The word powers through me like a hot tide. Red spills over my vision and my blood pumps as though it’s at the very surface of my skin. I’ve made it past the Boundary and escaped enslavement. I refuse to be waylaid by a violent, selfishboy.It’s too much, too unfair.
Angry as all hell, I spit in his face.
The look of shock that passes over his features mirrors my own. Who knew a ‘Lemming’ has a backbone?
Who knew I have one?
The man’s shock fades quickly, replaced by icy determination. He grabs my wrist with those lightning-fast reflexes. “Tied up it is, then,” he growls, pulling my hands behind my back. My wrist barks in pain and I remember hitting the ground last night, fleeing from Eulogius.
The Dark Worlder brings his face close to mine, deadly serious as he taps the Boundary hunter’s revolver now strapped to his belt, alongside a startling assortment of knives that hang from an ornamented band of leather across his chest. “A word of warning,” he says softly, “if you try to escape, I do not miss.”
A scream claws its way up my throat, but I force it down. My body twitches, demanding I set it free to attack the man, to kick and bite and tear at his skin. But I hold still as he wraps rope around my wrists, binding them tightly together behind my back. Let him think that’s all the fight I have. When the time is right, he will learn differently.
“We’ve still got half a days’ worth of light,” he says to Max and Calloway. They’ve watched the exchange with guarded faces, but they showed me enough. They don’t agree with his plan. When the time is right, I will leverage that against him like a battering ram. “Let’s go.”
The man picks up my sack and throws it over his shoulder along with his own. He gives me a gentle shove forward and I force my feet to move. I’ll bide my time like the good Similian I am. And then, the Dark Worlder will learn he is not the only one with Darkness inside of them.
* * *
Dark Worlder
The girl is the least graceful creature I’ve ever seen. I’ve always heard Similians don’t spend much time outdoors, coddled as they are in their electric homes, but witnessing it is an entirely different matter.
I watch in mild distaste as she trips over another root, the same as she has done with every root prior. Which is saying a lot, as the Nemoran Wood is thicker and more gnarled than most on the continent. Thick enough for beasts and criminals to disappear within its depths and never emerge again. I’ve been inside this forest more times than I can count, but I’m not foolish enough to feel safe under its trees. First lesson of Ferusa—there is alwayssomethingmore dangerous than you.
The girl goes sprawling and Max catches her by the neck of that ridiculous jumpsuit, hauling her upright with a look of pure fury. Max has even less patience for ineptitude than I do, but with her steel-edged eyes and the twin swords strapped to her back, she is well suited for keeping the girl moving.
“Do you thinkallSimilians are this clumsy?” Cal remarks from where he walks beside me. His bow, Xamani made and beautifully carved, peeks from behind his shoulder. His footsteps are silent, though it hardly matters with the amount of noise the girl makes a few paces ahead. “It’s almost like she’s never seen a tree before.”
I grunt in acknowledgement, but know better than to assume this will quell Cal. He’s never been one to be deterred by someone else’s rancor. Especially mine.
“Do you think all Similians are as beautiful as her?”
I scowl in annoyance. “I hadn’t noticed,” I bark out. A lie if I were to examine it too closely. Which I won’t.
Cal scoffs in utter disbelief. “I don’t even prefer women and I noticed. Those cheekbones and those lips and especially those eyes…”
I let out a huff, turning to him with a furious glare. “Whatis your point?”
Cal ignores my ferocity with maddening poignancy. “Mypoint,”he says slowly, as if I’m obtuse, “is she is a real person.”
I watch as the girl hooks her toes in a scraggly bush, flailing her body as she struggles to keep from face planting. Max shoves her back upright with all the gentleness of an angry bear. “Obviously.”
“It was one thing when we spoke of this in concept. Like a story, with characters that had only outline and no substance. It’s entirely different when it involves a living, breathing person with emotions and dreams.”
A heavy steel wall slices down somewhere inside me, as unbendable as the Boundary used to be. “Enough, Calloway,” I bark, rounding on him. “That girl is the key to saving Denver, no matter how real she is,” my lips twist in a feral snarl. “I will sacrifice as many strangers as needed to get back what’s mine.”
Cal doesn’t shy away from my savage anger. He only frowns. “You’ve never put stock in magical nonsense before.”
His unspoken words hang in the air between us.You must be desperate.
I don’t dispute it. Desperation flows through my veins, wafting off my skin in stinking clouds. It’s what drove me across the continent, what I poured into the explosives that conquered the Boundary. There is no point denying it to Cal, who knows the inside of my heart as well as his own.
So instead, I glower at him silently and move to relieve Max at the Lemming’s side. Max looks down her nose at me, a wonder, considering I have a few inches of height on her, and pushes a sigh through her nostrils. As if to say she should be congratulated for reigning in her patience and not pushing the Lemming into a bramble bush. I shoot her a grateful smirk and she turns on her heel with dramatic flair, taking her place next to Calloway.
The Lemming takes her eyes off the path in front of her just long enough to shoot me a furious glare, as if trying to set fire to me with only her eyes. With interest, I note her pale cheeks have been colored a flush shade of pink, even though we’ve been walking at a turtle’s pace for less than an hour.
It takes me only a moment to determine the cause of her clumsiness. She doesn’t look at the path in front of her, doesn’t take in any of the obstacles that obscure the forest floor. Instead, her eyes scan the forest relentlessly. Searching.
