Chapter 5
Alexander and I have been moving deeper into the woods all morning. We’ve been steadily moving up in elevation and have entered a section of the woods that is thick with different types of trees. Alexander says some of them are pine trees, which is good. He thinks their strong smell will cover our scent and make it more difficult for the Hounds to find us. We start talking about how each of our lives was, inside and out of the castle. Alexander hands me one of the water bottles and tells me to keep drinking as we go. I don’t go into much detail on my end, more so to spare myself from reliving the past.
Alexander seems to have lived a much more luxurious life on the other side of the castle. He tells me stories from the different training camps he had to go to, and about how life in our city progressed. He continued to go to school and he tells me about some of our classmates. In our school system, you are separated and assigned to a class and a teacher at the grade zero level and that is the class and teacher you advance with until you graduate. We had been assigned the same class and teacher. He says he would have graduated first in our class this year, and our teacher Ms. White is even engaged now.
“Did you ever fight?” I ask and glance up to him, the afternoon sun glowing on his face. “All that training, did you ever use any of it?”
“I wish I could say no,” he says and his voice falls dry.
“You don’t have to tell me about it,” I say, cutting him off. It’s easy to talk about the good stuff. I only shared the best moments of my time in prison. The days mother would smile and fix my hair. The times Titus didn’t break down. When the prison was quiet on cold nights, mostly because we were freezing to death, but any time there wasn’t screaming or crying it was a good day.
Suddenly I hear the needles in the trees in front of us rustle. I step forward and stretch out my right arm in front of Alexander. If I have to use my gift I’m going to. Well, I’m going to try to. Alexander will have to know I have the gift eventually. Now that I’ve decided I want us to be a team I’m going to need to start trusting him with this information. The woods fall silent again, but I don’t move.
“Adaline I’m sure it’s,” Alexander starts to say but is cut off as an arrow flies toward us. I watch it as if I’m in a trance. It whizzes right by my face, just barely grazing my cheek, and sticks into a tree behind me. My hand touches the spot it brushed. I pull my fingers from my face and they are red with blood. I look back up into the tree the arrow came from and can see a dark small figure getting ready to load another arrow.
“Run!” I yell to Alexander and he breaks off our path to the right. I know I have two choices, run away and hope we get out of reach of the arrows or take out the shooter. Running around the forest like an animal being hunted is the last thing I want to do, so I run straight ahead to the tree the arrow flew from and begin to climb up it. The dark figure tries to shoot an arrow down at me, but it can’t make it through the maze of branches before snapping. As I get closer the figure starts to climb higher into the tree. I move faster than they do and as I reach up, my hand clasps onto their ankle.
“Let go!” I hear a female voice call out. I yank down on her ankle and rip her from the tree. She loses her grip on the branch and begins to fall through the tree hitting every branch on the way down. I drop to the ground after her and see her lying on her back. I run over to her and sit on her stomach, pinning her arms above her head. I take my right hand and brush the hair out of her face.
“Why are you hunting us?” I say and I take in the number of purple bruises forming on her arms and face from the fall.
“Adaline?” she struggles to say and her eyes scan my face.
“What do you want with me?” I say and I feel my blood pounding in my ears.
“It’s Zavy,” her voice cracks on her name. My eyes widen and I scan her face again until my eyes land on the three dark circle freckles under her right eye.
“Oh my gosh, Zavy what are you doing out here?” I ask and get off of her. I help pull her to her feet and wait for her explanation. Zavy and I were in the same class as well. Her, Alexander, and I were such a tight group I can hardly believe the three of us are together again. Alexander meets me at my side and Zavy’s eyes flip between the two of us as equally surprised as I am.
“What are you guys doing out here?” she asks, turning the question on to us. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Alexander explains, “Well, basically running to freedom. Adaline escaped the castle, which I just realized she hasn’t explained,” he pauses and
