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“Hello, my little lady,” he hissed in my ear.
I backed away but he grabbed my arm, yanking me forward. His clothes were soaked with mud and old sweat. The stench made my stomach lurch.
Michael and Kevin ran to my side. Kevin angled his spear at the stranger’s throat. “Get off her!” he yelled.
But the man grabbed the wood stick, his fist clenched tight as he turned toward Leif. “This is the one?”
Leif’s face was calm. “She’s wanted by the King,” he announced, glancing around at the boys. My spine straightened at the words. The truth was being turned against me, Leif’s humiliation from last night transformed into something sinister. “She’s a fugitive, and she’s put us all in danger long enough. Fletcher is taking her to the troops. ”
“He is not!” Arden yelled, landing her hands into the man’s stocky side. I turned to run, but his grip was firm, crushing my wrist. He reached for Arden and caught her thin arm, both of us struggling to free ourselves from his grasp.
“Two for the price of one,” Fletcher laughed, flecks of spit flying as he pulled us toward the truck.
“No! She can’t go!” Benny cried. “Please, Leif!”
“You can’t let him do this,” Michael said, turning to Leif. He kept his hand on his spear.
“Stop!” a few of the new Hunters yelled, while Silas ran after me, his hands pulling at my baggy gray sweater. In the panic I saw only flashes: Benny’s crumpled face, Kevin pushing forward, Aaron falling in the dirt, his side scraped red. Arden bit down on Fletcher’s hand and I suddenly realized what was in the back of his truck: a cage, with a frail girl screaming out between the bars.
Leif spotted her at the same time. His expression shifted as he took in Fletcher’s hand on Arden’s wrist. “Wait,” he muttered. He ran toward the truck and banged on its metal side in frustration. “Who is this? What’s going on?”
Fletcher didn’t flinch. He dragged us by the wrists, our feet scraping against the rocks. “That’s not your concern. You wanted her gone and she’s going. ” he huffed.
My stomach rocked, the breakfast of quail eggs rising in the back of my throat. I choked it down, pulling and twisting my arm, trying to break free. Whatever sick agreement Leif had made, this had spiraled beyond his control.
“Where are the medicines? Where is the payment?” Leif charged forward, his face crimson. Michael and Aaron followed his lead, taking tentative steps with their spears in hand. I closed my eyes, waiting for them to strike, but the giant brute pulled a gun from his belt and fired it at the sky. The boys fell back, surprised by the loud pop!
“Now listen good,” Fletcher growled. He cleared his throat, hocking a giant greenish blob into the dirt. “I’m taking my prize here and leaving, and if I have to shoot someone dead to do it, I goddamn will. You hear me?”
Silas held his hand in his mouth and let out a slow, painful moan. He kept his eyes on me as I was dragged, my heels bloody against the ground, toward the truck.
Arden screamed, hurling her fists against the bounty hunter’s arm. “You are an animal!” she yelled. “Let me go!”
Arden kept on, trying to squirm free, refusing to believe what was happening, but I knew it was over. Our fists were no match for a gun. The boys stared down at their weapons, as if betrayed. The carved bones seemed so futile now.
I kept my gaze on Silas and Benny, their tiny bodies heaving with sobs. Benny tugged on Leif’s hand, yanking down hard, but Leif just stared ahead, his bewildered black eyes moving slowly around the landscape.
“It’s okay!” I cried out to Benny and Silas, trying to smile despite the panic. “I’m going to be okay. Don’t worry about me. ” I hoped they would believe me.
Fletcher opened the padlock on the truck and lowered the gun at us, gesturing for us both to get inside. I climbed up, his free hand rough on my skin. The bed of the truck was hot from the midday sun. The girl was slumped in the corner, her sticklike arms folded across each other. She bolted upright when the crate opened, renewed with terror.
“Help! Help me!” she screamed, her hands stretching out between the bars, to where Michael and Aaron stood.
They looked at her and back to the gun. When they stepped forward, Leif rested his arm across their chests, holding them in place.
“You did this, Leif!” Arden screamed, pressing her face through the bars and leveling a finger at him. “This is your fault. ”
Fletcher slammed into the truck.
“We need the payment!” Leif spat, as he approached. “That was the deal! I trusted you!” He ran to the cab, his fists pounding on its dented door.
Fletcher looked over the window, the glass shattered in a circle from where a bullet had ripped through. “This is the wild. ” He gestured with his gun as he spoke. “Don’t trust anyone, boy. ” He smiled, his cracked lips bleeding, and started the engine.
I held the thin bars, pushing against them, wishing they would give under my weight. The sun was too hot on my skin, the cage too small, the thin blanket in the corner caked with vomit. Arden’s screams rocked me, doubling my sadness. Leif had betrayed us. Caleb was gone. Whatever time I had spent in the night, wondering if I should stay, for how long—it had all been pointless. What did I want? What did Caleb want? It didn’t matter.
We were going now. The decision made for me. I kicked against the crate’s door and scraped my fingernails against the lock. I shrieked and cried and begged, but nothing—not one thing—could change that simple fact.
The truck started down the rocky cliff, sending us sliding around inside. The older boys pushed back, trying to corral Benny and Silas toward camp as the giant machine pitched and heaved over the landscape, wheeling around toward the lake. I kept my eyes on the boys, on Aaron, who was clutching Leif’s arm, begging him to do something, and Kevin, who launched his spear in the air, its arc falling three yards short of the truck’s cab. I kept my eyes on the dugout, its dark mouth closing behind the short brush.
Leif gripped Benny’s shoulders to hold him back, but he broke free and chased the truck, pumping his tiny arms and legs with great fury.
“I love you!” he called out, when he was just ten feet away. I gripped the metal bars, my throat choked with emotion.
“I love you!” Silas cried, as he followed.
They both kept after us, sprinting wildly behind the cage. I watched their mouths moving, saying those words over and again, as the truck bounded through the woods and their small bodies disappeared, unreachable, behind the trees.
Chapter Twenty-three
THE TRUCK CLIMBED THE TANGLED LANDSCAPE, RUSHing through fields of weeds and overgrown brush, until we came to a broken road. Its wheels spun faster, and dust bloomed thicker around its fenders. The sun heated the metal cage, making its bars painful to touch.
After an hour I didn’t recognize the forest that spread out beyond the rocky path. Even the sky seemed foreign, its great blue expanse birdless and lonely.
“I knew it,” Arden said finally. Her pale skin was covered with a thin layer of dirt. “Leif was just waiting to sell us out, for what?” She shielded her eyes from the sun. “Some medical supplies and a cut of ransom money?”
“He wanted me gone,” I said. “I doubt the supplies mattered. ”