The noise was deafening now, the crowd nearly upon them. Gunfire popped from outside the house, and Aelyx darted to the window, hauled it open, and used both hands to push the screen to the ground below. An icy breeze frosted his cheeks. He pulled the fresh oxygen into his lungs so deeply he felt it in the soles of his feet.
Eileen kissed Cara’s forehead and pushed her toward the window.
Without wasting a second, Aelyx helped Cara out and then climbed through, joining her in crouching low among the shrubs along the back of the house. He heard the bathroom door open and the heavy clomp of shoes retreating down the hall. Outside, the setting sun sliced through the bare trees, illuminating the woods in its orange radiance and offering no concealment for at least another twenty minutes. More gunfire rang out, along with shouts of Stop! and Stand down! that led him to believe Bill had fled, enticing the soldiers and crowd to follow. Aelyx tried not to consider how far Bill would get or what the mob would do to him in the end. Now was the time to move.
But his limbs froze. Cara’s parents had just risked their safety for him—an arrogant stranger who’d stolen their daughter away. Had he really once considered them ill-mannered and inferior?
Thankfully, Cara brought him to his senses with a jerk of his hand. “C’mon!” She linked their fingers, and together, they bolted into the barren forest without looking back. From his periphery, Aelyx saw the first cluster of bodies rush the house.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cara ran like hell.
Her lungs screamed for air, and each icy breath stung her nose as if she’d snorted glass shards, but she pushed through the pain, desperate to put more distance between herself and the machine-gun fire crackling in the background. When the staccato chop of helicopter blades whirred overhead, she pumped her legs even harder and clenched her teeth against the acid burning through every muscle in her thighs. Soon, adrenaline took control, physical pain fading until nothing existed but the rhythmic clap of her boots pounding the frozen soil.
Aelyx patiently matched her stride, barely winded, but his death grip said, Faster! He quickened his pace and propelled her forward until she was no longer running but stumbling at the speed of sound. At any moment, more than a thousand rabid Patriots and hundreds of soldiers would realize the masked man hauling ass in the opposite direction wasn’t Aelyx, and then they’d fan out and scour the woods. If they hadn’t already.
She couldn’t dwell on what might happen to Mom and Dad—there wasn’t time. She focused on survival, pushing aside all thoughts except, Run harder!
Shouts echoed from ahead, and Aelyx veered left, towing her off the main path and into the underbrush. A deep carpet of decaying leaves clutched her boots like mud, and the minefield of twigs, brambles, and fallen branches cracked so loudly beneath each step, they might as well send up a flare to announce their position.
“Slow down,” she implored with a gasp.
He gave her a brief reprieve, pausing to step over a rotted log and pushing chin-length locks of hair behind his ears before urging her on. “We’re almost there.”
Soon, they reached the stream. As they plodded onward, two other landmarks came into view: the kidney-shaped boulder and the charred tree, cleaved in half by lightning. Cara breathed a sigh of relief but immediately wrinkled her nose at the musky reek of algae thickening the air. The green slime had completely taken over since the last time they’d been there. She tiptoed and hopped over patches that crept out of the water and onto the mucky soil and wondered how this stuff managed to thrive in the dead of winter.
“I see what you mean.” She slipped on a green-coated stone and flailed her arms to steady herself. “It’s like a science experiment gone wrong.”
Aelyx muttered something unintelligible and jogged to the tree where his “getaway car” hovered high among the branches. Peering up, he patted his back pockets and froze, wide-eyed, before frantically patting his front pockets and the ones on his shirt that didn’t even exist. Cara’s stomach sank. This was universal body language for, Oh, crap, I lost my keys!
“Fasha!” he shouted. “My electron-tracker’s at the house. My com-sphere, too.”
Those sounded pretty important. And judging by the distant shouts of angry men and the whir of approaching helicopter blades, the head start Dad had given them had officially expired.
“We can’t go back,” she said.
“I know.” He cursed again and returned his attention to the sky.
“Please tell me you’ve got an extra set of keys stashed somewhere.”
“The tracker’s not a key, more like a remote control. It brings the shuttle down and into view.”
“So you don’t need it?” Maybe they weren’t screwed after all.
“The shuttle’s programmed to respond to my touch. If I can reach the damned thing, I can get inside and pilot it.” A twig snapped from about fifty yards behind, and Aelyx crouched low. “How good are you at climbing trees?”
Her only experience with the act had resulted in two sprained ankles and a bruised tailbone. “Not very.” Automatically, she scanned the small clearing for a place to hide, coming up empty. Winter had stripped the trees and shrubs of their leaves and flattened the tall weeds that typically covered the ground, offering no shelter.
“Then you’ll have to wait here.” Their thoughts must’ve traveled on the same wavelength, because he darted a glance in every direction and scowled. “Just do your best to stay low.” He found a pebble and threw it into the air to gauge the shuttle’s position. It bounced back after about thirty feet—a long way to climb considering he’d be exposed, too, but he didn’t waste another second deliberating.
The ease with which he scaled the tree both impressed and annoyed her, mostly the former since their lives were at stake. While he continued his slow-but-steady ascent, she knelt on the ground and hugged herself as a shiver rolled across her body. The adrenaline rush had worn off, and her sweat-dampened clothes leeched the frost from the air like a suit of ice cream.
She’d just wrapped both arms around her knees when crunching footsteps caught her attention. Her head snapped up. As the footsteps drew nearer, she could make out snippets of conversation.
“. . . freezing my ass off. . .”
“. . . shoulda brought my other coat . . .”
The voices were deep, male, and very familiar.
“. . . starvin’ to death . . .” She’d know that voice anywhere—Eric.
“. . . I’d kill for a basket of wings right now . . .” And Marcus Johnson.
A female voice joined the conversation. “Seriously? Is food all you ever think about?”
Cara craned her neck and glanced at Aelyx, halfway up the tree. His frozen posture told her he’d heard the voices, too. When she peered in the direction of Eric’s voice, a few glimpses of his blue jacket flashed through the trees. If she could see him, it only stood to reason he could see her—and Aelyx.
The boys shared a laugh and Marcus said, “No, I think about lacrosse, too. Oh, and ass.”
“Male or female?” the girl teased. “Not that I’m judging or anything.”
“Chillax, Brandi,” Eric said. “I’m pretty sure it’s your ass that’s on his mind. Though I have caught him staring at me in the locker room a couple times . . .”
Brandi?
Cara held perfectly still, watching Eric and Marcus pick their way through the woods. The girl closed the distance behind them, and Cara squinted at a familiar puffy white coat. It was Brandi . . . with her hand curled around the iron shaft of a golf club. She linked arms with Marcus, who toted a hunting rifle. Eric gripped a wooden baseball bat, and the three of them slung the weapons casually over their shoulders like kids strolling to the local fishing hole.