Aden’s answer was to point down, to what she was just able to make out as flowing water. A river. Seeing his point, she headed in that direction, slip-sliding down the hill covered with small flowering shrubs and leaving a visible trail on purpose. Aden did the same. With luck, their pursuers would think they’d both slid right into the river.
Going in a straight line to the river once they’d reached the bottom, she and Aden scuffed up the dirt near the water’s edge to further the illusion that they’d fallen in.
“If we get wet,” she said, “we’re dead.” The water was a hard rush, as if swollen by rain upstream. Not even the strongest swimmer could fight that current, keep from being smashed up against rocks or into broken tree trunks caught in the torrent. That is, if the cold didn’t stop the heart first.
“Rocks,” Aden said, pointing out the jagged stepping-stones she’d missed in the darkness. If her hearing was acute, Aden’s night vision was just as sharp. It had made them an excellent team on the rare missions they’d worked together.
“We get to the other side and we have a much higher chance of survival. They won’t expect it.”
“Because I can’t make it.” She knew her balance was off, her body weak; she currently didn’t have the physical agility to cross the “bridge” of stones, especially when each stone was covered with a thin and no doubt slippery layer of wet green moss. “You go that way and I’ll lead them left.”
Aden took off the daypack, gave it to her. “Put it on.” When she went to open her mouth, he said, “For once, Zaira, don’t argue.”
“I only argue when you’re wrong.” She put on the pack against her better judgment because time was their enemy. “You need the supplies and I can’t go far.”
He turned his back to her. “Get on.”
“Aden, that’s a bad decision. We’ll both go into the water.” The sounds of pursuit were getting louder. “Go. I’ll lead them off.”
Looking over his shoulder, he held her gaze, the deep, liquid brown of his irises so intense it felt like a physical weight anchoring her where she stood. “Either we both go or neither one of us goes. Choose.”
“I’ll challenge your leadership the instant we’re out of here,” she threatened, then jumped onto his back, locking her legs around his waist and sliding her arms up under his own to clamp over his shoulders.
She knew she was comparatively light, probably weighed around half of Aden’s body weight, but she also carried the pack, and he was walking across a river in the dark on stones that weren’t exactly meant to be used as steps. Focusing only on staying as relaxed as possible, so as not to throw him off, she breathed in the chilly air and thought about all the ways she would torture those who had taken her and Aden.
The guards had just been the brawn. Someone else was behind this.
Aden stepped onto the first stone, his muscles flexing against her as he maintained his precarious balance. A second step. A third.
Water frothed around the rocks, the river’s passage rushing thunder around them.
Aden’s body dipped and she held on though her training told her to let go so he’d have a better chance of survival. She knew Aden. He’d come for her again. He’d dive into that dangerous water in a stupid, irrational, un-Silent decision and he’d come for her. So she’d stay with him as long as possible, until there was no other option and even he would agree with her.
Only she wasn’t sure he ever would.
He really was a very bad leader in that respect—and it was why his Arrows gave him their unswerving dedication. All of them rejects from the world, from their families. No one else had ever come for them, ever would. Silence or not, it mattered that Aden would. Perhaps that exposed a flaw in the heart of the Protocol and perhaps it was simply a sign that even Arrows had a soul.
Halfway across the river and she could hear shouts that indicated their pursuers were heading to the ridge she and Aden had slid down. “I estimate they’ll see us in another two minutes.”
Aden didn’t answer, but she knew he’d heard.
Four more stones, the other side starting to appear closer, but then Aden’s foot slipped. Zaira would’ve released him and chanced the water except that he locked one hand around her ankle. A silent statement that if they went, they’d go together. Irrational, she thought again as they both almost fell in before he righted himself.
Two more stones.
The sounds so close now, flickers of light flashing on the ridge when she glanced over her shoulder.
Aden slipped and slammed down to his knees . . . but it was on the bank. He made sure his body tumbled sideways so she fell on the bank beside him rather than backward into the water. Pushing up on her hands, she looked up toward the ridge. “We need to get into the trees.”
They made it barely in time; the chopper was in the air now and sweeping the area with a spotlight. Pressing themselves to the ground and covering their bodies in enough forest floor debris that they no longer looked people-shaped, Aden and Zaira waited.
Zaira breathed into her hands, the gloves she’d found in the coat’s pockets too large but warm. She couldn’t hear Aden breathing and for a second, her heart stopped. Alone, whispered the stunted, murderous child hidden in the darkest corner of her psyche, alone. A second later, she shook it off. He was being silent, that was all. Aden could be more silent than any other Arrow she knew, even the most capable assassin. She’d asked him once how he’d learned to do that. His answer was one she’d never forget.
When I was a child, my parents told me to be invisible, so invisible that no one would ever consider me a threat, so invisible that I would be forgotten.
Zaira didn’t understand how anyone could have failed to see the relentless strength and raw power that lived in Aden, but they had. Ming LeBon had barely paid Aden any attention, until one day, their former leader suddenly realized someone else was holding the reins and that he’d been deposed. No more would Ming treat the Arrows as his personal death squad, using them up then putting them down as if they were lame dogs.
They belonged to Aden now. And they would follow him into hell itself.