcases and backpacks. When I noticed what looked like an office, I hesitated in the doorway. Papers covered large foldout tables inside, and I wondered if any contained useful information about the Warriors.
I wanted so badly to go in and investigate. These Warriors were a mystery to the Alchemists. Who knew what intel these papers contained? What if there was information that could protect the Moroi? I hesitated for the space of a few heartbeats then reluctantly kept going. The guardians were using tranquilizers, but the Warriors had real guns-guns they wouldn’t be afraid to use on me. Better to get out of here with the information I already had than not get out alive.
I reached the far side of the building at last and peered out a bedroom window. It was so dark outside now that I could hardly see anything. I didn’t have the benefit of torches anymore. The only thing I could tell for sure was that I was no longer adjacent to the arena. That was good enough for me, though it would’ve been better if there was a door leading outside. I’d have to make my own. Grabbing a chair, I swung it into the window and was completely astonished when the glass broke easily. A few shards hit me, but nothing large enough to cause injury. Standing on the chair, I managed to climb out the window without injuring my hands.
I was met by a warm, dark night. No electric lights were visible ahead, just open black land. I took this to mean I was on the opposite side of the compound where Trey had brought me. There were no roads, no sound from the highway we had traveled. There was also no sign of life anywhere, which I took as a good sign. Hopefully all the Warrior guards who normally paroled the grounds were off fighting guardians. If Sonya was out now, my hope was that the guardians would begin retreating-and grab me along the way. Even if they didn’t, I wasn’t above walking back to I-10 and hitchhiking.
The compound was sprawling and confusing, and as I walked around it and still saw no sign of the highway, I began to grow uneasy. How turned around had I gotten? I only had a limited amount of time to get off Warrior property. They could be hunting me right now. There was also the disconcerting problem that once I made it to the periphery, I’d have to deal with the electric fence. Still, it might be best to forget looking for the freeway and simply make for the edge of the Warriors’ camp so that I could-
A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I screamed.
“Easy there, Sage. I’m no gun-toting crazy guy. Crazy, yes. But not the rest.”
I stared in disbelief, not that I could really make out much of the tall, dark figure standing over me. “Adrian?” The height was right, as was the build. As I stared, I became more and more certain. His hands steadied my shaking. I was so glad to see a friendly face-to see
“You’re the only human out here with a yellow and purple aura,” he said. “Makes you easy to spot.”
“No, I mean, how’d you find me here? At the compound?”
“I followed the others. They told me not to, but… well.” In the faint moonlight I could barely see his shrug. “I don’t follow directions well. When Castile came out with Sonya and started babbling about how you’d gone out some random door, I thought I’d take a quick walk around. I don’t think I was supposed to do that either, but the guardians were kind of busy.”
“You
He tugged my hand forward. Even through his banter, there’d been a hard tone to his words. He was fully aware of the danger we faced. “Then we’d better get out of here.”
Adrian led me back in the direction I’d come, then went around the opposite side of the building. I didn’t see the freeway lights yet, but he soon turned and began running toward the property’s far edge, away from the building. I ran alongside him, still holding his hand.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“The guardians assembled near the back side of the compound, so they wouldn’t be spotted. That part of the fence has been deactivated-if you can climb it.”
“Of course I can climb it. I’m practically a prodigy in PE,” I pointed out. “The question is, can you, Mr. Smoker?”
The fence began to come into focus as we approached, mostly because its shape blocked some of the stars. “That’s the section. Behind the scraggly bush,” Adrian said. I couldn’t see any bush but trusted in his eyes. “Go a little ways past that, and there’s this country highway that the guardians used as a staging point. I’m parked there.”
We came to a halt in front of the fence, both of us a little breathless. I peered upward. “You’re sure it’s still off?”
“It was when we came in,” said Adrian, but I could hear a little uncertainty in his voice. “You think those guys would have gotten their act together enough to fix it already?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I’d still like to know for sure. I mean, most commercial electric fences won’t significantly hurt someone, but we should know.”
He glanced around. “Can we throw a stick at it?”
“Wood doesn’t conduct.” I rifled through my purse and found what I wanted: a metal pen with a foam grip. “Hopefully, the foam on this will block the worst of it if the fence really is hot.” Trying not to grimace, I reached out and touched the pen’s barrel to the fence, half-expecting some intense charge to send me flying backward. Nothing happened. I slowly ran the pen along the fence, since most electric ones had an intermittent pulse. Sustained contact would be needed. “Looks clean,” I said, exhaling in relief and turning to Adrian. “I guess we’re good to- ahh!”
A bright light shone in my eyes, blinding me and killing whatever night vision I’d gained out here. I heard Adrian cry out in surprise as well.
“It’s the girl!” a male voice exclaimed. “And… and one of
The flashlight was moved out of my face, and although spots still danced in my vision, I could make out two hulking figures rapidly approaching. Were they armed? My mind raced. Whether they were or not, they were still an obvious threat since Warriors apparently liked to practice bashing each other in their free time, and Adrian and I didn’t.
“Don’t move,” said one of them. A blade shone in the gleam of the lowered flashlight. Not as bad as a gun, but not great either. “You’re both coming with us, back inside.”
“Slowly,” added the other. “Don’t try any tricks.”
Unfortunately for them, I still had a few up my sleeve. Quickly I put the pen back in my purse and grabbed another souvenir from Ms. Terwilliger’s homework: a thin, round wooden bracelet. Before either Warrior could do anything, I snapped the wooden circle into four pieces and tossed them on the ground, calling out another Latin incantation. Again, I felt the rush of power and its exultation. The men cried out-I’d cast a disorientation spell, one that messed with equilibrium and made vision blurry and surreal. It worked a lot like the blindness spell, affecting those around me.
I lunged forward and pushed one of our assailants down. He fell easily, too incapacitated by the spell to resist. The other guy was so distraught that he’d dropped the flashlight and was practically on the ground already as his attempts at balance failed. Nonetheless, I gave him a good kick to the chest to make sure he stayed down and grabbed his flashlight in the process. I didn’t necessarily need it with Adrian’s night vision, but these two would now be helpless in the dark when the spell wore off.
“Sage! What the hell did you do to me?”
