Unhooked(11)

But they are faceless nightmares. Where eyes and noses should be, there is nothing but a gaping black emptiness on each of their faces. They don’t have mouths—at least not that I can see—but I can sense their hunger as they fly on, determined, toward some unknown destination.

A thought slices through me: maybe I’m dreaming and can’t wake up. Or maybe I’ve been drugged, and this is just one horrifying hallucination. But if not—if I’m really seeing what I think I am seeing—I was wrong. I’ve always been wrong.

All those times I told my mom that the monsters weren’t real. All those times I thought she was crazy—the times I treated her like she was crazy—for believing something was after us. For trying to protect me. I’d been wrong.

The danger was out there.

The monsters are real.

I think of the window I opened, the lamp I put out, and I know that this is all my fault.

I don’t know how long we have been flying when chaos erupts. Out of nowhere, a ball of flame bursts up from below, and the dark creatures begin darting around in a disordered panic. The next burst comes so close, I can feel the flash of heat on my skin. My attacker dodges sharply left to avoid it, and my heart races as I realize what’s happening—they’re under attack.

We’re under attack.

The once-rhythmic flapping of the creatures’ wings becomes a confusion of frantic, uneven bursts. The fireballs continue to come quickly, with hardly a break. One hits a creature nearby. It tears through the broad, dark chest and leaves a gaping hole that doesn’t close. The creature wails a rusted, inhuman screech of pain before its wings jerk with a body-shaking convulsion and fold, leaving the heavy body to plummet gracelessly to whatever waits below.

But even with the chaos around us, the creature that has me never falters. He—it—tightens its hold as we dart through the confused swarm, deftly maneuvering around falling bodies and the panic that surrounds us.

The farther it flies, the thinner the swarm around us becomes. The creature’s huge wings pump powerfully, and for a moment I think we might actually make it. For a moment, I’m almost happy that we’ll escape. But just as I see the blue of the sky beyond the edge of the swarm, my attacker jerks like a top that’s gone off course. A thick, heady stench like the smell of burning leaves overwhelms me, and we both begin to fall, plummeting through the sky, past the other dark bodies to whatever waits below.

The monster clings to me at first, its claws digging into my leg in a desperate hold, but then the pain stops. And it’s gone.

And then I’m falling, tumbling into the bright blue of daybreak. I’m weightless. Boneless. And for a moment I think I’m flying too. For the space of a heartbeat, I imagine the impossible.

But mortal hearts aren’t meant for flight, and human bodies are made to break. In one breath I’m falling through the night, and in the next I’m in the blinding brightness of the day. And when my body shatters the icy surface of the water below with a skin-splitting crash, it knocks every last bit of breath from my chest.





At first the boy did not realize his mistake. At first there was only the safety of training for what lay ahead. His brother was already at the front, but the boy found in the company of other lads a new sort of comfort. When it rained, they sat in their tents, listening to the pitter-patter of the drops and made up curses so devilish, that the boy struggled to keep from turning red. Because innocence was a weakness, and he refused to be weak. . . .





Chapter 7


IS IT ALIVE?” THE VOICE is young, male, and only a prelude to the sharp poke at my side.

“I fink so,” another voice answers when I moan at the ache.

“Hey,” says the first voice. Poke. Poke. “Wake up, you.”

My brain feels impossibly thick, and my arms impossibly heavy.

I’m not sure what’s happened to me, but even before I’m completely conscious, I know that it was awful and unbelievable.

They are still talking about me, poking at my tender skin, but I keep silent and still, my eyes closed tight, and I try to remember what happened.

It comes to me slowly. The terror in that dark room. The icy cut of the water. The peacefulness of floating free as I watched the brightness of the world recede above. My last burning breath as the water rushed into my lungs.

From the ache in my back and the incessant poking that continues to shoot sharp pains through my side, I know I’m not dead. My leg screams from the wounds made by the dark creature’s claws, and my skin feels as taut and fragile as an overripe berry. But I am not dead. And for a moment, that is enough.

I take stock of what I can without moving or letting them know I’m awake—I’m still soaking wet, so I haven’t been out of the water for long. My arms have been freed, but something heavy is cutting into my ankle, weighing me down and pinning me in place.

Not rescued, then. Still a prisoner. But the voices around me now sound human, not like the buzzing, accented voices of the monsters that took me. Still, I don’t know who those voices belong to, or what they want from me.

“Leave it alone, Phin. We don’t know iffen it’s dangerous, now do we?”

The poking stops, but they’re still in the room—whoever they are—close enough that I can smell the sour sweat in their clothes. I’m not sure what they’re waiting for, but if I play dead just a bit longer, maybe they’ll go away.