I shake my head. If I ever got Ingrid alone…
“We’ve found a cache of weapons,” she says with a giggle. “When King Arias arrives to rescue us, we’ll tell him that you fought bravely to save our lives, but the hijackers were merciless and took out their frustration on your poor, Harvester body.”
The most powerful flashlight I’ve ever seen shines down the mountainside and illuminates my tree. A tight fist of panic squeezes my chest, and I regret every decision I’ve made since Mouse offered to keep me safe.
“Damn it.” I clutch the side of the trunk and pull myself up. The light swings to the left toward the source of the fire, and I run right down the slope.
The earth is dry and erodes under my feet, but I stumble in the semi-darkness for a better hiding-place.
“Bring me Popcorn alive or dead,” Ingrid’s voice booms through a loudspeaker.
I shake off the terror that prickles down my spine. No one authorized to use royal weapons would leave the safety of the vehicle to come after me. Not even Ingrid Strab. The announcement is designed to make me panic, stumble through the wilderness, and fall to my death.
“There she is,” someone shouts.
Footsteps pound down the mountainside. Maybe an animal darted across the flashlight’s beam because the girls are going in the wrong direction. Excited cries fill the air along with the shots of at least three different guns. My hands curl into fists. Ingrid wasn’t joking about having found more weapons. If every Noble has descended from some dead Phanglorian king, I’m in a whole stack of trouble.
The slope flattens, and the ground no longer sprays out clouds of dust with each step. I continue through a copse of tall, thin trees whose dry leaves crunch underfoot. The sharp, menthol scent of eucalyptus clears my head and brings the throbbing pain of my shoulder into sharp focus.
Every crunching footstep, every snap of a twig or a piece of dried bark sends prickles of alarm across my skin. At this rate, the girls will hear me and know which way to point their guns.
Up ahead, a huge white tree reflects in the moonlight. It’s not as big as the persimmon tree in Rugosa, and its branches aren’t as thick, but they might support my weight. It looks like a dozen trunks have grown close together to form a single tree whose roots snake across the ground, but I doubt that any of these Nobles can climb as high as me in their slippers and gowns.
I sprint to the base of the tree and run up a prominent root that’s over a foot in width. As I reach for the trunk, a large hand grabs the back of my neck and flings me to the ground.
My stomach lurches. I land on my hands and knees and turn around to meet the black eyes of my attacker. This is no Noble or Amstraadi or any competitor in the Princess Trials. His head is as broad as his shoulders with bulging eyes, a bridgeless nose, and ears that recess into the front of his face.
A new wave of terror turns my skin cold. He’s… I’ve never seen anything like him.
The Foundling flips me onto my back and pins me down by the shoulders. Pain sears up the left side of my neck, down my forearm, and into my heart. I clench my teeth against the onslaught and jerk my head away from the sight.
“Noble,” he hisses.
“Harvester,” I say. “I’m a Harvester.”
“Lies!” His spittle sprays across my cheek, and my stomach ripples with disgust.
I shake my head from side to side. “Nobles are back there, trying to kill me. That’s why you heard the gunshots. I’m just trying to run away.”
“Why do they want you dead?” he says with a sneer that makes me think he still considers me a Noble.
“They hate me.” I swallow hard. What I’m about to say will probably condemn me, but there’s no blood flowing to my brain. My heart is jumping to the back of my throat, and my flesh is trying to crawl off my bones. “We’re all in the Princess Trials—”
“Princess Trials?” he roars. “You’re one of them.”
“I’m a Red Runner. A spy.”
He pauses. “What?”
“Do you know them?” I whisper.
The man gives me a hesitant nod. “Who leads your cell?”
“We don’t give out that information,” I say through clenched teeth. One of the conditions for joining was never to reveal details of those in my cell. I’ve already gone far enough by admitting to being a rebel. “Let’s just say I’m associated with someone desperate for justice after the unfair slaughter of a Harvester male.”
He releases the weight from my shoulders and sits back on his heels. “Alright, then. I’ll let you go.”
The man’s rib cage stretches down to his ragged pants. It’s barrel-shaped with dimpled, breast-like deposits of fat in the space between each rib. A shudder runs down my spine, and I press my lips together. I hate that the Nobles’ obsession with genetic perfection has poisoned my mind. This man can’t help the way he looks.
My gaze wanders to the quiver on his hip, and I raise my gun. “Do you want to swap?”
He glances down at his quiver. “Do you know how to use a blowgun?”
“My Mom taught me how to shoot.” I sit up and shake the dust out of my hair. Pain shoots out from my shoulder wound at the movement, so I let my right arm flop to the ground. “It’s a skill she learned while growing up in the Barrens.”
He steps back and sweeps his gaze down my form. “My sister was genetically perfect, like you.”
“What happened to her?” Frowning, I peer up at the man.
“After I was born, she stopped visiting,” he says.
My lips part, but no sound comes out. She might have rejected her family because of her brother’s birth defects, but the Guardians also might have done something sinister to
