Vanish f-2 Page 12

  I glance around, study the press of forest as if he’ll emerge from the shadows at any moment.

  I don’t know quite when I notice it, but I fall still, utterly motionless. And listen.

  Total silence. Unnatural.

  I’m not alone. My skin ripples with awareness of this fact. Someone else has arrived. Excitement bubbles up in my chest, and I feel like I just downed one of the fizzy orange sodas Dad always bought me on our trips to town.

  Will. My gaze scans the fringe of trees and brush surrounding me, hungry for the sight of him. And yet something stops me from saying his name. From calling out.

  The silence hangs, swinging into this eerie, living thing, breathing menacingly all around me.

  And then I realize whoever’s out there — isn’t Will. Will would have revealed himself by now. He wouldn’t do this to me.

  A sound breaks the stillness. Something wrong for the setting. No bird call, no rustle of wind through the mist-shrouded trees.

  A twig cracks. Just once. As if a body moved, tested its weight, and stopped. My gaze focuses on that spot, staring hard into the dense foliage.

  “Who’s there?” I finally ask.

  Nothing.

  Countless possibilities race through my mind. Did someone follow me? Corbin? The guard? Or is it a hunter? One of Will’s family?

  It occurs to me that waiting to find out is a bad idea. I push into the trees, slap at branches as I head away from the glade and away from the township. Just in case it’s a hunter… I can’t lead them back there.

  And there it is again. Footsteps keeping a steady pace behind mine. Gratified that I’m not paranoid, I steer my thoughts into losing whoever it is trailing me. Definitely not a friend. A friend would announce himself.

  Heat swims through my skin. I walk briskly, plunging deeper into the woods. My heart pounds with every step I take.

  I tromp through high grass, wondering how a day that held such promise could twist so horribly into something else. I should be in Will’s arms, but instead I’m playing some sort of cat-and-mouse game. The snowcapped mountains peer down at me through the latticework of branches.

  Tired of feeling like prey, I swing around abruptly. “Come out! I know you’re there.”

  Silence.

  I scour the trees, searching.

  Then I see her. A figure steps out from behind a tree.

  “Miram.” I breathe her name. I guess I should be glad she showed herself to me. She didn’t have to.

  “I thought you were never going to stop. What are you doing out here?” she demands, propping a fist on her hip and looking around expectantly. “Meeting someone?”

  “No,” I say quickly.

  “Then why would you sneak off—”

  “I just wanted some time alone.” I look her up and down. “I guess that’s not going to happen.”

  She cocks her head, says lightly, blandly, “I don’t believe you.”

  I try to look innocent. Hope it works. “Why not?”

  She smiles widely and pulls something from her pocket. It takes me a moment to grasp what it is she holds. Paper. Two folded slips of paper.

  “My letters,” I say numbly. “You went inside my house? My room?”

  She flutters the letters in the air. “Lots of times. It’s amazing the things I know that no one else does. The things people leave out and about. Who wants to be a fire-breather when you can be invisible?”

  Then it clicks. “You’ve been spying on me!” The sounds… the sensation of always being watched. It wasn’t my imagination. It was her.

  She nods cheerfully, not in the least ashamed.

  “Why?” I shake my head. “Why do you hate me so much?”

  Her face screws tight. “For years I’ve watched the pride bow down to you; even my own family treated you like some great savior — overlooking me like I’m something lesser, of no importance. And when there’s only five—” She holds up a hand, each of her fingers splayed wide. “Five visiocrypters in the pride. We’re special, too, you know.”

  I sigh. “Really? That’s why you’re so nasty to me? Because you don’t get enough attention?”

  “Oh, shut up, Jacinda. I don’t know why you’re acting so smug. You’re a traitor. You’ll never be trusted again. Why do you think my father asked me to keep an eye on you?”

  “Severin put you up to this?”

  She nods. “I couldn’t agree fast enough.”

  I inhale, forcing myself to block out the bitter flow of her words. The only thing I can concentrate on is the sudden low drone rumbling on the air. Distant but agonizingly familiar.

  The moment becomes like another one not so long ago — even if it feels like a lifetime has passed since then. A lifetime since an arrow ripped through my wing. Since I was the prey, hunted down on this very mountain. A lifetime since I first saw Will. Since he spared me, saved me, and claimed a piece of my heart.

  Except this time, the hunters are too close… too close to the pride. I know the township must be aware and in full-scale alert.

  Miram turns her head. “What is—”

  “Sshh.” I slice a hand through the air and listen harder. The mist increases, rolls in a thick vapor at my feet and I know it’s coming from Nidia.

  The pride must be in lockdown, fully shrouded, buried in Nidia’s mind-numbing shade. Tamra probably has a hand in it, too.

  Anxiety rips through me. The choppers can see nothing of the pride from their vantage. Which means they might send in their land units to investigate the area more thoroughly.

  The beating drone grows louder, closer.

  Miram’s eyes bulge. “Are those helicopters?”

  I nod. “Yeah. C’mon. We have to go.” I grab her hand and pull her after me.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Away from the township.” I run, dragging her behind me.

  “They can’t see us through the trees. And the mist,” she complains. “We’re out of sight.”

  I keep running, pushing harder, not bothering to tell her that where there are choppers, land units aren’t far behind. I know this, have lived it firsthand.

  “Jacinda, talk to me!” Panic edges her voice.

  I need her calm. Easy and calm and ready to do whatever I tell her. “It’s okay, Miram,” I say. “Just keep moving.”

  “I’ve never been this far from the township… Shouldn’t we be going toward home? Not away from it?”

  “And lead the hunters straight to the pride?” I shake my head. “No.”

  This is all I can explain because right then I hear another sound. The rev of motors. The distant buzz growls its way toward us. My chest burns, fire eating up my windpipe.

  “Jacinda!” My name explodes from her lips. She wrenches her arm free and stops, glaring at me, rubbing her wrist. “What’s going on!”

  She’s too loud. I grab both her arms and give her a small shake, desperate to make my point. “Look, this isn’t random aircraft.” I pause for breath. “They’re hunters. They’re on the mountain looking for us.”

  Her eyes grow enormous in her small face, and I realize just how young she is. Only a year younger than I am, but she seems younger. I feel older.

  As I stare at Cassian’s sister, it hits me hard. I can’t let anything happen to her. I have to protect her. I don’t let myself ponder why this is. It’s just something I have to do. I have to save her, brat that she is. I have to keep her safe. For him.

  “Listen to me,” I command.

  And she does. Impossible as it seems, her eyes grow even bigger — more expressive than I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, it’s terror that I read there.

  It’s no surprise what happens next. Her pupils thin to vertical slits, shuddering with fear.

  “Stop, Miram,” I hiss, shaking her. “Not now.”

  “I can’t,” she spits, her speech garbling, altering behind her teeth.

  Her draki eyes roll wild with her fear, looking everywhere, all around her, anywhere but at
me. Her skin flashes, a shimmery neutral color, like milk-infused coffee. Not that different from the color of her human flesh except for the iridescent glimmer. And I know it’s too late. She’s lost to her instincts.

  “Okay, fine,” I snap, digging my fingers into her arms, and shaking her hard, snapping her gaze back to me. “Look at me, Miram. Can you make yourself invisible?”

  Instead of answering me, she releases a keening moan.

  “Quiet!” Frustration boils up in me at a dark and dangerous simmer. The familiar heat sears through me.

  “I don’t do well under pressure,” she whines.

  For a moment I want to inflict bodily harm on her.

  I glance around, assessing, listening, judging how close the hunters are. The droning buzz of engines sounds closer. I glance at the trees and grimly announce, “Strip.”

  “W-what?” she asks, her voice lost to the guttural rumble of draki-speech.

  “Strip. We’ll hide in the trees,” I explain, my English starting to fade out, turning into a thick, garbled sound as my vocal cords alter.

  I release her and tear off my clothes. My heart feels like lead in my chest, an aching weight. Here I am. Again. Running from hunters.

  After a stunned moment, Miram clumsily strips; her wings, clear as glass with latticing cords the color of bone, spring free. Her fear has hold over her, and she’s manifesting without thought, without deliberation, her face transforming, angles sharpening, lengthening.

  I lift my chin and inhale, draw air into my seizing lungs. My skin fades, draki skin emerging in a burning rush.

  I ball my clothes up with Miram’s and stuff them with my backpack deep into a knot hole, hastily tossing leaves and dirt over them with shaking hands. The toxic taste of fear laces my mouth. No reason to fight it anymore.

  Flinging my head back, I release a little moan as my wings push out from between my shoulder blades, the twin gossamer sheets snapping on the air. My toes lift off the ground.

  How did this happen? I was supposed to see Will — be in his arms right now. How has everything gone so horribly wrong? Where’s Will? Does he know what’s happening? How could he let his family come up the mountain today? Today of all days?

  Grabbing Miram’s hand, I take off, get sucked up into wind and air. Feel the long strands of my hair lift up off my shoulders in a fiery storm.

  Miram doesn’t resist. She’s already there, acting on instincts that demand flight, escape. I stop her, yank on her hand to keep her from ascending and soaring past the treetops into the choppers’ line of vision.

  Our wings smack the air, stirring leaves and making more noise than I like. I shove her into a tree and follow her in, squeezing between the jabbing branches.

  Our gazes connect through the bramble of pine and twigs. She stares at me without her usual animosity. Her eyes are wild with fear, the thin sliver of her pupils shuddering with her terror. I imagine my own eyes look the same.

  Crouching high in the tree, I cock my head as my hearing sharpens. I know the moment before they break through the trees that they’re here, upon us — that I’ll have to be as quiet and still as I’ve ever been if I hope to keep them from swarming over us.

  Chapter 17

  They advance slowly, crawling really, over the forest floor like a slow-spreading infection. Once the armada of dirt bikes and various gleaming trucks and SUVs shatter into sight, I realize why they’re not moving faster.

  Dread sinks through me as I see that they’re paying particularly close attention to the trees. The very trees where we hide.

  Miram’s clutch on my arm intensifies, her talons digging into my flesh, and I know she understands this, too.

  I wet my lips and ask Miram as quietly as possible if she can make herself invisible. Even as quiet as I am, I wince at the guttural rumble of my question.

  I know she can. She’s a visiocrypter. That’s what she does. But can she now? When she most needs to? Can she do it and hold it under pressure?

  She stares at me for a moment. Too long before giving a less-than-convincing nod. She takes a deep breath and her body shimmers before my eyes, the neutral tone of her draki flesh dimming until it appears as if she’s gone, vanished.

  I still feel her beside me, clutching my arm. I stare down at the hunters far below. Several wear a contraption on their faces that resembles heavy goggles. I narrow my gaze, wondering at this device, when it dawns on me. I’ve seen my share of spy movies.

  “No,” I whisper.

  Infrared goggles. Considering they detect body heat, I must be glowing like a bonfire in our hiding spot. Miram won’t be safe either, even invisible.

  Miram tenses beside me. “What?”

  I don’t have time to explain. A hunter shouts, pointing, “There! In that tree!”

  A launcher pops and a net hisses as it flies through the air. I’m hit. We’re hit — since Miram hasn’t left my side.

  There are too many branches. The net can’t close around us properly. Instead it tangles us hopelessly together, stopping us from simply flying away. Miram freaks, flapping her wings fiercely, making it harder to fight free of the rope mesh.

  She thrashes like a caught bird, whimpers like a wild animal. Faint color flashes, bursts of pale light, there one moment and gone the next.

  “Get a grip,” I growl, “you’re… materializing… they can see you.”

  Below us, they shout instructions at each other, strategizing, doing what they do best. What they’ve trained their whole lives to do. Hunt draki. There’s no time. They’ll have us down from this tree in a matter of seconds.

  Instinct kicks in. Char and ash fill my mouth. Smoke shivers from my nostrils, puffs from my lips. The smolder rides high in my chest, hungry to defend and protect.

  I part my lips and blow a thin ribbon of flame, just enough to burn through the mesh tangled near my face. Just enough for me to grasp the hot, seared edges and tear a hole large enough to squeeze through.

  With half my body free, I turn back to haul a mostly invisible Miram out after me. She’s still flashing in and out, a light blinking on and off.

  That’s when I’m hit. A harpoon grazes my thigh. Pain lances my body. I slap a hand over the torn, wet flesh.

  Over their rapid-fire shouts, I fall. Just like in my nightmares. I’m plunging toward the ground. Tangled net and Miram, too.

  We land in a winded, broken pile. My lungs heave, contracting with heat, the air around me thin and brittle, ice compared to the intense warmth frothing inside me.

  Instantly, they surround us. Black-clad figures with their infrared goggles. Weapons point. They shout in their hard voices. And I see a face. One that I could never forget no matter how much I might want to block it from my memory.

  Staring up into Xander’s relentless face, I know who these hunters are. As if there were ever a doubt. I know Will can’t be very far. Except this doesn’t fill me with relief. It’s closer to despair.

  What can Will do? He can’t do anything to help me without risking himself, without exposing that I’m more than I appear.

  Still, I search — long for a glimpse of him — as I shouldn’t.

  More vehicles arrive, screeching to a halt, spraying dirt into the thick mist.

  Miram speaks feverishly in my ear, her panic palpable, a hot wind I can taste, bitter and acrid on the air. “Jacinda, Jacinda! What do we do? What do we do?”

  “Shut up, Miram,” I hiss, the draki-speech thick in my mouth.

  The choppers circle like dark vultures, whipping the trees into a frenzy all around us. My hair blows wildly amid flying leaves.

  One of the hunters rips off his goggles for a better look at me. He inches closer and prods me with the sharp tip of his gun. A growl swells up from my too-tight chest, dark and menacing. A sound I did not even know I was capable of. He prods at Miram’s blurring form beside me. “What in the hell…” His voice fades as another hunter barks at him.

  “Carl, back off. We don’t know what we have here
yet.”

  The hunter obeys, edging back from us.

  “Miram,” I plead, “stay invisible. Focus.”

  Her eyes hold mine, the vertical pupils shuddering, vanishing and reappearing with the rest of her. She’s like rippling water, seemingly amorphous, constantly altering, there and then gone again.

  Bodies clamber from the vehicles. I tear my attention back to these men with their merciless faces, search among them, looking for a chance, a hope.

  Will’s not among them. Even as relief runs through me, I can’t help wondering why. Why isn’t he here? Where is he?

  I recognize the man striding at the front of the group. Will’s father. Still handsome and well-groomed even in his hunting apparel. A hot trickle of terror shivers up from my core. Because I know what this man is capable of.

  He looks different. Not the cordial man who welcomed me into his home when he thought I was a normal girl. His brutally cold eyes assess me, see me as a creature. Prey. And I see him. Truly see him. He’ll have no problem snuffing out my life.

  “What do we have here, boys?”

  “We’ve got two… well, we think.”

  Mr. Rutledge stares hard at us for a moment. Miram’s out of control next to me, and I know it’s useless to tell her to hold it together anymore. She’s too afraid. Too panicked.

  I scan the thick press of trees, each beat of my heart a loud, reverberating thump in my chest. My razor-sharp gaze skips over each hunter, hungry for the sight of one face. Against all sanity, I still hope. Will, where are you?

  Xander steps close to his uncle and motions to Miram. “That’s one of those invisible ones.” He points at me. “Know what type that one is?”

  Mr. Rutledge studies me without answering, his head angled as though he can dissect me with his eyes. And I suppose he can. I have trouble meeting his gaze — this man who is Will’s father, who butchered my kind and infused their lives’ blood into his son. For that he is a monster. But for that his son lives, a boy I love.

  It’s a twisted reality, and I can’t help hearing Cassian in my head, insisting that someday that very thing would drive a wedge between Will and me.