They folded around us, burying us in the pack as we stumbled toward town. Alex looped an arm over my neck so I could help her limp along. Bypassing the town square, we charted a course that kept us in the trees for as long as possible. If it weren’t for the dogs, we would’ve been in trouble hobbling through the dark woods, but they were amazing. At one point we heard shallow panting from the foliage to our left. Deja, Princess, and Tanner charged off. When Alex and I peered through the branches, we saw our former history teacher on her knees, being yanked to and fro like a rag doll.

These dogs were bred to hunt lions.

The thing that had been Mrs. Olsen didn’t stand a chance.

The dogs came back to us, their snouts bloodied, and we heard nothing more from beyond the branches.

We kept on peacefully for a time, making progress, Alex guarding her hurt leg. Halfway to town the dogs heard something we didn’t, and the whole pack shot off through the underbrush. There were snarling and ripping sounds, and a brief time later they emerged, ears perked, tails wagging. We never even saw the Hosts. The ridgies surrounded us again, their brown eyes flashing alertly, and picked up right where they’d left off.

But that only highlighted how vulnerable we felt when we reached the edge of the woods, halting before a row of unfenced backyards that signaled the start of the neighborhood around school. Though there were no visible Hosts, the sight of all that open ground before us made my stomach lurch.

Firming my grip around Alex, I stepped onto the Woodrows’ back lawn, veering past the barbecue by the side of the house. Then I noticed that the dogs were no longer with us. Hesitating back in the tree line, they whined. Some pack instinct must have told them to stick to the forest.

When we turned, we saw only their eyes glinting in the dark spaces between the trunks. Set by set, they pulled back, vanishing. One pair of eyes remained a little longer, floating there. I knew they were Cassius’s. Then those, too, drew back and were gone.

Suddenly the night seemed much lonelier.

Alex and I moved silently alongside the Woodrows’ house and up their long driveway. A few blocks ahead, the big shadowy block of the school loomed, barely visible in the first rays of dawn.

Home. Or at least as close a thing to it as we had left.

The streets looked empty, but even so we made our way carefully from hiding place to hiding place. Alex stumbled, slipping from my grip, holding her injured leg and wincing. She leaned against a pickup truck.

Nervously, I watched a seam of light nudge the horizon, the glow bringing the street into clearer view.

“C’mon, Alex. Just one more block.”