The hardest part of leaving wasn't packing the bag. It was lying to the man sitting at the kitchen table.
It was an hour past dinner. The house was quiet, save for the crackle of the hearth and the rhythmic shhh-shhh of Toren sharpening his sword. He sat in his usual chair, the whetstone gliding along the steel blade with a practiced, meditative motion.
I stood in the doorway of my bedroom, my travel pack hidden behind the doorframe. I was fully dressed in my sturdy wool trousers and tunic, my boots laced tight. I had the Heat-Stones in my pockets and the rope coiled around my waist under my shirt.
I was ready to run. But I couldn't just vanish. I needed to see him one last time.
"You're pacing, Ren," Toren said without looking up. "You've walked from the window to the door four times in the last ten minutes. What's on your mind?"
I stepped into the light. "Just thinking, Dad."
Toren stopped sharpening. He set the stone down and looked at me. His eyes were dark, tired, and full of the worry that had lived there since the day he found out I wasn't normal.
"About the boy?" Toren asked gently. "Kian?"
"Yeah," I said. It wasn't a lie. "About the Council's vote."
Toren sighed. He ran a hand through his greying hair. "Ren, you have to understand. Ironwood... he isn't evil. He's scared. He remembers the last war. He remembers what happens when the Northern Guilds get angry. He's trying to protect the village."
"He's letting a kid die," I said. My voice came out harder than I intended.
Toren flinched slightly. He picked up a rag and wiped the oil from his blade.
"Sometimes," Toren said slowly, "leaders have to make choices that feel wrong to keep people safe. It's the burden of command. You trade one life to save a hundred."
"That's bad math," I said.
Toren looked at me, a small, sad smile touching his lips. "Is it? You're good with numbers, Ren. You tell me. Is one boy worth risking the entire village? Is he worth a war?"
I looked at my father. I loved him. He was a good man. He checked the perimeter every night. He fixed the roof. He carved wooden soldiers for me when I was small.
But he was wrong.
"It's not about numbers," I said. "It's about the line. If you don't draw a line somewhere, if you don't say 'this is too far,' then you're just waiting for your turn to be the sacrifice."
Toren stared at me. For a second, I saw the recognition in his eyes—the realization that he wasn't talking to a ten-year-old boy. He was talking to someone older. Someone who had seen things.
He stood up and walked over to me. He put a heavy hand on my shoulder.
"You have a good heart, Ren," he said softly. "A fierce heart. Like your mother. But you can't save everyone. You have to learn to live with the things you can't change."
I can change this, I thought. I have the power to change this.
"I know, Dad," I lied. "I'm just... sad."
"Go to bed," Toren said, squeezing my shoulder. "Sleep it off. Tomorrow, we'll go fishing. Just us. We'll clear your head."
"Fishing," I repeated. "That sounds good."
"Goodnight, son."
"Goodnight, Dad."
I turned and walked back into my room. I closed the door until it clicked.
I leaned against the wood, listening. I heard Toren walk back to his chair. I heard the shhh-shhh of the stone start up again.
He was staying up. He was guarding the house. He was guarding me.
I went to the window. I unlatched it silently, using a shadow-tendril to catch the mechanism so it didn't click.
I looked back at my room one last time. My bed, unmade. My drawings on the wall. The life of Ren Amaki, the village boy.
I was leaving it here.
I climbed out the window and dropped into the garden. The night air hit me, cold and smelling of rain.
I didn't look back.
The rendezvous point was behind the old grain silo near the North Gate. It was a blind spot in the village patrol, a place where teenagers usually snuck away to smoke dried herbs or hold hands.
Tonight, it was a war room.
I heard them before I saw them.
"You brought a what?" Lysara's voice was a harsh whisper.
"A hammer," Kaela hissed back. "A war-hammer. From my uncle's shed."
"We are walking for three days, Kaela! Do you know how heavy iron is? You'll be dragging it by morning."
"I'm strong! And what if we fight a golem? You can't stab a golem. You have to smash it."
"We are not fighting golems. We are conducting a stealth extraction. Stealth means quiet. Hammers are loud."
"Your face is loud."
I slipped around the corner of the silo. "Both of you are loud."
They jumped. Kaela spun around, her hand going to the hilt of her sword. Lysara nearly dropped her staff.
"Ren!" Kaela breathed. "You're late. We thought you bailed."
"I had to wait for Toren to settle down," I said. I looked at Kaela.
She was geared up like she was expecting a siege. Leather armor, a buckler strapped to her back, a short sword at her hip, and yes—a massive, iron-headed war hammer leaning against the silo wall. It was almost as big as she was.
"Kaela," I said. "Lysara is right. Leave the hammer."
"But—"
"We need speed," I said. "We have to be across the river before sunrise. If you carry that, you'll slow us down. If we're slow, the Guard catches us. If the Guard catches us, Kian dies."
Kaela looked at the hammer. She looked at me. She chewed her lip.
"Fine," she grumbled. She shoved the hammer behind a stack of barrels. "But if we meet a golem, I'm going to say 'I told you so' while we're dying."
"Deal," I said. I turned to Lysara.
The Elf girl was shaking. Not visibly—she was standing perfectly still—but I could hear the rattle of her breathing. She was clutching her travel bag to her chest.
"Did you bring the maps?" I asked.
"Yes," Lysara said. Her voice was tight. "And the compass. And the nutritional paste. I calculated our caloric needs. If we ration, we have four days of food."
"Good."
"I also calculated the probability of success," Lysara added, her eyes wide and violet in the moonlight. "It is less than twelve percent, Ren. We are children. We are walking into a mining territory controlled by mercenaries. The environmental factors alone—"
"Lysara," I interrupted gently. "Look at me."
She looked at me.
"What's the probability of Kian surviving if we don't go?"
She blinked. The logic center of her brain took over. "Zero. The Council voted for non-intervention. Without external aid, his survival probability is effectively null."
"So twelve percent is infinitely better than zero," I said. "That's good math."
She stared at me for a second, then let out a shaky breath. A small smile touched her lips. "That is... acceptable math. Yes."
"Okay," Kaela whispered, bouncing on her toes. "Math time is over. Let's go."
We moved out.
We stuck to the shadows of the alleyway, moving parallel to the main road. The village was asleep, but it wasn't dead. Dogs barked in the distance. A baby cried in a nearby house.
We reached the North Wall.
It was a twelve-foot palisade of sharpened logs, intimidating enough on its own. But the real problem wasn't the wood. It was the air above it.
I stopped us twenty feet from the wall, behind a stack of hay bales.
"Wait," I signaled.
"Why?" Kaela whispered. "The gate is right there. Harek is probably asleep in the tower."
"Not the gate," I said. "The Ward."
I pointed up. "Lysara, take a look."
Lysara stepped forward. She closed her eyes for a second, centering herself, then opened them. Her violet eyes glowed faintly. She gasped.
"It's... thick," she whispered. "I didn't know it was this strong."
To normal eyes, the air above the wall was empty. To me and Lysara, it was a web of golden fire.
The "Ward" was a boundary spell maintained by the Elders. It wasn't a physical shield—it wouldn't stop an arrow or a person from passing through. It was an alarm. A "singing fence." It reacted to living things crossing the perimeter. If we climbed over, the magic would snap. A bell would ring in the Elder's Hall, and every Guard in Verdwood would be on us in five minutes.
"Can we go under it?" Kaela asked, looking at the dirt.
"It goes down six feet," Lysara said, tracing the lines in the air. "It's a sphere. A bubble."
"So we're trapped," Kaela said, her shoulders slumping. "Great rescue mission. We didn't even make it out of the yard."
"We're not trapped," I said. "We just need a door."
I walked toward the wall. "Lysara, I need you to guide me. I can see the threads, but I don't know the structure like you do. Where is the knot?"
Lysara crept up beside me. She squinted at the glowing web.
"There," she pointed to a spot about five feet up, where two major lines of magic crossed. "That's an anchor point. The mana flows from the central stone in the Hall, hits that knot, and spreads out. It's high tension."
"If I touch it, it snaps," I said.
"Yes," Lysara agreed. "It's like a tripwire. Any disruption in the flow triggers the bell."
"What if the flow doesn't stop?" I asked. "What if it just... goes somewhere else?"
Lysara looked at me. She looked at the Hollow in my chest—invisible to her eyes, but she knew it was there. She knew what I was.
"You want to eat it," she realized.
"I want to divert it," I corrected. "If I pull the mana into me at the exact same rate it's flowing through the line, the system won't register a drop in pressure. It'll just think the line got longer."
"That's..." Lysara paused, doing the mental math. "That's theoretically possible. But you'd have to match the flow perfectly. If you pull too hard, you drain the line and the alarm rings. If you don't pull hard enough, the backup current hits you and you burn."
"So don't let me mess up," I said.
I stepped up to the wall. I put my hands on the rough wood of the logs. The golden web was humming right in front of my face. It smelled like ozone and old static.
"Kaela," I whispered. "Watch the tower. If Harek moves, you signal."
"Got it," Kaela said, drawing her sword and turning her back to us.
I looked at the knot Lysara had pointed out. It was a tangle of golden light, pulsing with a steady rhythm. Thrum-thrum-thrum.
I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes. I visualized the filter Miren had taught me—the mesh net over my soul.
Then I opened the Hollow.
It was hungry. It sensed the density of the magic in front of me and lunged. I had to mentally grab it by the collar and hold it back.
Gently, I told the beast. Sip. Don't gulp.
I reached out with my hand. I held my palm inches from the knot.
Come here.
I pulled.
A wisp of golden light peeled off the main thread. It curled toward my hand, drawn by the vacuum. It touched my skin.
Heat.
It rushed up my arm. It wasn't wild like the streetlamp; it was structured. Ordered. It felt heavy, like drinking mercury.
"Steady," Lysara whispered in my ear. "The flow is increasing. You need to open wider."
I widened the intake. The stream of gold thickened. The knot in the air began to untie itself, the threads rerouting into my palm.
My arm started to shake. The energy was dense. It was filling the Hollow fast.
"Ren, your veins," Lysara hissed.
I looked down. Black lines were creeping up my wrist. The corruption from the raw mana.
"I'm fine," I gritted out. "Filtering."
I exhaled. A thin stream of grey smoke left my lips. The black lines paused, then retreated.
A hole opened in the web.
It started small, the size of a coin. As I drank more, the threads pulled back, widening the gap. Size of a fist. Size of a head. Size of a shield.
"Bigger," Lysara urged. "Kaela has armor. It needs to be wider."
I groaned. The pressure was immense. I felt like I was holding up a collapsing ceiling. The Hollow was getting full. I felt hot—feverish. My skin was flushed.
"Hurry," I gasped.
The hole was now a circle about three feet wide.
"Go!" I strained.
Lysara didn't wait. She grabbed the edge of the log wall and scrambled up. She dived through the hole in the magic, her cloak fluttering. She vanished into the darkness on the other side.
"Kaela!" I hissed.
Kaela turned. She saw the hole. She saw me shaking, sweat dripping down my face.
She sheathed her sword and ran. She vaulted up the logs, grabbed the top, and swung herself through. Her boot clipped the edge of the golden light.
ZZZT.
The web vibrated. The alarm hummed—a low note, threatening to rise to a scream.
"Stabilize!" Lysara whispered from the other side.
I clamped down on the Hollow, sucking harder to absorb the shockwave Kaela had caused. I drank the vibration. It tasted sour, like spoiled milk.
The hum died down.
Now it was just me.
I was the doorstop. I was holding the breach open. If I let go before I jumped, the web would snap shut. If I jumped while pulling, I might break the connection and trigger the alarm anyway.
I had to be the arrow and the bow.
"Ren!" Kaela's voice came from the darkness. "Jump!"
I crouched. My legs were burning with the excess energy I had stored.
One. Two.
I cut the feed.
The web snapped back instantly.
In that fraction of a second between the cut and the snap, I launched myself.
I didn't climb. I exploded upward. My enhanced legs, fueled by the stolen ward-magic, fired like pistons.
I shot through the closing hole. I felt the static electricity brush my ears as the golden threads slammed back together behind me.
I cleared the wall.
I hit the ground on the other side hard. I rolled, tumbling through dead leaves and mud, coming to a stop at the base of a pine tree.
I lay there, gasping. My heart was thundering in my ears.
I waited for the bells. I waited for the shout of the guards.
Silence.
Just the wind in the trees and the chirping of crickets.
The Ward hummed peacefully above us, unbroken.
"You did it," Kaela whispered. She crawled over to me, grabbing my shoulder. "Ren, you crazy idiot, you did it."
I sat up. I wiped the sweat from my eyes. My hands were glowing faintly in the dark—the residual energy bleeding off.
"I'm full," I murmured. "I feel... buzzed."
Lysara stepped out of the shadows. She looked at the wall, then at me.
"That was thermodynamically impossible," she said, her voice full of awe. "You acted as a biological capacitor. You held the charge of a village-grade ward in your body."
"Did it work?" I asked.
"We are outside," she said.
I stood up. I looked back at the wall. From this side, the village looked like a fortress. Impenetrable. Distant.
I looked forward.
The Deep Woods stretched out ahead of us. The trees were massive here, their branches interlocking to block out the stars. The darkness was absolute. It smelled of wet rot, old pine, and something wild.
This wasn't the play-forest where we hunted rabbits. This was the wild. The place where monsters lived.
And now, we were in it.
"Which way?" Kaela asked. She had her sword out again, but she was standing close to me.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the compass Toren had given me. I flipped it open. The needle spun, then settled.
"North," I said. "Toward the mountains."
"It's dark," Lysara said. "We can't see the trail."
I held up my hand. It was still glowing with the stolen light of the ward. A soft, silver-gold radiance that illuminated the trees around us.
"I can see," I said.
I looked at them. Kaela, fierce and ready. Lysara, smart and terrified.
"We stick together," I said. "Kaela takes point. Lysara in the middle. I take the rear. We don't stop until sunrise."
"Why?" Kaela asked.
"Because Toren checks my room at dawn," I said. The guilt twisted in my gut, but I pushed it down. "By the time he finds the empty bed, we need to be across the river."
"Let's move," Kaela said.
We started walking.
The ground was uneven, tangled with roots that tried to trip us. The air was cold. But I was warm. The magic I had stolen kept the chill away.
As we walked away from the w
The rendezvous point was behind the old grain silo near the North Gate. It was a blind spot in the village patrol, a wedge of shadow between the rounded stone of the silo and the wooden fence of the tanner's yard. It smelled faintly of cured leather and old wheat.
I was the last to arrive.
I moved through the village like a ghost, sticking to the soft earth of the garden paths to silence my boots. The moon was high and bright, a traitor's moon that cast long, sharp shadows. Every time a dog barked in the distance, I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I wasn't just sneaking out to play. I was leaving. I was defecting. The weight of Toren's hunting knife at my belt felt heavier than the iron blade should have been. It felt like I had stolen it, even though he had given it to me.
I slipped around the curve of the silo and into the darkness.
"You're late," a voice hissed.
Kaela stepped out from behind a stack of empty barrels. She looked like a small, angry turtle. She was wearing a thick leather jerkin over a wool tunic, and she had strapped her round buckler shield to her back. A short sword hung at her hip.
But it was what she was holding in her hands that made me stop dead.
"Is that... a hammer?" I asked, keeping my voice to a whisper.
Kaela grinned, hefting a massive, iron-headed war hammer. The handle was as long as her arm, and the head looked like a solid block of steel. It was a weapon meant for smashing fortress gates, not hiking.
"Found it in my uncle's shed," she whispered proudly. "Good for smashing golems. Or bears. If we see another bear, I'm going to flatten it."
"Kaela," I groaned, rubbing my temples. "We are walking for three days. Through mud. Uphill. In the rain."
"So?"
"So that thing weighs twenty pounds," I said. "Put it back."
"No way," she argued, hugging the hammer to her chest. "It's my primary weapon. Swords are for poking. Hammers are for solving problems. Big problems."
"It's loud," another voice cut in.
Lysara stepped out of the shadows. The Elf girl looked miserable already. She was wearing a grey cloak that was too big for her, the hood pulled low over her pointed ears. She was clutching her staff like a lifeline. Her travel bag was bulging, the seams threatening to burst.
"Kaela is right," I said, surprising them both. "If we fight a golem, a hammer is good."
Kaela smirked at Lysara. "See? The expert agrees."
"But," I continued, turning to Lysara and pointing at her bag. "Lysara, what is in there?"
"Essentials," Lysara said defensively, shifting the weight on her shoulder. "Maps. Compass. Nutrient paste. Water skins."
"And?"
She shuffled her feet in the dirt. "And... reference materials. The Flora of the North. Geology of the Rift. Principles of Magic Flow, Volume 4."
I sighed. "Books. You brought books."
"Knowledge is a weapon, Ren," she recited, quoting one of the Elders. "We are going into unknown territory. We need data."
"Paper is heavy," I countered. "And it drinks water. And we are going to be wet for three days. If those books get soaked, you're carrying five pounds of wet mush."
I walked over to them. I felt older than ten. I felt like a general trying to organize an army of cats.
"Listen to me," I said, keeping my voice low and hard. "We aren't going to war. We are going on a rescue mission. Speed is life. If you're tired from carrying iron, you can't fight. If you're slow because your bag is full of paper, the Guard catches us. If the Guard catches us, Kian dies."
I looked at Kaela.
"Lose the hammer," I ordered. "Bring the short sword and your knife. If we need a hammer, I'll find you a rock."
Kaela opened her mouth to argue, saw the look on my face, and closed it. She looked at the hammer, then at me. She sighed, a long, tragic sound, and leaned the heavy weapon against the silo wall.
"Fine," she grumbled. "But if a golem eats me, I'm going to haunt you."
"Deal," I said. I turned to Lysara. "Lysara, one book. Choose your favorite. The rest stays here."
"But the geological strat—"
"One book," I said firmly. "We need room for food. I only managed to get dried apples and jerky. We need meals, not history."
Lysara looked at her bag. She looked at me. She started to unpack, stacking heavy leather-bound tomes on a barrel with a mournful expression. She kept one thin journal bound in oilcloth.
"Fine," she whispered. "But if we get lost because I don't know the rock formations, I will be very cross."
"I'll take the risk," I said.
I looked at them. My team. Kaela, bouncing on her toes, hiding her fear with aggression. Lysara, calculating the odds and finding them terrible.
"Are we ready?" I asked.
"Born ready," Kaela said, adjusting her sword belt.
"Statistically unlikely," Lysara muttered. "But prepared."
"Then let's go," I said. "We have to be across the river before sunrise. Once the sun hits the mountain, Toren checks my room."
We moved out of the silo's shadow and crept toward the North Wall.
The village of Verdwood was fenced by a twelve-foot palisade of sharpened logs. It was designed to keep wolves and bandits out. It was sturdy, imposing, and completely unclimbable from the outside. From the inside, however, the support beams made a decent ladder.
But the physical wall wasn't the problem.
The problem was the Ward.
I stopped us twenty feet from the wall, crouching behind a hay wagon that smelled of wet straw.
"We can't just climb over," I whispered. "The singing fence."
The Ward was a magical alarm system maintained by the Elders. It wasn't a shield—it wouldn't stop an arrow or a person from passing through. It was a tripwire. A web of mana strung between the logs that vibrated if a living thing crossed it without a token.
If we touched it, a bell would ring in the Elder's Hall loud enough to wake the dead. And Old Harek, the night watchman, would be on us in seconds.
"I can disable it," Lysara whispered, staring up at the empty air above the logs. "I know the theory. I just need to find the anchor rune and unravel the knot."
"How long?" I asked.
"Ten minutes? Fifteen?"
"Too long," Kaela hissed. She pointed at the guard tower fifty yards away. "Harek walks the wall every ten minutes. He's at the west corner now. He'll be back before you finish untying the knot."
I looked at the wall. I pushed mana into my eyes, activating my Sight.
The world shifted. The darkness receded, replaced by the glowing wireframe of magic.
I saw the Ward. It was a shimmering net of golden light hanging in the air above the logs, pulsing with a slow, steady heartbeat. Thrum... thrum... thrum.
It was beautiful work. Complex geometry. Loops feeding into loops, creating a continuous circuit.
Lysara wanted to untie it. That was the smart way. The mage way.
But I wasn't a mage. I was a sinkhole.
"I'll handle it," I said.
"Ren," Lysara warned, gripping my arm. "If you break it, the alarm trips. It's a tension field. If the line snaps, the bell rings."
"I'm not going to break it," I said, standing up. "I'm going to eat a hole in it."
"That's... that shouldn't work," Lysara whispered. "The flow is too strong. You'll burn up."
"Watch me."
I ran to the wall. I scrambled up a diagonal support beam, digging my boots into the wood. I stopped just below the top of the logs.
The golden net was right in front of my face, humming with power. It smelled like ozone and burnt sugar. It was thick, heavy magic.
I took a deep breath.
I found the Hollow in my chest. It was purring. It sensed the massive energy source inches away. It was like standing next to a bonfire on a freezing night.
Open the gate, I commanded.
I reached out my hand. I didn't touch the net. I held my palm an inch away from the glowing threads.
Come here.
I pulled.
I didn't pull the string; I pulled the heat inside the string.
The golden light wavered. It bent toward my hand, drawn by the pull of the Hollow.
It hit my skin.
Pain.
Pure, condensed mana rushed up my arm. It slammed into the Hollow. It wasn't like the trickle from Kaela's hand or the ambient warmth of a fire. This was a flood.
My arm seized up. Muscles locked. Black veins shot up my wrist, pulsing dark against the gold light.
"Ren!" Lysara hissed from below.
"I've got it," I gritted out through clenched teeth.
I forced the filter into place. I imagined a sieve in my mind. I caught the "sludge"—the raw, static noise of the spell—and pushed the pure heat into my battery.
A hole opened in the net.
The threads didn't snap; they just... dimmed. They faded out in a circle around my hand, the energy siphoned away before it could complete the circuit.
The alarm didn't ring because the circuit wasn't broken; it was just... emptying into me. The magic thought it was still flowing, but it was flowing into a bottomless pit.
I widened the pull. The hole grew. Size of a head. Size of a shield. Size of a person.
"Go!" I strained, my voice tight. "Climb!"
Kaela went first. She scrambled up the logs, nimble as a cat. She stepped onto my shoulder—using me as a ladder—and dived through the hole in the air. She landed on the soft grass outside the wall with a thump.
"Clear!" she whispered.
"Lysara!"
Lysara climbed up. She wasn't as graceful. She struggled with the footing, slipping once. I grabbed her cloak and hauled her up to the beam.
She looked at the hole in the magic, her eyes wide with horror and fascination. She looked at my hand, glowing with stolen light.
"You're holding a storm in a cup," she murmured. "That's impossible."
"Go," I gasped. "Can't hold it."
She slipped through the gap, dropping to the other side.
Now me.
I was the doorstop. If I stopped pulling, the net would snap back. If I jumped, I would break the connection.
I had to be fast.
I crouched on the beam. My legs were burning with the excess energy I was holding. I felt like a coiled spring. The Hollow was full to bursting.
One. Two.
I cut the feed.
The web snapped back instantly, faster than a whip.
But I was already moving.
I launched myself upward. My enhanced legs, fueled by the stolen ward-magic, fired like cannons. I shot through the closing hole like a bullet.
I felt the static brush my ears as the net slammed shut behind me. ZZZT.
I hit the ground on the outside. I rolled, tumbling through the wet grass, coming to a stop next to Kaela.
Silence.
No bells. No shouts. The Ward hummed peacefully above us, unbroken.
I lay on my back, breathing hard. My hand was smoking slightly. The black veins on my arm were fading, sinking back under the skin.
"You okay?" Kaela asked, crawling over to me.
"Full," I wheezed. "Buzzing."
I sat up. I looked back at the wall.
From the inside, the wall had felt like safety. From out here, it looked like a prison we had just escaped.
The Deep Woods stretched out ahead of us, dark and endless. The trees were massive sentinels blocking the stars. The air smelled different here—wilder, colder, smelling of rot and pine needles.
"Which way?" Kaela asked, drawing her sword. She stood with her back to the wall, facing the dark.
I pulled out the compass Toren had given me—the one I had stolen from his desk. I flipped it open. The needle spun, then settled.
"North," I said. "Three days."
I stood up. I adjusted the heavy bag on my shoulder. I felt the weight of Toren's knife at my belt.
I wasn't Ren the village boy anymore. I was Ren the Runaway. Ren the Breaker of Wards.
"Let's move," I said. "Before Harek wakes up and checks the perimeter."
We walked into the dark, leaving the only home we had ever known behind us.
The logistics were settled. The bag was packed. The lie was told.
all, the silence of the woods pressed in. It felt like the forest was watching us. Judging us.
I touched the obsidian bird in my pocket.
I'm sorry, Dad, I thought. I'm sorry, Mom. But I have to finish the work.
We walked into the dark, leaving the safety of childhood behind with every step.
We were runaways now. We were a team.