“Nice of you to join us,” Chill mutters.
Jack ignores him. I wait for our eyes to catch. For some awkward, secret acknowledgment of the night we spent together. But he walks straight to the back room.
I climb free of Poppy’s sleeping bag and follow him, watching as he stuffs Chill’s backpack with loose clothing and supplies. He gathers Slinky’s food and Marie’s toiletry bag and zips them into her backpack, stacking them beside Poppy’s and Woody’s bags beside the door. “Jack, what’s going on?”
He brushes past me and grabs the car keys off the table.
Amber sits up and rubs her eyes. She glares at Jack like she might start hurling fire.
Julio burrows deeper into his sleeping bag and drags it up over his head. “If you all don’t shut up and let me sleep, I’m going to kill every last one of you.”
Jack opens the front door, letting in another blast of frigid air as he tosses all their bags onto the porch. The others look at me slack-jawed, as if I know what the hell is going on. I follow him outside, pulling the door closed behind me.
“Jack!” I brace myself against the damp cold seeping through my socks, seeping through everything, as Jack unlocks the car and starts piling the bags inside. “Jack, what’s wrong?”
“They’re leaving after breakfast,” he says without looking at me.
“Who?”
“Poppy and Chill. Woody and Marie. They’re taking the car. They need to go.” He slams the rear hatch and I stand in his way.
“You can’t be serious.”
“They can’t stay here.”
I wrap my arms around myself. “What are you saying? Where is this even coming from? We can’t split up!”
“Don’t tell me you can’t smell it. Woody’s infection is spreading. If it goes septic, he’ll die. Marie and Poppy are sick, too.”
“So... we’ll find a pharmacy or a doctor,” I sputter. “We’ll get antibiotics for Woody. Marie and Poppy are probably just coming down with colds. They just need rest.”
“We can’t rest!” He takes me by the shoulders. All traces of last night—of the cool, confident boy who walked on water and made snow fall from the sky—are gone. “Don’t you see? They’re at risk, every minute they spend with us. No one’s looking for them. They’re looking forus. They can smell us, Fleur. They can track us. Hunt us. And as long as Poppy and Chill are here with us, they’re in danger. If they die on this mountain, it will be our fault.”
He lets go, as if only now realizing how much he’s hurting me.
“Die? Why would they die? What happened? What aren’t you telling me?”
He rubs his eyes. It’s been far too long since he’s slept. He’s just tired. He’s not making any sense. “Chronos’s Guards know we’re here,” he says. “They’re coming.”
“We’ve been here less than a day. No one hunts that fast.” There’s no way they could have found us so quickly. Unless we drew attention to ourselves. Unless we led them here. “Was it our fault? Was it the snow? Did someone see us at the school?”
“No.” His face crumples. “No, Fleur. Nothing like that.” He draws me to him, his breath shuddering against my hair. “I don’t know how they found us.”
“Who?” We both turn at the sound of Julio’s voice. He and Amber stand side by side at the bottom of the porch steps. “Who found us?”
Jack takes my hand, keeping me close. “Doug Lausks’s team.” My stomach falls away. “Lyon says they’ve tracked us here. He’s not sure how.”
“What the hell do you mean, ‘Lyon says’? How does Lyon know where we are? You said no one knew where we were going.” Julio looks from Jack to me as if I’ve betrayed him somehow.
“That’s not important.” Jack’s frustration sounds earnest, and I wonder if he was lying about the snow. If it really was our own foolishness that drew the Guards here. “They’ve only got a rough idea where we are. But it won’t take them long to find us.”
“How soon?” Amber asks.
“A few hours, if we’re lucky.” Chill’s and Poppy’s faces appear in the window. Marie’s shadow darkens the front door. Jack lowers his voice. “Lyon thinks we should stay and fight—the four of us. We already have the high ground. And we’ll have a clean escape route once they’re gone.”
A hot wind whips over the ridge, blowing my hair over my eyes. I scrape it away, unsettled by the dark clouds gathering overhead. “I thought you said this place was safe,” Julio growls.
“It is. We can fortify it. Together, we can defend it.”
