Outside, a dog—or something that was once a dog or like a dog—howled. Footsteps came close, closer.

“That way!” said a deep voice. “Under that wood pile!”

Tess, Jaime, and Theo went rigid with terror as the men and the dogs surrounded their hiding place. And then there was a confused “Hey! Who are you?” and another sound, “Ooof!”

A dog yelped. And then another. Tess risked a peek between the slats of wood and saw the animals vanishing into the trees. A man lay on the forest floor, holding his head. Tess looked out the other side of the structure. A small figure in a long silvery-gray coat, face hidden with a hood, kicked one man and then the next. The figure jumped up, banked off the trunk of a tree, and took down two more men in some sort of split kick. The figure swept the legs out from under another man and then brought a fist down on the head of the last. He fell as if an anvil had dropped upon him.

Then the figure turned, the long coat swirling all around like a cape. The figure stopped and called back to them in a low voice. “There’s not that much time! Come!”

They didn’t discuss whether they should follow, they simply scrambled after the figure, hoping they weren’t making another terrible mistake. The figure led them through the trees, past structures new and old so fast that Tess’s sides cramped and she had no time for terror, only the questions that propelled her forward. This time, when they broke through the trees to the beach, they saw the jagged wood of the old dock sticking out of the water, and another sight. The sight of Aunt Esther in her boat, wielding an oar, slugging a man trying to drag her out of her boat and into another one.

“I think NOT!” Aunt Esther bellowed, and bashed another man who attempted the same.

The figure in gray hummed, that hum that wriggled under Tess’s skin, and suddenly, the men in the boat started shouting and pointing at the water, at something moving in the water. Dark shapes converged in the clear blue of the river, darting too fast to figure out what they were.

A thud and a crash. The boat lurched sideways.

“Go!” said the figure in gray. “Your aunt will take care of you. “

“But Nine—” said Tess,

An eruption of barking and snarling came from both sides.

“Nine has stripes and spots,” Theo said. “Tess—it wasn’t her.”

“GO!” shouted the figure in gray. “They have other weapons. Things that could stun you, blind you, make you forget.”

“Come on, Tess,” said Jaime.

“Please,” she said.

“I know, I hear you, but we have to go now,” Jaime said.