She noted that he hadn’t used kinetics. What exactly had that witch juice done to him?
When he started walking again, he said, “I lived in five different foster homes.”
Crap. “So you don’t know who your parents are either?”
“I didn’t say that. The last place I lived was near Chattanooga.”
“Who are your parents? Do either of them have powers?”
“You want information, but what have you got to trade?”
She’d already offered to talk to the Tribunal. With Tristan free she had even less to barter with than she had before. “You know what I have.”
“Then we’re through talking until I know for sure there’s something in it for me.”
Except for occasional stops to drink from a coconut or eat fruit, she trudged silently through vegetation so thick that getting through felt like wrestling a gorilla. Now she was slogging through a muddy path cut along a mountainside.
Something bit her.
Again.
For like the hundredth time.
She’d had survival training, but give her the city anytime. Even with Atlanta traffic, she’d take the smell of a fresh night sizzled over hot pavement after a summer’s day. Civilization.
After five hours—or had it been six yet—of feeling like the food source for every bloodsucker smaller than her fingernail, she started thinking fondly of nights spent tracking preternatural predators . . .
The amulet around her neck heated up.
Her skin prickled with awareness and a sense that she’d missed something important.
In the city, she stayed on constant alert.
Out here, she’d gotten lax, assuming Tristan knew the land better than her, since he’d hiked out of here with the Kujoo last week.
But she still should have been paying more attention, because something was following her with deadly intent.
Her heart double-timed with a jolt of fight-or-flight adrenaline that spread through her limbs at the hint of battle. Speaking out loud to Tristan would alert the enemy, but could she reach him telepathically?
Tristan, can you hear me?She waited for some sign from him, but he never paused his stride ahead of her. She’d give it another try.Something or someone is following us. It’s dangerous. I don’t want to harm an animal, but I refuse to be anyone’s dinner.
I hear it,he finally said.Stay close.
She took stock of her surroundings. They’d been gradually descending for the past half hour, and the land had become more rolling than downhill. Tangled vines and a healthy crop of branches forced Tristan to break open the path on occasion, but there had been a few clearings like the one with the lake and waterfall a hundred yards back . . . until now.
The trail had narrowed with sides formed by thick undergrowth.
Sizing up the ambush potential, she rated the terrain directly ahead of and behind them a high nine on a scale of one to ten.
The jungle had been alive with sounds moments ago.
Everything quieted.
A twig snapped, then leaves shuffled.
That hadn’t been by accident. Whatever stalked her was unconcerned about her hearing its approach. She picked up a ripple of power emanating from the woods behind her and to her left. Several origins.
Predators for sure, but not of the human world.
