Page 55 of The Wild Zone

In two blinks, I pulled the dagger, spun, and hurled it at the man. The dagger flew fast and true. It should have hit him in the chest, but somehow he swung his enormous chain and knocked the blade out of the air.

“Shoot!” I took off running again, flexing and unflexing my hand by my side. “Come on back,” I mumbled under my breath. “Come on, come on.”

On the third flex, the handle of the dagger flew into my palm. Good dagger! Good unpredictable, slightly homicidal dagger!

RRRIPPPP!

I glanced back. The chain had gouged a crescent-shaped scar in the ground where my foot had just been, spraying the backs of my legs with twigs and rocks. The guy didn’t even seem to be pursuing me. He was simply standing there, at exactly the same distance. Maybe he was a mirage, but that chain seemed to be doing real damage.

I couldn’t just throw my dagger at him again. He’d deflect it. I needed to distract and attack.

As I ran, I spotted a young tree growing beneath the canopy of a larger one. Maybe three feet tall and two inches around, the sapling was just the size I needed.

“Sorry to break up the fam,” I said as I uprooted it.

The sapling tore free in a shower of dirt and worms, and I hurled it at the man. Again, he used his chain to deflect it, but while he was distracted, I sprinted toward him, slid under the arc of his chain, and drove my dagger into his thigh.

He yowled in pain and swatted me aside. Not in the casual way you’d shoo a fly that ventured too close to your face. More in the determined way you’d try to whack a mosquito into oblivion.

I tumbled several yards away, my ribs on fire.

Maybe it was the demigod in me, or maybe it was the fact that I’d had a lot of practice falling from fencing and soccer (and taekwondo and…), but I rolled to my feet and got right back up.

I faced the man as he yanked the dagger out of his leg.

“Your father’s, I presume?” He held it between his thumb and forefingers like it was a dirty Band-Aid.

I flexed my fingers, and the dagger flew back into my hand. “Actually, it’s mine.”

I flung the dagger again, but this time, I aimed at a branch above the guy’s head. The blade cut cleanly through the wood, and the branch dropped on top of him. It wasn’t heavy enough to knock him down, but it was cumbersome enough to entangle him and his chain.

With a roar, I lowered my shoulder and tackled the guy, launching us both into another tree. My teeth rattled from the hit. Pine cones rained down, but the man didn’t push back. I let go and smirked in satisfaction.

What I lacked in fighting skills, I made up for in—

The man thrust out a hand and grabbed me by the throat. His fingers dug into either side of my windpipe. I clawed at his fingers, trying to pry them loose.

“I was right about you, but not for the reasons I thought.” He lifted me into the air. “You have the necessary powers, but you’re holding back. You are not ready to face what is out here.”

The edges of my vision went darker than the night sky.

The man relaxed his grip on my throat, and I gasped for air. He allowed me to slip through his fingers. As pathetic as it sounded, I couldn’t wait to fall to the ground.

And I did fall—onto his raised knee. With my stomach.

With a guttural “Ohhh!” I sagged against him, but he flung me away. I crumpled to the soil, the scent of wet leaves and earth filling my nostrils.

The man stooped beside me. “Become ready, Katie Kim. And do it quickly. Don’t forget why you’re here. Don’t fail me.”

I curled into a defensive—some might say cowardly—ball and braced myself for another assault.

But none came.

I glanced up.

The man was gone. If he’d even been there to begin with.

For a moment, I lay shivering in the dirt. I tugged the ring off my finger and my body reappeared in all its battered glory. My clothes were ripped. My arms were crosshatched with cuts and scrapes.