My breathing was easy, steady. I stood there, waiting for a response, and time stood still. A loud sound like the deafening noise of a train barreling down on me buzzed in my ears as time lurched forward and sped up unrealistically. A handful of young men raced up the front steps of the cabin, pausing momentarily to kick in the front door. They had come for James as well.

Why shouldn’t I go along with them?

The night fell upon me as suddenly as the sunrise hours before. I stepped into the clearing, making it easier for the men in the woods to see me. Holding the Bound Book tightly to my chest, I turned my face to the light of the full moon and closed my eyes. I listened for those who hunted me, welcoming capture, death, anything that would bring me back to James.

11

Escape

“Move,” said a gruff voice.

My breath was knocked out of me. I felt myself being lifted, carried like an old ragdoll. The cabin was taken away from me, flying backward until it became a tiny pinpoint in a gray clearing that disappeared when I blinked. I struggled against the rough arm clamped around my waist as a man dragged me through the brambles of a forest that wanted to swallow me whole.

“Let me go,” I screamed, uselessly trying to break away from his grip.

“Not on your life,” Knox said. He shifted my weight, flinging me over his shoulder.

I beat my fist against his back until I realized the effort was only draining me. Knox charged up a path that led to a part of the forest that didn’t care about the full moon. It was so dark it took several minutes before my eyes fully adjusted.

He stopped abruptly, practically throwing me to my feet. His blue eyes found mine from underneath his camouflaged face. “What were you thinking?” he asked.

“She wasn’t thinking,” Ever said, appearing from the shadows. “That’s kind of her thing. She never thinks.”

Until that moment, I hadn’t believed I was capable of murder, capable of even hurting anyone on purpose. I was wrong. Ever’s interference between James and me, her setting me apart from him by effectively trapping me at The House, and now causing me to involuntarily abandon him when he needed me most threw me over the edge of rationality. Ever had manipulated everything, and it was more than I could bear.

I flew at her, pulling my fist back to strike. Much to her surprise, and to my own as well, I managed to land a punch that grazed her arrogant face. My raised fist was about to make second contact when my arm was caught midair by Knox.

“Not that we all haven’t wanted to do that from time to time,” Knox said, hauling me away from Ever, “but we have other problems at the moment.”