Twice Born

Chapter 6

I’m about to respond when I hear something.

“Check the trees north of that ravine.”

“Yes, sir!”

My insides turn to ice. Trackers.  They’re already here.

“Who is—?”

I slap a hand over Tristan’s mouth and pull him around a moss-covered tree, away from the voices. “Guards. We’re not supposed to be here.”

A lie, but an effective one, since he falls silent. He seems to know enough about guards to realize they’ll bring nothing but trouble if they catch us.

If you had taken care of him when you had the chance, we wouldn’t be facing Trackers this early in the evening. Why do you always have to do things the hard way?

I swat a dangling leaf from my face and don’t respond. Over the top of a shrub, I glimpse a Tracker creeping up an incline about fifteen strides away. He’s heading away from us, but my tension doesn’t ease. It’s a matter of time before he finishes combing that side of the woods and turns this way. We have to be gone by then.

Tristan’s chest is hard under my palm. I drop my hand. But he’s close enough that I can hear his deep, even breaths near my ear.

I’m begrudgingly impressed by his togetherness. Most people would start panicking. Or at the very least, they’d demand to know why these so-called guards just happen to be searching at the same time I’m skulking around here.

Eve’s impatience builds. She wastes no effort masking it from me.

I’m not as heartless as you are, I say before she starts up again. I can’t just kill every person I run into. Don’t ask that of me.

Heartless? A cold streak burrows through Eve’s heated emotions. Is it heartless of me to keep you safe all these years?

This again. Does she expect complete devotion from me, even when she uses abhorrent methods to fix our problems?

I can’t deal with her right now. So I do my best to block her out and look around our vicinity.

“It’s clear,” I whisper. “Let’s go.”

Tristan doesn’t react. Impatient, I grab his wrist and drag him along with me, keeping low as I search the woods for signs of more Trackers. Every time a leaf cracks or branches shake too noisily as we brush up against them, my heart leaps. I don’t allow myself to breathe normally until we’re out of the woods and have come upon the old temple.

I drop Tristan hand and gesture toward the distance. “Go down that street and make a right at the junction. Make another right and keep walking until you see a brown-and red house with a fenced yard. The shelter is two doors down.”

“Where are you going?” he asks.

I brush past him. “It’s not your business, Tristan. Please don’t follow me again.”

Tristan says nothing until I reach the steps leading to the decrepit courtyard.

“I know what you are.”

I stop walking, as immobile as the stone columns littering the ruins.

His footsteps thud on the concrete as he catches up with me. “I’m not stupid, Bree.”

Eve screams things at me, all of them running along the same vein: kill Tristan before this gets even more out of hand. I turn around slowly. Maybe I’m wrong. Please let me be wrong. “What are you talking about?” Eve growls.