Page 88

CHAPTER 87

I EXPLODE ONTO the sidewalk and sprint across the street. A car honks, swerves, screeches to a halt. “Hey!” the driver calls. “Watch out!”

Holo catches up to me. His arms and legs pump. His breath’s already coming hard. So’s mine. We’re not as fast as we used to be.

“Where are we going?” he pants.

“The woods!”

There’s a stand of trees about a mile off. I don’t know what’s on the other side of it, but I’m praying for more trees, a forest that goes on forever. A forest we can get lost in.

I can hear people shouting behind us, calling for us to stop, but their voices are growing fainter. Maybe we’re not as fast as we used to be, but we’re still faster than everyone else.

We cut down an alleyway behind a grocery store. Dodge forklifts and a delivery truck behind the hardware store. Skid around the corner and come out across the street from a city park.

So close to safety .

Holo’s fading, though.

“Come on!” I shout. “Keep up with me!”

He digs deep, finds another burst of speed. We race into the park, passing a little duck pond and a handful of people throwing balls for their dogs. One of the dogs comes after us, thinking this is a game. He nips at Holo’s heels until I take off my bracelet and throw it at him. It hits him on the nose and he veers off with a yip.

“Nice one,” Holo gasps.

I’m breathing too hard to answer. My thighs are on fire. But I can see on the other side of the park there’s the highway, and then the trees. We’re almost there. Just a few hundred more yards.

Holo stumbles. I yank at his sleeve, come on, come on!

Police sirens sound in the distance. It doesn’t matter. They’re too far away. And they can’t drive into a forest.

We come to the edge of the highway and pause. I bend over, trying to catch my breath while I wait for a break in the cars. Holo puts his hands on his knees, too. His face is almost purple.

“Five-minute mile, I bet,” he says. His chest is heaving.

“Don’t gloat yet,” I manage. I straighten up. “Wait till we’re hiding. We can cross right after this red truck passes us.”

But the red truck doesn’t pass us. It slows. The window rolls down.

“Shit, Holo, go !” I scream.

We race across the road, nearly getting hit again. Behind us I can hear the truck’s engine rev, and the next thing I know it comes flying down the berm on the forest side of the highway. It passes us on the dirt and spins out right in front of us, blocking our way. Out of the driver’s window pokes the barrel of a gun. Then Hardy’s narrow, mean face.

“You two animals better stay right where you are,” he sneers.

Holo and I look at each other. Do we dare?

I nod, ever so slightly. We dare.

At the exact same time we launch ourselves in opposite directions, Holo around the front of the truck, me around the back. We only have that little field to cross and then we’ll vanish into the trees.

A bullet smashes into the ground near my feet. Holo screams in fear. Just a little bit more—

Then something huge hits me from behind. Pain explodes in my shoulder as I land hard on the ground. The next thing I know, my hands are being roughly yanked behind my back and I feel the cold click of handcuffs around my wrists.

“Citizen’s arrest,” Hardy growls.

Mac has Holo in a headlock. Holo’s howling and snapping his teeth.

A police van comes bumping over the ground, kicking up clouds of dust. It lurches to a halt and out come three cops.

“We’ll take it from here,” the biggest one says.

As he stalks toward us, I’m yelling for the chief—for Wendy, for Waylon—but none of them can hear me. Holo and I are yanked up and shoved into the back of the van. Holo gnashes his teeth and cries, and I scream my rage as loud as I can.

But no one comes to save us.

No one will. No one can.

Our story ends like it started—with a chase, a fight, and then handcuffs.

A cage.