Red Hood's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

Red Hood followed the bright stickers past the last of the town's lights and into open ground. The trail led him to a low ridge, where the paper crumbs stopped at the foot of a tall, jagged rock. Its edges caught the moon and threw long shadows that shifted with each step. He slowed, listening. A whimper cut the dark. Not the girl he had already saved. Another child, small and thin, crouched behind the rock with her back to the stone. She clutched a torn sleeve to her mouth. Her eyes went wide when she saw him. A growl answered from the brush. Then another. Six stray dogs slid into view, ribs sharp under matted fur, teeth bared. They fanned out around the child. The lead dog lowered its head and stepped forward. Red Hood moved between the pack and the girl. "Stay behind the rock," he said. He did not look back. He drew a short blade and set his feet. The lead dog lunged. Red Hood caught it mid-air with his forearm and drove it hard into the stone. It dropped and did not rise. A second dog snapped at his leg. He kicked it off and slashed once, clean. The rest circled, faster now, testing him from three sides. He grabbed a loose rock and hurled it. One dog yelped and broke away. He swept the blade in a low arc and drove the pack back a step. Then he shouted, sharp and full, and charged them. The remaining dogs scattered into the dark. He knelt by the child. Her hands shook. He pressed a warm stone into her palm, the same kind he had given the first girl. "Hold this. Do not let go." She nodded. He lifted her onto his hip. She weighed almost nothing. He scanned the ground. More stickers led on, past the rock, toward the black mouth of a cave set into the hillside. Vines framed the opening. Beyond the arch, the dark went deep and cold. A faint sound came from inside — a man's voice, low, giving orders to someone else. Red Hood's jaw tightened. The kidnapper in the warehouse had not been working alone. This was where the second set of prints had led. This was where more children had been taken. He could not carry the girl into that dark. He could not leave her here alone either. He looked back the way he had come, toward the stone fort where the first child waited. Then he looked at the cave. He turned from the cave and started back, the girl held tight against his chest. The voice inside the hill would keep. He had one child safe in his arms and one more to reach. The cave, and whoever spoke inside it, would still be there when he came back armed and ready.