“Of course I have a conscience. Did you not hear me when I told you I got a deal for each of them to prove their innocence? If those three can stand in a Tribunal meeting and truthfully say they did not murder anyone, then I believe the Tribunal will release them to work with VIPER, like I’m doing. I have Brina’s word that they’ll be safe until they meet with the Tribunal.”
“I can’t hand Brina that kind of trust.”
She understood, but Tristan needed to know all the possible pitfalls if the Alterants he shielded remained on the loose. “If I don’t return with those three, the Tribunal is going to turn VIPER loose to hunt down and kill all Alterants on sight. No chance to plead their cases. No chance for real freedom.”
Tristan grew still at the news of all Alterants being hunted.
“You may not like being here, but if they’re out in the world on their own, they’re vulnerable.”
“And you think they’ll be safe walking into VIPER?” he asked with no small amount of sarcasm.
“I’ll be perfectly honest, Tristan. If any of the Alterants have killed an innocent human, they have to pay the price, but if they killed in self-defense, that’s a different story. With so many Alterants shifting everywhere in the past twenty-four hours, me, you and those three may be the only ones who have a chance to survive.” And if this worked out, Evalle wouldn’t be dragged in every time an Alterant committed a crime.
“What do the Alterants that are changing look like?”
She lifted her shoulders. “I guess like us. I haven’t seen any of them . . . which reminds me. Why were your eyes black earlier when you were, uh, shifted?”
“Think it has to do with being in here. I thought black eyes were normal as a beast, because I’d always seen my eyes that way in water reflections, but they stayed green constantly once I left here the last time. Now they’re back to black when I shift in here.”
“Oh.” That wasn’t helpful.
Tristan nodded to himself and stared off into the jungle as if he pondered what she’d told him. “Gods and goddesses are sneaks,” he said under his breath. He glanced at her. “You sure if you return the three Alterants they’ll let you walk away?”
His question surprised her, especially since he’d asked in a civil tone lacking ridicule.
She answered carefully. “That’s what the Tribunal told me, but I’m not walking away unless those three do, too. Convincing them to come in with me would beat them having to live with targets on their backs. And as soon as I return with them I’ll lobby for you to plead your case.”
She swatted a fat mosquito drawing enough blood off her midriff to feed four normal-sized mosquitoes back home. That was saying something, because Georgia grew hefty insects.
“I don’t know. What exactly did the Tribunal say?”
“Let me think,” she grumbled. She hadn’t taken dictation, for crying out loud. “The Tribunal said, ‘Let the one who returns the three escaped Alterants to VIPER be cleared of prior transgressions.’”
Tristan listened, interest growing visibly in his face until he finally said in a lighter tone, “Sounds like you’re right. I know where the others are. Help me get out of here and I’ll show you.”
Help him escape so she’d have to recapture four Alterants? Was he crazy? Well, maybe. Who wouldn’t be after living out here alone all this time, but still . . . she hadn’t lost her mind. “I can’t do that, Tristan.”
“Okay.” He stood up with what was left of the bananas and dropped the bunch where he’d been sitting. “That should hold you for a while.” He pointed past her. “North is that way.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. The last time I trusted someone’s offer of freedom, it backfired.”
“That was the Kujoo, not me.”
“Why should I believe someone who sent me back?” He strolled away, pausing in stride to pick up her dagger.
“Tristan!” Evalle pounded the ground, then jumped to her feet and stepped tentatively inside his area. “Tristan. Come back and talk to me.”
Blond hair disappeared into a wide swath of green.
She slammed her fist into the palm of her hand. If she lost him now, could she find him again?
Not a chance.
Evalle raced after him, shoving branches out of her way, and picked up his tracks. Energy inside his prison bogged her down once more, as if she swam against a current. When she’d followed him a hundred yards deep into the middle of nowhere, his tracks disappeared. Pausing to look up, she heard a rattle of noise off to her right, caught a glimpse of blond hair and took off again.
After a couple of hours of trying to catch Tristan every time she’d chase a glimpse of him moving through the jungle, she finally lost him for good. She ended up wandering back into the original clearing where they’d talked.
The bananas he’d left had been hung on a broken branch since she’d last seen them. As a peace offering?
Maybe that meant he would come back.
In the meantime, she was still hungry and reached for the only food in sight.
Monkeys chattered and shook the trees overhead, drawing her gaze up and up. The noise increased, but they didn’t seem upset. They were just making a racket.
When soft footsteps raced toward her, she realized too late why the monkeys were raising a ruckus.
Evalle yanked her arm down and turned to meet her opponent, but not fast enough to get out of the way.
Tristan raced forward, grabbed her against him and leaped airborne for fifteen feet, propelled like a human missile. He yelled a curse. They hit the ground as one big thud in a tangle of arms and legs.
Her chin bounced down, up and back down again.
She saw stars, lots of them.
Breathing hard and still dazed, she pushed up and squinted to clear her vision in order to figure out what had happened. Then it registered how she’d ended up sprawled on the ground.
She turned back around and looked down. Not the ground.
Her hands pressed against a wall of chest muscles.
Tristan lay beneath her, unconscious after taking the brunt of their landing.
She could live with that.
Wait a minute.
She glanced around again. No, please, no.
But there stood the tree that had been half in and half out of the spellbound walls.
Based on the proximity of that tree, Tristan’s prone body had crashed on the wrong side of the invisible enclosure.
Another Alterant had escaped.
TWELVE
Evalle scrambled up from where she’d landed astride Tristan. This capped a crappy day so far.
He hadn’t roused yet from hitting the ground so hard.
Good. She needed a minute to think. Blood and adrenaline pulsed through her veins with enough force to send a rocket into space.
That would have come in handy if she’d been able to strap Tristan to the rocket. She had to get him back inside the spellbound cage even if doing that a second time twisted her gut. The Tribunal would not show mercy on him if they found out he’d escaped.
Using her kinetics to carry him back inside might kill both of them the minute her power crossed the barrier. And what if he came to in the middle of her moving him?
Having him wake up on this side would be worse.
Holding her hands out toward him, she drew on her kinetic ability and lifted his body. Tristan’s entire length hung limp in the air. When she had him a few feet from the barrier to his prison, she tried to throw him back inside the cage with a hard shove.
He smacked the wall of invisible energy and bounced backwards, landing on the ground.
Oops . . . my bad. She cringed at the painful sound that slid from his throat.
Tristan’s chest moved when he drew a breath. He groaned on his exhale, but he was still out cold.
Served him right for pulling that stupid stunt. Had he thought he could go airborne like an out-of-water porpoise and land on hard ground without
having the air knocked out of him?
Of course, slamming him against the equivalent of a steel wall hadn’t helped either. Or the fact that he’d taken the brunt of the fall with her on top when he’d jumped out.
Had he landed that way intentionally?
Maybe, maybe not, but he no longer needed her now that he’d escaped.
But she needed him.
She tensed, ready for battle the minute he opened his eyes.
How had he gotten out of the spellbound enclosure? Worry about the mechanics of his jailbreak once he’s back on the other side.
She had three gifts from the Tribunal and no clue what they were other than she could not ask for a gift unless it was being used specifically to fulfill her agreement to return the other escaped Alterants.
Technically, putting Tristan back inside his cage would not meet the criteria, since he would refuse to help the minute he was in captivity again.
Would have been nice if the Tribunal had given her an operation manual for her so-called gifts . . . one with a troubleshooting section.
Tristan groaned louder and rubbed his head. One eye slid open and peered over at her, then he pushed up on his elbow.
She kept very still, watching for any aggressive move. “How’d you get out of there?”
He smiled. “You broke me out.”
“No, I didn’t.” She hoped.
“Oh, yes, you did. Remember when I held your arm to take off that bug?”
“Yes,” she answered warily.
“I shoved my foot past the barrier while I was touching you and I broke through to my ankle, then it stopped me. I figured if I could do that while holding your wrist I should be able to push my entire body through if I was holding all of you.” He rubbed his head. “Wasn’t quite as simple as I thought. Damned near killed myself finding out.”
She was a dead Alterant the minute the Tribunal found out about this.
Tristan chuckled. “Looks like the worm has turned, eh?”
She wasn’t sure what powers he possessed or how strong he was out here, but as of now her powers were locked and loaded. “I don’t know about the worm, but your being out here puts us both on a level playing field.”
He stopped rubbing his head and looked at her. “You think?”
“You might kill me, but you’ll crawl away missing vital parts.”
“Fighting each other would waste time we could use finding those three Alterants.”
She paused. “You’re going to work with me?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Sure, but his easy compliance reeked with suspicious intent. “Why’re you willing to help now that you’re free, Tristan?”
“Let’s just say I believe you’re telling the truth about getting me an audience with the Tribunal. I don’t think you can corral the three missing Alterants without me, and I don’t want them killed. I’ll help you, but you can’t hand them over until I get to see the Tribunal.”
She’d offered to request a meeting for him. She hadn’t said she could do it for sure, but mentioning that right now would not be the best way to move ahead with a potential alliance.
A shaky one she didn’t trust one bit.
He rose to his feet and took a look at the ground where he’d been lying, then cut his eyes to where the invisible barrier would be. He licked his lip where blood trickled and scanned the area between them, asking, “I should be over where you’re standing. How did I end up here?”
Probably the same way you got that busted lip when I tried to throw you back into your cage. “Majik and aerodynamics . . . hard to say. I landed over here.”
He lifted an eyebrow, so not believing her.
She took in his jeans, jungle-camo T-shirt and hiking boots, which he hadn’t been wearing when he’d eluded her in the jungle. She used that to change the subject. “Where’d you get the clothes?”
“When the Kujoo broke me out the first time, they gave me a witch highball spiked with Kujoo blood. I can conjure a few things like clothes when I need them.” He shrugged, indifferent to how that put him in another category from her.
So now he was what?
Part Belador, part Alterant and part Kujoo?
Plus Medb witch?
She didn’t want to think about that possibility.
He lifted an arm and pointed in the direction he’d earlier said was north. “There’s a town about sixty kilometers that way.”
She did the math in her head to convert kilometers to miles. Thirty-six miles through rough terrain with an escaped Alterant she didn’t trust, deadly animals and poisonous reptiles.
Lucky her, huh?
Travel guides called this extreme adventure.
And people paid to put their lives at risk.
If she had to trek through this jungle, she didn’t want to do it without her dagger, especially since that blade had an extra kick of power. “I want my weapon.”
“No.” Tristan slicked blond hair back off his face with both hands and bent down to retie his muddy hiking boots. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything eat you either.”
“Oh, really?” she said dryly. Why did men assume a woman needed their protection? “I can take care of myself with or without a weapon.” But she’d have to deal with the sun in another hour if that soft glow tinting the edge of the darkness meant morning was coming. Dense clouds still hovered so close to the ground that a white haze smoked around them.
How long had she been here? Five . . . six hours? Her cheap watch hadn’t survived being slammed to the ground with Tristan when he launched them out of the enclosure. “When’s sunrise?”
“Soon.” He finished tying his shoes and stood up. “We’re going to be in this heavy moisture for most of the trip. I’ll give you a heads-up before the sun breaks through.”
But would he give her a heads-up ten minutes before sunlight stabbed through the thick shield of moisture protecting her skin? Or ten seconds?
Oblivious to her dilemma, Tristan started past her, then paused and dropped his head close when he spoke. “Just so you know, when they gave me the witch’s brew I picked up a few special tricks. If I want to kill you I can do it out here just as easily as I could have in that cage, and with little effort.”
Having said his piece, he struck out.
If what he said was true, she was safer sticking with him.
If it was true.
Evalle kept pace, but only because she could match his long strides and because she’d stayed in shape walking plenty of miles in Atlanta. The mideighties temperature here would feel no worse than a warm summer day back home, but even Georgia couldn’t match the humidity in this rain forest.
She kept waiting for the sun, expecting that death ball of fire to burn off the clouds with a minute’s notice, like after a foggy morning in Atlanta. But the air remained bloated with moisture that fell in a constant drizzle. Wet hair plastered her neck and shoulders, the rubber band that had been holding her ponytail long gone from Tristan’s acrobatic escape.
If he really intended to work with her, he should be willing to share some information. “Where’d you grow up?”
“Everywhere.”
“Come on, Tristan.”
He paused at a downed tree, squatted to lift one end, then shoved the twelve-inch-thick trunk off their trail.
She noted that he hadn’t used kinetics. What exactly had that witch juice done to him?
When he started walking again, he said, “I lived in five different foster homes.”
Crap. “So you don’t know who your parents are either?”
“I didn’t say that. The last place I lived was near Chattanooga.”
“Who are your parents? Do either of them have powers?”
“You want information, but what have you got to trade?”
She’d already offered to talk to the Tribunal. With Tristan free she had even less to barter with than she had before. “You know what I have.”
“Then we’re through tal
king until I know for sure there’s something in it for me.”
Except for occasional stops to drink from a coconut or eat fruit, she trudged silently through vegetation so thick that getting through felt like wrestling a gorilla. Now she was slogging through a muddy path cut along a mountainside.
Something bit her.
Again.
For like the hundredth time.
She’d had survival training, but give her the city anytime. Even with Atlanta traffic, she’d take the smell of a fresh night sizzled over hot pavement after a summer’s day. Civilization.
After five hours—or had it been six yet—of feeling like the food source for every bloodsucker smaller than her fingernail, she started thinking fondly of nights spent tracking preternatural predators . . .
The amulet around her neck heated up.
Her skin prickled with awareness and a sense that she’d missed something important.
In the city, she stayed on constant alert.
Out here, she’d gotten lax, assuming Tristan knew the land better than her, since he’d hiked out of here with the Kujoo last week.
But she still should have been paying more attention, because something was following her with deadly intent.
Her heart double-timed with a jolt of fight-or-flight adrenaline that spread through her limbs at the hint of battle. Speaking out loud to Tristan would alert the enemy, but could she reach him telepathically?
Tristan, can you hear me? She waited for some sign from him, but he never paused his stride ahead of her. She’d give it another try. Something or someone is following us. It’s dangerous. I don’t want to harm an animal, but I refuse to be anyone’s dinner.
I hear it, he finally said. Stay close.
She took stock of her surroundings. They’d been gradually descending for the past half hour, and the land had become more rolling than downhill. Tangled vines and a healthy crop of branches forced Tristan to break open the path on occasion, but there had been a few clearings like the one with the lake and waterfall a hundred yards back . . . until now.
The trail had narrowed with sides formed by thick undergrowth.
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