The Prey by Tom Isbell Page B

bad enough already.
    Streaks of pink painted the eastern sky. By the time my horse pulled up, the others had already dismounted, stopped at a fork in the trail.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” I asked.
    â€œCat wants to take this smaller trail,” Flush confided, a hint of panic in his voice. “But we don’t know where it goes.”
    â€œWe don’t know where the other goes either,” Cat said.
    â€œYeah, but at least it’s a real path.”
    â€œDo you want to make it as easy as possible for the Brown Shirts to track us down? Is that it?” Anger welled up in Cat’s chest as he spoke. “We need to get off the main trail and get out of sight. Now!”
    No one dared utter a word. What could we say? Cat had more experience than all of us put together.
    As the guys stumbled for their horses, we heard a sharp yapping sound. Cat drew his horse around.
    â€œWhat was that?” he asked.
    No one answered. Cat hurled himself down from his mare and strode through the group until he came to Four Fingers.
    â€œTurn around,” Cat snapped.
    â€œWhy?” Four Fingers muttered.
    â€œTurn around, I said.”
    Four did as he was commanded. Cat reached for the opening of his backpack and released the drawstring.
    A dog’s head popped out and Cat recoiled. The dog panted, smiling brightly, its brown fur creased by a wide grin. One ear flopped upward, one down.
    â€œWhat’s this?” Cat asked.
    â€œA dog.”
    â€œI know that. What’s it doing here?” Cat grabbed the younger LT’s shoulder and pushed him back around so he could face him.
    Four Fingers faltered. “It’s a puppy. . . . We found itlast week. . . . It was starving to death . . . so we took it in.”
    â€œAnd you thought you could just bring the dog along? What happens when it starts barking and we’re trying to hide?”
    â€œBut I couldn’t just . . . leave it back at camp. . . . The Brown Shirts’d kill it.”
    â€œWho says we won’t?”
    June Bug placed a hand on Cat’s shoulder. “It’s all right. We can manage.”
    Cat flung off June Bug’s hand. “You all don’t get it, do you?” His piercing stare traveled to each of us. “If those soldiers catch us, we’re dead. You saw what Westbrook did to me. And even if we do manage to escape, we still have to figure out some way to eat. There’s barely enough food to last us a couple of days.”
    Cat’s gaze returned to Four Fingers. “If that thing makes a sound when we don’t want it to—even a peep—it’s gone. Are we clear?”
    Everyone nodded. Cat mounted his horse and spurred it into action. A part of me wanted to help Four Fingers, to say something comforting. But I didn’t. Chalk it up to theK2 Effect. Safer just to keep my distance.
    â€œBet you can’t guess how I got my name,” K2 said to me that day.
    It was four years earlier—the day I first met him.
    I was eating by myself, my face buried in a book, and this hulking LT was suddenly sitting next to me. “Huh?” I said.
    â€œI said, bet you can’t guess how I got my name.”
    â€œYou’re right, ’cause I don’t even know who you are.” I’d seen him around camp, of course—how could you miss someone who stood a good half foot taller than the rest of us?—but I’d never had reason to talk to him.
    â€œI’m K2. And you’re Book.”
    â€œHow’d you know—”
    â€œSo how do you think I got my name?”
    My eyes did a sweep of him—of his massive frame and his smallish head.
    â€œK2’s the second highest mountain in the world,” I said. “After Mount Everest, of course. Way over on the other side of the world. It’s also called Savage Mountain because back in pre-Omega days so many people died trying to climb