Never in his wildest imagination would Adam have thought the night could have so many different sounds. In his own little bunk in IW, the only noise he ever heard was the occasional sound from another one of the Dicks. But even that was a rarity. To make sure the men were well-rested, gas to make them sleep was piped into their sleeping quarters every night. Everyone slept for a full eight hours—never more, never less. Now, sitting here, listening to what he imagined were mostly bugs and birds, he didn’t know when he might sleep again. Would he even be able to force himself to sleep on his own?
It was pretty clear Mist and Walt were not sleeping. He tried to hide a chuckle, listening to them in the tent, which was about five feet away from where he sat, keeping an eye on the situation. He had the screen in his hand and checked it regularly to make sure there were no Mothers approaching from between the trees, but he felt fairly safe at the mo
If she’d slept for ten minutes, that would be saying something, but Rain didn’t even think she’d slept that long. Now that Mist and Walt had stopped whatever it was they were doing, she still couldn’t go to sleep. It wasn’t because Mist kept rolling over on her hair or the fact that she’d spent all day running for her life, it was because Adam was sitting out there by himself, alone, thinking who knows what. This was his first night on the outside of IW, and he might be scared or lonely.Or maybe she was both of those things and just needed him to tell her it would be all right.He looked up at her as she was coming through the tent flap, pausing to zip it behind her. His bright blue eyes were wide, not just with curiosity at seeing her, but he clearly wasn’t tired. “Hi,” she said, coming over next to him. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”“No, not
The sound of a zipper ripping quickly had Rain’s eyes flying open just as quickly as she shot up and looked around, not sure where she was or what was happening but fairly certain she could be dead in a second or two if she didn’t get her wits about her.“We need to move out soon,” Mist said, leaning in the flap of the tent. “Up and at ‘em.”Relieved that she wasn’t about to meet her maker but still not sure what was happening, Rain dropped back down to try to clear her thoughts, expecting her head to fall onto the floor of the tent. Instead, she landed on something warm that made a soft groaning noise as her head made contact.Once again, she was up, spinning around this time as she prayed it was Adam and not an infiltrator. The former Inseminator lie next to her, a smirk on his face as if he were trying to hold back a laugh at her expense. “Sorry,” Rain mumb
Mother Jaguar had spent most of the night searching the forest and finding next to nothing. Now that the sun was up, she tried to hide her disappointment as she continued on, her land rider moving through the trees more quickly than the Mothers that were on foot, which was what had allowed her to reach the front line in a matter of hours. Not that it had made any difference. The only rebels that had escaped the initial battle had been located hours ago, on the other side of the town, headed toward Aricornia.Despite Lightning’s confessions and all of the information White had gotten from her when she’d shot Hurricane, the forest was expansive, and these rebels had tools the Motherhood couldn’t combat. Tablets that told them where the Mothers were located, so long as they had their monitors on, which they had to keep on in order to communicate with one another. Shields that hid fire and smoke. Another device that would keep the hounds fr
Lungs burning, legs on fire, Rain pushed herself to continue to run as fast as she could, even though she had no idea how she was still moving forward over two hours after they’d started on their way. The others were breathing heavily as well. Certainly, Walt and Adam were in excellent shape, but it wasn’t as if they’d ever had the opportunity to run. The Mothers definitely didn’t let them do cardio exercises, like running on a tread machine or a stair climber, because it wasn’t exactly in their best interest to encourage their prisoners to run.“Let’s stop for a second,” Mist said, taking shelter underneath a tall pine tree, the lowest branches only a foot above her head. “I need to check the dots.”Rain assumed she actually just needed to get her breath since all of the other times she’d checked the tab, Mist had done it while still running, but Rain wasn’t about
Two yellow eyes peered out at them from between the trees. Adam swallowed hard, not sure what he should do. If anyone was about to shoot the giant creature in front of them, he figured Mist should take the shot. Not only was she standing in front of the rest of them, but as far as he could tell, she was the best shot.However, she wasn’t shooting. Instead, the tiny woman was standing there, her eyes bulging, as they all stared at a massive orange, black and white striped beast that had to weigh at least eight hundred pounds.The majestic creature stared right back at them, as if he was equally stunned to see four humans prowling through his woods. His pink nose wiggled as his nostrils flared, his pointy ears shifting as he listened either to them or, with their bad luck, more members of his pack. Adam wanted to turn his head to look around them, to see if there were more of whatever sort of cat this was somewhere to be found nearb
Two days. Rain had been running for the better part of two days. They’d taken a few breaks for a half-hour here and there, but since the shield Mist had activated would last for about forty-eight hours before it would power down, all four of them felt compelled to continue to run while they had the opportunity to take advantage of the safeguard.Even though they’d figured out a way to beat the drones by tracking them as they moved around the grid, the shield provided them with the best opportunity to put some distance between themselves and the Mothers undetected. They’d each taken extra energy pills from the supply Mist had brought with her, which helped, but by the time the shield finally started to descend, over forty-eight hours after it had been launched, Rain thought her feet were going to fall off, and the cramps in her calves were almost unbearable.“Son of a bitch, it’s done,” Mist said, catc
The plants of the forest grew closer together the further away from Michaelanburg the military traveled. Working her land riders through the foliage was slow going, and at times Jaguar thought they might have been better off on foot. But their average time traveling a mile was still faster than the Mothers running on foot, so Jaguar didn’t abandon her vehicle just yet. Besides, they finally had a lead.“Her behaviors are so erratic, it doesn’t make sense,” one of the uniformed Mothers who was doing the majority of the tracking, Mother Scorpion, said to Jaguar’s left. “At times, she’s perfectly still for hours. Then, she takes off running so quickly, it doesn’t seem like this could possibly be a human.”“What are you saying?” Jaguar asked, praying she hadn’t just shifted course and started moving in on one of their primary objective’s transponders for no reason
The drones were acting odd. The ache in Rain’s feet didn’t overshadow the fact that the drone they’d expected to hear at least five minutes ago hadn’t made its trip overhead as scheduled. Since they’d realized the drones were following a grid pattern, they’d known exactly when to expect them and had been able to scatter out of range whenever they’d announced themselves about twenty feet before they arrived above them. But since they hadn’t heard any in a while, it was clear that the Mothers had changed things up a bit, and their eyes in the clouds were no longer following the same pattern.She would’ve mentioned it to her companions if she wasn’t absolutely exhausted. Beyond that, she was certain the others had probably figured it out, too. Mist was sure to have noticed before she did. Her friend was so smart, so aware of everything. Mist’s worldly knowledge sort of made Rain consider perh