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"Everything okay?" Pete asked.
I realized that I had been staring at the spot where Eli and the others had stepped into the woods for an uncomfortable amount of time.
"I think so. Just watching them walk away, I'm not used to it," I muttered and turned toward the kitchen. Pete and Ida followed me.
In the kitchen, Darla was waiting at the back door. Her and Billie had their hands filled with books.
"Wait, are we still going to go practice?" I asked and looked around.
Celia nodded when she met my eyes. "You have to, remember? Not just so you will pass, but because you have to use up as much as you can," she reminded me.
She must have seen that I was about to argue because she went on, "If I hear anything, from anyone, then you will be the first to know. I promise. But you have to go finish what you started."
There was no mistaking the order in her voice.
I grumbled but nodded and I left with the five Sentinels and Billie following me.
We headed into the forest as well and even though I knew the chances of us stumbling on Savannah were slim to none, I still kept glancing around.
"When was the last time anyone saw her?" I asked.
"Our first night here," Darla said quietly.
A full day ago. A person could get pretty lost in twenty-four hours.
"I don't understand how she was able to slip away and none of us noticed," I muttered.
I was leading them deeper and deeper into the forest, with no clear destination in mind. Everyone hurried after me and I didn't have to look over my shoulder to know they were all exchanging worried glances.
"If this is the Savannah from the Ascendancy that we all heard about, then she is a trained agent. She knows how to slip away from shifters. It's one of the first things they learn," Ida said.
"And you guys have a few things going on here. If she ran back to her family, it would be easy for her to take advantage of all the chaos going on here to do so," Pete said.
"She wouldn't go back to her family," Artie and I said firmly at the same time.
"How are you so sure?" Darla asked.
I figured that we were far enough into the forest that we could stop to rest or set up if this place was suitable.
Artie looked around at the clearing and nodded. "This is good."
"But we don't have a rock in the middle like we did in the other place," Billie said.
"I'll get one," Ida said.
"How do you know that she wouldn't have gone back to her family?" Darla asked again.
"When she defected, her sister threatened to take her back to the Ascendancy, to their grandparents, so they could rebuild her. Not sure what that meant, but it can't be good. And then when Savannah ruined her sister’s shot at killing Artie, her sister shot Savannah in the chest. She meant to kill her. I'm pretty sure that Savannah has been banned from all family reunions," I said.
Darla winced.
"Watch out," Ida said and I looked up to see her floating a rock into the middle of the circle. Just like the day before, this one had a flat top and a relatively large area to write on. She set it down gently in the middle of the clearing and everyone gathered around it.
We all looked around.
Artie flipped open a book. "Let's start."