Shattered by Sophia Sharp Page A

a single window letting in the outside light. The wal s and ceiling were both made of wooden planks, but they were heavy with age. The room was completely barren. Mildew grew thick on the wal s, and the floor she was lying on was dirty. Heavy dust fil ed the air, causing her to cough.
    “Where are we?” she managed eventual y.
    “An old grain mil ,” Logan said. Laura noticed a closed door in one of the wal s. “Nobody comes here anymore, and I thought it’d be a good place to regroup.”
    Laura stood up, eyeing Logan warily. “How come you didn’t tel me we were coming here?”
    “You passed out before I had the chance. I carried you here from the car.”
    “You carried me? How far away are we?”
    “An hour from the road. Nobody should bother us here for some time. We should have tonight, at least, before we need to move on.”
    Suddenly Laura’s ears caught the heavy clunking of machinery coming from the adjacent room. She went to the door and cautiously edged it open. And felt as if she’d stepped into the past. In a vast, largely empty room, huge spinning pul eys and belts worked overhead while metal poles positioned horizontal y rotated quickly. Gears and levers dotted the floor of the room, providing control over the machinery. Much of the metal was red with rust, but it stil moved, clanging and groaning along.
    “It’s stil running,” she marveled.
    “It never stopped,” Logan shrugged. “The river runs year-round, and as long as it spins the waterwheel, the mechanisms in here keep going.”
    “The river?”
    “Yes. You can hear it from here, can’t you?”
    Laura strained her ears. And realized she could make out the sound of rushing water nearby. Logan walked to another door, right by a window, and motioned her over. When she came, he pushed it open, revealing the outdoors.
    Beautiful vegetation surrounded them. They stood at the bottom of a narrow gorge, with a rocky slope to one side and thick forested trees on the other. Under her feet, right beneath the building, a river roared with life. The sun shone through the leaves of the forest, making shadows on the ground. It felt like they were hundreds of miles from civilization.
    “So,” Logan said once Laura turned back inside.
    “So,” Laura echoed.
    “We need to get rid of your belongings.”
    “Why?”
    “The men tracking us. They’re like me, and once they have your scent, they can track you forever. Getting rid of your belongings might make it harder for them to do it.”
    “Is that how they knew we left the school?”
    “Yes, I think. The man you saw – he knew your scent from the dream. Thankful y, amidst al the other students, you were harder to pick out. Otherwise he would have come for you right in the classroom.”
    Laura shivered. She didn’t want to imagine what would have happened then.
    “We have to change you out of your clothes as soon as possible. It might help us get a lead on them. But you have to understand Laura, they’re like hounds. No matter where we go, they’l only be a single step behind. If we ever stop, if we ever rest for more than is absolutely necessary, they’l get to us.”
    “Let’s go to the police,” she said suddenly. “They can help us.”
    Logan laughed bitterly. “The police? They can’t do anything.”
    “Why?”
    “The men after us are my kind, Laura. There’s nothing that wil stop them. If we go to the police, they’l just tear right through them before getting to us. The best thing we can do is run, and never look back.”
    “And then what?” Laura demanded. “Do you expect to just run forever?”
    “You haven’t seen what they can do,” he said quietly. “You have no idea what they’re capable of. If we run, we have a chance to get away. If we’re smart, we might be able to lose them before they can reach us. But it won’t be easy.”
    “You can fight them!” she blurted out. “I saw you fight four guys at once like it was nothing!”
    He laughed again, cruel y