Page 4 of The Orc Outcast's Conquest

She’d found it in the glove compartment of one of those really old electric vehicles. The ones that actually had a push button start instead of a fingerprint or retina scanner.

She tried to imagine what sort of back-alley biddy had used it. Someone with enough nerve to risk getting caught with illegal paper, which had been banned from production five years before—another desperate attempt to save their world’s natural resources before it was too late.

Like it had mattered. Like paper had been what was killing Earth and not constant corporate pollution and countries sparking up new resource wars. Wars that dropped deadly bombs and turned once glorious national parks, like the one surrounding her now, into burned husks.

Stop. Keep going.

Miranda pushed herself onward. Sloshing the ink in the dauber’s canister. Wondering if she should drink it.

As she thought, she let her mind wander back to a memory at the daycare, a day when Susan, the director, had scrounged up a bucket of blackberries. They’d mashed, strained, and diluted them with vinegar. Then they divided the makeshift ink out to all the kids. Letting them paint with it on a white tablecloth.

They’d splattered their little purple handprints all over it. The laughter sang in Miranda’s mind and her chest loosened.

It made her smile even now. Despite everything.

A crack sounded behind her. The snap of a branch.

She knew before she looked.

The dogs.

Calling them dogs was a kindness. They were heaving, massive, black mangy beasts with endless teeth and drooling mouths. Their ears were slicked back, their fangs dripped with saliva, and their chests rumbled with menacing growls. Their stench, rotting flesh and sour vomit bubbling in the unending sun, punctuated Miranda’s nostrils over the bleach.

Somehow, despite all she had done, they had tracked her.

And she hadn’t seen them coming.

It should have brought her some comfort to see another living creature. Instead, as her eyes landed on the three monsters stalking her, she felt only the icy lump of dread.

The one in the front snapped, snarled, and stepped forward.

Fear exploded into action, and she whirled away. Feet scrambling on the dry ground as she burst into a sprint. She knew she shouldn’t run. It would only make them chase her. But she was stupid and panicked.

Miranda bolted, realized she was so much closer to the viewpoint overlooking the ocean than she’d realized.

It was right up this hill. She could see the guard rail.

So close, almost there.

The precipice was right there.

A snap sliced at the back of her ankle. The cold strike of teeth grazed her skin. Electricity bolted up her spine. Snarling howls violently raged behind her, its spittle stinging the back of her leg.

Faster. Faster.

She wasn’t fast enough. She wouldn’t make it. She would have to jump over the rail, but she had no energy left.

Almost there.

Her lungs heaved, and her legs burned. Another snarl sounded, but it seemed more distant. They were hanging back?

Didn’t matter. It gave her a half second to catch her breath, drag stinging air into her overtaxed lungs.

She leaped over the guardrail and staggered forward.

Then she froze in place.

The dogs would be on her at any moment.

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