They burst out of the rock into cool air just as he passed out.
MAX
Max sprawledon the ground with one arm around Elina and the other around Gio. The impact was jarring, and because it was nearly dark, she took a moment to understand fully that they were no longer underground. The air was chilly, the smell of it somehow familiar.
Elina clung to Max, trembling.
"Shhhh," Max soothed her. Gio had shifted when they emerged from underground, and he was sprawled limply beside her, looking dead. She sat up and frantically felt for a pulse. She found one, but it was weak and fluttering. His skin was cool to the touch.
At least they weren't still in the cult's stronghold—but wherewerethey? It was night, so they were still somewhere in the Western Hemisphere, for all the help that gave her. They could be anywhere in Europe, Africa, North or South America.
But there was familiarity to it nevertheless. She was in the mountains somewhere. Snow-capped peaks loomed above her, softly luminous in the starlight. Although it must be a mountainside, the ground was flat underneath her, so smooth that it could have been flattened by the work of people rather than being natural.
Max ran her hand over the smooth surface. She felt a groove and dipped her fingers into it curiously. It seemed to form part of a pattern—
"Oh, no," she whispered.
"What's wrong?" Elina asked, her voice almost a whimper. "Where's Javic? Where are we?"
"It's okay, kid," Max told her, forcing reassurance that she didn't feel into her voice. She took off her jacket and put it around the girl, who was shivering in her thin nightgown. "You're safe. I'm just going to check out a few things. Stay here with him."
She brushed a hand across the side of Gio's face, checked his pulse and breathing again, and stood up.
From a standing perspective, now that her sharp night vision had adjusted to the dim light, she could more clearly see the horseshoe-shaped amphitheater that surrounded her. The open end was toward the slope of the mountainside. Although she couldn't see beyond the edge, she knew that there was a great sloping drop to a valley below.
She knew because she had been here before.
Just like she knew—although they were hidden in the shadow of the overhanging peaks—that concentric rows of stone seats surrounded the floor of the amphitheater, which was in fact an arena.
Here, years ago, she had fought for her life ... and lost.
Oh, Gio,she thought desperately.Why have you brought us here?Howhave you brought us here?
They were in her family's ancestral clan lands in the Andes Mountains.
Even as the awful truth began to sink in, she heard the growl of an engine. Headlights raked across the arena, and Max shielded her eyes as the vehicle stopped at the top of the amphitheater.
The driver called, "You're not supposed to be here, you know!"
The voice was female, and just like the rest of this place, it was terribly familiar.
Max called back, "I know, Sofia. But we didn't have a choice."
Her sister gasped. Then there was movement behind the headlights, and a moment later, Sofia appeared in the beams.
She didn't look too different from the last time Max had seen her in person, ten years ago. Her long black hair fell in soft waves around her face. She was wearing a long skirt.
All of this, Max took in as her sister scrambled down the rows of seats. When Sofia reached Max, she threw her arms around her. Max resisted for a brief moment and then hugged her back, clinging to the sister she hadn't seen in a decade.
"The clan patrols said someone had been spotted on the arena grounds and sent me to check it out," Sofia said into her shoulder. "Max, what are you doing here? And whyhereof all places? If you wanted to be allowed back in, you should have come and presented yourself to the alpha."
"I didn't come to be let back into the clan," Max said, her heart aching. "But now that I'm here, we need sanctuary. My companion is hurt, and I have a child with me."
Sofia let her go and turned to the others. "Hello," she said to Elina, first in Spanish and then in English—which made Max abruptly realize that they had been speaking Spanish. It had felt so natural with Sofia that she hadn't even noticed.
"Hi," Elina said faintly.
Sofia crouched to put a hand on Gio, and Max had to stifle a fierce surge of irrational jealousy. "What's wrong with him?"
