He was close…Maybe if she darted out and stung him before the other Smokies loosed their arrows. After all, they were just uglies, cocky randoms who no longer had the advantage of surprise.

Tally gave her stinger ring a twist, flipping out a freshly charged needle. "Shay where is he?" she whispered.

"Twelve meters from you." The words were carried on the slightest breath. "Kneeling, looking at the ground."

Even from a standstill, Tally could run twelve meters in a few seconds…Would she be too fast a target for the other Smokies to hit?

"Bad news," Shay breathed. "He's found Tachs's board."

Tally's teeth closed on her lower lip, realizing what the ambush was all about: The Smokies wanted to get hold of a Special Circumstances hoverboard.

"Get ready," Shay said. "I'm headed back toward you." In the distance her glowing form flickered between two trees, brilliantly obvious but too fast and far away to be caught by anything as slow as an arrow.

Tally forced her eyes closed again, listening hard. She heard more footsteps, louder and clumsier than David's— the fifth Smokey searching for another of the Cutters' boards.

It was time to make her move. She opened her eyes…

A sickening sound rumbled through the forest: the lifting fans of a hoverboard starting up, spitting out chopped-up twigs and pine needles.

"Stop him!" Shay hissed.

Tally was already in motion, streaking toward the noise, realizing with a sick feeling that the lifting fans were loud enough to drown out the snap of bowstrings. The board rose before her, a hot-yellow figure on it sagging in the arms of a black silhouette. "He's taking Tachs!" she shouted. Two more steps and she could jump…"Tally, duck!"

She dived for the ground, an arrow's feathers skimming past one shoulder as she twisted through the air, the sizzle of its electric charge raising the hairs on her scalp. Another shot past as Tally rolled to her feet, blindly hoping that more weren't on the way.