Page 55 of Escaping Wonderland

That instant—it couldn’t have been longer than a fraction of a second—was more than adequate to flood Shadow with horror and despair. He was losing her. Right before his eyes, Alice was being taken.

Thump-thump.

The blurred figures of Alice and her captor sped away along the bed of the stream, propelled by the alien’s thick tail and the water’s swift current.

As Shadow spun to follow them, movement flickered at the edge of his vision. He turned his head to see the other alien—who looked identical to the first—in the air, hurtling toward Shadow with a knife in each hand.

Shadow swayed to the side, but the deep water made his movements jarringly sluggish. He narrowly avoided a full-on collision with his attacker, who landed with a huge splash, but a heavy, piercing impact on Shadow’s shoulder made it clear he hadn’t avoided harm.

The pain was as distant and diminished as usual, like his body was a thousand miles away from his mind. He kicked off the bottom of the stream, launching himself away from the boruk and into the water current; his attacker’s knife remained embedded in his shoulder. The stream swept Shadow along swiftly as he wrenched the knife out of his shoulder, plunged under the surface, and swam.

Alice’s blond hair, pale skin, and blue dress stood out starkly against the rocky bed of the stream forty or fifty feet ahead. She was still underwater—and still in the clutches of the other boruk, who was carrying her steadily farther ahead of Shadow.

Something else caught Shadow’s eye, glittering in the sunlight that filtered through the surface—a thin, barely perceptible silver thread trailed in his target’s wake.

Shadow sensed movement behind him and spun toward it just as the knife-wielding boruk charged forward, churning water with the swinging of his powerful tail.

The alien moved as quickly and easily in the water as Shadow could move on land and was upon him within a second.

Shadow twisted to avoid the boruk’s first thrusting blade, but a second knife in the alien’s other hand sliced across Shadow’s abdomen.

The attack had brought the alien in close. Shadow retaliated by burying his knife in his foe’s back, punching the point through thick, tough scales.

The alien seemed unfazed. He whipped his tail around, striking with enough force to flip Shadow end-over-end, making him lose his grip on the knife.

Water filled Shadow’s nostrils and mouth as he flipped and tumbled. The sky above and the smooth rocks below reversed their positions at least twice before he recovered.

Alice needs me. Can’t waste time.

Before Alice, Shadow would’ve thought this an exciting game with two Wonderlanders he’d never encountered, made particularly thrilling due to the unique and unexpected challenge he’d been presented. Now, it was simply another threat to her safety—possibly more serious than even the threat posed by the Red King himself.

Stop thinking and act!

He wrenched himself through reality. The phasing felt slow,heavy, as though he were weighed down by his water-logged clothing, but it worked. He stumbled as his feet came down on the stones that ran along the stream’s bank, but he remained upright.

As grateful as he was to have solid ground beneath his feet—and for up and down having been restored to their proper positions—Shadow wasted no time in racing along the stream in the direction Alice had been carried.

His injuries were nearly forgotten, just like every nonlethal wound he’d suffered, regardless of its severity. The boruk who’d stabbed Shadow was a blurred form speeding through the water; despite the damage Shadow had inflicted upon him, there was no trace of blood in the water. It was almost as though the boruk hadn’t been wounded at all.

Shadow glanced downstream to see the other boruk emerge from the water with Alice still caged in his arms. The instant her head broke the surface—the only part of her body to do so—she sputtered, coughed, and sucked in a deep, ragged breath. Hergolden hair hung in wet, clumped strands that concealed most of her face.

Fear clawed at the edges of Shadow’s mind; how long had she been under? How close had it been totoo long?

The knife-wielding alien surfaced beside his companion, and the two stared at Shadow with calculating,identicalyellow eyes.

Shadow halted once he was perpendicular to their position along the bank.

Something shimmered in the water—the silver thread he’d glimpsed before, thicker and more substantial now. It seemed to be connected to both boruks.

“As dangerous as the king said,” the knife wielder said.

“Not as dangerous as the stories,” the other replied.

“But heisa ghost.”

“As much as you are a ghost.”

The boruks’ jagged-toothed grins spread as the knife wielder said, “Your tether is long, Grinning Ghost, but I will follow it.”

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