People emerged from inside. Two of them ran in the opposite direction, squealing happily as their laughter trailed down the street. Don’t look, she told herself. Bending her head lower, she kept her attention focused on her feet. She was so intent on getting free of this town that she wasn’t expecting it when someone grabbed hold of her arm, halting her abruptly as she was pulled sharply around.
“It is you!” a voice accused.
Aria had only a moment to get her bearings before someone seized hold of her hood and ripped it back. A sharp gasp escaped her, she scrambled to pull it back up, feeling exposed and stunned by the sudden assault. And then she saw her attacker. The girl was still grasping her arm, holding her with a bruising intensity as she glared furiously at Aria. The venom that spit from the girls blue eyes would have seemed out of place if Aria hadn’t already figured out who she was.
“Lauren,” Aria breathed horrified and staggered by the sight of the servant girl who had taken such cruel pleasure in abusing her while she’d been in the palace. Lauren was far different than Aria recalled; her blond hair had always been neatly coiffed, with every hair in place. She’d been refined and elegant in a way that only the palace servants could be. She was not so poised now. Her dress was dirty, her fingernails were broken, and there was a strange odor wafting from her. Laughter burst from the bar behind Lauren. Aria suddenly understood where the girl had come from, what the smell was, and what Lauren had been doing since Braith had banished her from the palace.
“I knew it was you,” Lauren sneered, her pretty face twisting with disgust as her hand squeezed even more on Aria’s arm. Her heart was pounding, astonishment held her so riveted that she couldn’t react, not even when Lauren thrust her face into Aria’s, so close that their noses were almost touching. “I know someone looking for you, bitch.”
“What the hell?” Max, seeming to have just noticed Lauren’s appearance was coming back at them. Lauren’s eyes darted to him; amusement filled them as recognition sprang forth.
“Both of you,” she whispered excitedly.
“Who the hell are you?” William demanded.
Aria’s surprise was wearing off. She tried to pull her arm free of Lauren’s grasp but the girl clung like a burr. Lauren was trying to haul her toward the bar, pulling sharply on her arm. “Let go of me!” Aria snapped, as anger completely replaced any shock she felt.
“Get your hands off of her!” William was beside her, Max had circled behind Lauren, blocking her pathway to the tavern. Daniel seemed confused as if it hadn’t quite penetrated his artist induced haze that something wasn’t right.
Lauren was brought up short as she bumped into Max, her fingers twisted painfully on Aria’s arm as she pinched her skin. Panic flashed briefly across Lauren’s pretty face as Max’s hands fell onto her shoulders. Seeming to realize she was cornered, she began to yell. “Guards! Guards!”
Terror filled Aria, reacting on instinct alone she fisted her hand and drove it straight into Lauren’s nose. It was something she’d itched to do since she’d been a prisoner, but she felt no satisfaction as blood spurted forth and the girl groaned in pain. She finally released Aria as her hands flew to her brutalized nose and she staggered back.
“Run!” Aria shouted as Lauren began to wail loudly for the guards.
She bolted down the road, shedding the cumbersome cloak as she ran. Shouts echoed behind them but she didn’t dare look back as they rounded a curve in the road. Her eyes darted over the tops of the houses, the roofs were pitched, steep, and slippery from the rain. She thought she might be able to navigate a few of them, but none of them in succession, and there was a good possibility she would fall from the slippery tops. If she didn’t kill herself, she would at the very least break something.
It was a mess, it was all a mess. The muddy road hindered their progress. It tired them out quickly and made it difficult to get any real speed up. There was still too far to go, they would never reach the safety of the woods if they didn’t do something. She’d promised Braith she wouldn’t do anything stupid, but she’d never expected that they would be discovered.
She broke away from the others, racing toward the porch of a small house that would be easy to scale. “Aria!” Daniel barked.
“Keep going!” she yelled at him.
She ignored him as she leapt onto the banister and seized hold of the porch roof. Her fingers scrambled for purchase on the slippery shingles but she was able to get enough of a hold to lift herself onto the roof. Without the added burden of her cloak she was able to pull her bow and arrows swiftly from her back. The guards were closer than she had realized and there were more of them than she had expected. Her heart sank.
Lifting the bow, she had no time to take aim as she began to rapidly fire arrows at the rushing group. Some of the arrows hit their marks, others missed completely, and still more were dodged. Some of the guards fell back from their injuries, but most kept on coming.
Aria grabbed her bow and quiver and tossed them onto her back as she leapt to her feet and ran. She didn’t attempt to jump onto the next porch roof, she would never make it. Instead, she leapt from the roof. Her legs scissored in the air before her feet connected with solid ground again. She leapt back up and took off down the road. She rounded a corner to find that William and Daniel had taken up shooters stances on either side of the road. Max was further down, his bow lifted as he prepared for the guards.
She heard the twang of her brother’s strings seconds before Max started to fire. “Run Aria!” he yelled at her. She bolted past him, racing another fifty feet down the road before taking up position behind a water barrel that was over flowing with fresh rain. She grabbed her bow and arrow, steadying herself as she set up to take aim at the creatures hunting them. If they could keep this up, if their arrows held up, they may be able to escape this town intact.