Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(66)

Spingate reaches for me. “Em, don’t fight back!”

I hear a thonk, like a rock thrown against a hollow tree. Spingate falls face-first in the trail’s thin mud. I get to my hands and knees, try to rise, to fight, but pain explodes in my back as the gun butt slams into me again. I fall to my belly.

I roll left twice, fast, creating space between me and the Springer. I pop up on my feet.

Purple stands between me and my spear. Before the Springer can even aim its musket, I rush forward, kick up and out as hard as I can—the toe of my boot catches the big, frowny jaw. Three eyes wince in pain. It hops backward, trying to aim the gun at me, but I rush forward, duck under the barrel.

I reach for the knife hanging from its belt.

A hammer blow to my left temple. I fall to my knees. Something cracks against my right cheek. The other Springers, they rushed in while I grabbed for the knife.

Blackness comes in waves. I taste blood. I tuck into a ball, knees to chest, hands over ears, elbows tight in front of me. Musket butts hammer down, striking my shoulders, my knees, my shins, my back, the top of my head. So many hits, so fast—I’ve never hurt so bad in my life.

Yes you have…yes you have…you can’t remember because you don’t WANT to remember…

I think of my Grampa. I think of the canoe.

The beating stops. The echoes of each blow radiate across my body, waves of pain overlapping. I hear myself crying.

A growl, a chirp.

I open one eye. Spingate is on the ground next to me, tucked into a muddy ball. Sobs rack her body. I look up. Purple is holding a piece of fabric toward me. I roll onto my back, coughing, blood bubbling from my nose. The Springer stands over me, green eyes glaring down.



“Ponalla,” it says. The syllables don’t sound all that different from ones we would make. What does this word mean?

“Ponalla,” it says again, shaking the piece of fabric at me, insisting I take it.

I do. Rain soaks the cloth. It’s a drawing of a Springer. An excellent drawing, full of detail. And it…wait. Something about that face. I recognize it—it’s the Springer I ran through with the spear.

Purple stares at me. Those green eyes, so much like ours. I imagine I can read emotion in them. Hate, but also anguish. Sadness. Loss.

What have I done?

“Your friend,” I say quietly. I hold up the wet fabric, offering it back. “Ponalla…your friend.”

Ponalla was trying to kill me. Then it was just some evil thing that I had to destroy. Now, it has a name. It has a friend, heartbroken that it’s gone. In that way, it was no different from us.

I killed it.

And I didn’t have to. I could have run.

“I’m so sorry.” I know Purple can’t understand me, but the words come out anyway. “We were attacked, and it was confusing and I was mad, and…I’m so sorry.”

The green eyes watch me. Rage and loss recede briefly, replaced by confusion. Purple looks at the limp fabric in its two-fingered hand, then stuffs the drawing into its bag.

Spingate moans.

“Stay still,” I say. “We’re in trouble.”

She slowly lifts her head. Blood and mud sheet her face like a dark mask.



Purple takes a single hop back, raises the musket, points it right between my eyes. I’m staring into a circle of blackness, knowing it will be the last thing I ever see.

The other three Springers hop over, raise their weapons. The four of them stand side by side. They are going to execute us.

Time slows. The smell of the wet jungle in my nose. The feel of damp air in my lungs. Perfection. The sky, red sun blocked by clouds. The rain on my face. The taste of my own blood—everything is so wonderful. How could I not have savored these things every second I lived? Even the Springers are beautiful in their own way. Sights, scents, sounds…

Wait…I only hear the rain.

The jungle makes no noise.

Behind the Springers, something silently rises up. Something dirty-yellow…

A snake-trunk snaps forward. Pincers drive deep into the far-left Springer. It screams, a wet sound of shock and surprise as bluish blood spurts from its mouth.

At the edge of the trail, the monster rises up. Much bigger than the one I saw before. The snake-trunk coils, lifting its victim high. The other Springers turn, their long guns awkward and hard to bring around. The snake-trunk whips down, smashing the already-dying Springer into another, crushing them both to the muddy ground.

Bang!

A Springer fires. If the bullet hits, it does nothing. The snake-trunk lifts—one Springer hangs limply from the pincers, another stays facedown in the mud, shattered and still. In the same instant, the dangling victim is again used as a weapon; the trunk slams it into the Springer that just fired. I hear bones snap on impact, see the shooter’s upper leg bend where it should not.

Spingate pulls at my arm. “Come on, Em, run!”



The ground seems to hold me tight.

Purple stays calm despite the murderous beast standing only a few steps away. Purple takes aim—bang! Chips splinter from the bony chest plate. The monster stumbles. Pincers open—the broken and battered Springer drops onto the muddy path. It doesn’t move; it will never move again.

The broken-legged Springer crawls down the trail, desperate to escape. A white bone juts from its thick thigh. Blue blood spills from that wound out into the mud.