Chey would have thought it was impossible to run. Her ankle was sprained at the very least and all the hobbling around she’d done in the forest had bruised her swollen leg. Yet when the option was decapitation she found she could run just fine.

Oh, it hurt. Every bone in her leg vibrated with the pain, but adrenaline or endorphins or some blessed chemical in her bloodstream kept her moving.

She dashed between the two sheds at the side of the cabin, her hand slapping the ancient wood of one of them, and caromed into the forest. The trees accepted her without comment as she weaved between their trunks, her feet digging into the carpet of pine needles. She leapt over a deadfall of grey branches as thick as her wrists and came down on the other side on top of a mass of puffballs that exploded in yellow spores. Silently she cursed herself. Any good tracker would see the broken fungi and know she had passed that way. She had reason to think Powell was an excellent tracker.

Could she outrun him? She doubted it. With every step her leg hurt less—perhaps the unwanted exercise was pumping fluid out of her swollen tissues. Still. He was a monster. He would be faster than her, and much, much stronger. He was also sneakier. She’d been on her guard when Dzo brought her to the house, ready, she had thought, for anything. Powell had crept up behind her without even trying.

She dashed around a stand of black spruce that grew so close together it looked like a palisade wall, the trunks nearly touching one another. She grabbed the cell phone out of her pocket and looked at the screen. No service, of course. Nothing new there. She popped open the battery cover, however, and flicked a tiny switch. The screen lit up a little brighter and displayed the message:

The phone wasn’t meant for this purpose. She wasn’t supposed to use precious battery time just to call for help. She didn’t have a choice.

“Come on, come on,” she begged, as a tiny cartoon radar dish on the screen turned back and forth. She shook the phone in her hand as if that might help.

The rusted head of the axe bit into a tree trunk near her face with a resonant THOCK. She froze in place, unable to move, unable to think. The tree vibrated with the noise and the impact. A beetle lifted into the air with an angry buzz, clearly disturbed by the shaking of the branches.

“You don’t understand,” Powell said, pulling his axe free from the tree trunk with a grunt. “It has to be this way.”

Chey sucked breath into her lungs and visualized punching a spot ten centimeters behind him, just as she'd been taught. Her fist collided with his stomach and he gasped in surprise. She jumped up and ran again, ran without worrying about what direction she was headed or where she might end up. Her legs did what they needed to do. Oxygen cycled into her lungs and carbon dioxide cycled out. She was a machine and she was functioning properly. With one hand she shoved the phone back into her pocket, knowing it couldn’t help her anymore. The only thing that could save her was herself.

A blue-headed loon yodeled overhead and pushed into the air with broad, slow wing-strokes. Chey looked up when she heard it. She imagined Powell looking up as well. It wasn’t much of a diversion but she took what she could get and swiveled on her good heel. She dashed into the woods at a ninety degree angle to the way she’d been headed. Maybe he would keep going straight and overshoot her.

Ahead she heard water bubbling over a shelf of rock. That was good too, if she could get into the water it would carry away her scent. She could follow the course of the water for a couple hundred meters, then climb back out and into the forest. It was an old trick, one foxes used instinctively when they were being chased by hounds, but she thought maybe it would work—

Powell smacked into her legs from behind, his shoulder catching the small of her back and tossing her to the ground. She hadn’t heard him at all, hadn’t been aware of him until it was far too late. She tried to roll when she hit the ground and managed to get onto her back with her legs tucked up near her stomach.

“Stop now. Don’t hit me again and I’ll make this painless,” Powell shouted at her. He sounded a little out of breath. That was what all her training had been worth. She had winded the bastard. A little. “Look,” he said, and hefted his axe. “You don’t understand. I’m trying to protect you. You and other—protect other people from—”

He couldn’t seem to finish his sentence. He reached up and wiped the cuff of his shirt sleeve across his mouth. Then he looked to the side. “Blast,” he finally said.

Chey looked over as well. She could see the brook she’d heard before, and the gap in the trees where it had worn its path over thousands of years. A bit of actual horizon showed there, a hilltop, and a smear of silver light that graced its top. That had to be the moon, she decided. Moonrise had come.

The axe fell out of Powell’s hand and thudded at her feet. No—it had fallen through his hand. His skin had turned translucent and it glowed as if lit up with moonbeams. His clothes dripped off of him and fluttered to the forest floor. She could see the bones in his fingers, the twin bones in his forearm. She could see through them. He had become as insubstantial as a ghost.

Then silver light erupted behind her eyes and she didn’t see anything more.