The woman moved like smoke through the trees.
Matt chased her through a path darkened by the trees, his lungs burning, his legs pumping, but she was always just ahead—a flicker of movement, a rustle of leaves, a shadow that dissolved before just he could grasp it. The Harkma blood hummed in his veins, urging him forward, but the woman was faster. More elusive.
She vanished into the night.
Matt stopped at the edge of a small clearing, his breath ragged, his hand tight on the steel rod. The forest was silent and the woman was far gone.
Yvonne appeared beside him. She wasn't breathing hard. Her eyes were sharp, her posture alert, her body humming with the strength that had just returned to her.
"She's that way," Yvonne said, pointing east. "About two hundred meters. She's stopped."
Matt looked at her. "How do you know?"
