I WAS FRANTIC.
The audio had been coming in loud and clear from the transmitter in Yuki’s wristwatch, but now we’d lost her! We’d gone out of range! I grabbed Conklin’s arm, stopped him in the path that had petered out onto a small clearing before snaking out in three directions.
I’ve lost the transmission
Hold it,” Conklin said into his mic to the SWAT team that was moving through the woods in a grid formation.
And then the static cleared. I couldn’t hear Yuki, but Twilly’s voice was tinny and clear.
See, when I was thinking about this earlier,” Twilly was saying, “I thought I could get you to spread your wings and fly off this cliff. But now I’m thinking, you’re going to shoot yourself, Yuki.
Yuki’s scream was high-pitched. Wordless.
Twilly was threatening to kill her! Why didn’t Yuki use her gun
Up there. Top of the ridge,” I shouted to Conklin.
We were at least two hundred yards away from the summit. Two hundred yards! It no longer mattered if he heard us. I ran.
Brambles grabbed out at me, branches snapped in my face. I stumbled on a root, grabbed out and hugged a tree. My lungs burned as I ran. I saw their forms between the tree trunks, silhouetted against the sky. But Twilly was so close to Yuki, I couldn’t get a clean shot.
I yelled out, “Twilly! Stand away from her now.
There was the crack of gunshot.
OH, GOD, NO! YUKI
Birds broke from the trees and flew up like scattershot as the report echoed over the hillside. Eight of us boiled out of the woods into the clearing at the ridgeline. That’s where I found Yuki, on her knees, forehead touching the ground.
The gun was still in her hand.
I got down on the ground and shook her shoulders.
Yuki! Yuki! Speak to me! Please.
