Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(55)

The club…it’s not like the Grownups’ bracelets that can be fired over and over. The club has to be reloaded every time.

“Em, come on!” Bishop, calling from the jungle up ahead.



I ignore him.

I lower my spear, and I charge.

The Springer pulls a wad of cloth from the bag, jams it into the club’s metal end.

I tear through the jungle toward it, spearpoint leading the way.

Its trembling hands pull a small, round object out of the bag. Thick fingers fumble the ball, catch it, shove it into the end of the club.

My legs feel perfect, each sprinting step sure and firm. My feet find the soft places.

The enemy realizes the thin rod is on the ground. It bends, snatches it up along with a few twigs and dried leaves. Three wide eyes snap to me, lock in on my spear tip.

Ten steps.

A new scent, like wet charcoal, but so acrid it almost burns—the smell of its weapon.

My enemy slides the rod into the club’s end, spastically jams it up and down.

Five steps, so close I see the color of its eyes: dark yellow. Almost like Bishop’s.

Rod pulled out, tossed away.

The Springer lifts the club, holds the wide end tight against a narrow shoulder. Wrinkled purple fingers pull back some kind of metal catch, which clacks into place.

The narrow tip swings up, toward me—

My spearhead drives through the creature’s belly with a squelching sound that’s almost drowned out by my scream of revenge.

(Kill your enemy, and you are forever free.)

The toad-mouth opens. Purple skin, skin that seems young, healthy. Dark-yellow eyes stare out. The look on its face…



…Visca, lying on the ground, the back of his head ripped apart…

…Yong, surprised, confused, terrified, betrayed…

…the pig in the Garden, my knife slicing, blood spraying…

I yank the spear free. Something wet comes with it, squirts against my chest.

The Springer’s club falls to the jungle floor.

A two-fingered hand grabs my shoulder, firm at first, then weaker until it can’t hold on anymore.

The fish-mouth opens, lets out a deep-throated rasping sound no human mouth could ever make.

The three eyes blink. I have never seen a creature like this before, yet I know the look in those eyes, I understand the emotion on that face.

Fear.

The Springer sags back, rests on its tail for a moment, then slumps to its side.

Toad-mouth opening, closing. Opening, closing.

Thick blue fluid spreads across its stomach, staining the rags. Smells like licorice.

Open. Close.

Dark-yellow eyes blink once more, slowly, dreamily—I see the life in them fade, then vanish forever.

A big body skids to a stop next to me.

“Em, you’re hit!”

My rage blinks out as if it was never there at all. An alien body lies dead on the jungle floor.

What have I done?

I shudder. My stomach convulses—I vomit bitter bile down the front of my black coveralls.

A low, droning howl from the direction of the clearing: a horn, echoing through the jungle. Another horn answers.



Bang!

To my left, chunks of bark scatter, exposing pale white splinters beneath. Four Springers leap over the crater’s edge. Another is already standing still, reloading.

As one, Bishop and I turn and sprint down the narrow trail.

I hear bodies crashing through the jungle on our right. A glance—Springers, maybe six of them, moving fast through the underbrush, stopping, aiming…

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Balls whiz through the air, tear through leaves, smack against tree trunks.

My legs pump on their own, driving me forward, keeping me close to the moving, silent shadow that is Bishop.

He suddenly turns left, off the trail. I follow him, unthinking. Two shots from my right—I hear a ball crack against wood, see a branch fall. More Springers had cut off the trail: Bishop saw it just in time.

Another horn rings out from somewhere ahead of us.

I smell smoke. Not the kind that made me hungry, something else, something heavier, thicker.

Bishop skids to a halt behind a tree, yanks me in with him. Coyotl appears as if out of nowhere, pulling along a terrified Borjigin. Kalle is right behind them.

Bishop drops his axe, draws his knife. His hands grab my coveralls, slice and rip: my shoulder is exposed to the air.

A long gouge, oozing blood, like a single huge fingernail scraped away skin and muscle. My flesh smells cooked, like the meat over the fire.

“Didn’t hit bone,” Bishop says. He holds my face, makes me look at him. “No time to dress your wound. Be strong until I get you back to the shuttle. Strong and silent. Be the wind.”

A frozen moment caught up in his stare. I see the real him, he sees the real me. I’m not his friend, his girlfriend, his leader or his follower—we are both soldiers, fighting to keep each other alive.



Bang! A chunk of tree trunk explodes right next to me, driving splinters into my cheek and neck. Bishop snatches up his axe, plunges deeper into the jungle. Borjigin, Kalle and I follow. Coyotl comes last.

The smoke smell grows stronger.

A flash of orange, a sudden heat—in front of us, a wall of fire that makes the jungle crackle and hiss in agony.

Bishop banks right, and so do we.