I bite down to stem the flow of tears, to galvanize myself, and I run, away from the camp, and into the shadows of the forest.
DOGFIGHT
Moonlight shines in beams through the trees. My panting breath roars in my ears, the ground is soft underneath me, but I find my footing easily. Errant roots rise like arching serpents but none manage to trip me up.
I’m heading for high ground from which I’ll have a good vantage point to survey the forest. We know via Salazar’s scouts that Walter is planning to strike when the moon is high, around midnight, which will give both sides a mega boost of lunar energy. How they were able to infiltrate the Axis Pack is a mystery to me, but those scout wolves are probably a little more subtle than I’ve ever been.
The forest is large. There is more of it than even I knew or could discern the first time I was here. Quickly, tapping into my superspeed which seems to be with me tonight, I arrive in unfamiliar territory.
I climb.
Uphill, away from the camp, toward the west. We figured seeing as the camp is on the eastern edge of the forest, deep into Elite territory, Walter would be bringing his wolves from the other side.
Eventually, I come to a stop. A jagged rock wall faces me, a cliff. The flat top of which is roughly the same height as the surrounding trees. That would make an excellent spot to reach out from. Although the route up looks more than perilous, there are enough divots and protruding rocks that I think I can scale it easily enough.
My first few steps up the wall are simple, and I make it halfway in pretty good time.
Maybe I have a future as a rock climber or one of those people who clamber all over the boulders in Central Park.
But as I go to place my foot in the next divot, a rock comes loose underneath me and I slip. Jolting as I lose my footing and my grips, I begin to fall, only just managing to grasp a curling root.
“Sweet moon gods,” I say, holding on with one hand, swinging dangerously about twelve feet off the ground.
Somehow, I fight back the fear and am able to regain my composure and my footholds. Slowly, slowly I Spider-Man my way up the rest of the wall.
When I reach the top, hoisting myself over the ledge and onto flat earth once more, I lie on my back panting, staring at the sky.
“Thanks,” I say, winking at the moon.
When I’m ready, I stand on shaky legs and look out across the forest. The canopy sits like carpet before me. The mountains rise in a circle, nodding in every direction. In the distance is a gap in the pine tops that I think has to be the camp.
This is the spot.
I sit crisscross applesauce, take a deep breath, inhaling the earthy pine scent of the forest, and close my eyes.
Darkness. The void.
I expand my consciousness, reaching out for wolves within what has to be a five, six-mile radius.
Jasper is the first wolf I find.
“Hey,”I say to him.“I’m in position.”
“Great,”he replies.“So are we.”
I scan the woods around Jasper and find the wolves of his battalion, their positioning gives me an idea of the landscape, the undulating rise and fall of the terrain, the gaps where trees might be, and my mind fills in the blanks. Like luminescentclouds the pieces of the forest come into view. I construct a visual of the trees and boulders. I’ll need a clear idea of where everyone is and what their surroundings are.
“The other battalions should be in position too,”Jasper says.“Can you find them?”
“Aye, aye.”
Breathing in through my nose, my chest rising, I gather more energy and then send it out across the Lunar Plane. Like bioluminescent water splashing over rocks my mental map of the forest expands and I’m able to locate the other wolves.
Here is the moment I’ve been worried about. Jasper has assumed that with the heightened energy from the moon I’ll be able to, if not exactly mind-link with the rest of our army, insert messages into their heads so they know what to do. It took months and a near-death experience for me and Jasper to mind-link, and now we’re counting on me being able to speak to every wolf in our pack just like that.
“Beta Salazar, this is Max, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,”he says in response, shocking me so badly I nearly tumble backward. It worked—and even better than we’d planned. My mind and Salazar’s are linked, which means ... I should be able to link with any wolf I want to.Thank you, Selene.
