Go into the woods! I thought desperately as Kaci frantically threw one foot in front of the other. Thunderbirds couldn’t follow us there. At least, not in full bird form. But I couldn’t afford to waste my energy shouting something that might not sink in, anyway. If she’d been thinking clearly, she would have headed for the trees in the first place, rather than racing along the shoulder of the road, fair game to anything that swooped out of the sky.

Then, as if my own thought had called it into being, a powerful thwup, thwup echoed at my back.

Oh, shit. Either Mateo and Dodd had lost their fight, or more than one bird had come after us. Probably both.

I dug deep and threw every spark of energy I had left into my sprint. My focus stayed glued to Kaci’s back, an inverse shadow in the nightscape. I surged ahead, and she was only twenty feet ahead now.

The wind-beating sound grew steadily closer. The accompanying rush of air blew my hair out in front of me. Ahead, Kaci tripped and screamed. She went down only yards from the tree line.

She stood unsteadily, but I was closing on her. Eighteen feet. My lungs burned. She started running again, but more slowly, and with a limp.

Fifteen feet. My side cramped, but any minute, I’d have her.

Twelve feet. I was already reaching out, moments away.

Then the whoosh that had been a warning was suddenly a horrifying roar. I couldn’t hear myself breathe; I heard only menacing wind. I couldn’t feel my pounding heart or rushing pulse; I felt only the surge of air now pushing me backward, away from Kaci.

I squinted against the dust that terrible wind blew at me. A huge, dark shadow swooped low, only feet in front of me. Kaci screamed. Her white jacket shot off the ground and into the air, bobbing higher with each powerful flap of wings. She kicked, the stripes on her shoes reflecting the little available moonlight.

“Hold still!” I shouted, stumbling to a stop beneath her, terrified that her tossing and turning would make the bird drop her. But she couldn’t hear me. I stared up at Kaci in horror, and the fresh ache in my chest threatened to swallow me whole. I’d lost her.

I was supposed to protect Kaci, and I’d lost her. I’d failed, and now she would pay the price.

What little I could see of the night blurred with the moisture standing in my eyes as I forced my legs into motion again. I couldn’t catch her without wings of my own; I knew that. But I had to try.

I stumbled along, wiping tears on the sleeve of my jacket, hoping I wouldn’t trip and further injure my arm. And that Teo and Dodd had won their fight. And that they could get Manx and the baby to safety. I couldn’t see if any of that had happened without losing sight of Kaci. And I couldn’t hear anything—not even Des screaming—over the roar of wings beating overhead and behind me.