MY BARE FEET POUND AGAINST the frozen, unforgiving ground as frigid air scrapes its icy claws in and out of my lungs. I dash through the clouds of breath that puff from my mouth like smoky beacons intent on betraying my location. Frost-tipped pines streak by as I dart through an endless maze of trunks.

“Too slow,” I pant at myself, pushing even harder, trying and failing to move faster.

I don’t hear them chasing me yet, but time is slipping away too quickly, and there isn’t nearly enough distance between where I am and the cell they’ve been holding me in.

My steps and breaths are too loud. Any second, the alarms are going to go off and they’ll know. They’ll start hunting. Desperation mists my every exhale, and my chest aches from exertion.

“Move, Ever!” I command, agitation and dread skittering up my spine, begging me to go faster, farther, but I’m so fucking weak and already pushing my abused body to the brink. I wish there’d been more time between when they last bled and beat me and this lucky break. If I’d had a chance to recover, to heal even a little, I’d be in a much better position than I’m in now, but I know I won’t get another chance like this. It’s now or never.

My lungs are tight, protesting the desperate pulls of oxygen my atrophied muscles are screaming for. Four months ago, a run like this would have been nothing more than a warm-up. I would have thrown my hair up, put on my favorite running bra, and gone full out for hours without breaking a sweat or even getting winded. Now, thanks to the blood brokers, those days are gone, and I’m painfully aware that if I don’t figure out how to get the hell away from here, they’re never coming back.

Frantic, I look around, hoping to get some sense of where I am, but all I see is a dark, endless forest. One that could be anywhere. When I was moved to this new location, the Tainted spelled my senses again. I have no idea why they still bothered with a blindfold and a thick abrasive bag over my head, but despite all their precautions and efforts, I could still feel that the air is different here—wherever here is. There’s a distinct weight to the atmosphere, a press of moisture all around me that didn’t exist in my last prison. Not that knowing that particular detail is helpful. Sweaty air isn’t exactly the road map to escape I desperately need right now.

I hate cities, but I’d give anything to be in one right now. A place packed with buildings, busy streets, and people. Somewhere it’d be easy to turn a corner and just disappear. A campground filled with hunters all armed to the teeth and ready to defend a poor defenseless woman could work too. But I’m not that lucky, so instead, I find myself sprinting through a sea of hills and mountains covered in an infinite span of towering trees and patches of snow. There’s nowhere to hide. Nowhere to blend or cower until the danger passes, nowhere to hole up and heal so I can try to fight my way out.

Basically, I’m screwed.

Well and truly fucked.

The piercing wail of an alarm slices through the placid night, and my gut sours.

Fuck! Time’s up.

My heart hammers even harder, and I beg my limbs to push past the pain and fatigue. Distant shouts sound off somewhere far behind me, but they’re not nearly far enough, and I can hear my doom on the wind.

They’re coming for me.

A mocking moon hangs high in the sky, the stars watching the show far below like apathetic spectators. The tall trees all around me start to thin as I sprint through their cover and race uphill. Every muscle I have burns in protest.

Maybe I can find a road. A road could lead to a concerned motorist, someone who might speed me away. Screw the campground full of hunters, I was being greedy. A sole hunter prowling through these woods is all the good fortune I need right now. I scoff at the thought. Good fortune has never been on my side, hence the reason I’m here running from a bunch of blood brokers and the tainted sorcai who employ them.

As though fate itself wants in on my mocking, I break through the foliage and run into a clearing where I’m forced to skid to a stop. And just like that, the fragile flame of hope I’ve been carefully tending becomes nothing more than a slip of smoke escaping my white-knuckled grasp.

Gone are the palatial trees and frostbitten bracken. In their place is a sea of stars nestled in a cold blanket of dark, desolate night and a rocky cliff jutting toward it all like some sinister runway to oblivion.

A fucking cliff.

Of course that’s how this all ends.

I open my mouth to scream, to bellow a protest I’m pretty sure will sound more like a lament, but an incredulous laugh spills out instead. I stare out into the heavens and shake my head. I’ve lasted this long. Survived everything these Tainted fucks have done to me, taken from me. I’ve finally managed to escape, only to be stopped by Mother Nature.

What a heartless cunt.

My laugh takes on a tinge of hysteria. I slap a hand over my mouth and pull in a frosty breath through my nose, needing to ground myself and get my shit together.

It’s not over yet.

Looking behind me, I retrace my path, wildly searching for a solution, for some other way out. All I find are dots of floating light flickering in the distance. The glowing balls draw closer as the conjurers holding them search for me. I hear them, my captors relaying instructions and coordinates back and forth, their voices grating on the last of my self-preservation.

My mind releases the floodgates on thoughts I’ve been holding back from the minute Renatta and I were ambushed.

I won’t let them take me again.

I won’t spend another second being tortured, bled, and sapped of sanity.

I have to escape…one way or another.

In a last ditch effort, I seek out my dragon. I search everything within me for the only thing that might save me now. It only takes a few seconds to know the suppressors the tainted sorcai have been dosing me with are too strong. I haven’t felt my other side in…I don’t even know how long. And even if by some miracle, I could sense my other half, could tap into that power, some other cruel twist of fate already has it under lock and key.

It’s all thanks to a curse that helped kill my people, my family, and now, it seems, will ultimately kill me too.

I was forced to watch in silent horror as magic stole my kith’s ability to transform into their dragons. Watched as my kindred were slaughtered, one by one, like helpless fawns instead of the fearsome, mighty dragons they were. I wish I could crawl back into my father’s armoire, like I did that night so many years ago, and hide from what’s happening to me now, but it won’t save me like it saved me then. Cowardice has a shelf life.

Frustrated and running out of time, I push my fingers through my hair only for them to get stuck in the mats and tangles that dominate the flame-colored locks. I can only imagine the state I’m in now. I’ve lost weight and muscle. My pale complexion is pallid at best, and my jade green eyes are probably nothing more than bloodshot pools of desperation.

Crisp night air steals all the remaining warmth from my limbs. I rub my arms, ignoring the neat lines of scars I now feel there. I’m dirty. The black tank top and shorts I was given weeks ago are creased and wrinkled with dirt, dried sweat, and blood. I wouldn’t be surprised if the blood brokers are tracking me by foul smell alone.

“Shit!” I hiss as the voices in the distance grow louder and more animated. They sound like hounds that just scented prey.

I take in the expanse of mountains in the distance and then look up at the sky as though the man in the moon is going to reach down and pluck me from this nightmare. But there’s no saving me from this. I realize that now. I thought if I could get away, if I could just run, that somehow it would all be okay.

Stupid.

I was so bloody stupid.

Pulling in a deep biting breath, I close my eyes and try to calm my racing thoughts. I give myself a second, a moment to mourn the hope that’s carried me through the last 117 days. Faces and memories swarm me, unbidden…my sister…my Flight.

Are they still looking for me, or did they give up?

Will they ever know what happened to me and Ren?

A fist tightens around my heart as I think about all the things I thought I’d do before I died. I thought I’d find a way to break the curse. That I would lead the charge for retribution and give what’s left of my kind a life out of the shadows, one filled with more than suffering and sorrow. It’ll be up to the others now.

A sob lodges in my throat at the realization of everything I’ll lose, everything I’ll miss out on.

Before my emotions can force me to rethink what I’m about to do, I shove them away, burying them so deep it’s like they were never there to begin with. Hardening my resolve, I exhale the trepidation tightening my lungs and pull in a bitter fortifying breath.

I won’t let them corner and catch me again.

I won’t let them use me to get to the others.

With a determined shake of my head and hardening of my soul, I back up twenty paces and then I start to run again. I pump my arms and my legs as hard as I can. Silent, hot tears spill from my eyes, stinging my cold cheeks. The rocky edge of the cliff speeds closer, but I ignore the panic that surges through me and begs me to stop.

“I’m sorry, Enslee,” I whisper as the ground disappears from under me and I leap away from the cliff’s edge.

Dread congeals in my veins, but with it comes an unexpected rush of release. A ripple of tranquility surges from my center as a whip of wind catches me. For a second, I can almost pretend it’s going to whisk me away. I float for less than a breath, and in that short, stolen moment of time, I can imagine all too well what it would be like to shift into the mighty dragon I’m meant to be.

My soft skin would harden into an armor of scales. Great leathery wings would bud from my back, and formidable fangs drop from my mouth. My size would dwarf the moon itself, and I’d ride the gelid currents back to the blood brokers and sorcai that hurt me, and I’d make them fucking pay.

But none of those things happen. Gravity yanks me from my wishful imaginings and shoves me cruelly back into my plummeting reality. Finality overwhelms my senses and when my fall doesn’t miraculously explode into flight, my heart drops even faster than I do.

My dragon is as trapped as it’s always been, but for once, maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s better that the curse will claim me too.

If I had my dragon, even if just a part of my power managed to reveal, I might survive this, and I need to not survive this.

Death isn’t the escape I was hoping for, but it will do. At least I’ll go hugging the sky and kissing the wind, knowing the others are safe. Protected.

Knowing I didn’t break.

Alarmed shouts spill over the cliff’s edge I just jumped from. I smile at the sound of their distress and close my eyes, greeting the end like the long lost family I miss so much.

Fuck the Tainted.

Fuck the blood brokers.

And fuck The Horde. I hope the betraying bastards all die writhing in pain and become nothing more than forgotten ash on the wind.

Menacing rocks and an unforgiving ground draw closer. My heart bludgeons my chest so hard it feels like it’ll break through at any moment.

I wish it would.

It would probably be a less painful way to go.

I wait for one more glimpse of my life and loved ones to flash before my eyes, but it doesn’t come. All I see is vast wilderness and a ruthless, taunting fate rushing up to meet me.

Then we collide.

And I do my best to die.