She was tired. Exhausted. But she knew she couldn’t stay here. They would be after her. She had to keep moving.
“No rest for the weary,” she grumbled, rising to her feet and continuing on.
This time, however, she altered course, following the flow of water, realizing she would need to hydrate frequently if she was to have any hope of maintaining this level of exertion. While her pursuers had water packs along with the rest of their gear, she was out here in just the clothes on her back.
On she hiked, moving slowly but steadily, trekking in the ankle-deep water along the shore when she could to hide her steps if possible. She stopped to pick berries periodically from the muddy stream banks that had been looming taller beside her as she walked, the result of the water merging with other streams. The fruit provided a small but nice boost to her blood sugar, but what she really wanted was a proper meal. But that wasn’t an option. Not now. Not ever again, at least not from Gromm’s cooks.
“Just great,” she muttered, picking flakes of dried blood from her skin as she moved, pondering the revelations she’d just had unceremoniously dumped on her. “So, that means the others clearly weren’t found by Gromm’s people. Not with the way he reacted. And that means one of two things. Either the Raxxians got them, or that thing out there.”
It was a harsh realization, but after what she’d seen and endured since the crash, one thing was very plain to see. With at least one of them injured, judging by the blood she’d seen in the downed compartment, that meant that her cellmates couldn’t have gotten too far. And they couldn’t have gone anywhere fast.
“I guess I’ll never know,” she muttered, resigned to the fact that some things would remain a mystery.
She felt a little shitty giving up on them so easily. But aside from her incredibly brief interaction with Alida, she really had no ties to them at all. Yes, their situation surely sucked, but they weren’t friends. Hell, they were barely acquaintances, and for only a day at that.
The sound of crackling undergrowth made her ears perk up and her slowly recovering adrenaline spike up yet again. There were footsteps not far away. Several of them. And they were getting closer. She hurried ahead, taking care not to splash too loudly.
Fuck. They’re close. I don’t know what I can?—
A massive hand wrapped over her mouth from behind, pulling her back hard and fast into the muddy banks. Margot elbowed hard but hit a wall of unyielding thick muscle.
“Shh. They’ll hear you,” a familiar voice said.
Only, she’d never understood the man’s words before. Only through pantomime. She glanced over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of Braxxos. He was positively radiating heat against her, his heart pounding. By the feel of it, he’d been running. Running to save her.
She didn’t know what he had planned, but she knew she could trust him implicitly, and when he lay down and rolled them both in the mud until they were right against the stream’s banks she didn’t object. Nor did she when he used his enormous hands to shovel more mud over them both, smearing their bodies from head to toe.
“Lay still. Breathe shallow. Do not move.”
She didn’t even so much as nod a reply, going perfectly still as he directed.
They lay there for nearly five minutes before Gromm’s men came tromping down the stream. One of them had a device in his hand. Some sort of tracking tech from what she could guess.
“Well? Where is she?” a gray-skinned man with a bloody gash in his forehead demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“Whaddya mean you don’t know? You’ve got the scanner.”
“Yeah, I do, but this whole area’s a mess for scans. You know that.”
“But what about heat signatures?”
“She walked in the water a lot. Makes it hard to follow. There’s no telling how far ahead she is.”
Margot fought the urge to run, forcing herself to remain motionless. But this man was literally steps away. All he had to do was move a few paces to his side, and he’d actually step onher. And then? Braxxos was with her, but he was a pacifist from what she’d seen. He’d just be taken prisoner as well. So she did what she had to. She lay still as a corpse. A very muddy corpse.
“Fine. Let’s get up to higher ground. We might get a glimpse of her from an elevated vantage point.”
“Beats the hell out of walking around in the mud,” the other man replied, happy to climb up to dry land. “We’d better hurry. Gromm’s going to have our heads for losing a ship.”
The group moved off at a jog, clearing out quickly, leaving the two hidden, alone, and above all else, undiscovered. Regardless, they lay there for several minutes more until Braxxos finally took a deep breath.
“I see you have runes now.”
“Yeah, I can understand you finally.”
“That does make this easier. Come, we can move now. They’re gone.”
