Chapter 12 · The Salt-Bone Chapel

"Faster."

Kael's voice cut through the truck cab like a blade. Cyrus had the accelerator floored but the beacon wouldn't stop screaming. Beep. Beep. Beep. Broadcasting their position to every soldier within fifty miles.

"There's nowhere—"

"Off road. Now."

He cranked the wheel hard right. The truck lurched off the cracked highway into scrubland and the kids in the back yelped. His teeth clacked together. Blood from the cut on his palm smeared the steering wheel, still wet, still stinging.

The landscape out here was wrong. Scar Road territory. Trees grew in spirals, bark slick and gray like dead skin. The ground had a greenish tint where the old war chemicals had soaked in deep.

You didn't stop in the Scar. You definitely didn't hide.

"Kill the engine," Kael said.

"They'll find us anyway. The beacon—"

"Kill it."

He did. The truck shuddered to a stop and the silence felt worse than the noise. Just his breathing. The kids whispering. That godsdamned beeping, muffled now but relentless.

Kael was already out, boots hitting the ground hard. She scanned the tree line like she was counting enemies.