I sipped the miniature jet pack in the concealed pocket in my vest where one of the daggers I had used earlier used to reside. From here I had to cross the thicket and enter the second attic of the third house to my right.

Two of my foster siblings had agreed to meet there if they managed to succeed in their own High Breaks, and then we were going to decide our route from there.

Leo, a wildcat with a flare for the theatrics, had prepacked fireworks into his vest while Nelson, one of our few pure human foster siblings, was going for a more sleuth approach with corrosive potions and fart bombs up his sleeves.

Neither of these would matter if they didn’t make it out, however, I hoped they did. We had been planning our escape for the last eight to ten years, it would suck if any of us got left behind.

I froze. I heard rustling from behind me and as I huddled close to the tree, three assassins burst through the undergrowth and rushed past me.

It made me sick to my stomach to see them in official Knight attire. Each and every one of them had sworn an oath to protect and care for all, young and old, and yet outside of the High Council’s scrutiny, they were just a bunch of bandits, using their power and position to deceive, loot and kill as they pleased. I never wanted to become like them.

One of them stopped and looked around.

“Kailen, do you hear something?” The assassin asked, a hand on her pistol at her side.

The other two assassins came over, one of them pulling off their knight’s helmet to reveal a young man in his late twenties, with a scar on his face and slanted eyes. I could see gills on the side of his neck, meaning he must be a reptilian hybrid.

A forked tongue licked the air, and I tucked my hands and feet under my body, rubbing my flesh into the tree bark until it hurt. The best way to get rid of my smell was to cover it with another living being’s scent.

Reptiles had very sensitive tongues and could taste different elements in the atmosphere, making them even better trackers than dogs or werewolves.

“She came through her commander, but I can’t determine where she went, the trail has stopped here,” Reptilian Knight said, then replaced his helmet.

“Wait, what’s that?” The other assassin said and grabbed a fuzzy-looking tufted from the ground “ Moth feathers. She must have met up with an accomplice and flown out of here!” The assassin exclaimed and thrust the tufted into Commander Kailan’s hand.

Kailand examined the tufted and then swore. She discarded the tufted, took out her walkie-talkie and radioed in.

“First commander to Wall Troops, incoming Butterfly Princess. I repeat incoming Butterfly Princess” she said and the three of them sprinted off, heading towards the wall that separated the town from the job fair.

I sighed and leaned back against the tree. In the short span that I had known Apple, she had now saved me twice and didn’t even know my name, this must be what it’s like to meet a literal angel.

“Hey! What are you doing up there?”

I jumped and looked down to see none other than Nelson waving up at me from a hiding place in the undergrowth.

I smiled and perked up, finally one of my foster siblings!

I grabbed the tree, about to make my way down and meet him, when a growl came out from nowhere and Leo burst through the bushes, easily scaling the tree I was at in a few leaps, and snarling down at Nelson as he shared my branch.

“Book it, Ally, Nelson’s compromised!” Leo roared as he leapt agilely to the next branch, putting distance between himself and Nelson.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I swung my body in the opposite direction and grabbed hold of the branch on the next tree. I had practised daily on the monkey bars on how to grab and swing from hook to hook, so I made quick work of putting distance between myself and the grounded Nelson, lagging behind Leo by just a few seconds.

“ B Squared!” Leo shouted and I nodded, scanning the woods for the new route I had to take. All three of us had come up with alternative meet-up points just in case any of us chose to betray the other, and the secret rendezvous for Leo and me was a Black square house that was east of the original location all three of us had agreed on.

It also required me to sneak through another outhouse via the walls of one of the nearest houses to the edge of the forest, so I jumped down and rolled upon impact, regaining my balance without a hitch in my breath, and kept running.

Nelson might not have been as agile as Leo or I, however, he made up for it with his headshot accuracy. Now that I was on the ground, I was in range, and so slowing down was not an option.

A crack next to my head sends me reeling to the side. Thankfully it was only a can of tear gas that had hit the side of the house I was trying to slink around. I found the false wall I had been looking for and slipped in as the yard filled up with gas.

I coughed as the gas followed me into the narrow chamber. Pushing myself through the narrow passage between the house's foundation and the outer wall of the house, I could feel my eyes smarting as the gas got into them. I wanted to rub my eyes, however, I kept it moving, hoping that the bucket of water and towel that I had seen in the bathroom that this claustrophobic tunnel opened up to was still there.

I pushed aside the loose wooden wall panel and crawled out, coughing and falling on the floor as the pain set in all over my face and my exposed hands. Thankfully I was covered from neck to toe in the knight attire, however, that still didn’t save me from the burning sensations.

I blurrily looked around through sore eyes and located the bucket of water and the towel. I felt grossed out seeing mosquito larvae wiggling in the stagnant surface, however, I didn’t have the time to be grossed out when my eyes were burning. I sloshed some of the water out onto my hands and began rubbing furiously, trying to get rid of the sensation.

Just as I managed to blink away some of the pain, I heard gunshots. The bastard was firing into the side of the house, trying to get me while I was in the walls.

The gunshots were getting closer.

I still couldn’t see properly so I scrambled around the floor. There was a hidden entrance to the sewage system, covered over by a false stone door. If I could see properly I wouldn’t have had to feel around on the floor with my hands, however, it was my fault I hadn’t included wearing goggles every morning as Leo did. My stupid brain was too concerned about looking ugly at the time, now I was paying for my vanity.

A gunshot pierced through and whizzed right over my head just as my fingers finally connected with the latch of the trap door. I pulled it up and slipped inside, just as I heard Nelson begin to kick at the wall. He must have also been checking to see if there were hidden rooms behind the wall, and now that his bullet went clean through, he had reason to believe he had found a hidden space.

While the banging was going on above my head, I crept as quietly as I could along the sewage tunnel. Thankfully these tunnels had been disused a long time ago in favour of the High Council’s new waste collection system, and so there was a labyrinth of old sewage tunnels that ran throughout the town that no one remembered. This was often how many of us High Breakers managed to do secret meet-ups when we were working out initial plans to break away from our foster families and didn’t want to be overheard.

Thankfully we had the foresight to suspect treachery, and no one used the same entrance to the sewer system just in case someone, like Nelson, was compromised.

As I picked up the pace and looked around for discernible indications that I was below the Black Square house, I reflected on some of the things that were offered to us to extract our compliance to accept the High Right and give our foster parents complete and utter control over our adult lives for the foreseeable future.

1. Pay, because of course, it’s not like the High Council wasn’t already providing a monthly allowance to us and our parents, so why should they give us anything on top of what the High Council provides? We need to give them something in exchange, if we expect to receive something in return, such as our unwavering loyalty for instance.
2. Gear or Weapons. Ooo, you like that fancy three-pronged sword? Then write your name here and here, and don’t even think of leaving the compound on the day that the job fair comes to town when you turn 18.
3. A mate. Ah, Sean is quite fetching, right? And what do you know, he accepted his High Right. If you do the same, well, the two of you could become the first couple of your cohort to foster your own kids, and continue the Winter Assassin protégé line! How honourable!

All absolutely stupid reasons to give up my soul, because as an adult, I can achieve those things on my own, regardless of what my foster parents say. Status and money are not everything, and who wants to foster kids with a brain-dead zombie who won’t even be around to see them, when they are all the time licking the boots of their superiors and throwing themselves into the task of stalking teenagers on their job fair days and shooting them with tear gas canisters and rubber bullets?