MARKED TO BURN, BORN TO RULE

CHAPTER 2: NO ONE LEFT TO RUN TO

NADIA'S POV

The door doesn't open, it just breaks, and I'm already awake and pressed into the corner before I even process what's happening because that's what a whole day in a cell does to you I guess, you stop sleeping like a normal person.

It's my dad.

There's blood on him. His knuckles, his shoulder, everywhere, and his face looks wrong, like nothing I've ever seen on him, and I've known this man my whole life so that's saying something.

"Get up." That's it. That's all he says at first. "We don't have time, Nadia, get up right now."

I don't even ask questions, I just get up, even though everything in me still hurts from whatever Reid did when he broke the bond, like my whole body forgot how to work right. My dad grabs my arm and we're moving before I even really decide to move, if that makes sense.

We run through the halls and I don't even recognize which way we're going, it's all just torches and stone and my dad's hand crushing my wrist a little too hard. I want to ask so many things, like how did you get in, are you okay, where's mum, but there's no time for any of that so I just run.

Then we're outside. Actual outside, actual air, and for like two seconds, maybe three, I actually think we're going to make it.

We don't.

Something whips out of the dark, I don't even see what it is at first, and it wraps around my dad's ankle and yanks him down so hard he takes me with him because he's still holding my wrist. I hit the ground and roll and my hair's in my face and there's dirt in my mouth and I'm trying to figure out what just happened.

"Dad!"

He's already back up though. Faster than I am. He's got the whip in his own hand now, pulling on it, and I see them then, warriors, coming out of the trees, three of them or maybe four, it's dark so I can't really count, and my dad just stands there between me and them like there's not even a question about what happens next.

"Run." He doesn't even look at me. "Nadia. Run. Go to the Hollow. Your mum's there. GO."

"I'm not leaving you here."

"NADIA."

One of them comes at him and my dad just meets it, head on, no hesitation, and the sound of it is horrible, like nothing I want to describe honestly, and that's the thing that finally gets my legs moving even though my whole body is screaming at me to stay.

So I run.

I look back one time. Just the one time. My dad's got somebody by the throat and there's blood on his shoulder that definitely isn't his and for a second, just a second, he looks right at me.

He mouths something. I don't even know what. Go, maybe. Or maybe he doesn't say anything at all and I just need to believe he did.

I don't look back again after that.

The Hollow is a place my mum used to take me when I was a kid, back before any of this, back when Mooncrest still felt like home instead of a place trying to kill me, and somehow my legs remember exactly how to get there even in the pitch dark, even with my lungs burning and my side hurting from something I don't even remember happening.

She's already there waiting.

"Mum." That's all I've got, honestly. She grabs my face with both hands like she's checking I'm actually real.

"Where's your father?"

"Fighting. He told me to come here, he said-"

"We have to move." Her voice cracks a little on "move" and I notice that, I notice it right away, because my mum doesn't c***k. "Now. Please, baby."

So we run together and for a minute, honestly just a minute, it feels like maybe this actually works out. Then I hear them behind us again, closer, and my mum grabs my arm so hard it's going to bruise.

"Listen to me." She's pulling something off her neck, this necklace thing, half of it anyway, and shoving it into my hand along with some folded up paper. "There's a woman, past the northern border, an old friend of mine. Show her this. She'll know you're mine. Find her. Run and don't stop and don't you dare look back."

"Mum, no, we can-"

"RUN, NADIA."

I run, but not all the way. I hide instead, behind a fallen tree, because some stupid part of me needs to see that she's okay before I can actually make myself leave.

She's not okay.

They come out of the trees around her like they knew exactly where she'd be the whole time. Five of them, maybe six, closing in slow so there's nowhere left for her to run even if she wanted to.

"Your husband's already dead." The one in front says it almost bored, like he's reading off a grocery list. "Which makes you a loose end. Nothing personal."

"Nothing personal." Mum laughs, this short, ugly sound with no humor in it. "You people keep saying that like it's supposed to make it better."

"Where's the girl?"

"Gone. Somewhere you'll never find her."

"We'll find her."

"No." Mum lifts her chin, doesn't even flinch when one of them steps closer, claws already out. "You won't. And when she does come back, she's going to burn every single one of you to the ground."

"Big talk for someone about to die alone in the woods."

"I'm not alone."

Her eyes flick, just for a second, straight toward the tree I'm hiding behind, like she somehow knows where I am even though there's no way she can see me. "I've got a daughter out there who's going to make every one of you regret this."

That's the last thing she ever says.

I don't look away. I don't even let myself blink, because if I'm the only one left to remember this, I owe her at least that much.

Then she doesn't say anything, ever again.

I don't move for a long time after. I don't even cry, not yet, because some part of me knows if I start I'm not going to stop, and stopping isn't an option right now.

Days pass. Three, maybe four, I lose count somewhere in there. I eat whatever I can find, which isn't much, I stay away from any paths, I jump at every sound. My feet are destroyed. My side's still bleeding a little, on and off.

I keep touching the pendant in my pocket like it's going to do something. Like it's a plan and not just a piece of metal I'm holding onto so I don't lie down somewhere and stop. Honestly I don't know anymore if there's a difference.

On the fourth night I actually fall asleep, really asleep, under some tree roots, telling myself it's only going to be a minute.

That's my mistake.

I don't even hear them. One second I'm asleep and the next there's a hand over my mouth and more hands than I can count grabbing at me, and I fight, I actually fight, biting and clawing, but there's too many of them and I haven't eaten in days and don't have enough left to win this one.

I get one scream out. Just one. Then something hits me and everything just stops.

Dark. And right before I go all the way under, one weird thought, out of nowhere: these hands don't feel like the ones from before.

I don't get to figure out what that means before everything goes quiet.