Free Arcadia Burns by Kai Meyer Page A

small bridge. One of the boys, probably, but it was hard to tell for certain—the voice was shrill and high, a shriek of mortal terror.
    Rosa ran on. No time for pity, not now. She felt sick. She just made it to the handrail of the bridge and threw up on the frozen surface of the water.
    When she looked up, she saw movement in the bushes, the outline of something gliding along the bank in the darkness. She flung herself around and ran on. She would have liked to listen to the sounds made by her pursuer, but could only hear the crunch of her own footsteps in the snow and her own breathing, both of them too loud.
    The second scream came from one of the girls, and wasfrom a different direction. So the four of them had separated after all. Not that it had done them any good. The Panthera had taken their second victim. Rosa wondered if they killed their prey at once or just injured it, let it get away, gave it a head start, and then followed the scent of hot blood.
    Once again something moved among the trees, beside her now. Keeping low and close to the ground, as if the black silhouettes of the trunks were forming growths that moved from tree to tree and merged. Whatever it was scurried through the brushwood parallel to the path. But she immediately lost sight of it again when, after a few steps, the next high slope cut off her view.
    How long had she been running now? Less than five minutes. It was going to seem forever before the effect of the serum wore off and she, too, had a chance to change shape. Would Michele wait that long before attacking? Did he want a fight with an opponent who could defend herself? Rosa remembered the duel between Zoe and Tano that she had seen in the woods on the Alcantara property, snake and tiger locked in combat. She doubted whether she could fight back as well as her sister.
    Another scream, and this time it seemed endless. The snarling of the big cats echoed through the night. Several Panthera scuffling with one another for possession of the prey. Then came the mighty roar of a lion, and after that, silence. The argument had been settled.
    She reached a crossroads in the path and turned right. Another bridge under branches hanging low. Ahead of heryawned the mouth of a pedestrian underpass. She could see the other end of it, not thirty feet away, a vague gray patch in the black of the darkness.
    She stopped, listened, heard her heartbeat thudding. Alessandro’s face appeared before her mind’s eye, but that was the last thing she needed right now. She was waiting for the snake, for the ice-cold reptile in her. She didn’t want to think of Alessandro at this moment. But the more she fought against it, the more her feelings rose to the surface. She couldn’t let them distract her from what lay ahead.
    From the black mouth of the tunnel.
    From the muzzle of the black panther suddenly barring her way.
    They stared at each other, and for a crazy moment she felt sure that the panther was Alessandro.
    She hadn’t yet seen many Panthera after their transformation into big cats, but she knew that their human features could still be recognized in animal form. Only in small details. There was a certain sparkle in Alessandro’s eyes. Not in this panther’s.
    She took a step backward.
    Behind her, the snarling of the pack could be heard again, and then branches breaking and snapping. They were coming through the frozen winter woodland of the Ramble now, ignoring the paths, racing through the undergrowth.
    The panther in front of her didn’t move, just imperceptibly raised his nose and waited. Then she realized that he was picking up the scent of the others as they charged this waythrough the night. Presumably working out how much time he still had to claim her just for himself.
    Quickly, Rosa began climbing the steep slope to the left of the path. The panther wasn’t twelve feet away, with the tunnel opening directly behind him. Somehow or other she had to get to the top, crossing the frozen