Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(54)

I’m scared. I’m excited. I don’t know what I’m doing. I realize I’m holding the spear tightly, sharp tip leading my way. Will they think I’m attacking? Maybe I should drop it. No, if they attack me, I have to be able to defend myself.

I move toward the fire, forcing my feet forward, one short step after another.

The fire pit is a ring of piled stones. Small bones are scattered about. The Springers have eaten here before, perhaps many times.

Over by one of the still-standing walls, I see a stack of round purple fruit, each as big as my fist. I walk to the pile. Some of the fruits are whole, some are smashed in a messy paste of purple skin and yellow flesh. The paste stinks—pungent, rotten, but with a hint of sweetness. I pick up a fruit: it’s firm, bumpy. Yellowish lines run down its length.



Can we eat these? I’ll have Kalle check. I slide the fruit into one of my coveralls’ many pockets.

I turn to see Bishop circling the fire, looking at it closely. Visca and Coyotl crawl over the crater’s lip, join him.

That makes me furious. Bishop disobeyed me, again. The circle-stars are so much bigger than I am, far more intimidating. What if they scare the Springers away?

Walking in a half-crouch, Visca joins me, looks down at the messy pile of fruit and paste. His sweaty, dirty face scrunches up.

“Those smell awful. What are they?”

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

He uses the butt end of his sledgehammer to slide the paste aside. There is something smooth beneath, still smeared with thick globs of yellow. He kneels, picks it up with thumb and forefinger.

It is a small animal. Skinned.

“Same size as the one they’re cooking,” he says. “Why did they smear it with fruit? For flavor?” He holds it close to his face, sniffs, frowns, then smiles. “I’ll tell Farrar this is their version of cookies and see if he eats it.”

His laugh is cut short by a loud bang that makes me flinch, makes Matilda’s memories say fireworks. In that same instant, something cracks against the old wall.

Visca drops the animal, stands, grips his hammer with both hands as the sound echoes away through the jungle.

A white spot on the wall that wasn’t there before, surrounded by the blue-green moss, like someone chipped away a piece of stone.

Another bang—Visca’s head snaps back.



He falls, limp.

Clumpy splatters of red goo on the wall’s blue-green moss, wet chunks sliding down yellow vine leaves.

Visca doesn’t move. He stares up. Eyes blank. Mouth open in surprise. A bloody hole above his right eye.

I hear Bishop shout something about running, but his voice is a distant dream, slow and meaningless.

That hole…

No…no-no-no…

I grab Visca, shake him. His head lolls to the side. The back of his skull is gone, blown apart. Chunks of bone dangle from his bloody, white-haired scalp. Brain smashed like fruit—red paste instead of yellow.

Bang: something hits the wall, showers me with bits of stone.

Bishop’s hand on my arm, yanking me up.

We’re sprinting for the crater. I clutch the spear, Bishop has his axe—it’s red, the color of Visca’s blood.

Motion on my right, past the clearing’s broken wall. A Springer, pointing a wood-and-metal club at me.

That roaring bang again—a cloud of smoke billows out the end. Something whizzes past my head, moving so fast I hear it but don’t see it.

We leap over the crater’s edge. Legs kick empty air. Feet hit the downslope, I fall, the spear flies from my hands. The world spins. Something hard drives into my shoulder. Up, stumbling. My spear, there, I grab it and run. Bishop on my left. Up ahead, racing through the shallow pond, Borjigin and Kalle, Coyotl behind them.

My boots, splashing.

A bang, a split-second pause, then a small plume of water rises just in front of me.

Rushing up the far slope. Legs pounding, feet slipping on hidden rubble, up and up and up. I don’t want to die like Visca. I don’t want to die.



Over the lip and into the jungle, plowing through vines and leaves. Branches and burrs tear at my skin, leaves slap at my face.

Another bang, then another, both from behind me. They sound farther away—we’re escaping.

A Springer to my left, close, so close, maybe twenty steps away, half-hidden by wide leaves. Rags tied around arms and chest and legs and tail blend it into the jungle. The flat end of its club is on the ground. It’s jamming a thin rod into the other end, over and over again.

Its fumbling hands toss the rod aside, a hurried motion—the end of the club snaps up, follows me as I run, targets me.

Bang: billowing smoke—my shoulder burns like I ran into a flaming branch.

It hurt me. It…it shot me.

(Attack, attack, always attack.)

I skid to a stop, boots sliding on muddy leaves.

I face my enemy.

The Springer takes a hop back, surprised.

Visca is dead. These creatures killed him. All we wanted to do was talk—these savages murdered my friend.

My face, so hot. My skin, prickling, poking, from my scalp down my arms, across my neck. My fear dies, drowned by that now-familiar rage. It blossoms up from an internal well of pure hate, threatens to engulf me, control me.

And this time, I let it.

The Springer plants the wide end of the club on the ground, fumbles with the bag on its hip. Shaking hands dig inside.