Forty-one

I WAS SURE I was heading in the direction Derek told me, so all the security teams should be behind me. But after less than a minute, I heard the tramp of boots again. I dropped and covered my radio. I turned the volume all the way down, even though it had been silent since I’d taken it.

I crawled into the nearest patch of brush and lay on my stomach. The footsteps seemed to be going parallel to me, neither approaching nor retreating.

“Tell me how a full squad of us can lose four teenagers in less than twenty acres of woods,” a man’s voice said. “David-off is not going to be happy.”

Another man answered, “With any luck, he’ll never find out. We’ve still got an hour before daylight. Plenty of time. How far can they get?”

They continued walking and talking, their voices and steps receding. When they were gone, I started creeping out, then stopped. If all four of us were out here, should I be heading for safety? Or trying to find the others?

Um, if you go to that safe spot, where Derek expects you to be, you won’t have to worry about finding them. They’ll come to you.

What if they need my help?

You accidentally knocked out one woman and suddenly you’re Rambo?

It felt cowardly getting myself to safety, but my inner voice had a point—if that’s where Derek expected me to be, then I’d better head there and meet him.

But I did feel a bit like Rambo—switchblade in one hand, radio in the other, flashlight jammed in my waistband—as I stealthily crept through the thick woods.

Yeah, as long as you don’t trip and impale yourself on your own knife.

I closed the blade.

“Chloe?” a female voice whispered.

I whirled so fast my foot slid on the soft ground. “Tori?”

I squinted into the night. The woods here were so dark I could only make out shapes that could as easily be trees and bushes as people. My fingers touched the flashlight, but I pulled back and kept looking.

“Tori?”

“Shhh. This way, hon.”

The endearment made the hair on my neck rise.

“Aunt Lauren?”

“Shhh. Follow me.”

I caught a glimpse of a figure. It was as faint as the voice, and all I could see was a pale shirt glowing ahead. I didn’t move. It sounded like Aunt Lauren and the figure was her size, but I couldn’t be sure and I wasn’t running after her like a little kid, so desperate to believe that I raced into a trap.

I took out my flashlight and clicked it on, but she was darting between trees, and it was impossible to make out more than her shape and shirt. Then she glanced back and I got just a glimpse of a profile, a swing of blond hair—an imperfect view, but enough for my gut to say that’s her.

She waved for me to hurry, then veered left into deeper forest. I followed, still cautious, no matter what my gut said. I was jogging past a patch of bushes when a figure lunged out. Before I could spin, it grabbed me, a hand clamping over my mouth, cutting short my yelp.

“It’s me,” Derek whispered.

He tried pulling me into the bushes, but I resisted.

“Aunt Lauren,” I said. “I saw Aunt Lauren.”

He gave me a look like he must have heard me wrong.

“My aunt. She’s here. She’s—” I pointed in the direction she’d gone. “I was following her.”

“I didn’t see anyone.”

“She was wearing a light shirt. She ran past—”

“Chloe, I’ve been right here. I saw you coming. No one else ran—” He stopped short, realizing what he was saying. If I’d seen her and he hadn’t …

My chest seized. “No …”

“It was an illusion,” he said quickly. “A spell to trap you. My dad’s done stuff like that and …” He rubbed his hand over his mouth, then said, firmer, “That’s what it was.”

I’d wondered the same thing, but now, hearing it from his mouth, when it should have supported my own doubts, all I could think was: a ghost. I saw Aunt Lauren’s ghost. The forest blurred, and his hand on my arm seemed the only thing holding me up.

“Chloe? It was a spell. It’s dark. You didn’t get a good look.”

All true. Totally true. And yet … I shook it off and straightened, pulling from his grasp. When he hesitated, hand out, ready to grab me if I collapsed, I stepped away.

“I’m fine. So what’s the plan?”

“We’ll wait here—”

Footsteps sounded. We pushed into the bushes and crouched. A flashlight beam skimmed the trees like a searchlight.

“I know you kids are back here,” a man said. “I heard voices.”

Derek and I stayed still. His shallow breathing hissed at my ear. My back was against him and I could feel the thump of his heart. The flashlight beam kept coming, cutting through the darkness. It passed over our bushes. Then it stopped, came back, and shone full in our faces.

“Okay, you two. Come out of there.”

I could only see a veiled figure silhouetted behind the flashlight’s glare.

“Come out,” he said again.

Derek’s breath warmed my ear. “When I say run, run.” Then, louder, “Put the gun down and we’ll come out.”

“It is down.”

With the light shining in our eyes and the man hidden behind it, there was no way to know if he was telling the truth.

He lifted his free hand and waved it. “See, no gun. Now come—”

The man dropped forward, like he’d been hit from behind. The flashlight tumbled to the ground, beam arcing through the air. Derek shot past me and tackled the man as he started to rise. Simon stepped from the darkness behind the man, hands raised for another knock-back spell.

“Run,” Derek said, holding the struggling man. When Simon and I hesitated, he snarled, “Run!”

We took off but kept checking behind. We could hear the sounds of a fight, but it was a short one; and before we’d gone far, Derek was behind us. When we slowed, he thumped us both in the back, telling us to keep moving. The moon through the trees gave us enough light to see where we were going.

“Tori?” I whispered to Simon.

“We split up. She—”

Derek motioned us to silence. We ran until we saw the glittering light of houses through the trees and knew we must be approaching the back road. We took another few strides. Then Derek thumped us again, this one a hard whack between the shoulder blades that knocked us off our feet. He landed between us. When we tried to rise, he pushed us back down.

Simon lifted his dirt-streaked face and rubbed his jaw. “I kinda like my teeth. All of them.”

Derek shushed him and twisted around to lie on his stomach, facing the other way. We did the same. I followed his gaze as it traveled over the forest, until it stopped and I heard footsteps.

Derek tensed, ready to leap up, but they were still a good distance away when they stopped, footsteps replaced by the murmur of voices. The radio in my pocket chirped. I took it out and checked the volume.

Simon looked past Derek and mouthed. “Radio?” then pointed toward the voices, asking if it was one of theirs.

I nodded.

“Sweet,” he mouthed, then shot me a thumbs-up that made me blush. Derek glanced over with a nod and a grunt that I interpreted to mean, Good job … as long as you didn’t do anything stupid to get it.

“I found Alpha one,” a man’s voice said, so low I had to strain to hear him.

Simon motioned for Derek to turn up the volume, but Derek shook his head. He could hear fine so there was no need to risk it.

“Where is he?” a woman’s voice answered over the radio.

“Knocked out. Looks like he went a couple of rounds with our young werewolf.”

“Get him to safety. Delta team still has the Enright girl, right?”

I shot a look at Derek, but his expression didn’t change as he concentrated on listening.

“Delta two does. I’m not sure how well she’ll work as bait, so I sent Delta one to get Carson from the truck.”

That got Derek’s attention. Simon mouthed “Andrew” to me. The voices retreated, but a moment later, the woman’s came again over the radio, calling Delta two. A man answered.

“Have you got Carson?” she asked.

“I’m almost there.”

“Good. Your job is to persuade him to call those kids. He’s going to lure them in.”

“He won’t.”

“I don’t expect him to volunteer,” the woman snapped, “but considering he’s in our custody, he’ll do what we say. If he refuses, shoot him.”

Simon’s head shot up, his eyes dark with worry. Derek motioned for him to be quiet as we listened.

Delta two came back on. “Um, did someone move the truck?”

“What?”

“The truck. With Carson. It’s … not here.”

The argument that followed was loud enough that Derek put his hands over the radio speaker, muffling it more. They spent the next few minutes making sure Delta two had the right spot and that no one else had moved Andrew and the truck. But there was no such simple explanation—their hostage was gone … with their truck.

“So Andrew’s safe. What about Tori?” I asked when the radio went silent.

For a moment Derek said nothing, which was better than what I expected—a snapped What about her? As quick as he’d been the other day to say that he didn’t care if Tori walked in front of a speeding car, it wasn’t so easy to actually stand by, knowing she was in mortal danger.

“I’ll do a sweep,” he said. “If I find her, great.”

He didn’t say the rest, but I understood. If I don’t find her, we have to leave her behind. As bad as that sounded, it was the right thing to do. I didn’t want Derek putting himself in a bullet’s path for Tori. That was an awful thing to admit. I didn’t hate Tori—I didn’t even really dislike her anymore. But when it came down to the cold, hard choice of putting a life on the line to save hers, I couldn’t do it. Not Derek’s, not Simon’s, not mine. And that choice was going to haunt me for a very long time.

“Be careful and …” The other words that rose to my lips were “be quick,” but I couldn’t be that callous—even to think it shocked me. So I swallowed and repeated, “Be careful.”

Derek wasn’t leaving, though. We were. He made us set out first, so he could stand watch. When we were safely on our way to the back road, he’d go after Tori.

We made it about twenty paces before a figure appeared in our path. Simon’s fingers flew up.

“Simon, it’s—” the man said, ending in an oomph as the spell hit and he fell backward to the ground.

“Andrew!” Simon rushed forward.

The man rose, giving a wry smile as he brushed himself off. “I see your knock-back spell has improved.”

Andrew wasn’t much taller than Simon, but he was squarely built, sturdy, with a broad face and crooked nose. His crew-cut hair was gray, though he wouldn’t be any older than my dad, and looked like a retired prizefighter. Not what I expected from that cozy, tidy little house.

When he looked at me, his smile faltered, the wrinkle between his brows deepening, like I looked familiar, but he was having trouble placing my face. He started to say something. Then he glanced up sharply.

“Someone’s coming,” Andrew said.

Simon glanced at the approaching shadow, big but moving silently. “It’s Derek.”

“No, that’s not—” Andrew began.

Derek stepped into the light of the clearing. Andrew looked up at him and blinked. He stared at Derek, like he was trying—and failing—to find the boy he knew.

Behind the surprise in his eyes, there was something sharper, a note of worry, maybe even fear, like in that moment, he saw not his friend’s son, but a big, powerful young werewolf. He blinked the fear back, but not before Derek saw it, his gaze shunting to the side, shoulders and jaw tensing, as if to say that was okay, he didn’t care. But I knew he did.

“You’ve … grown.”

Andrew tried for a smile but couldn’t quite find it, and that, for Derek, seemed worse than the fear. He looked away completely, muttering, “Yeah.”

Simon waved at me. “This is—”

“Let me guess. Diane Enright’s girl.”

I shook my head. “Chloe Saunders.”

“It’s the hair,” Simon said. “She’s blond, but we had to dye it because—”

“Later,” Derek said, then looked at Andrew. “They have the Enright girl. Victoria.”

Andrew frowned. “Are you sure?”

Simon took the radio from me and waved it. “Chloe got this from them. We heard about you escaping and them catching Tori.”

“I’ll go get her then. You three, get to the truck.” He told us where to find it, then started to leave.

“I’m coming with you,” Derek said. “I can find her faster than you can.”

Andrew seemed ready to argue, but one look at Derek told him it was useless, so he took the radio from me and sent us to safety.