CHAPTER 1
MY BARE FEET POUND AGAINST the frozen, unforgiving ground as frigid air scrapes its icy claws in and out of my lungs. I dash through the clouds of breath that puff from my mouth like smoky beacons intent on betraying my location. Frost-tipped pines streak by as I dart through an endless maze of trunks.
“Too slow,” I pant at myself, pushing even harder, trying and failing to move faster.
I don’t hear them chasing me yet, but time is slipping away too quickly, and there isn’t nearly enough distance between where I am and the cell they’ve been holding me in.
My steps and breaths are too loud. Any second, the alarms are going to go off and they’ll know. They’ll start hunting. Desperation mists my every exhale, and my chest aches from exertion.
“Move, Ever!” I command, agitation and dread skittering up my spine, begging me to go faster, farther, but I’m so fucking weak and already pushing my abused body to the brink. I wish there’d been more time between when they last bled and beat me and this lucky break. If I’d had a chance to recover, to heal even a little, I’d be in a much better position than I’m in now, but I know I won’t get another chance like this. It’s now or never.
My lungs are tight, protesting the desperate pulls of oxygen my atrophied muscles are screaming for. Four months ago, a run like this would have been nothing more than a warm-up. I would have thrown my hair up, put on my favorite running bra, and gone full out for hours without breaking a sweat or even getting winded. Now, thanks to the blood brokers, those days are gone, and I’m painfully aware that if I don’t figure out how to get the hell away from here, they’re never coming back.
Frantic, I look around, hoping to get some sense of where I am, but all I see is a dark, endless forest. One that could be anywhere. When I was moved to this new location, the Tainted spelled my senses again. I have no idea why they still bothered with a blindfold and a thick abrasive bag over my head, but despite all their precautions and efforts, I could still feel that the air is different here—whereverhereis. There’s a distinct weight to the atmosphere, a press of moisture all around me that didn’t exist in my last prison. Not that knowingthatparticular detail is helpful. Sweaty air isn’t exactly the road map to escape I desperately need right now.
I hate cities, but I’d give anything to be in one right now. A place packed with buildings, busy streets, and people. Somewhere it’d be easy to turn a corner and just disappear. A campground filled with hunters all armed to the teeth and ready to defend a poor defenseless woman could work too. But I’m not that lucky, so instead, I find myself sprinting through a sea of hills and mountains covered in an infinite span of towering trees and patches of snow. There’s nowhere to hide. Nowhere to blend or cower until the danger passes, nowhere to hole up and heal so I can try to fight my way out.
Basically, I’m screwed.
Well and truly fucked.
The piercing wail of an alarm slices through the placid night, and my gut sours.
Fuck! Time’s up.
My heart hammers even harder, and I beg my limbs to push past the pain and fatigue. Distant shouts sound off somewhere far behind me, but they’re not nearly far enough, and I can hear my doom on the wind.
They’re coming for me.
A mocking moon hangs high in the sky, the stars watching the show far below like apathetic spectators. The tall trees all around me start to thin as I sprint through their cover and race uphill. Every muscle I have burns in protest.
Maybe I can find a road. A road could lead to a concerned motorist, someone who might speed me away. Screw the campground full of hunters, I was being greedy. A sole hunter prowling through these woods is all the good fortune I need right now. I scoff at the thought. Good fortune has never been on my side, hence the reason I’m here running from a bunch of blood brokers and the tainted sorcai who employ them.
As though fate itself wants in on my mocking, I break through the foliage and run into a clearing where I’m forced to skid to a stop. And just like that, the fragile flame of hope I’ve been carefully tending becomes nothing more than a slip of smoke escaping my white-knuckled grasp.
Gone are the palatial trees and frostbitten bracken. In their place is a sea of stars nestled in a cold blanket of dark, desolate night and a rocky cliff jutting toward it all like some sinister runway to oblivion.
A fucking cliff.
Of course that’s how this all ends.
I open my mouth to scream, to bellow a protest I’m pretty sure will sound more like a lament, but an incredulous laugh spills out instead. I stare out into the heavens and shake my head. I’ve lasted this long. Survived everything these Tainted fucks have done to me, taken from me. I’ve finally managed to escape, only to be stopped by Mother Nature.
What a heartless cunt.
My laugh takes on a tinge of hysteria. I slap a hand over my mouth and pull in a frosty breath through my nose, needing to ground myself and get my shit together.
It’s not over yet.
Looking behind me, I retrace my path, wildly searching for a solution, for some other way out. All I find are dots of floating light flickering in the distance. The glowing balls draw closer as the conjurers holding them search for me. I hear them, my captors relaying instructions and coordinates back and forth, their voices grating on the last of my self-preservation.
My mind releases the floodgates on thoughts I’ve been holding back from the minute Renatta and I were ambushed.
I won’t let them take me again.
I won’t spend another second being tortured, bled, and sapped of sanity.
I have to escape…one way or another.
