Sophia and I were about halfway up the ridge when a man stepped out of the woods in front of us.
Apparently, he hadn’t thought that he would actually get ahead of us, because he seemed surprised by our appearance. He got over it real quick, though. He snapped up his gun and took aim at us.
Crack! Crack!
I pivoted so that my back was to the man, and the bullets punched into my silverstone vest with all the hard force of a jackhammer. The impact made me stagger forward, and I lost my grip on Sophia, who went tumbling down to the ground, her shovel flying from her hands.
Crack! Crack!
The guy put two more bullets into my back, both of which caught in my vest once again. I palmed a knife, whirled around, and threw it at him. The blade sank into his windpipe. He clawed at the blade, then foolishly pulled it out, essentially cutting his own throat. He waved his gun with one hand, while the bloody knife wavered back and forth in his other.
“That’s mine,” I hissed, darting forward, yanking the knife out of his hand, and shoving him away.
Letting out a high, whistling wheeze, he stumbled over the edge of the trail and rolled down the wooded hillside.
By this point, Owen and Warren had caught up with Sophia and me. My eyes locked onto Warren, who was limping and leaning on his rifle for support just like Sophia had been doing with her shovel. He was favoring his right leg, and my gaze dropped to his left thigh—and the blood and the bullet hole there.
“Warren?” I asked.
He waved his hand at me. “I’ll live. Let’s move!”
Owen darted forward, put his shoulder under Sophia’s, and helped her to her feet. She grabbed her shovel to use as a walking stick once more. The four of us started back up the trail, with me in the lead this time, Sophia and Warren hobbling along behind me, and Owen in the rear, watching our backs.
Another man stepped out of the woods in front of us, but I was able to ram my knife into his chest before he even realized what was happening. I pushed him off the trail too, and we kept climbing, going as fast as Sophia and Warren could.
But it wasn’t fast enough, not nearly fast enough.
Through the green wash of trees, I spotted more of Grimes’s men running up the hill and converging on our position. Soon, enough of them would get ahead of us, cutting off our escape route, and more of them would swarm over us from behind. We’d be caught, trapped in the middle of a sticky web of death, and then we’d be executed, simple as that.
I couldn’t let that happen—not to the others—and I knew what I had to do now. Maybe I’d always known that it would come to this.
I waited until we got to the top of the rocky ridge, hurried over to the edge, and risked a look down below. I counted around a dozen men, all with guns, in the main camp clearing. Some of them were running to the east, where the pit was and where we’d started our escape. A few others were staring up at the ridge, taking aim with their guns, and waiting for us to appear, although we were out of range of their revolvers way up here. Some of the smarter ones were running toward the west end of the camp, probably to another trail there that would lead them up to this location.
I didn’t spot Grimes or Hazel, but I knew that they were out there somewhere searching for us, especially Grimes. He wouldn’t let Sophia escape a second time.
Everything I saw only made me more determined to make sure that the others got off the mountain—even if I didn’t.
“Get Sophia out of here!” I yelled, stepping away from the lip of the ridge and waving the others on past me.
“Go! I’ll hold them off!”
Sophia pulled up short. “No,” she rasped. “Don’t. Too dangerous.”
“Somebody has to slow them down, and it’s going to be me. I made Jo-Jo a promise that I’d rescue you, and I’m going to keep it. You wouldn’t want to make a liar out of me, now, would you?” I grinned, trying to show her that
I knew what I was doing—and what it would cost me.
Sophia didn’t say anything, but fear filled her eyes, fear for me and of what Grimes and Hazel would do to me
if I was captured. But that was something that I couldn’t let myself think about right now. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to do what needed to be done in order to save my family.
“She’s right,” Warren said, ripping the bandanna from around his throat and using it to make a crude bandage for his leg. “Now, come on. I’ll drag you if I have to, but we both know that we don’t have that kind of time right now.”
Warren couldn’t drag anyone, not with that bullet in his leg, but he was just stubborn enough to try, and Sophia knew it. She also realized that he was right.
Sophia gave me one more sorrowful look before she threaded her arm through Warren’s. Leaning on each other, the two of them slowly crossed the ridge, stepped onto the trail on the far side, and vanished into the woods.
I shrugged the backpack off my shoulders and dropped it at my feet, along with the bloody knife that I’d been holding. I palmed my second knife, then pulled out the one from the small of my back and the two from the sides of my boots. I grabbed a couple of guns out of the backpack and laid them on the rocks. Then I stuffed all five of my knives inside the backpack, zipped it up, and handed it to Owen.
“Here,” I said. “Take this. I don’t want Grimes getting his grubby hands on Fletcher’s maps or the knives that you made for me. Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty more weapons in my vest.”
“Don’t,” he said in a low, strangled, anguished voice.
“Don’t give me your knives. Don’t give up. Don’t you dare
give up.”
“I’m not giving up. I’m being realistic.”
More shouts echoed through the trees, along with a few more cracks of gunfire, as if to punctuate my words.
“I want to stay withyou,” Owen said, his words almost a snarl. “I want to fight with you and be by your side to the end—no matter what that is.”
“I know,” I said, my voice as calm as his was violent.
“But you can’t. Warren and Sophia are both injured, and they will never get off the mountain without help—your help. Grimes’s men will catch up with them and drag them back here. He’ll use them as leverage against us, and then we’ll all be dead. So I want you to go, Owen. I need you to go. Please. For Sophia and Warren—and especially for me.”
Owen closed his eyes a moment, his body shuddering, as though his heart was tearing in two as he accepted the truth of my words and what we both had to do now. Then he snapped them open, grabbed my arm, and pulled me close to his body.
“Whatever happens, you survive,” he growled. “I’ll come back for you as soon as Sophia is safe. I promise.”
Stubborn determination blazed in his violet eyes, making them burn as brightly as amethyst stars, and my heart swelled with love for him. Despite everything that had happened between us and all the ways that we’d hurt each other, I still loved him. I would love him for as long as I lived.
I just didn’t know how much longer that would be.
Because I didn’t think that I would survive this fight.
Grimes and Hazel had too many guns, too many men, too much magic, and I was all out of time—and options.
This one precious moment might be all that I had left.
So I cupped Owen’s cheek with one hand and stroked my bloody fingers over his face, smoothing out his worried frown and trying to memorize his features. I stared into his eyes, letting him see just how much I cared for him, just how much I loved him. Then I wrapped my arms around his neck and crushed my lips to his, wanting to feel his arms around me just one more time.