Page 151 of Breaker

We’re in the wilderness years too early, with a dead man tied to a tree a few miles back. Maxim didn’t bring us here just to piss Fallon off.

He brought us here to die.

The realization settles in my gut, making me feel sick all over again. Panic needles at my arms and I take a deep breath, trying to breathe through it as it wraps around my throat.

I don’t want to die, even though everything about me is a sin and I deserve it. My name. My skills. Even how I was born was wrong. My life was created in violence. My birth caused a death. The boy I like is my brother and that’s a sin all in its own. To have this want inside me whenever he looks my way.

I scan the woods around us. The trees are thicker, but spread further apart, the terrain changing from rich to rockier as we traveled. We don’t know the terrain, but it feels like it’s getting colder, like maybe we’re climbing higher in elevation. Iglance up at the darkening sky. We’re going to have to find a place to sleep tonight, but the thought sends a chill down my spine.

Someone killed that man. And they may still be out here.

That’s when I see it.

A flash of red, like a scarlet web strung on the low branches.

“Come on,” Viper says. “Let’s keep moving. If we can find the truck or the cave, we can regroup and form a plan.”

Striker nods, and moves ahead, but my feet are rooted to the ground.

“Breaker, come on.” Viper pulls at my arm.

My mind is too busy screaming in terror, to send any signals to my limbs. My feet don’t move. “Look,” I whisper.”

Viper turns, then stumbles back gripping my arm.

Striker hisses out a quite curse. “Tell me that’s not hair. I can’t fucking handle it, if that’s hair.”

We heard screaming last night. A woman. We found a man torn apart and tied to a tree.

Someone’s out here killing people.

“I know why Maxim brought us out here,” I hear myself saying a slight tremble in my words. “We’re his prey.”

***

A scream jolts me awake. A hand covers my mouth.

“Shh,” Viper whispers.

My heart clatters around in my chest, terror making my skin clammy. It’s almost pitch black, barely any moonlight slanting through the trees. I can hardly see a foot in front of me, but I can make out Striker next to me. He slowly stands, peering around the tree we’re hiding against. After hiking another hour, it was too dark to move safely, so when we spotted the upturnedtree, we decided to stop. It’s thick trunk and large gnarled roots protruding from the earth providing a place to hide.

Except, I’m not sure if its proving to be more of a cage than a cover.

To our left, a crackingboom, ricochets through the woods, vibrating in my ears like when we’re at the range outside the school.

“Shot gun.” Striker presses his back to the tree and slides back down. “Close.”

“No shit,” Viper hisses, his breath fanning my ear. Finally, he lets me go and I turn to face him. His blue eyes look dull in the dark night, but I can still see they’re flooded with fear.

“We have two choices,” Striker says, weirdly calm. “We can hide here and pray they don’t find us or keep moving.”

“In the opposite direction,” I add.

“We need to find that fucking cave,” Viper says, peering up over the large root behind him. Not like we can see much. “If they are out here shooting, that must mean we’re close to the lodge, which means we’re close to the cave.”

“If we can make it to the lodge, maybe we can find a weapon,” Striker says. “They obviously have them.”

“That’s literally the last place I want to go,” I whisper. The thought of ending up anywhere near where those people are makes my stomach clench.

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