Page 77 of Juniper Unraveling

I’m going to be eaten alive!

Screams rip from my chest, but they sound distant, not mine. They’re foreign. So terrified and helpless.

The Ragers hover over me in a sky of frightening faces staring down at me, swiping at me with their hands that knock me in the head. My leg is lifted into the air, and I kick out to no avail, waiting for the moment when teeth sink into my flesh.

The Rager throws my leg to the ground.

A sharp burn hits my scalp, and the gravelly dirt scrapes across my spine, as one of them drags me away from the others. Without looking at me, he releases me, and walks off. The growls intensify while the circle of Ragers move as a whole, keeping me in the center of their horde.

Swatting. Smacking. Growling. Chattering their teeth.

No biting, though.

As if … they’re not interested in consuming me.

A dull thud hits my ribcage with a sharp kick, blowing the breath from my lungs, and I curl into pain. Still, nothing pierces me.

Through a gap between their twitching legs, I scramble out from beneath them, toward the low fence in the distance. A Rager approaches, chattering his teeth at me, but quickly changes direction, off my path.

Another does the same, growling and swinging his fists wildly in the air.

I dodge his punches and keep on. Not a single bite marring my skin, that I can sense.

Dashing the final steps toward the fence, I leap into the air, clutching the chain links halfway up from the ground. A hand grips my ankle, yanking me. But the moment I turn to peer down at the female Rager, she releases me and stumbles off, twitching and chattering.

The horde begins to disperse, and it’s only a matter of minutes before Ivan and Doctor Ericsson will see my bloody remains aren’t in the center of it.

With trembles wracking my body, I scale the fence, and as soon as my feet hit the dirt on the other side, I want to crumble into a pile and sob.

I can’t, though. I have to keep moving.

The adrenaline surges through my veins as I hobble away, favoring my non-aching leg. Dry heat scorches my throat, and I race in darkness, toward nothing. I’ve no idea where I am. No idea where to go. A few hundred yards away from the fence, the growls behind me quieten, allowing me a moment to catch my breath, and Doctor Falkenrath’s words from earlier filter into the chaos.

The Juniper tree.

He said to keep the sun on my right shoulder, but there is no sun. There won’t be for another six, or so, hours.

The moon is high in the sky tonight, and full enough to offer the dark silhouettes of mountains in the distance. I could run for those, but the guards would surely search for me there.

To the right, is line of steel posts and razor wire that house trucks—I recognize them as the trucks used to raid the hives. The ones that brought us here. I scurry across the dirt toward them.

Those toward the front seem to face the opening inside the camp, where I’m guessing there’s a gate within the compound that allows them free access to the vehicles. There’s a gap between the razors attached to each strand of fence wire and the ground that’s wide enough for my body, if I don’t breathe. I lie down on my belly, resting my cheek against the dirt, and slide beneath the wires. A burn slides across my calf, and I clamp my eyes shut, silently taking in the sting of the cut, until I’m on the other side.

Voices reach my ears. Shouting. Scuffling of boots. The guards.

I scuttle the rest of the way beneath the fence and scramble under one of the trucks closest to the fence, tucking myself in the center of the undercarriage.

Vehicles fire up.

“There was nothing left of her! That’s impossible!” Ivan’s voice thunders along my nerves, and I have to screw my eyes shut, focusing on my silence. “Search every fucking inch of this desert! In the mountains! She couldn’t have gotten far.”

With trembles vibrating through my body, I lie still. I don’t move until the hush of quiet settles around me again.

And when there’s no other sound but my shaky breaths, I weep.

* * *

Dawn filters in, and I lift my head to the first faint beams that creep over the eastern mountains. East. Which means I’m to head north. On the few times my father took me hunting, I managed a small bit of navigation, in the event we were separated, or I was to walk home by myself. My father never shied away from the fact that any one of us could be taken, plucked right out of this life without warning, which might be the only explanation I have for wanting to survive.