Sal Brooks couldn’t stop running.
Shaggy beasts chased her across the campus lawn. Paws hammered into the mud beneath sodden leaves. Claws ripped up the soil, and hot wet breath seared her neck. She could not look, could not bear to see how close they were. She drew her weapon, shot blindly behind her, but the beasts did not slow. Something, someone, laughed in her ear. A thorn or a finger slid along the line of her jaw and vanished.
People, Perry once said, hunted with endurance at the dawn of time. Our ancestors chased prey, the prey sprinted off—and humans jogged after. They caught up, sooner or later. And when they did, the prey sprinted off again, and the humans kept jogging. Most animals can outrun a human being over a short stretch, but none can outpace us for a hundred miles.
Sal didn’t have a hundred miles. She didn’t have one. Already her legs were flagging, her limbs felt heavy, already she strained to breathe. And Perry’s model only helped if you were the predator.
Stop, then. Fight—before they run the fight out of you.
She knew how that would end: teeth in her arm, claws in her stomach, the wet tear of viscera. Her guts seized and her sweat ran cold; she ran faster. Thick mist seeped from holes in the earth, and spiraled up with the wind of her passing.
A grim monument loomed through the mist, vacant black glass windows staring. Double doors gaped wide. No shelter there, only danger of a different kind—a carpet lolled down the stone front steps, wet as a tongue.
Where was Grace? Where was Father Menchú? Where was Asanti? Where, for fuck’s sake, was Liam?
Why was she alone? Why was she so fucking scared?
Don’t stop. Don’t think.
Just take it one step at a time.