Instinct Ascending: Rabids Book 2 by Amy Cook

an effort to shield the ragged breaths that sounded unjustly loud in her ears. Go or stay, go or stay? Did she dare try to move? She rolled the deliberation about in her mind, hoping Jaron would give her more advice.
    He stayed frustratingly silent, as did the internal voice of warning. Squeezing her eyes shut and breathing out a quietly pained breath, Amiel shifted to move onward. Five steps into her escape, the grate below her feet protested. She froze, huddling down on herself and waiting as the flash lights suddenly whisked upward.
    “How about up there?”
    “Up there? You’re kidding, right?”
    “Why not?”
    “It’s too high! No one could make it up there.”
    “ It could. Look, that’s gotta be blood on that windowsill,” the man argued stubbornly. Amiel squeezed her eyes shut, her body quaking from the cold and fear.
    “That might be blood. Or it might just be the same grimy sludge the rest of this putrid alley is covered in,” the first man replied in a snarky, bored tone.
    “I’ve seen them jump that high before.”
    “Duane, you got no proof she was one of them.”
    “I didn’t see a tattoo,” a timid third voice added to the conversation. Amiel wondered just how many of them were down there, masked in the shadows, and how many had guns. Mostly she wondered how long this fire escape would continue to hold her weight.
    “She took down five of them!”
    “We didn’t see it,” the third man replied quietly.
    “Yeah. That’s right. None of us saw it but you, Duane. That’s not proof.”
    “I seen what I seen! No one can fight Rabids like that and not be one of them !” Duane spit on the ground in disgust. Sudden recognition floored Amiel. Duane! The Cutthroat that had tried to rape and/or kill her the night she met Harley. Oh, this was not going to end well.  If the thug got his hands on her, Amiel had no doubt as to the outcome of her well-being this time around. And if Harley got ahold of Duane? Well, she had no doubts as to how that would end, either.
    “If she took down five of them, why would she be running from us ?”
    “I don’t know,” Duane grumbled. “But, look at all this blood. Obviously it got hurt when I hit it with the bus. Maybe it’s too hurt to fight back.”
    “Yeah, okay, whatever. Look, they only put bars on the second floor and up. If Rabids couldn’t jump that high, neither could a Halfer.”
    “Where else could it go, Drake!” Duane shouted wildly. “Like you said, it’s a dead end and there’s nowhere else it coulda gone. If a Halfer and Rabid couldn’t jump that high, a Clean wouldn’t be able to, either! So, where is it? Besides, look at the damned dogs. They smell it everywhere.  It was here!”
    “Fine, if you can make it up there, be my guest — go find it.”
    “I ain’t climbing that thing. There’s got to be a door around here somewhere. We break it down, me and the dogs head up while you three stay down here.”
    Amiel winced again. She hadn’t thought about a door. It was more than likely barricaded somehow, but if they made it through, she would be a sitting duck stuck between two sets of enemies.
    “Fine, let’s find a freakin’ door, then,” the first man grumbled. The flashlights swept over the walls of the alleys, searching for a way in, and Amiel took her chance. Moving as quietly as she could, she scaled the last bits of fire escape, breathing a slight sigh of relief when she touched foot on the graveled rooftop without alerting those below. Squinting into the dark, Amiel found her target. The neighboring rooftop looked to be the same distance away as the fire escape had been. If she did it once, she could do it again. She hoped. Excited shouts met her ears below. They’d found a way in.
    Gritting her teeth, Amiel sprinted across the rooftop, pushing off at the last minute. Soaring through the air for the third time that night, she touched down inches from missing the ledge. Lurching forward, she rolled several feet before