Free Labyrinth: The Keeper Chronicles, a prequel by Katherine Wynter

us.” It rushed the fence, claws scraping against the wood as it reached for her.
    Rebekah dropped the bottle and ran, pausing only to pick up the knife he’d tossed in the ground first. For all she knew, there had been a door nearby and that thing was just around the corner.
    Hunting her.
    There had to be a way out. Roots reached up to grab her ankles, but she didn’t get more than a little ways before she reached a dead end. The thick shrubs surrounded her on three sides and extended to twice her height, the only opening back the way she came. Back toward that thing. Twisting sideways, she tried to push through between the branches, but the thick shrubbery was so entangled she could barely get her wrist through much less anything else. A branch snapped out and stung her face.
    “Ow.” Her fingertips came away wet with blood when she touched her cheek. She ducked as a second branch reached out for her. Then a third wrapped around her wrist. “What the…get off.” The branch tightened around her arm, squeezing painfully. Rebekah grabbed her the dagger and swiped at the branch, but it dodged to the side, pulling her off balance. Her wrist throbbed with pain as she cut the tough, almost tendon-like wood. It separated with a squeak of what sounded like pain and slithered back into the hedge.
    Panting, she stood there a moment and massaged her sore wrist. Thick red welts still circled her wrist from where it had grabbed her. How had a branch been able to wrap like that? How was any of this possible?
    As she hurried back the way she had come, two vines crept free of the hedgerow and slithered toward her feet, sharp thorns scratching at the ground and tearing it up as they went. Wind whistled through the labyrinth, calling out to her. Whispering her name.
    She ran.
    Roots and sticks stabbed her feet as she fled, the pain sharp and red against the green, but she didn’t dare to stop.
    Everything in this labyrinth had one purpose: to hunt her.
    She shivered to think of what would happen when it caught her.
     
    *              *              *
     
    “Now, you can't go in there half-cocked,” Jason warned as they drove up to the small shack in the woods. “Let me do the talking.” From her glare as she turned off the car, he could tell he wasn't going to get his way. He'd be lucky if she didn't end up killing someone. “You're a guest in this region, remember. So try to act like one.”
    Another glare.
    “You two really have a lot in common, you know.”
    She arched an eyebrow. “You keep saying that like it's a bad thing.”
    The shack looked to have been constructed in the early twentieth century and abandoned not long after. The roof was caved in along the south side, and the wooden slats forming the walls were cracked and faded, bits of brown paint hanging on in small patches as though fighting for their lives. What had probably once been weeds had long since evolved into dense wild shrubs and trees and things he had no name for surrounding the house. Telling the forest from the home was almost impossible.
    “Doesn't look like anyone’s lived here for some time,” he said, walking toward what had once been a garage. Or a serial killer’s slaughter room. “No tire treads or footprints. Nothing seems displaced. Place gives me the creeps.”
    She kicked the door open, and then turned back with a wry grin. “Don't worry, Jason. I'll protect you.”
    Well, at least he was keeping her amused. That had to count for something. He'd have to remember to use that defense at his hearing. Jason drew his gun and followed her into the house, sweeping rooms from the left as she went right toward the kitchen. The living room barely warranted the name, only the remains of a busted fireplace standing lonely in one corner and a heap of dirty blankets and pillows piled in another. A pair of plastic water bottles had rolled to the far corner and some candy bar wrappers were tangled up in the