Stolen by Erin Bowman Page A

would no longer be easy.
    And right then, Bree knew it, a truth as unforgiving as the sun beating down overhead: This boy was going to be a major thorn in her side.

Excerpt from Frozen: A Taken Novel
    Read on for a sneak peek
at the heart-pounding sequel to Taken

ONE
    WE HAVE BEEN WALKING FOR two weeks. Nothing tails us but snow and crows and dark shadows of doubt. The days grow shorter, the evenings frigid. I thought I’d be able to handle the cold.
    I was wrong.
    Back in Claysoot, our winters were hard, but while our homes were drafty and crude, we still had shelter. Even if I had to bundle up and head into the woods for a day of hunting, I could always return to a house. I could light a fire and put on clean socks and cling to a cup of hot tea as though my life depended on it.
    Now it is just endless walking. Endless cold. At night we have only tents. And exposed fires. And blankets and jackets and countless additional layers that are never enough to chase the chill from our bones.
    It’s funny how Claysoot actually looks good on some days. When it’s freezing and no amount of blowing on my hands seems to warm them, I can’t help but think of the comforts of my old home. I have to remind myself that Claysoot was never a home. A home is a place you are safe, at ease, able to let down your guard. Claysoot is none of these things. It will never be these things. The Laicos Project made sure of that, starting the day Frank locked children away to serve his own needs, corralling them like cattle, raising them to create the perfect soldiers: Forgeries. Human machines to do his bidding. Perfect replicas of the people he imprisoned.
    And now we march to one of those prisons, a forgotten group in the Western Territory of AmEast’s vast countryside. We’ll look for survivors at Group A, invite them to join us in the fight against Frank. See what secrets they’ve learned in all their years of hiding. Ryder’s holding out hope that Group A might make a decent secondary base, help us extend our reach to the opposite end of the country.
    I look at my hands, dry and chapped. Snow is falling again, drifting through the early-morning light as delicate, gray flakes. I’m supposed to be doing something. What am I supposed to be doing?
    I see the footprints, and I remember. Clipper.
    He’s been drifting from our team lately. We’ll settle down for the night, or pause for a water break, and then someone will notice that he’s missing. I always get saddled with the honor of retrieving him.
    I stand and pull my gloves back on, return my focus to tracking him. I crest a small rise and there he is, leaning against a pale birch tree.
    “We need to keep moving. You ready?”
    “Gray,” he says, turning to face me. “I didn’t hear you.”
    I force a smile. “You never do.”
    “True.” There’s an unmistakable heaviness to Clipper’s voice. He sounds older. Looks it, too. After Harvey died—was murdered by Frank—the boy took over as the Rebels’ head of technology. All the added responsibility seems to have aged him.
    “I miss her,” Clipper says, touching a twine bracelet I watched his mother give him when they said their good-byes two weeks earlier. “And Harvey.” He kicks at a snow-dusted rock at his feet. “He was . . . I don’t know how to put it. I just feel lost without him.”
    Harvey was like a father to Clipper. That’s what he means to say. I know it, and so does the rest of our team. It’s painfully obvious.
    “You’ve got me, at least,” I offer. “I’m the one who races after you every time you take off. That has to count for something, right?”
    He laughs. It’s a short, quick noise. More of a snort than anything.
    “Come on. Everyone’s waiting.”
    Clipper straightens and takes one last look into the endless forest of tree trunks. “You know I’ll never actually leave you guys, right? Sometimes I just need some space.”
    “I understand.”
    “But you always come after me.”
    “It