Chapters
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Amie ran.She’d never been a sprinter before the Transit, or had any interest in endurance sports in general. It was the wilderness that had brought her out to Stella Lacus, not any love for running back and forth along a set course. But she spent every day out in the forest, traveling between their traps in search of game. She had months of hiking and climbing and kayaking, repeated for years in this exact camp. She knew the mountains as few others could ever hope to equal.If she were fleeing alone, she…-
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Amie was not a coward. Indeed, she was willing to stand and fight to give her brother a chance to escape, even when that opportunity was remote and his odds of success seemed slim. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep her family safe, even if it meant putting her own life at risk.But it wasn’t her brother being attacked right now. Instead, strangers from the sky descended on the people who were trying to murder her at that very moment.Instead of joining the melee, Amie dropped quietly back down…
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195.0 K •
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“I’m sorry you died here.”The words felt alien on her tongue, as strange as the horse she was looking at. Four people had died tonight, all because Albrecht wanted to capture and dissect her brother.She pushed, but the horse was so much heavier than she looked. Amie had to crawl right up next to the corpse, shoving through the mud. Deep red blood splashed up against her body, mixing freely with the chilly water.Something… happened. Amie wasn’t exactly sure what. It felt more exhausting than…
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195.0 K •
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They walked for hours, long enough that the ground became rockier and the trees scarcer. Amie wasn’t sure Tailslide would have been able to keep going, except that they found a road. That made their progress less direct, but the grade much more manageable.He might be an alien horse-thing, but Tailslide soon reminded her of one of her boys—unwilling to admit when he was in too much pain to continue and needed a break.Fortunately for him, she could read his emotions, and knew exactly when to stop. She…
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Amie sat silently by the window, watching traffic in the city pass. She could have fled into that town, but somehow the outlook of such an attempt did not seem promising.“Motherlode” had maybe three large streets in total, with a dozen structures scattered across the cliffside. There would be no way to vanish into the crowd here. Not unless she could change the way she looked.Was stealing a body permanent? The face staring back at her from the glass wasn’t her own, but neither was the stupid bug…
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“That piece of metal there—” Tailslide said, finally setting down his tray. “It’s a spell? One that works even when you don’t have a horn?”Nothing could bring Amie down just now—Wes was alive. She would figure out the rest in time. “Magic, no. It’s a machine. How it works doesn’t matter. If someone else has a machine like it, they can send messages back and forth. My brother is in town.”She beamed, her eyes still focused on the screen. The message was already delivered. Wes was…
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195.0 K •
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Amie woke from her sleeping bag to the first light of dawn. A glance at her phone told her just how strange that was—an hour and a half asleep, several times longer than she was used to. Odd. But her pony companion was still asleep, so she still had time to practice. She made her way into the bathroom, pulled the blinds closed, then turned up the lamp as bright as it would go.There was a mirror in here, so she could see her own body while she worked.Now if only she could figure out how she was supposed…
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Amie was on borrowed time.“An entire troop carrier is coming here,” she muttered, staring down at the telegram. It sat on the bathroom floor beneath her, still visible despite the strangeness of it. There was no time to question how she could even understand the native language. The meaning was enough. “I’m so screwed.”Why am I thinking like a character in a horror movie? Amie darted past Tailslide heading straight for the table. Her phone was still sitting there—if Stern thought anything of…
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195.0 K •
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For the second time in three days, Amie dragged her brother into the forest.This time there was no rumble of a jeep following them across the campgrounds, or the shout of distant, angry voices. They weren’t running through the wilderness either, but had a gravel path to follow. So long as Amie kept Tailslide’s directions fresh in her mind, she could probably take them all the way to Agate without stopping.Except, of course, for Wes.Her brother lacked her endurance, and couldn’t keep running for long.…
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Amie did not expect a response from camp. Her brother slept, and she couldn’t, so what more was there to do but drain her battery while poking at the intranet. She knew better than to expect it to keep working much past line-of-sight to the mountain. Once she reached Agate, she would have to come back this way every time she wanted to send messages to her kids.If the mountain didn’t have guards, I might try to get them out. But we can’t all feed on the emotions of one bug, or they wouldn’t be…
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