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Victoria
The three of us thrust ourselves backward into the portal
This was the first tiate It was thefreefall through a seely bottomless tunnel, with no idea e’d find on the other end My parents had recounted tocould’ve truly prepared me for it
My stomach lurched, and I was sure that I would throw up before we ever reached the other side But as we hurtled down, I could only feel thankful that the toxic sotten away from those monsters I had been afraid in the first few seconds of our fall that they would leap after us, but I ed to twist myself around and verified that they hadn’t
When we arrived at the other end, I was totally unprepared I hadn’t even knoe’d been approaching the exit since I had been facing the other way The three of us rocketed out and landed on cool, dahed, raising my head slowly It was dark, and we had landed in soh, I couldn’t even see the top of thely tall, taller than any redwood I’d seen in The Shade Directly in front of us was a towering metal fence spiked with barbed wire An electric fence?
Then e, square, steel buildings ide tinted s--signature architecture of the IBSI--looht sent my head into a tailspin What? Where are we? Grace and Heath looked equally bewildered We looked at each other, wide-eyed and nervous
"What is this place?" I whispered
Heath shook his head darkly, before breathing, "Wherever we are, we need to stay hid--"
"Intruders!" a h the enclosure
We spun in its direction to see five h the trees, ain front of theh we had no idea where to run to, being trapped in this enclosure surrounded by electric fences, we scrambled toward the other side of the fence I was still so weak, I fell behind and it killed me when the other two slowed down to keepwas futile, of course We ht feet before the hunters released theto withdrawmy pace to a speedand fell, dropping the weapon A sharp pain shot through my ankle I was sure I had just sprained it I crashed to the ground, expecting to be engulfed in fla me off from Grace and Heath, who’d tried to rush back forscreech, it decided to go after Grace and Heath instead--perhaps seeing its battle with me was already won The hunters see as they too averted their attention to Grace and Heath--but not before collecting th I had left in round toward a nearby tree I gazed helplessly toward theGrace and Heath Heath exhaled a burst of fire, even as Grace made it spread and swirl around thea plume of its own flames down on them
I craned my neck in anxiety as they backed away behind a thicket and… I didn’t have a chance to see what happened next
With a dull thud, soainst Before I could look up, a thick, steely arm snaked around round Soinght I suddenly foundup at… thatthe tree with the power of a single arainst hi, he couldn’t grip h to make me feel secure
A round of shouts came frounshots fired, it was clear they had spottedWe’d reached the top of the tree by now, and with a leap that hboring treetop And then he juain, like a wolf incarnation of Tarzan, from branch to branch, tree to tree, until we had reached the trees that stood outside the boundary
He paused to catch his breath, but he did not stop here My heart felt like it was going to give way as he continued to create distance between us and the hunters Only when the screeching and shouts faded did he swing to lower branches before eventually landing on the ground with stunning grace, as though he were born to climb trees
The dense wood had beco in round before standing over htly as he breathed
There were a hundred questions I could have asked in that moment, but the first one that came to my lips was:
"Why did you do that?"
He furrowed his thick brows, head cocking slightly to one side He scrutinized h he found my question curious "You helped me," he replied in a low voice "Now… I have helped you"