Nobody panicked.
That was the first thing I noticed when Dane said it.
---
Maren was already on her feet before he finished speaking. Moving through the room with quiet words and hand signals. People responded immediately. Children pulled further back. Adults shifting positions.
They had practiced this too.
I was starting to understand that surviving outside pack territory meant you practiced everything.
---
"How many tracks?" Riven asked Dane.
"Six. Maybe eight," Dane said. "Spread out. Not soldiers."
"How do you know they are not soldiers?" I asked.
"Soldiers move in formation," he said. "These tracks are spread too wide. Individual spacing."
He looked at Riven.
"Hunters," he said.
---
That word landed differently than soldiers would have.
Soldiers followed orders. Hunters followed targets.
"Someone hired them," Soren said. He was by the window. Not looking through it directly. Standing to the side. Just listening to the outside.
"The Alpha King?" I asked.
"Possibly," Soren said. "Or someone who wants the pendant before the Alpha King gets it."
---
I had not considered that.
I had been thinking about this as one threat. The Alpha King pushing hybrids out of the territories.
But the pendant changed the picture completely.
If word had spread about the bloodline claim then there were probably multiple factions who wanted it. And none of them for good reasons.
---
"How long before they move in?" Riven asked Dane.
"They are waiting for something," Dane said. "They had the building surrounded for at least two hours before we arrived and they have not moved yet."
"Waiting for orders," Soren said. "Or waiting for numbers."
"Either way we do not want to be here when whatever they are waiting for arrives," Dane said.
---
Maren appeared at my side.
"We can move," she said quietly. "We have done it before. But the children slow us down and we have two people who are injured."
"How badly injured?" I asked.
"One cannot walk without help," she said. "The other can walk but not fast."
---
I looked at Riven.
He was already thinking. I could see it in the way he was standing.
"We split," he said. "Fast movers go first. Draw the hunters away from the building. Slower group moves out the back while attention is elsewhere."
"Who draws them away?" Dane asked.
Riven looked at him.
Dane nodded like he had expected that answer.
---
"I will go with Dane," Soren said.
"Three is better," Riven said. "Pip."
Pip looked up from the corner where they had been sitting with the children.
"Me?" Pip said.
"You know this terrain better than any of us," Riven said. "We need that."
Pip stood up straight.
"Alright," they said.
---
"What about me?" I asked.
"You stay with the slower group," Riven said.
I opened my mouth.
"Kaia," he said. And his voice was calm but very direct. "The hunters are here because of the pendant. If you are with the fast group you make them the target. The slower group has children and injured people in it."
---
He was right and I knew it.
I closed my mouth.
"Fine," I said. "But I want to know the plan completely."
"Fast group moves out the east side," Riven said. "Loud enough to be noticed. Hunters follow. Slow group takes the north exit and moves toward the ridge."
"Where do we meet?" I asked.
"There is a dry riverbed two hours north," Dane said. "Old crossing. You will see the three stacked stones on the left bank."
---
"Two hours north through terrain I do not know," I said.
"Maren knows it," Dane said. He looked at Maren.
"I know it," she confirmed.
"Then you will be fine," Dane said. To me that sounded like the closest thing to reassurance he was capable of.
---
Riven pulled me slightly aside from the group.
"Keep the pendant hidden," he said quietly. "Do not take it out for any reason until we reach the crossing."
"Understood," I said.
"If something happens and we do not make the crossing," he said.
"Nothing is going to happen," I said.
"If it does," he said steadily. "Keep moving north. Do not stop."
---
I looked at him.
"Nothing is going to happen," I said again.
He held my gaze for a moment.
"No," he said. "It is not."
But the way he said it told me he was not as certain as the words.
---
The three of them moved to the east side of the building.
Dane rolled his shoulders once. Soren checked his blade. Pip bounced lightly on their feet like a person shaking off nerves.
"Ready?" Riven asked.
"Born ready," Pip said.
Dane looked at Pip.
"Never say that," Dane said.
"Sorry," Pip said.
---
They went out the east door fast and loud.
I heard them almost immediately. Movement through the undergrowth. Deliberate. Enough noise to be noticed.
Then sounds from outside the building. The hunters responding. Footsteps moving east.
It was working.
---
Maren was already organizing the slow group.
Twenty people. The two injured supported between stronger ones. Children paired with adults. Everything that could not be carried left behind.
She moved through them like she had done this in her sleep.
Maybe she had.
---
"North exit," she said to me. "You and I go first. We check the path is clear then signal the others."
"You trust me to do that after one day?" I asked.
She looked at me directly.
"You have good hearing," she said. "Better than mine. Hybrid blood."
She said it without any weight on it. Just a fact being used practically.
I realized I could not remember the last time someone had said hybrid like it was neutral.
---
We went out the north exit low and quiet.
The forest was still around us.
I stood and listened with everything I had.
Wind. Distant movement to the east. The hunters following Riven's group.
Nothing close.
"Clear," I said quietly.
Maren signaled behind her.
The group started moving.
---
We set a pace that worked for everyone. Not fast enough. I kept wanting to push harder and making myself not.
The injured man between two supporters was managing. Slow but managing.
The children were surprisingly quiet. Old enough to understand serious faces meant silence.
---
Twenty minutes in I heard something.
Not from behind us. From the left.
I touched Maren's arm.
She stopped immediately. Hand up. The whole group stopped.
I listened.
There. Moving parallel to us through the trees. Keeping pace.
One person. Maybe two.
---
I leaned close to Maren.
"We have company on the left," I breathed.
She did not react visibly.
"How close?" she breathed back.
"Thirty steps. Moving with us not toward us."
"Watching," she said.
"Yes," I said.
---
We kept moving. Whatever was on our left kept pace.
Not attacking. Not closing in.
Watching.
Why watch and not move?
Because they were waiting to see where we were going.
If we led them to the crossing we led them straight to Riven.
---
I made a decision.
"Keep moving," I said to Maren very quietly. "Do not change pace."
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Taking care of the left side," I said.
"Kaia—"
"Keep moving," I said.
---
I peeled away from the group slowly. Moving toward the tree line on the left without changing my pace enough to be obvious about it.
Twenty steps. Fifteen. Ten.
I had a short blade and very little skill with it.
What I had was good hearing and the element of them not expecting me to come toward them.
Sometimes that is enough.
---
I moved between two trees and stopped.
The figure was there. Dark clothes. Low to the ground. Eyes on the group ahead.
Not on me.
I stepped behind them and put the blade to their back before they knew I was there.
"Do not move," I said quietly.
---
They went completely still.
"How many of you are there?" I asked.
Silence.
"I will ask once more," I said.
"Two," they said. A young voice. Tense. "Just two of us."
"Where is the second one?" I said.
"Behind you," said a different voice.
---
I went cold.
"Drop the blade," the second voice said. "Slowly."
I did not drop it.
I thought very fast.
Two options. Drop the blade and find out who these people were. Or do not drop it and find out the hard way.
---
"Who sent you?" I said. Neither dropping the blade nor reacting to the one behind me.
Silence again.
"We are not hunters," the first voice said. The one in front of me.
"Then what are you?" I said.
A pause.
"We are like you," they said.
---
I did not move.
"Hybrid?" I said.
"Yes," the first voice said. "Both of us."
"Why were you following us?" I asked.
"Because we saw the hunters surround that building two hours ago," the first voice said. "And we have been waiting to see if anyone got out."
---
The blade behind me lowered slowly.
I kept mine where it was for another second.
Then I stepped back and turned around.
---
Two young people. A boy and a girl. Teenagers. Thin from not eating enough. Eyes that had seen more than teenagers should.
They looked at me with a kind of desperate hope that I was beginning to recognize.
The same look Pip had. The same look the people in the building had.
---
I lowered my blade.
"Come with us," I said. "We are heading to a crossing two hours north."
The girl looked at the boy.
The boy looked at me.
"Just like that?" he said. "You trust us just like that?"
---
I thought about the healer pushing me out her back door. Riven holding out a blanket at the river. Maren making space without being asked.
"Someone trusted me just like that yesterday," I said. "Seems to be going alright so far."
---
The boy almost smiled.
Almost.
"Alright," he said.
---
We caught up to Maren's group two minutes later.
She looked at the two newcomers. Then at me.
"I will explain later," I said.
She looked at them for one more second.
Then she turned and kept walking.
That was enough.
---
We reached the dry riverbed with the three stacked stones as the light was starting to go gray and thin in the trees above us.
I counted everyone as they came down the bank.
Twenty people. Two more. Twenty two total.
Everyone who had started was here.
---
We waited.
The gray light got grayer.
I kept my hand in my pocket around the pendant and my ears open to the forest.
Then footsteps from the south.
Three figures coming through the trees fast.
---
Riven. Soren. Pip.
Riven counted us the same way I had. His eyes moved fast across the group.
They stopped on the two new faces.
He looked at me.
"I will explain later," I said.
---
Something moved at the corner of his mouth.
"We lost the hunters two ridges back," he said. "But not for long."
"Dane?" I said.
A fourth figure came out of the trees behind them.
Dane. A cut on his forearm that he was holding with his other hand. Not deep from the look of it. He was already ignoring it.
---
"Where to now?" Maren asked. She was looking at me.
Not at Riven. Not at Dane.
At me.
I looked at the twenty two people on the riverbank. Cold. Tired. Waiting.
Then I looked at Riven.
"We need somewhere bigger than a rogue camp," I said. "Somewhere defensible."
"I know a place," Riven said. "But you are not going to like how far it is."
---
"How far?" I asked.
"Three days north," he said.
I looked at the group.
Three days.
"Then we start now," I said. "While we still have light."