Chapter 294

I do my best to keep my breaths quiet and even as two, then three more enemy soldiers move out onto my plateau. I peer at their faces through the leaves of the bushes in which I’m hiding, trying to see if one of them is Wright, if one of their eyes is lit with the violence I saw in him that day – the desire to kill me –

But I don’t recognize any of them.

“This would be the perfect spot,” the man in the lead says, frowning around the plateau, “to put that sniper. And the angles from the shots taken suggest that this is around the right height.”

“He must be here then,” the man next to him says, dropping to one knee and peering around. More troops move onto the plateau behind him, likewise looking around, wary. “Spread out everyone. Search.”

I inhale a deep breath through my nose, my heart pounding in my chest like I’ve just run a marathon, watching as the troops spread out, moving closer and closer to me. God, this must be the entire team – there’s more than ten of them here, maybe even fifteen.

They move closer to me, sweeping around the ground with their guns, noting the footsteps that Jackson and I left when we came up here. Their mood picks up then, their chatter revealing tat they realize that I’m here – or at least, I was.

Terribly, the one closest to me raises his nose to the air, taking in a deep sniff. “No, he’s still here,” he says, a smile breaking out over his face. “Scent’s too fresh. He must be…hiding.”

Suddenly the man drops to his knee, his gun aimed directly at the bush that covers me.

I gasp in another breath and, absurdly, press my eyes shut, my hands clinging to my gun, wishing desperately that he can’t see me – that I’d just disappear – that I could be safe, and that he couldn’t touch me – and that I’d survive –

And suddenly – quite suddenly –

The world around me…shifts.

The ground beneath me…sags somehow, becoming pliable, stretching like a net made of thinner and thinner material as the milliseconds pass, until it snaps and I somehow fall…through.

I gasp as I tumble backwards, only air beneath me and I fall –

Fall!

My eyes fly open as I continue to plummet downwards, though I don’t know where, or how –

I wasn’t that close to the cliff’s edge – it’s impossible –

But suddenly my back hits, hard, and all of the air goes out of me.

Coughing, gasping, I turn to my side, my rifle still clutched against my chest, my face pressed into the dirt as I try to drag air into my lungs.

It takes a second, but soon oxygen fills my chest and I open my eyes, looking around, knowing that the troops will find me now but…

The only thing that greets me now is silence.

And darkness.

My eyes fly wide as I press one hand down against the sandy dirt, so different from the rocky cliffside that I’ve been sitting all day. And as I press myself up and twist to look around, horror fills me – completely takes over my mind.

Because it is instantly clear that I am no longer on that cliffside in southern Moon Valley.

That I’m not in Moon Valley at all.

Because in Moon Valley it is day – and here…here it’s night.

I begin to pant in my panic as I whip my head around, taking in the desolate landscape with a few scattered, lonely trees growing on softly rolling hills –

And beyond those trees…

My eyes go wide when I see a moon rising round and huge on the horizon, so close that I can count its craters. And behind it…another moon, smaller, crescent, its sharp edge limned in golden light. And curving gently beyond that…a third.

Three…three moons…

My wolf pants inside me, confused and disoriented, deep whines of worry echoing from her throat.

The realization that I’m not on earth anymore hits me hard, stealing my breath, but all I can do is stare at those three moons shining above me – the only source of light.

But my eyes widen, unblinking, as a figure slowly unfurls itself from the shadows, turning towards me beyond a copse of trees. All I can see is her outline – the curves of her waist and hips, the storm of dark curls that fall around her shoulders…

But she turns to me, and tilts her head to the side, curious.

My whole body starts to shake as I gasp in a desperate breath and clutch my stupid paintball rifle to my chest, scared and confused and frantic to go back home. Because I have absolutely no idea where I am, or how I got here, or what’s happening on the battlefield I just left.

In my heart only one truth echoes – that I want to get out of here – that I want to go home –

Suddenly, it happens again.

The world tilts, and I fall, but my back doesn’t hit the ground behind me. I open my mouth to scream but no words come out as I seem to echo through time and space – traveling through the darkness – through the void –

Until suddenly my backside hits the ground, hard, and my eyes fly open, and – panting – I realize that…that I’m back.

That I’m under the bush, with my rifle clutched in my arms.

I whip my head to the left, where voices echo. “Sniper must have gone down,” says a man as cadets filter ahead of him down the little path towards our base. “I found this map and these binoculars, though I don’t know why he would have left them behind –“

And I don’t stop to think as I quickly raise my gun to my shoulder and – not even using the sight, they’re too close – pound out two shots at the men standing before me.

Because despite it all – I have not forgotten that Jackson is coming up that path for me right now.

And if they’re heading down towards him, I am not going to let him face sixteen men on his own.

The two men gasp as bright blue paint splashes on their uniform, their heads twisting to me.

“How the fuck did he –“

“No, I checked that bush – he wasn’t there –“

But I’m already on my feet, pounding past them, ignoring them, stumbling towards the path downwards where shouts are already echoing and the sound of gunfire breaks out.

My breath ragged in my chest, I push away all thoughts of what just happened – of falling through the fabric of the world, of going somewhere completely else – and instead focus on the line of enemy troops ahead of me.

Jackson’s at the head of them, a dulled blade in one hand and a pistol in the other, getting too close for them to shoot. So I start at the back of the line, taking out eleven men in rapid succession – lined up for me as they are in a neat little row on their way down the cavern face.

When I take aim at the twelfth, he turns towards me with a scowl, the blue paint splashed across his chest revealing that Jackson already got him.

Frantic, I spin, looking around for more - .

But the only person I face is the first man I shot, his arms crossed, glaring at me.

“You can give it up,” he snaps, his mouth twisted in anger. “You got us all.”

“Which is what you would say,” I growl, still looking behind him and up and down the cliffside – searching anywhere, everywhere for Wright. “Which team are you on!?”

“You don’t even fucking know me!?”

I turn my glare back at the man with the crossed arms. “Why the fuck would I know you?” I growl.

“Because I’m Bill Heggardy,” he says, sneering at me and shaking his head. “I tried to fucking draft you – and you don’t even know who I am?”

My mouth falls open a bit as I stare at him because…I mean, I don’t recognize the name. But Bill Heggardy – it’s not Wright, or Blythe. Which means…the third team…

“Ari!” Jackson gasps, stumbling out onto the plateau and rushing to my side. He sends a glance at Bill and the man standing next to him and, even though his hands shake at the restraint, he refrains from grabbing me close to his chest like he wants to. “Are – are you all right, Clark?”