Go into the woods! I thought desperately as Kaci frantically threw one foot in front of the other. Thunderbirds couldn’t follow us there. At least, not in full bird form. But I couldn’t afford to waste my energy shouting something that might not sink in, anyway. If she’d been thinking clearly, she would have headed for the trees in the first place, rather than racing along the shoulder of the road, fair game to anything that swooped out of the sky.

Then, as if my own thought had called it into being, a powerful thwup, thwup echoed at my back.

Oh, shit. Either Mateo and Dodd had lost their fight, or more than one bird had come after us. Probably both.

I dug deep and threw every spark of energy I had left into my sprint. My focus stayed glued to Kaci’s back, an inverse shadow in the nightscape. I surged ahead, and she was only twenty feet ahead now.

The wind-beating sound grew steadily closer. The accompanying rush of air blew my hair out in front of me. Ahead, Kaci tripped and screamed. She went down only yards from the tree line.

She stood unsteadily, but I was closing on her. Eighteen feet. My lungs burned. She started running again, but more slowly, and with a limp.

Fifteen feet. My side cramped, but any minute, I’d have her.

Twelve feet. I was already reaching out, moments away.

Then the whoosh that had been a warning was suddenly a horrifying roar. I couldn’t hear myself breathe; I heard only menacing wind. I couldn’t feel my pounding heart or rushing pulse; I felt only the surge of air now pushing me backward, away from Kaci.

I squinted against the dust that terrible wind blew at me. A huge, dark shadow swooped low, only feet in front of me. Kaci screamed. Her white jacket shot off the ground and into the air, bobbing higher with each powerful flap of wings. She kicked, the stripes on her shoes reflecting the little available moonlight.

“Hold still!” I shouted, stumbling to a stop beneath her, terrified that her tossing and turning would make the bird drop her. But she couldn’t hear me. I stared up at Kaci in horror, and the fresh ache in my chest threatened to swallow me whole. I’d lost her.

I was supposed to protect Kaci, and I’d lost her. I’d failed, and now she would pay the price.

What little I could see of the night blurred with the moisture standing in my eyes as I forced my legs into motion again. I couldn’t catch her without wings of my own; I knew that. But I had to try.

I stumbled along, wiping tears on the sleeve of my jacket, hoping I wouldn’t trip and further injure my arm. And that Teo and Dodd had won their fight. And that they could get Manx and the baby to safety. I couldn’t see if any of that had happened without losing sight of Kaci. And I couldn’t hear anything—not even Des screaming—over the roar of wings beating overhead and behind me.

Wait, beating behind me?

I spun, my heart trying to claw its way out of my throat. He dove the instant I saw him, a great hulking shadow blocking out the silver crescent moon. In that moment, the bird was everywhere. He was all I could see, and everything I feared. Talons. Hooked beak. And a possible forty-foot fall.

I couldn’t outrun him, so I dropped to my knees, then onto my good elbow, half-convinced he would land on me and crush me. Or drop another big rock on me. But his huge, curved talons were empty.

I tucked my head between my knees and screamed, but could barely hear my own voice. An instant later something gripped my upper arms, then jerked viciously. My shoulders screamed in pain. The world tilted wildly around me. And suddenly the ground was gone.

Just…gone.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I forced myself to hang limp, afraid that thrashing would get me dropped. And so far, the only thing I was sure I’d hate more than flying was falling.

I’d had only seconds to adjust to being aloft when another grating screech ripped through the air behind me. Something grabbed my right ankle in midair. The world swerved around me again, and I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, still screaming. Then I was horizontal, my stomach to the earth, my left leg and forearms dangling awkwardly.

After several deep breaths, which only calmed me enough to bring my terror into sharper focus, I forced my eyes open. Then immediately slammed them closed again.

Below me, the van was a two-tone spot of light on the ground: white from the headlights, and red from the taillights. I was already too high to make out the occupants—if they were even still there.

The woods stretched out for miles to the right of the van, and we flew over them. From my horrifying new perspective, the skeletal deciduous branches were as thin and tangled as steel wool in the moonlight, the evergreens dense spots of darkness. And in that moment I hated my abductor for turning my beloved forest—my refuge from all things human and artificial—into a place of nightmares.

And still I screamed. I screamed until I lost my voice. My arms and one leg went numb from being gripped so tightly. They felt like they’d be ripped from my sockets at any second. I chattered uncontrollably. If it was cold on the ground, it was literally freezing in the air, and my toes tingled painfully. I couldn’t feel my hands. Couldn’t move my fingers.

After several minutes, I lost it. What little composure I’d had could not survive two hundred feet in the air, with nothing to catch me. Nothing but the ground to break my fall. No way to save myself. I could see calmness in the back of my mind, but it cowered in the corner like a little bitch, leaving panic to rule the roost.

My free leg flailed uncontrollably. My arms tried to twist themselves from the bird-bastard’s grip, though part of me knew that would only lead to my death. My mouth opened and I screamed again, though no sound came out.