Escape from Endeavor by Daniel A. Jones

  ***

  Mystique had been trying her best to keep up with Daemon but had fallen far behind him. She’d realized that he’d joined the trail left by the girls after stopping to get his packs. He seemed to be able to run for a long time without taking any breaks. Her only hope now was that the girls wouldn’t be able to keep up, either. She’d slowed down and was switching between walking and jogging. She was determined to keep moving as long as she could.

  She heard Daemon’s roar as he took off running. It sounded like an animal’s roar to her, followed by the breaking of tree branches. The idea that it was Daemon did not enter her mind; it had to be an animal of some kind. Mystique didn’t like thinking about what else was supposed to be in these woods. Her nervousness was making her very aware of her surroundings.

  She stopped and hid near the base of a dead tree. She waited while the sound of whatever had roared to move farther away, until she couldn’t hear it anymore. Mystique waited a few more minutes before she again moved carefully along the trail, which unfortunately was in the direction of the noise she’d heard. She found Sara’s rifle about five hundred yards up the trail. She spent a few minutes looking around and tried to figure out what had spooked Daemon so bad that he’d dropped his rifle and not retrieved it.

  Mystique looked for tracks but only found Daemon’s and the girls’. He wasn’t being careful anymore. Daemon was leaving deep footprints in the soft ground and was snapping branches instead of bending them or avoiding them. His trail had become even easier to follow than the girls’. Mystique checked the rifle’s magazine and found that it was full with five rounds, so she decided to take it with her. It didn’t take long for Mystique to come to the conclusion that something had scared Daemon, and she didn’t want to be around if it came back. She slung the rifle over her back and started jogging after him.