Leap of the Lion (The Wild Hunt Legacy #4)(7)

She couldn’t get back to her floor.

More guards moved around the lawn.

If she stayed, she’d be caught.

She had to try to break free. No choice. Even if Fell and Patrin were overseas, maybe she could find their forest compound and warn the other shifter-soldiers about the trackers.

How could she escape?

She could climb over the front gate easily enough, but the entire front was flooded with light. When the guards spotted her, the machine guns would spray the entire area with bullets.

Forget the front. How about the back?

Darcy studied the grounds. In the heavy downpour, the floodlights on the rear lawn were reduced to smaller circles of light, leaving pools of darkness between. It was the only way.

After smearing mud on her face and hands, she crawled out. Every time a guard looked her way, she froze. When she, Fell, and Patrin had played wolves-and-rabbit as cubs, they’d learned black-on-black disappeared and movement would be spotted.

She gained another few feet.

Terror shook her arms, and surely even human ears could hear her heart slamming against her ribcage.

Her hand came down on a thorny blackberry vine, and she barely suppressed a cry of pain—and victory. She’d reached the thorny hedge that circled the inside of the stone wall. Crouching, she crept along the edge of the bramble-filled orchard and stopped.

There was the apple tree that stood closest to the lawn.

As she straightened, a pair of guards trotted along the back sidewalk, flashing their lights.

No! She flattened herself on the ground in the shadows, presenting no silhouette, nothing to catch their attention. Fear clogged her throat as she waited for their shout of discovery.

They walked on.

Now. Do it now. Oh, Mother of All, she didn’t know how to leap into trees; she only knew how to do slow, careful creeping.

Now, tinker.

She ran along the edge of the blackberry thicket, building up speed, and leaped. Her hands slapped against the low branch of the apple tree—and slipped. Terrified, she convulsively swung one leg up and over—and caught herself.

Gods, Gods, Gods. Heart hammering, she clambered onto the branch. The foliage was shaking, so she waited, trembling all over.

No one had noticed.

Next. She had the route mapped out in her head. But jumping in the dark?

No choice.

Suppressing her whimpers, she jumped to the next tree. In the dark and wet and cold. Oh Gods. To the next. And the next. Branch by branch, she worked her way to the walnut tree.

Her panicked breathing hurt her chest as she slowly climbed the walnut. There was the branch that extended toward the top of the wall. But…from this angle, she could see the distance was too great. Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t jump that far. She couldn’t.

No choice.

Balancing carefully, she walked out on the branch. It sagged ominously, and a wave of fear shook her. She was tired. Weak.

And out of options. The Mother and the God held no sway in human cities, but she sent them a prayer anyway. And leaped.

Failed.

She landed belly down on the edge of the wall, knocked her breath out, and she slid downward. Frantically, she stretched her arms across the wall, trying to claw a hold into the rough stone and concrete.

Her fingernails caught. Her motion stopped.

Gasping for air, she clung with all her might. Ever so carefully, she swung her leg up over the edge and, inch-by-inch, wiggled onto the wall.

The streetlights revealed a grassy patch down below. She jumped—and landed on her feet. Maybe she would have been a cat shifter like Mum.

But…ow. Her ankles felt as if she’d crunched all the bones together.

Ignoring the pain, she broke into a run, darted across the wide avenue, and sprinted down the Seattle streets, turning left and right at random. Blindly running…always heading roughly east toward the Cascade Mountain Range where her village had been.

The guards wouldn’t dream she’d escaped the grounds. Not for a while. They’d search the compound for at least an hour or two, and surely delay admitting to the higher-ups she’d gotten out. But the higher-ups would call in the people who did the tracking.

If she had the GPS devices in her body, they’d find her. So that was her next step. Go somewhere quiet and use the knife in her sock.

Being caught was more terrifying than cutting herself open.

Mostly.

*

They didn’t find her for a whole twenty-four hours.





Chapter Two





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At midnight the next night, Darcy limped down an empty street. A sock was knotted around the wound in her upper arm. She’d torn off her long shirtsleeves and wrapped them around the multiple slashes in her right thigh. The tracker in her leg had been horribly deep, and she’d had to cut and cut through far too much muscle to extract it.

For a second, she stopped to lean against a building, catch her breath—and try to find some hope.

Stupid human city.

She was so lost. Her goal of head east toward the mountains had sounded easy enough. From eavesdropping on the guards, she possessed a hazy idea of Seattle’s layout. Her knowledge hadn’t been nearly detailed enough. Last night, she’d had to detour around a huge construction area with chain-link fencing. Then a big river had blocked her way with one—only one—bridge in sight. She’d wasted time trying to find a less obvious one and had finally given up and crossed. To her relief, the Scythe hadn’t been at the other end. So far, so good.