Page 115 of Two Chambered Heart

EPILOGUE

The early winter air was a sharp contrast against the warm dampness of her sweat-soaked cotton long sleeve. It pricked at her skin as she kept running, her shoes pounding against the trail surrounded by pines. Luckily, no snow had fallen yet, but if she looked back, she knew she’d be able to see the disruption of her flight in the shadows of the earth, even through the green hue of her night vision goggles.

She didn’t stop to look back, though, just took a deeper breath and released more energy into her body, lengthening her strides to make more headway into the woods and away from her pursuers. She barely dodged the hanging branches, letting them pull at her mercilessly as she flew by.

“You’re five minutes down.”

“Only ten more minutes on the clock and then you’re ours, Little Fox.”

She heard both voices crystal clear through her earpiece, even over her labored breathing. “I didn’t even need the head start.”

Both of them just laughed in her ear, a dangerous, manic sound, full of dark promise.

She followed the path left at a fork without thinking, peeling off the trail into the brush. Slowing down, she maneuvered through the tightly packed tree trunks until the forest spit her out onto another path. She picked upspeed again, bounding over tree roots and broken crags like an animal. And she was just an animal in that moment, being hunted by much bigger prey.

The thrill of it fueled her as she went deeper and deeper into the brush, the blackness of the night illuminated in her goggles. She could hear the scatter of the forest creatures as she disrupted their slumber with her frantic momentum, the sweet petrichor getting denser in the air.

“Another five minutes gone, baby.”

“Are you ready for us?”

She jumped at their voices in her ear, heart racing, and she didn’t dare slow her pace or lift her eyes from the treacherous terrain to scan her surroundings. There was no moon tonight, the constellations above so bright in the undisturbed, inky night sky. But she didn’t even have a chance to appreciate it yet, hunted as she was. Corey was determined to win this game, to outrun her pursuers.

“Are we going to split up, Kay?”

“I think that’s a solid plan.”

“What?” Corey gasped out. “Not fair! The bet was that you couldn’t catch me in less than one hour. If you split up, it’s like there are two people chasing me.”

“Therearetwo people chasing you, sweetheart. That’s why you got the fifteen-minute head start.”

“Better run faster, Little Fox.”

“Fuck you two!” Corey swore, and kept going.

“You’ll be begging us to in less then an hour.” She could hear the sneer. The threat. The excitement of it. Her heart was fluttering in her chest much faster than the physical exertion warranted. It was a runaway train inside her.

She kept going, the thrill like molten lava through her veins and sending her on a rampage of desperation, unwilling to lose.

“On your marks.”

“Get set.”

The twins’ voices bounced back and forth.

“Go,” they said in unison, and it was like the devil opening the gates to hell.

Her heart dropped from her chest to her stomach and her legs deadened, so heavy in her fear of getting caught that she almost tripped up. She stopped and doubled over, hands on her knees trying to calm her racing heart and frenetic breathing. But she was unwilling to give up any more time. Forcing her legs back into action, she threw herself into her strides.

The minutes ticked by as she ran, the expensive earpiece doing little to dampen the heavy breathing of both twins, wherever they were running in the forest.

After what felt like forever, she slowed down. Taking the earpiece out, she cocked her head, straining to catch any sound. It was useless. The forest was awake at night, its own symphony created by the life within it—the breeze, the rustling, the paws. She put the earpiece back in.

“Do you see me, baby?”

Corey gulped, her throat tight, and she desperately swung her head side to side peering through the low brush and crisscrossed branches.

“I see our prize, Jase.”

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