Page 82 of Raised By Wolves

Holo runs to me and buries his face in my neck. I can feel his tears, hot against my skin. “Don’t let him,” he gasps. “He can’t.”

The chief ignores my words. Ignores Holo’s tears. He says, “Kai, I need you to tell us the fastest way back to town.”

What?Does he honestly think I’m going to help him put the woman who raised me into a jail cell? A roaring fills my ears. It’s getting louder by the second. It drowns out whatever the chief is trying to say to me next.

I shake my head to clear the noise.I didn’t know despair could have a sound.

Then I see that Holo’s covering his ears.

And that the branches on the trees are swaying. Dirt and leaves go flying into the air, pulled by a powerful updraft. The men duck down, covering their heads. Wendy’s hair is a tangled cloud around her face.

A giant black helicopter passes low and deafening overhead. It skims the top of the thrashing pines, heading west. Then it lands in the meadow a hundred yards away.

“Run!” Wendy screams.

CHAPTER 62

HOLO DOESN’T THINK—HE obeys.

It’s instinct. Self-preservation.If you can’t fight, flee.

He knows Kai’s running, too. If they get separated, they’ll find each other again. They know the woods better than anyone. And they always stick together.

Pretty soon he hears footsteps, quick and light behind him.

There she is, he thinks. Knowing her, she’ll probably pass him any minute. Laugh at him as she leaves him in the dust.

I’m going as fast as I can, Kai. We just have to get away.

Brambles scrape his legs. Branches whip his face. He doesn’t feel them. He doesn’t feel anything but the need for escape. He has to go where the wolves went. To the higher ground. Higher’s always better.

He sprints through a forest obstacle course, dodging thickets, scrambling over fallen trees. His legs burn with fatigue. He can’t hear his sister’s footsteps anymore, not over the hard, rasping sound of his breath. He just has to trust that she’s there. Or maybe she’s split off to give their pursuers twotargets. It doesn’t matter. They’ll meet later on top of the ridge. They knew how to hide where no one can find them. They’ll wait there until it’s safe. And when it is, they’ll rescue Wendy. They can do anything, as long as they’re together.

He hears thrashing in the brush behind him.

Kai! She’s getting closer. He slows, just a little, so she can catch up. So she can race by him, smiling.

Crash!Something slams into him from behind. Pain shoots through his whole body like fire.

It isn’t until he’s flat on the ground, with a panting, two-hundred-pound body cursing and pinning him down, that Holo realizes his mistake. It was never Kai behind him.

It was a man.

An enemy.

An FBI agent.

CHAPTER 63

AGENT ROLLINS, RED in the face and gasping for breath, drags my brother out of the woods in handcuffs. He’s got mud on his knees and his suit’s in tatters. But he has a triumphant sneer on his face.

My brother looks so small all of a sudden. Broken. Terrified. A gash on his cheek drips bright blood onto his T-shirt.

“Oh, Holo,” I cry, “why’d you run?”

When he turns to me, his eyes are full of anguish. “Why didn’t you?”

The question hits me hard.Why didn’t I?

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