19
Evie pushed aside a leaf with her toe. A black and gray beetle scurried away. With a short thrust, the point of her spear went through its carapace, pinning it to the turf, legs flailing. Evie waited till it stilled, then flicked it away into the creek.
Five.
She lay back against the tree, pushed aside her hair and dug in her pack for food. She nibbled on a sort of hard wafer the Tainted seemed fond of, then put it away. The longer she had been waiting, the more her stomach had tied itself up in knots.
Ridiculous. It was only the second day. She should have been good at this. When hunting with her tribe, she had waited longer for deer to cross her path, often in the cold or rain. But back then, the penalty for failure was losing a deer. Now she ran the risk of losing her brother.
S
