I ran. I didn’t want to leave any of them to the nightmare scene behind, and my heart was racing furiously, afraid for all of them, but I left the angry shouting behind and raced into the woods.
By the time I’d gotten pretty far into the pines, it was silent. I should shift now, while I had time to outpace Blue and Gray before they could shift, and yet I knew I wouldn’t think clearly as a wolf. I couldn’t stop listening for the crack of a shot behind me, but thank god, I never heard one. I didn’t want Reed to get hurt either. I hoped he’d managed to get free.
How did I get free of them and escape north? Blue and Grey would be big wolves, bigger than me and likely faster too.
I heard a rushing sound ahead of me in the distance, and it took me a second to figure out what it was.
Water.
I ran for it.
Chapter Five
I plunged myself into the cold water, knowing I’d have to get away from this point to escape them. They’d lose my scent in the water, but that wasn’t enough.
The water just ahead of me seemed to move fast. I’d found the edges of a river, and I was half-submerged now, but it would be a rough swim from here. I didn’t know what was downstream.
But there were reeds at the edge of the water. I hastily reached for one and found it hollow in the center. Relief flooded my chest. Finally, luck was turning my way.
I wrenched at it, but I couldn’t pull it loose. I grabbed the knife from my pocket and opened it up, sawing at the reed until I had a tube I could twist free.
I moved quickly through the shallower water, as fast as I dared, even though the rocks I had to move over rocked underneath my feet. I had to get away from the spot that was my obvious entry point.
In the distance, I could feel them coming for me, as if we were connected.
When I scented them in the air, I plunged myself into the water, using the tube to breathe. I miscalculated, trying to get the tube’s opening as close to the surface of the water as I could to avoid being detected, and accidentally drew in a breath of water. Icy-cold water filled my mouth and I breathed it in, feeling it burn through my lungs.
I surfaced abruptly, sputtering, as panic rippled through my body. Even as I was coughing, I could hear Gray in the distance. “You hear that?”
I focused on my breathing, letting myself cough up the last of the water before I managed to get it under control again. The water rippled around me as I settled back under the surface, and I squeezed my eyes shut, straining all my other senses.
Please don’t find me.
In the distance, even underwater, I could hear Blue and Gray talking, even though it felt far-away and muffled.
“Shit. If we go back without the girl…”
“At least she’s free,” Blue said. “She didn’t deserve to be here.”
“I know,” Gray said. “but we don’t deserve to be there, either.”
“At least we bought ourselves freedom for a little while.” Blue said. And then, his voice betraying his emotion, “Fuck. You know what they do to runners who go back in…”
Oh my god. It wasn’t just an urban legend. They really were going to prison.
I waited until their voices—and their presence, which I was eerily attuned to—had faded away into the distance. The cold seeped through my muscles, then faded into an ache as if I was losing strength.
I finally sat up, before drawing a deep, gasping breath. The cold night air felt so good now that I could breathe freely.
I pulled myself out of the water, my legs weak underneath me so that I staggered through the rippling surface. The water seemed to pull at my water-logged clothes, trying to drag me back under, and I hit my knees in the soft mud at the bank of the river. I had to get warm. If I had the strength to shift, I could run, keep moving north. My wolf would naturally try to stick to unmarked territory.
I had to find my way to the Freed.
Yet even as I started to pull off my wet clothes, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Blue and Gray had said. They’d brought a lot of convicts to the prison, and apparently, they had enemies. Blue’s voice kept replaying in my ears. You know what they do to runners who go back in.
I let out an anguished groan as my desire to be free and my desire to protect them warred within me. Reed had encouraged me to be selfish, and I knew that made sense on some level.
But did it matter if I was free, if I hated myself? If it cost other people their freedom?
Goddess help me. I dragged my sodden t-shirt back over my head and traced my way back through the woods, my wet shoes squelching with every step.
I emerged onto the road just as their car started to pull away. I glimpsed Blue and Gray in the front seats, their faces tight with tension. They didn’t see me.
I could just melt back into the woods and disappear.
I hesitated, on the verge of doing just that.
Then I ran forward, waving my arms, stepping into the circle of light glowing from their headlights. Blue slammed on the brakes, angling the wheel, and the car slid to a stop just a few feet from me.
In a second, the two of them were both out of the car. Blue held his gun trained on me, but Gray was at my side in a few steps.
“Saoirse,” Gray said, a question in his voice. He held his hands out as if he was trying to calm a wild animal, before glancing at Blue. I wasn’t sure which one
