“I’ve been too scared,” he said sheepishly.
“So what’s changed?”
“You’re with me,” he smiled. Without saying another word, Sam turned and began climbing. I watched Sam shin his way up the trunk of the tree, then like a monkey, he took hold of the nearest branch and swung himself up. I glanced back at the school to make sure that we weren’t being watched. Through the shrubs and trees, I could just make out the search towers and the black outline of the school turrets that corkscrewed up into the morning winter sky.
“Are you coming or what?” Sam said from above.
Looking up, I could see him inching his way across the branch that draped over the top of the wall like a broken arm. I ran to the foot of the tree and began to climb. Hoisting my way up into the branches, I made my way towards my friend. By the time I’d reached the branch, Sam was crouched on top of the wall. Clenching my teeth, I placed one hand in front of the other and crawled across the branch.
Flying would have been so much easier, I secretly thought.
Halfway across, the branch began to sway, then creak. I stopped and gripped the branch until my knuckles were gleaming white through my skin.
“What you waiting for?” Sam hissed, balancing on top of the wall.
I looked down, and the ground seemed miles away. “The branch is gonna break!” I said through gritted teeth.
“If you stopped swinging on the thing like some demented monkey, then you might get across without it snapping. Now quit messing about and get over here!” Sam moaned.
Closing my eyes, I crawled the last few feet, using my hands to feel my way across the branch. Then, just as I reached the end of it, Sam leapt into the field on the other side of the wall. I peered over the edge and could see him waving up at me, a huge grin nearly cutting the lower half of his face in two.
“C’mon! Jump, Kayla!” Sam said.
Shutting my eyes, I threw myself from the branch. I hit the ground and rolled onto my back. Air belched from my lungs and up my throat. Sam stood above me, his hand outstretched.
“C’mon, this way!” Sam said, pulling me to my feet. Then, holding hands, we charged across the field and headed towards a large wooded area in the distance.
Chapter Thirty-Two
We raced across the field, tiny white plumes of breath escaping from Sam’s mouth and floating like tiny clouds up in to the cold sky. As we neared the woods, Sam let go of my hand and disappeared amongst the trees.
I left the field and darted after him. The woods were dark, and slanted shafts of grey light cut through the branches overhead and formed patterns on the leaf-covered ground. The woods were quiet and the trees stood close together, twisted and moss-covered. The only sound was the branches creaking above and the odd flutter of wings, as birds swooped between the trees. There was an oppressive atmosphere inside the woods and I began to feel claustrophobic. I looked between the trees for Sam, and called out.
“Sam? Sam? Where are you?”
Silence.
I went further into the woods, the sound of twigs breaking beneath my shoes.
“Sam, are you there?”
Silence.
What was he playing at? I wondered.
“Sam, if this is your idea of a — ”
But before I’d had a chance to finish, something had clattered into me from behind, knocking me from my feet and sending me sprawling onto the ground.
“Gotchya!” Sam grinned, standing over me.
I rolled over and looked up at him.
Laughing, Sam said, “You’ve got that look on your face again!”
“What look?” I groaned, brushing damp leaves and fern needles from my blazer.
“Like you’re gonna shit in your pants!” Sam laughed.
“You dickhead,” I moaned, getting to my feet.
Holding his sides, Sam continued to laugh, tears welling in his eyes as he watched me pluck twigs and leaves from my hair.
“Ha-Ha, how very amusing!” I said. “I nearly wet myself, thanks to you!”
“Don’t…please…stop…please…” Sam said through his tears.
I glared at him and said, “Freaking jerk.”
“Oh c’mon, Kayla, I was just trying to have some fun with you,” he said. “We could both do with having some laughs.”
Then, seeing the funny side of what had happened, I began to laugh too. It felt good to be laughing again. We stood spraying laughter into the quietness of the woods — sounding like a couple of honking donkeys. But it wasn’t just the laughter that felt so good — it was being out of Ravenwood. It felt fantastic.
It was freedom!
Giggling like a couple of little kids, Sam led me deeper into the woods. The further we went, the darker it grew, as if the light filtering through the branches was being turned down with a dimmer switch. And although it was January, the air inside the wood felt warm and clammy. Sam loosened his tie and opened his shirt at the throat.
“How come you know these woods?” I asked him.
“I grew up in this area. I used to come down to the woods with my mate, John. We made a camp in some bushes over there somewhere,” Sam said, pointing in the direction of a thick shrubby area that sat on the bank of a bubbling stream.
“Who is John?” I asked.
“You mean, who was John.”
“What’s that s’posed to mean?”
“I knew John all my life. When the wolves came to Wood Hill and we became prisoners at Ravenwood, it didn’t seem so bad because I had John with me. We used to share a room. He was my best mate. But he got chosen for matching within a few weeks, and I’ve not seen him since,” Sam said.
“Where do you think he is now?”
“Dunno,” Sam shrugged. “He went into that old chapel and that was it. I’ve heard that you never know if you’re going to the chapel to be matched or released.”
“But if you were going to be released, why go to the chapel?” I asked him.
“Either way, McCain throws a party in there,” Sam explained. “The party is meant to celebrate your freedom or your matching.”
“It sounds a bit sick to me,” I said. “How can anyone celebrate being matched with a werewolf — Skin-walker?”
“I don’t think it’s the humans that are celebrating — it’s the wolves,” he said. “After all, they’ve got a lot to celebrate. They’ve just got themselves a human skin to walk around in.”
We walked in silence, ducking low-hanging branches and climbing over fallen tree trunks. Sam wiped his face with the back of his hand, his damp black hair sticking to his forehead in dark lines. I felt as if there was something on the tip of his tongue but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it. Glancing at Sam, I said, “What are you thinking?”
Sam looked over his shoulder as if someone might be listening. Then, in a voice just above a whisper, he said, “We don’t have to stay at Ravenwood, we could run away. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”
To hear this upset me, because if I was in his position, I would’ve wanted to run away, too. But I wasn’t in the same situation as him. I wouldn’t be around for any matching ceremony. I would be gone as soon as we had the evidence against McCain. I would be leaving Sam behind. It hurt me to say what I said next, I felt like I was cheating him in some way, and I hated myself for it.
“Sam, I understand what you’re saying, but you need to get those crazy thoughts out of your head.”
“How come?” Sam asked, looking confused. “I thought you would feel the same. I thought we could escape together.”
“Okay, so we escape, but where we gonna go? We can’t go back to friends and family because that’s the first place the wolves would come looking. We’ve got no money. We’d probably last for a couple of days until the wolves caught up with us. Then what? They’d bring us straight back here!” I said.
“But we could tell the police what it’s like here, all the weird things that go on,” Sam insisted, and I could tell that Sam was desperate for me to go along with his plan — but it wasn’t my plan.