Burn (Pure #3)(31)

Is Bradwell still the person she was in love with? Maybe she wants to believe he’s changed because it’s easier than believing he’s still the same but simply can’t forgive her—or has fallen out of love with her. There’s a difference.

She knows that he’d never go through any process—especially something created in partnership with the Dome—to remove his wings. It was crazy of her to even bring it up in the barn, but she’d meant what she said. He shouldn’t decide for other survivors.

She turns to the wall and closes her eyes and tells herself to dream. Her dreams have been filled with shifting cinders, as if some part of her, deep down, is homesick.

But in a few minutes, a distant alarm sounds—a rising whine. She rolls toward the door. Footsteps are running down the hall.

Another alarm sounds. This one is closer—on the same floor.

The dogs are no longer howling. What’s happened to the dogs?

Pressia gets out of bed and dresses quickly.

As she pulls on her boots, Fedelma opens the door. “Now!” she says. “There’s an attack. You have to leave now!”

“Leave?”

“All the way. To the airship.” She’s holding a small backpack.

“But maybe we can stay and help.” Pressia rushes to the door.

“They’ve gotten to the children. Three are missing. You can’t help us. You need to go.” Pressia sees a bright glint at her side—a knife in her other hand. Fedelma lifts it and gives her the handle. “Take it. The vine is marked—red. The one you need to cut.”

“How will I see it?”

“Someone has given the brothers a flashlight.”

“El Capitan and Helmud?”

“They’re waiting at the bottom of the stairwell.”

“And Bradwell?”

“He went on alone. It wasn’t wise, but there was no stopping him. We have our own troubles.”

Fedelma reaches into the small backpack and pulls out a metal box like the one that Kelly had to hold the bacterium, but this one’s thinner and longer. She pops it open quickly and shows Pressia the vial—the only remaining sample of Pressia’s mother’s lifework, the powerful concoction that she injected into the birds on Bradwell’s back, the vial rescued from her mother’s bunker. It sits in a groove of velvet lining, a small folded piece of paper beside it.

“The vial and formula!” Pressia says.

“Yes,” Fedelma says, and she shuts the box, snapping its clasp. “You didn’t think we’d keep them, did you?”

Fedelma puts the box into the backpack and hands it to Pressia.

Pressia slips the straps over both shoulders and slides the knife between her belt and pants.

“Thank you,” Pressia says, “for everything.”

“Be careful out there. Don’t wear your fear. They’re drawn to it.”

“Who?”

“We had so many dead. So many. And Bartrand Kelly thought he could create a force for good, a breed that would go out and kill the violent creatures who came after us again and again. But he built and bred them with a hunger that was too strong. Yes, they killed the others, but now the once-dead have turned on us. Be careful.” Fedelma opens her arms and hugs Pressia quickly and roughly and then pulls away. “Especially watch for the fog. Sometimes it has a heartbeat.”

A heartbeat. “The once-dead? He used the dead. He built and bred them…”

“They snatch our young. Watch for teeth in the darkness.”

“And the fog has a heartbeat…” Pressia’s scared and confused.

“I can’t explain them any better than that. Go on.”

Pressia runs to the stairs and takes them two at a time. At the final landing, she finds El Capitan and Helmud standing by a door, waiting, the flashlight in El Capitan’s hand.

“You ready?” El Capitan says.

“Did you hear about what’s out there?”

“I heard enough,” he says.

“Enough,” Helmud says.

“I’m ready,” Pressia says.

“I miss my guns,” El Capitan says. “I hope they put ’em back in the airship.”

“I hope we make it to the airship,” Pressia says.

El Capitan pushes out the door.

The fog has a heartbeat.

Watch for teeth in the darkness.

People with flashlights roam the fields, call for the missing children. “Carven! Darmott! Saydley!” Some of the calls ring out from within the woods. Their own flashlight glides across the fields and into the nearby thickets and forests.

“We’re not supposed to show fear,” Pressia says. “The ones who took the children—they sense it.”

“Like dogs.”

“Where did the dogs go?” Pressia asks. “They stopped howling.”

“I don’t want to know, do you?” El Capitan says.

“I don’t want to know,” Helmud says.

“Bartrand Kelly made these creatures,” Pressia says. “The ones that have taken the children.”

El Capitan nods. “Then Kelly deserves what he gets.”

“Not necessarily,” Pressia says.

“Don’t we deserve what we get, Helmud?” El Capitan says. “Don’t we reap what we sow?”