Chapter 10 · Hunters at the Door

The searchlight hit the alley mouth three seconds before we made it out.

I yanked Rafe sideways into the gap between two dumpsters and pressed my hand over his mouth. His breath came hot against my palm. The mark on my arm pulsed like it had its own heartbeat now.

Boots on asphalt. Multiple pairs. I counted four, maybe five.

"Thermal's picking up two signatures in the east corridor." A woman's voice, clipped and bored. "Could be rats."

"Could be our runner." That was a man, closer. "Morn wants him alive. The girl too, if she's still with him."

Rafe's hand closed around my wrist. Not hard, just enough to get my attention. He tilted his head toward the shop's back door, twenty feet across open ground.

I shook my head. No way we'd make it without being seen.

The boots stopped ten feet from our hiding spot.

"You smell that?" The woman again.

"Old garbage and piss. Same as every alley in this district."

"No. Blood. Fresh."

I looked down. Rafe's shirt was soaked through on the left side, dark and wet. The wound from earlier had reopened during our sprint.