Emmett shrugged. “It’s like you said last night. I’m a dead man walking.”
I looked back at Ken. The truth was that all of these men had been sentenced to death. They were most likely all guilty of some kind of heinous crime. Could I trust Christa with any of them?
On the flip side, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t done the kinds of things that earned people the death penalty myself. Maybe it was better not to worry about it.
“There’s a clearing out there,” said Emmett. “Woods in all directions. We go east, towards the rising sun. Out there, it’s every man for himself. Those of us that can will meet up in the woods once we’re clear. Got it?”
“What if we don’t want to meet up?” said Ross.
“Then don’t,” said Emmett.
I looked around at the circle of guys. At Christa’s wide, frightened eyes. I took a deep breath. “Well, guess there’s no reason delaying the inevitable.”
Emmett furrowed his brow. “Are you sure about this?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
* * *
I hurled myself out the open door, screaming at the top of my lungs. Something about yelling made it easier. I knew that I’d be okay, that the bullets weren’t going to cause any permanent damage, but it was still a hell of thing to rush out into what you knew was going to be an ambush.
Outside the door, it was empty. There was a clearing, dirt with patches of scraggly grass. We were situated in a small valley. On all sides, the forest jutted up, surrounding us like the walls of a bowl.
I didn’t see anyone out here.
I ran, pumping my legs, still yelling.
And the first bullet tore into me.
It caught me under my rib, searing pain ripping through me.
I stopped moving, gasping at the pain.
And I was hit again. This time my neck.
Once they’d started, it seemed that they wouldn’t let up. Bullets riddled my body, burning into my torso, my arms, my legs, my head—
Darkness.
CHAPTER NINE
My eyes snapped open. I was lying on my back, staring up at a deep blue sky. It was clear, not a single cloud marring its perfection. I gazed at it for a second, taking it in.
The sound of gunfire shattered my reverie and reminded me where I was and what was happening.
Rolf was hunting me. He was hunting Christa.
Christa!
I leaped to my feet, looking around.
I could see that everyone had left the makeshift prison. They were running towards the woods.
I made out Emmett, dashing into the trees.
A few yards behind him were Ken and Christa. Ken had Christa running in front of him. He was shielding her body with his own.
Good. She was okay. At least for the moment.
I looked in the direction it seemed the bullets were coming from, hoping for a glance at the hunters.
But I couldn’t see anyone. I had no idea where there were. They had taken good cover someplace. It was as if they were invisible.
No time to waste, I took off running for the woods myself.
Another bullet hit me in my arm.
It hurt, and blood poured out of the wound.
But I didn’t stop. I didn’t let it faze me. I kept running. I needed to get to the woods.
I saw one of the guys ahead of me. I was pretty sure it was Ross. He was puffing as he dragged his leg behind him. He’d been hit. The bottom of his pants leg was soaked in blood.
I was going to overtake him. Should I try to help him?
Emmett had said it was every man for himself out here. Not only that, Ross was the one who’d made ugly comments about Christa. I wasn’t sure if I cared—
A bullet whizzed past me and exploded into Ross’ skull.
He turned, unsteady on his feet. His gaze seemed to focus on me, uncomprehending and confused. Blood gushed over his forehead, into his eyes.
And then he fell, thudding into the ground.
I picked up the pace, careening around his body.
I needed to get to the woods.
Scanning for Christa and Ken, I caught sight of them just outside the tree line. Christa had moved to the right, and her back was wide open. She was a perfect target.
I wanted to yell at her, tell her to take cover.
But I knew that would only draw attention to her. And maybe they weren’t focused on her right now. Maybe they were focused on someone else.
I ran faster. I picked up my legs and pumped my arms and pushed myself.
But I kept my eyes on Christa and Ken. I needed to make sure she was okay. That she made it into the woods safe.
Ken stopped short. It was as if he froze in midair.
It took me a second to realize that he’d been shot. I could hear the gun fire, but I didn’t associate it with what was happening right away.
They’d shot him in the back.
Christa screamed. I heard her across the clearing. She caught Ken, holding him up so that he didn’t fall.
“No,” I yelled. I couldn’t help myself. “Leave him. Go!”
Maybe she didn’t hear me. Maybe she just didn’t want to listen to me.
She wound Ken’s arm around her shoulder. I could see that she was talking to him, urging him on.
The two made a few slow steps towards the woods.
I wished I could run faster. They were too far away from me. I couldn’t get to Christa.
Another shot.
Blood arced out of the back of Ken’s skull. He went lifeless in Christa’s arms.
She dropped him, too stunned to make noise.
“Run!” I screamed at her, my voice hoarse.
She looked at Ken. She looked at the woods. And then she took off.
I watched in relief as she disappeared between the trees.
But then another bullet drilled into my head, right below my earlobe.
My head felt as if someone had taken a hammer to it.
I grunted.
And I went dark again.
* * *
When I woke up, it was silent. No gun shots.
I could see the bodies of Ken and Ross still lying on the ground where they’d fallen. The hunters hadn’t gathered up the bodies. Maybe they would just leave them lying there. I wasn’t sure.
I didn’t see anyone else, however.
But I was close to the woods, so I got to my feet and ran until I was safe in the dark shadows of the trees.
I headed in the direction of the last place I’d seen Christa, about a hundred yards to my left. I hiked through the foliage, the thorn bushes and brambles. But she wasn’t there.
No one was there.
I hiked around in the woods for hours, and I didn’t find any of the others.
I wasn’t much of a woodsman, not really. I hadn’t grown up in the country, and I hadn’t spent much time out in the woods. I found crawling through the undergrowth to be annoying at best, and downright awful at worst.
Everything was growing. The trees were jutting up out of the earth, of course, but there were things growing on the trees—vines winding around their trunks, creepers hanging from their branches. The forest floor was covered in various other green plants. Some were only leafy. Others were outfitted with thorns and other sharp points. I stepped over all of them, doing my best to navigate everything.
The worst thing about the woods was that it wasn’t made for a person of my height. When I tried to walk, I was inevitably tangled up in various branches and vines, all of which seemed to be reaching out to grab me from the waist up. Below that, there was a nice clear space. It was probably a great place for four-year-olds. Maybe that was why kids liked playing in the woods so much. They weren’t tall enough to get thwacked in the face by a tree every three feet.
Emmett had said that we should meet up out in the woods. But I wasn’t finding anyone to meet up.
This must mean one of the following things. A) They’d all met up already and left me behind, assuming I was de
ad. B) They’d all died, and I was the only one left. C) The rest of them were around here somewhere, but I was too big of an idiot to figure out where they were.
I thought A and C were likely. I didn’t even want to consider B. Not really.
Because if everyone was dead, that meant that Christa was dead. And I couldn’t face that idea. She couldn’t be dead. She had to be okay.
I’d seen her get safely into the woods. She was out here somewhere. She had to be.
I picked my way through the woods, going deeper and deeper into the green darkness. At first, I walked toward the sun, remembering that Emmett had told us to go east.
But as time went on, the sun moved through the sky. I kept moving the same direction, but the sun was at my back, filtering hot and bright through the foliage.
The hours wore on. I kept moving.
Luckily, it was late spring, and so it wasn’t blazing hot outside. It was a comfortable temperature in the lower seventies.
I tried to think of other things I could be grateful for.
I couldn’t think of any.
And I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since the meal they’d given us the night before. Our last meal, or so they’d said.
I couldn’t die of starvation. At least, I didn’t think I could. I knew that the serum healed up pretty much everything bad that happened to me. The intention of the scientists who’d made it was to make a supersoldier, impervious to harm. They’d wanted someone who couldn’t be killed. They figured an army of those guys would be unstoppable. So I didn’t think a little thing like not having enough food was going to kill me.
On the other hand, I had to eat. I couldn’t keep functioning without energy. It was basic physics. My body couldn’t function without fuel.
So, I should try to find some food.
I walked, casting perplexed glances at the surrounding plant life. I had no idea what kinds of things were edible. Could I eat these leaves?
I guessed I didn’t have to worry too much about poison. The serum would cure me of that. However, I’d just as soon not go through that. It didn’t sound very pleasant.
Anyway, leaves weren’t likely to have a lot of nutritional value, even if they weren’t poisonous. They’d be like lettuce, fiber with no calories. I needed calories. I needed fuel.
So…what did that leave? I needed things that were substantial, like nuts and seeds.
Okay, great. Where the hell was I going to find nuts? They grew on trees, right? What kinds of trees were these? Did they have nuts?
Man, I really wished I knew more about this stuff. I’d never thought I was going to have to do some kind of wilderness survival thing.
The sun continued its traverse across the sky, and I continued my trek east. It occurred to me that I possibly shouldn’t be walking so far into the woods on my own. What if I never found Christa again? I wasn’t entirely sure where these woods were, but I figured they had to be big.
Rolf wouldn’t have dropped us someplace where we could walk out of in a day or so. This was a vast wilderness, a place we could wander for weeks without getting out. I was just sure of it.
I found some shiny black-purple berries. They looked like raspberries, only a little sloppier and bigger—not quite in neat little rows.
Eagerly, I ate handfuls of them as the sun set behind me, bathing the forest in complete darkness.
My stomach roiled. It had been empty all day, and it was now full of berries. I knew from experience that my body probably wouldn’t process all that fruit real well. I was in for some discomfort. Still, it was better than starving.
It was too dark to move forward. I made a sort of indentation in the foliage, a place I could curl up.
I lay down. I could see the night sky through the shadowed crisscross of the tree branches above me.
There were a lot of stars.
Now that I wasn’t moving, I was cold. I shivered.
Curling up in a ball, I allowed myself to panic for the first time since all this crap had started.
Shit.
Everything was bad. I was alone in the woods. Rolf was hunting me. I’d lost Christa somehow. I didn’t even know if she was alive.
She had to be alive.
Griffin would kill me if anything happened to his sister.
I snorted out loud. “Like it’s really about Griffin, Silas,” I whispered.
It was true. I didn’t want Griffin to kill me, of course. But I wasn’t only worried about his wrath. I was worried about her safety. I wanted to make sure that she was okay. Because Sloane was right. I did care about her.
And if I didn’t do something, she was going to get herself killed.
But she couldn’t be dead yet, I assured myself. She couldn’t be, because Rolf wanted to do that in front of me. He’d told me I would have to watch her die. He’d keep her alive until he found me.
As far as comforting thoughts go, it wasn’t really that reassuring. But it was enough.
And I slipped into a shivering sleep, curled into a tight ball, my stomach protesting at its bellyful of berries.
* * *
Morning found me covered in dew and even colder than I’d been before. I decided to get on my feet and start moving in order to try to warm up.
My stomach growled. The upset from the previous night’s dinner of berries seemed to have passed, and now I was just hungry again.
I tried to retrace my steps and to go back to the place where I’d found the berries last night, but I couldn’t find them.
Instead, I found some different berries. These weren’t at all like raspberries. They resembled cranberries. I picked one and smelled it. Did it smell like a cranberry? I wasn’t sure what cranberries even smelled like. Besides, didn’t cranberries only grow someplace up north? Someplace like Nantucket or something. I couldn’t remember, exactly. These berries probably weren’t cranberries.
I ate some anyway. They weren’t nearly as good as the berries I’d had the night before, but I was too hungry to care.
I really wished that I could find some nuts—something substantial, something that would give me some protein and energy.
But I didn’t have any luck with that.
The sun was struggling into the sky, and I decided that I’d follow it again. Going east seemed like the best idea. It was what Emmett had said to do. Assuming that Christa had done the same thing, we’d be likely to run into each other at some point. She and the others had a head start on me. I’d catch up to them today though. I was sure of it.
The morning sun made me optimistic.
I started off through the underbrush, feeling almost cheerful.
I continued to feel cheerful for a few more hours.
That was when the first cramps hit me.
I felt as if my stomach was being ripped open from the inside. It was so painful that I couldn’t keep walking. I had to sit down on the forest floor.
After I sat down, it was only a matter of minutes before I started throwing up the red berries I’d eaten that morning.
Poisonous, I thought to myself as I heaved. How could I be so stupid as to eat little red berries?
I was violently ill for so long that I lost track of time. I retched and vomited—more than what was in my stomach. At some point, the berries were gone, and I was only bringing up bile from my stomach. But still, I couldn’t stop throwing up.
And it hurt.
I hadn’t thrown up from sickness in a long time. My occasional interaction with vomiting only came on the rare occasion that I had way too much to drink. Vomiting when drunk, though unpleasant, actually felt kind of good. I had forgotten what vomiting felt like on other occasions.
This was excruciating.
And it went on and on. I thought it would never end.
Just when I was beginning to wish that I could die after all, because at least it would be an end to agony, I heard a gun shot.
It startled the urge to throw up right out of me.
My head went up, and I glanced a
round like a frightened rabbit. Where had the shot come from? Could whoever was shooting see me? Would it be safer to move or safer to stay put?
I waited. There wasn’t another shot.
Everything was still and quiet except for the breeze rustling through the trees.
My stomach hurt. I heaved again.
I fought it, pushing myself to my feet. I started through the woods.
Within two feet, I was sick again. I bent over to vomit, but there was nothing in my stomach.
I stumbled forward, moving noisily through the underbrush.
Something caught my foot.
I let out a startled sound and looked down to see a face peering out at me through the underbrush.
It was Brandon. He was holding onto my foot.
“Down,” he hissed. “Shut up.”
I hit the ground, wincing and trying to stifle my urge to throw up again.
We lay still for what seemed like several eternities.
* * *
Eventually, when we didn’t hear anymore shots, Brandon moved. And someone else moved behind him. They both got up, but they moved stealthily, gracefully. Not like me.
“Emmett?” I whispered.
“You’re like an elephant, Silas,” he said. “Can’t you be quieter?”
“Sorry,” I said, getting to my feet. The minute I was standing straight up, my stomach clenched on itself. I bent over and retched.
“Jesus, what’s wrong with you?” said Brandon.
“Red berries,” I managed. I wiped my mouth. “I think they were poisonous.”
Emmett shook his head at me. “You ate red berries?”
I hung my head.
“What’d they look like?” said Brandon.
“Kind of like cranberries,” I said. “Obviously, they weren’t cranberries.”
“You idiot,” said Brandon. “They don’t grow cranberries out here. They grow cranberries in Cape Cod.”
That was right. Cape Cod. I knew it was someplace like that. “I didn’t think they were really cranberries.”
“They were probably red baneberries,” said Brandon. “They’ll give you cramps and make you throw up, but they’re not lethal. At least, there’s no reports of them be—”
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