Burn (Pure #3)(32)

“We reap,” Helmud says. “We sow. We reap. We sow. We reap…” El Capitan doesn’t tell Helmud to shut up. He lets him keep going, over and over, which isn’t like Cap.

But Pressia doesn’t tell him to stop either. We sow. We reap. We sow. We reap. It’s a singsong enchantment. Maybe it’ll keep them safe. At the very least, it gives a rhythm to their steps that keeps them moving at a quick pace.

They head into the woods where the vines start to appear. The vines still scare Pressia. She keeps her distance from the areas where they grow thick and twisted. The shadows on either side of the path are dark. The voices calling Carven and Darmott and Saydley are now farther off. Were they identical—the three of them? What’s it like when you’re with living, breathing mirror images of yourself—down to your DNA? Are they still alive?

Pressia listens for the children too, just in case they’re out here, simply lost.

“Did you hear what they look like?” El Capitan says.

“The children?” Pressia asks.

“The children? What? No. Kelly’s creations. His dead and bred.”

“We reap. We sow,” Helmud keeps on. “We reap. We sow.”

“No,” Pressia says, tightening the straps on her backpack. “I don’t know what they look like. Should’ve asked.” She thinks of telling him that the darkness has teeth and the fog a heartbeat, but she’s embarrassed that she knows these stupid things yet didn’t get a description, which now seems such a practical and obvious thing to ask.

They walk uphill. The airship isn’t far off. In fact, El Capitan raises the beam of the flashlight through the trees, lighting the clearing where he and Helmud and Bradwell almost bled to death in the vines.

“We reap, we sow, we reap, we sow,” Helmud says, faster now.

They trudge through the final trees and start across the clearing. The fog has rolled in.

The fog has a heartbeat.

The flashlight’s sharp glare strikes the misty air.

On the other side of the clearing, they hear a cry. Human? It’s hard to tell. Childlike? Carven and Darmott and Saydley—Pressia imagines finding them out here, wrapped in vines.

El Capitan douses the light, and darkness seems to rush in all around them. Then Pressia feels El Capitan’s hand in hers. It’s rough and calloused. He says, “This way.” She hears Helmud shifting nervously on his back.

There’s another cry.

Her eyes slowly adjust to the moonlight.

They step into a stand of trees and stop. El Capitan lets go of her hand, and she misses the feeling of his sure grip.

“They’re here,” El Capitan says.

“No fear, remember?” Pressia says. “No fear.”

“Reap, sow,” Helmud whispers.

Pressia nods, but she can’t control her own fear. No one can.

“We can slip past them,” El Capitan whispers. “The airship is fifty feet away. We can do this.”

“What if they have the children?”

“We have more people to save back home than three lost kids.”

“But where’s Bradwell?”

“Hopefully he’s already there.”

“And if he isn’t?”

El Capitan doesn’t answer. “We’ve got to move quickly,” he says.

“Let’s go,” Pressia says.

El Capitan starts running. Pressia pushes off a tree and follows him. It’s hard to navigate the trees with such little light, but soon Pressia—breathless and quick—can just barely see the rounded orb of the airship, pinned down tightly with rooted vines.

She hears another cry and turns.

Nothing but thickening fog and trees.

Then a quick shadow.

She faces forward and keeps running but trips and falls. She looks back and sees a wild dog, dead and mutilated.

El Capitan hoarsely whispers her name. She scrambles to her feet. She can’t see him through the fog. In just seconds it’s gotten so dense that she’s surrounded by white.

Another sharp cry and then another, as if replying.

She starts moving as fast as she can—harder now with such little visibility. She has to hold out her hand and the doll head to feel her way from trunk to trunk.

I’m the prey now, she thinks as she skins her palm on the rough bark. She has to protect the metal box in her backpack. She has to get to the airship.

She hears a footfall behind her. She whips around, but nothing’s there. She keeps her eyes wide open, as if this will help her see, but it doesn’t. White. All around her. White.

She pushes through the trees, but then something brushes her backpack. She lunges forward—away from it. “Cap!” she calls out. “Cap!” Fear. She’s showing fear.

She sees the beam of his flashlight, but in this dense fog, it’s only lighting the mist. “Cap!” Maybe he can follow her voice.

An arm—long and thin—reaches out and cuffs her elbow. She screams and tries to pull free. The arm is mottled with scars from thick hurried stitches running along its veins. She pulls away but her arm is wrenched so hard that pain shoots up into her shoulder. Still, she manages to stay on her feet.

She hears strange guttural sounds—a call, a response. A few more ahead of her and then behind. “Cap!” she shouts. “Here!”