Luke,
I’m sorry. I can’t sit back while others die because I did nothing.
If I don’t make it back, tell my mother I love her.
And tell her you tried to stop me.
—E
The paper crumples in my fist.
No. Absolutely not. She didn’t—
She did.
The rabbit lies forgotten at my feet. I don’t waste a second on recriminations. My hands move automatically, grabbing my pack, checking weapons, anything essential.
I scan the ground around the clearing. Her trail is clear at first; broken twigs, disturbed earth, heading southwest. Toward the facility. She’s not trying to hide her path, either from haste or inexperience. It doesn’t matter. I’d find her regardless.
Foolish. Reckless. Suicidal. Going to get herself killed, and it’ll be my fault for not—
I’m running before the thought completes.
My boots pound the forest floor, kicking up pine needles, crushing undergrowth. I set a brutal pace, one I wouldn’t ask of her but that my body can maintain for hours. Her trail remains visible, boot prints in soft earth, broken branches at shoulder height, the occasional scent that’s distinctly Ember carrying on the wind. A scent that’s woven itself into me.
The calculations tick through my head. She has maybe thirty minutes’ head start. I’m faster, more experienced, know the terrain better. I should catch her within the hour. I have to catch her before she reaches the facility perimeter.
I push harder, breath measured, heart rate controlled despite the alarm bells clanging inside my skull.
Then the trail vanishes.
One moment: clear boot print in mud, heading southwest. Next: nothing. Smooth earth, undisturbed pine needles.
I freeze, all senses straining. No signs of struggle. No indication she was taken. Just… gone.
Confusion knots my stomach. I backtrack, find the exact spot—a small clearing with exposed granite. Her last footprint visible at the edge, then nothing.
How—?
I cast wider, searching for any sign. There! A scuff mark on stone thirty yards east. I follow it, find another partial print near a fallen log. But the trail feels wrong now. Erratic. She was moving southwest, toward the facility. These marks lead east, then north, then west again.
She’s circling. Or being led in circles.
Every time I commit to a direction, new signs appear, pulling me elsewhere. A broken branch here. Disturbed leaves there. Leading me away from the facility.
The realization hits: this isn’t her trail.
It’s deliberate misdirection.
The mountain—the same power that freed us from that cave—is leading meawayfrom where she went.
I stop in a ravine, breathing hard, hands fisted. I try to ignore the false trails, orienting purely by compass and memory. Start southwest again through sheer determination.
But the terrain subtly shifts around me. Paths that should be straight curve gradually north. Landmarks appear in wrongpositions. Three times I correct my bearing; three times the forest gently, inexorably deflects me.
You helped me escape. Now you’re keeping me from her.
Why? What do you want?
