Breeder: An Arrow's Flight Novel by Hays Casey

Author:Hays, Casey [Hays, Casey]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Whispering Pages, LLC
Published: 2014-11-22T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

“How is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.” 1 Peter 2:20

Mia scrambles for a patch of bushes, pulling me in behind her. We both pant heavily, and my muscles are tense. The aches in my body flare to life again, reminding me of my recent encounter with Mona, and my nerves jolt in response. I’m so exhausted. I’m not ready for another confrontation with her. I scan the trees anxiously.

“How far back are they?”

“Just at the first bend.” Fear stares at me from Mia’s round eyes. “They have ropes,” she whispers.

I clutch my throat, try to calm my beating heart as it flutters with the awful realization that if we’d waited one minute longer—just one—he may not have escaped. I toss a wary glance toward the forest.

“I hope they don’t catch him,” I whisper, my eyes frantically searching the area. He’s still out there, still close. He’s not safe yet.

I can feel Mia’s eyes on me, and I meet her gaze.

“It really means a lot to you to save him, doesn’t it?”

I see something in her for the first time, faint, but there all the same. A glimmer of understanding.

“Yes. It does,” I say.

She nods and looks toward the path again.

“You’re risking so much for him.”

I shrug. “I suppose.”

Silence follows. I watch the trees, hopeful that Ian is at least over the first ridge of the mountains, and if so, that he can find a place to hide.

“Does he always look at you that way?”

Mia’s question surprises me. I turn.

“What way?”

She faces me.

“As if he’s never seen anything better in his life.”

I crease my brows. Does he? Ian and I spent so much time trying to adjust to each other, and trying to plan and plot and scheme his way out of the cave that I never noticed one way or the other how he looked at me. I think back, trying to recollect even a hint of what Mia means, but all I can see is the bluest of all blue staring back at me.

“I—I don’t know. I’ve never noticed,” I answer.

She shakes her head softly. “You should have paid attention.”

Our eyes lock, she smiles, and for the first time in a long while, we share a moment. But voices fill the morning air, breaking the connection, and we shrink down further behind the bushes. I crane my neck to see.

Mona appears first followed by a small crowd, mostly Council members. She carries several feet of a long rope looped over one shoulder. Tara walks close behind her, a spike in each hand. Her expression is as hard and cruel as it was the day she took so much pleasure in making a whipping post out of my back. I’m beginning to think she can’t smile anymore. Her face has frozen into a stone scowl.

The group marches purposefully along. A few of them smile and chat, however, and this strikes me as extremely cruel.

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