Page 64 of Renegade Queen

“If the bear were to lay tracks leading away with a couple of the others, it could be enough to make them think you’d remained together,” Fizzle stated as he came to rest on Tank’s shoulder.

I could see the exhaustion setting in around his eyes. Constantly moving between The Endless and us to keep us updated on their movements had to be wearing on him. Surprisingly, he hadn’t complained once.

“You can’t expect Alyssa to break Damon out with just one of us as backup,” Dean snapped, seeing as many possible flaws with the idea as he could.

I had a feeling that no amount of planning would make him happy with this, but at least we were planning. We’d been lucky to survive the reckless chaos up until now. I’d been away from Nymeria too long, and the human realm had apparently made me complacent and reckless. We had to be smarter about this if we were going to survive.

I crouched down in the grass, leaning back against the nearest tree, as I tried to catch my breath and think things through. I’d dragged Tank into this mess because he was the one I trusted to have my back. And now I was thinking about not only separating from him but letting him lead an army of The Endless after him that he had no chance of facing alone.

When I looked up and met his eyes, I knew he was thinking the same thing. The difference, though, was that he didn’t look nearly as upset about the idea as I was.

“If we leave now, I can take just one of them; we can lay enough tracks between us to make it look like we all went the same way,” Tank said confidently.

And it just about broke my heart.

I’d only just let him in. I couldn’t lose him now. We’d wasted so much time dancing around our feelings. I couldn’t risk that this could be the end.

“I don’t like it,” Dean muttered. “Separating feels like a surefire way to never be able to regroup again. We don’t know the lay of the land. The group that separates off could never make it back, not to mention both would be more vulnerable. It makes no sense to do this.”

He started to pace in the small space we had beneath the trees. The anxiety was practically coming off him in waves. From the way Maddox was tracking his movements, it was bothering him as well.

“I’ll go with him,” Ryder said quietly. When my eyes snapped in his direction, I caught the sad smile on his face. He didn’t think he was coming back, either. “Maddox needs to stay by your side, and from the sound of it, so does Dean. I can do this,” he told us, sounding more confident at the end.

Surely everyone heard the same lie that I did in that statement?

Dean was shaking his head, not even bothering with a response now and sticking with straight-up denial.

“I will accompany them too,” Fizzle added, surprising me. “I can ensure they stay ahead of The Endless, and when the time comes, I can lead them back to you.”

Some of this was making sense now. Drawing away those who were pursuing us would mean not having an unknown number of soldiers at our back when we were breaking in. It could be the distraction we needed to ensure that Arik wasn’t expecting our arrival when trying to get Damon out.

“Are you sure you can keep them far enough ahead?” I asked Fizzle, trying to see where any potential flaws in the plan could lay.

We didn’t have time to discuss this properly, but the more information we had now, the better this would go. It had to. I couldn’t lose any of them, but keeping them at my side suddenly seemed like the option that ended in exactly that way.

Fizzle looked at me and then around at the rest of the men. “I will keep them safe for you,” he finally said.

I didn’t want to agree, but I didn’t see any other option.

Dean suddenly came to a stop, his fists clenched as a soft growl flowed from him. Suddenly he turned, glaring at the rest of us. “If we’re doing this, then it needs to be believable. You need a route that seems like one we’d take, but isn’t going to back you into a corner you can’t get out of.”

“I can lead them to the scars. Make it seem like we’ll risk crossing and come to the palace from the other side. When we’ve drawn them far enough away, we can duck into the outskirts of the Wilding Forest. If we don’t venture too deep, we should be able to safely double back and wait for them to pass before meeting back with you here,” Fizzle decided.

“The rocky terrain around the scars would be enough to make them think we were using them to mask our tracks. It could draw them further in before they realise we haven’t gone that way,” I realised.

I didn’t know if I was delirious with hope, but this didn’t seem like a terrible plan.

“If you’re lucky, the anastids will thin their numbers for you,” Fizzle said grimly, and I winced at the thought.

We knew now that there were people inside The Endless Armour, and they weren’t there voluntarily. I didn’t like the thought of sending them to meet their end at the hands of the half-humanoid, half-spider creatures that lived in Meridia’s Scars. But we didn’t have a choice.

“Do I want to know what an anastid is?” Ryder asked, gulping as he did.

“Nope, definitely not.” Hell, I didn’t even want to know what they were; they made my skin crawl.

“You said before that the Wilding Forest was impassable,” Tank pointed out.

“If we stay within sight of the edge, we should be fine. Under no circumstances can we go in any deeper,” Fizzle warned.

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