Page 158 of Scarlet Wars
“Good.” I exhaled through my nose, forcing the tension from my shoulders. “We’ll take the boat all the way across the river.”
Jackson shook his head, grim. “Sean says we can’t go through Gananoque anymore. The place is now swarming with human military, they’re investigating a blown-up Coast Guard vessel?”
“Fucking shit,” Emma snapped, frustration lacing the single syllable, and Walkerwincedat her language.
I stared at him, my intent clear enough to make him take half a step back. The hell was his problem? Of everything that would go wrong today, hervocabularywasn’t going to make the list.
“Everyone to the boat,” I said, not bothering to hide the edge in my tone. “Emma, get that phone of yours working and find usanother route. We’re putting as much distance between us and New York as fast as we can.”
She nodded, already pulling the device from her pocket, thumb flying over the screen as the others fell into motion.
Every footstep through the corridors on our way out, echoed like it didn’t want us there.
The dock finally came into view at the end of the service tunnel: a stretch of warped planks and black water, looking like it had eaten better men than us. Our small boat was still where we’d left it, thank fuck, rocking gently against its moorings.
“Jackson, untie us,” I ordered. “James, you’re on lookout. If anyone’s following, now’s the time to mention it.”
He shook his head once. “We’re all clear.”
We climbed in, the boat dipping under our combined weight. Emma dropped into the seat beside me, while James and Jackson settled toward the back, both looking like they’d rather be anywhere else.
As I rowed us out of that hellhole, the oars biting into black water, Emma leaned forward with her phone in hand, the faint blue glow cutting through the mist.
After a moment she nodded, turning the screen toward me. A narrow strip of forested terrain glowed on the map: an old service road cutting through the outskirts of Clayton, winding north toward the Canadian border. Rough terrain, mostly abandoned, but still there. A route that might get us through if we moved fast enough and stayed invisible.
“We should take this road,” she suggested, her voice low and certain. “It connects to an old customs checkpoint south of Hill Island. It’s the only ground route left that isn’t crawling with patrols.”
“If we move fast enough,” I muttered, adjusting my grip on the oars and steering us toward the shore.
She leaned in, her hair brushing my shoulder as she peered at the screen. “Well, since you’re the one rowing this glorified bathtub, that part’s on you, isn’t it?”
“Eyes forward, Thompson,” I said, as I ignored her jab. “You’re in my airspace.”
“Yes, dear,” she shot back, not missing a beat, and I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
The sound barely faded before the forest swallowed it whole.
The trees ahead stretched into layered walls of gray and green, mist curling through the pines like smoke rising from something still burning.
The air smelled of wet earth, rain-heavy leaves, and that thick, waiting silence that always came right before a storm, or something worse.
EMMA
We left the dinghy tied up along the shoreline and headed into the woods on foot.
The forest was quieter than it should’ve been.
Not peaceful-quiet, more“the trees have collectively voted us off the island”quiet.
No one talked either. After everything—the abduction, the water, the portal—we were all still half-caught in the echo of it, moving through the dark like ghosts who hadn’t realized they were free.
James led the way with the grim determination of someone who fully expected the trees to mug us. Jackson trudged after us, muttering curses every time a branch slapped him in the face, which was often enough it was starting to feel like the forest hadchosen him as its unwilling sub in some deeply concerning tree kink.
Caden walked beside me, shoulders tense beneath his jacket, his attention everywhere but never far from me.
Finally, Jackson broke the silence. “So,” he said, “anyone wanna explain what the hell happened? The whole abduction setup? The rising water, the collapsing fort, the portal, what was the point of all that?”
James answered before I could. “To get Emma to see the future.”
