To his right, he heard screaming. A terrible sound, like a child in agony, and then three burning creatures streaked past him, on their way to die while spreading more fire in their wake.

“Where’s the Bronco?” Emma yelled.

“Just on the other side of the river.”

Oh, shit. The river.

As far as he knew, there was only one bridge in this part of the world, a rickety hand-built structure that was engineered and constructed by Hedrick cadets to span a thirty-foot section of the river. The Bronco was parked in front of the bridge, and the bridge led straight to the trail that Adam had led them away from.

This could be a problem.

Never a great runner in the first place, Adam worried that he was reaching the limit of his endurance. His legs were getting heavy, and his wind was growing short, but every time he felt he might be slowing down, another blast of scorching air would throw more fuel in his tank.

Finally, after what must have been ten minutes of as close to a sprint as he could manage, they reached the riverbank. Forced at last to stop, he dared his first look behind him as Emma skidded to a stop behind him. The sky above the treetops danced with images from hell. The flames leapt high into the sky, only to be consumed by the thick cloud of smoke that roiled ever closer to them.

This part of the river was wider than it was under the bridge, and the water ran fast.

“We’ve got to go in,” Adam said.

Holding hands, he and Emma stepped out onto the slick rocks of the riverbank and into rushing water. Jesus, it was cold. Razorblade cold. Two steps out, Adam lost his footing on a slick hidden rock and went down hard.

Then the current took him. The water was deeper than he’d expected—it had no bottom. As he raced downstream, he kicked hard to keep the rucksack from drowning him, and to reorient himself in the stream so he was leading with his feet, not his head. To his left, the fire continued to roar and advance, while on his right, the smoke had settled like a black fog over everything.

His inner compass told him that after he lost the trail, he’d erred to the west, which should be upstream from the bridge. As he struggled to keep his head up and his eyes open, he scanned ahead for—

“There!” he shouted, but then he took a mouthful of water. The bridge was maybe fifty yards ahead. Rolling to his belly, he kicked and pulled hard with his arms to get closer to the opposite bank. As he left the center of the channel into shallower water, though, rocks became a problem. His knee banged one hard enough to flip him over onto his butt, and from there, he was able to get his legs under him.