After we put a few yards between us and the rustling bush, Dad removes his hand from my mouth.
My legs tremble as we move along a hint of an animal track, pushing the overgrowing ferns out of the way. In the strange glow of the night vision nanite, the trees appear to lean toward me with gnarly, grabbing arms.
My blood rushes in my ears. Anxiety hovers, waiting for a moment to take me down. I try to ignore it; I’ve no time to coax it away, but I know this approach will backfire eventually.
The pendant swings at my neck, reminding me of my goal, reminding me of Matt and all I stand to lose.
My eyes sting with exhaustion as the hours drag on. Stumbling with fatigue, I feel like a puppet controlled by an unseeing hand, forced to plant one weary foot in front of the other. Dad and I swap the backpack every so often, sharing its burden. Eventually, a gradual shift in the darkness shows dawn approaching, illuminating the shadows and expunging evil from the menacing shapes.
Dad stumbles and cries out in pain, holding his ankle.
I rush to his side. “You OK?” I ask, reaching for the laces of his boot.
Dad shakes his head. “Don’t undo it. If it swells, I’ll never get it back on again.”
I look over my shoulder. We haven’t heard a howl in a while, but that doesn’t mean the wolves aren’t out there. And if they’re altered wolves, they could be tracking us.
“I just need a minute.” Dad bows his head.
“We should take cover for a while,” I say, nodding toward a twisted array of fallen branches that offers some shelter.
“I’m not sure we’ve gone far enough to stop.” Dad tries to scramble to his feet, but as soon as he puts weight on his ankle, he collapses again.
“I don’t think we have a choice.” I help Dad stand, and he wraps his arm around me. Together, we shuffle to the shelter and duck under the latticed branches, where he drops to the ground again.
Sunlight filters through gaps above our heads. A few inches of leaves and a few moss-covered pebbles carpet the floor. I spread the sleeping bags, and we sit.
I dig through my backpack and hand Dad some painkillers, then a can of peaches. “These have been weighing me down.”
I crack open the tab and gulp the juice, licking at the drips that run down my fingers. Remembering the survival skills I learned with Matt, I allow myself only a few small sips from my canteen. We could be in these woods for a week, and while the rain hasn’t evaporated from the leaves, I don’t want to become that desperate for water. But the humidity of the early summer weighs heavily between the branches; we’ll have to find another water source soon.
I take off my boots and socks, cursing the newness of both. Blisters have formed on my heels, and I rub a drop of antiseptic cream on the reddened skin before wrapping a Band-Aid around them.
Grimacing, I slip the damp socks back over my feet and re-lace my boots. Then I take out my knife, checking the blade is sharp.
“Can I see that knife of yours?” Dad asks as he finishes the last of his can.
I hand it to him. He tests its grip, twiddling it end over end.
“Let’s see if I can still do this. Oak tree. Two o’clock.”
Then he throws. The knife tumbles through the air and hits the tree almost dead center, scaring a squirrel farther up the sprawling limbs.
I half-stand. “How did you do that?”
Dad smiles. “In college, I took a circus skills class to impress your mother. She was a sucker for a man on a unicycle.”
“Really?” I smirk.
“Oh yeah.” He smiles. “One Halloween I dressed up as a clown. White face paint, red lips and big floppy feet. I squirted her with a plastic flower ring. She had a wonderful laugh…”
His shoulders round and he looks away.
Had.
A couple of beats pass. I can’t quite work up the saliva to say anything after that.
“I miss her so much.” Dad crushes the can in his hands.
I crouch and cover his hand with mine. “Me too.”
He turns back to me and plants a weak smile on his lips. “She loved watching me throw knives the best.”
“Will you show me?”
When he nods, I retrieve the knife and wait for instructions. Dad sits on the floor, kneading his ankle through the thick material of his boot. He gives me a few tips on stance and position.
The knife whizzes through the air, narrowly missing the target and taking an inch of bark off the same oak tree. “Damn.”
“Not bad,” Dad says. “You’ve got to think about the rotations and how many times it will spin before it hits. Alter your stance accordingly.”
I retrieve the knife and throw again. This time it hits the target, but with the hilt, and drops to the ground. For the third throw, I flick my wrist. The blade spins in a blur, sailing into the forest. It takes me a few minutes to find it.
“Keep going,” Dad says, applauding.
The fourth throw hits the tree with the hilt again. My frustration growing, I hear Claus in my head and remember to breathe. I plant my feet, step forward and release the knife. It spins, slamming into the edge of the tree.
“Yes!” I jump in the air.
I did it. I hit it. Maybe not where I was aiming exactly, but I hit it. And I will get better. I will make President Bear pay. Maybe not on my own with a single knife, but somehow I’ll find a way.
The sun filters through the slats in the branches. Something rustles next to my ear. I scan the area. The ferns move and the trees sway, but I can’t see what woke me.
Until I see Dad, eyes locked ahead and body rigid, balancing on his good leg.
Not far from us, a wolf sniffs the ground. Between one breath and the next, his ears prick up and he raises his grey head. His glowing eyes meet mine. Glowing in the daylight. It must be some kind of altered. My pulse pounds like a war drum. A bead of sweat trickles down my nose.
The wolf snarls, revealing sharp yellow teeth.
Slowly, I stand and unsheathe my knife, my entire body rigid and ready to run. Or fight.
“Dad…”
The wolf lifts its muzzle and howls. Only a second passes before responding howls blend from all directions. The hair on the back of my neck springs up. Inch by inch, I raise my hand.
The wolf snarls again. There’s an uncanny glint in its blue pupils and I realize it has a scaled tail. I’ve heard of animals in the wild ingesting stray nanites, but I’ve never seen the effect until now.
Dad takes a step back but crumples as his bad ankle gives out. The wolf steps forward.
I release the knife.
It spins through the air. Too high. Way too high. But then the wolf leaps and the blade makes contact with its shoulder. It doesn’t stick, but it’s enough. The wolf growls, snapping its jaws. Dad shuffles out of the way.
I bare my teeth and roar at the unsightly animal. It takes a long moment to consider me, its eyes flicking between canine and reptile. I roar again. With one last snarl, the wolf turns and flees.
I rush to Dad’s side. “Are you OK?”
His hand trembles. “Yes, just a little shaken.”
We sit together, watching the trees and bushes.
Dad kneads his ankle again. “I think you should go on without me.”
My head swivels faster than a speedster off a starting block. “What?”
He looks at me. “I can barely walk with this ankle,” he says. “I’ll just slow you down.”
A cold sweat breaks out over my skin. “I’m not going to leave you out here. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I don’t want to be the reason you’re found or hurt, or… worse.” He hangs his head.
I launch to my feet and pace in front of him. “Mom’s already in prison. You think I want to lose you too?”
“But Silver, I can’t walk!” Dad throws his hands up.
“Then we’ll wait until you can,” I snap.
Dad cranes his neck to follow my pacing. “I could rest here in the shelter
until the swelling goes down. Then I’ll go back, find your mother—”
“You don’t even know here she is!” I smack the back of one hand into the palm of the other to emphasize my point. “And they’ll just lock you up too!”
Dad unties the laces of his boot. “That’s better than them finding you.”
I kneel by his boot and pull back the tongue. Without taking it off, I can just make out the purple of a deep bruise and a puff of swollen skin. I re-tie the laces, pulling them tight.
Gripping Dad by his shoulders, I dig my fingers in. “We will do this together. Do. Not. Leave. Me.”
“Silver, I know you’ll be OK. I ran because I knew you were right, especially with your missing cuff. But if there’s any chance your mother is still alive…” He shakes his head. “I need to try.”
I hug my knees to my chest. “If she’s not been executed already, it’s only a matter of time for her. And for you, too. I don’t want you to die. I don’t want to be alone.”
Dad drops his head into his hands. A sob shakes out of him.
I sigh, then kneel by his side again. Placing my arm around his trembling shoulders, I tilt my head against his. “I need you. Mom would want you to stay with me.”
Dad grabs my hand and pulls it near his cheek. Hot tears run down the back of my hand. “I’m sorry,” he croaks. “You’re right.”
“We will find Mom,” I say. “Just not right now.”
I help him back into the shelter and feed him more painkillers. When his eyes are closed and he appears to be sleeping, I scout the area for a stick. After a few minutes I find what I’m looking for and sit with it in front of the shelter. One end has a large, gnarly knot that Dad can grip and use as a cane. I whittle the other end into a point. It will serve as a weapon and as a tool to find purchase in the earth.
Some time passes before Dad wakes, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. “Any sign of the wolf?”
“No,” I say, handing him the cane. “But I’m not sure I can take another six nights of playing chicken with wolves, real or not.” I draw patterns in the soil with the tip of my knife.
“In that case, I think we should take these now.” Dad takes another two pills from the backpack. “It’s animal scent: bear and wolf and other predators. It should mask our human smell. But if the altered wolves see us, they’ll realize they’ve been tricked, so we still have to be careful. And I don’t know how long it lasts, maybe two days.”
I take the pill but don’t pop it in my mouth. They drain my energy, but judging by Dad’s ankle, it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere for a while.
“Think of it more as perfume.” Dad mimes spraying a perfume bottle.
“I can’t wait for the day when I no longer need to do this.” I dig my heels into the ground and scratch until dark soil is revealed. “When nanites no longer exist.”
Dad rests a hand on my shoulder. “Me too. It’s something I’m hoping for.”
“Hoping for?”
Dad’s eyes flick around the forest. Despite the shade of the trees, humidity presses into my lungs and sweat dribbles down my spine.
“Just something I’ve been thinking about.” A ghost of a smile twitches his lips.
I swallow the pill. “It started for good reasons.”
“I know.”
“I mean, it helped with cancer, AIDS, cerebral palsy…”
“I know, Silver. You don’t need to list it all to me.” Dad gestures for me to help him up. Leaning on the cane, he takes a step with his bad ankle but cries out and sits back down.
“I guess I just wanted to say…” I start. “I don’t think…” It’s not your fault.
“Somehow, I need to make it right.” He looks away. “If only I could turn back time, then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
It’s another two hours before Dad can put weight on his leg. He uses the cane and shuffles along but needs me to clear the path of the roots and thickest ferns. I pick up the backpack and settle it into the familiar ruts in my shoulders.
With our humanness cloaked, our pace becomes more confident. I want to move faster, but Dad can only manage a fast limp. We push through the undergrowth, tripping over tangles of vines and bulbous roots. Dad falls several times, but he insists on continuing despite how pale he looks.
Sweat drips into my eyes and blurs my vision. Just as my hand slips on the rubber hilt of the knife, we stumble upon a small stream and stop to fill our water bottles. I duck my head in the water but leap away when an altered fish with sharp teeth swims at me with an open jaw. Droplets of water run down my back and cool me. Dad and I share a packet of crackers.
Butterflies the size of my hand flutter from one flower to the next. They remind me of Diana. Well. Not Diana exactly, but her selfish mother who pushed the pills on her.
Fairies. Every single one I’ve met is selfish and narrow-minded.
It’s from butterfly DNA that fairies’ wings are made. I follow the path of a common blue, one of the more popular choices for wings, and wonder what it would feel like to fly with those chitinous membranes.
Whop-whop-whop.
The noise penetrates the tree canopy, louder than the sounds of rushing water.
Whop-whop-whop.
Trees thrash from side to side, their leaves swaying in wild bursts.
Dad and I shrink into the bushes as a lone helicopter flies low over the forest.
“I didn’t think they’d be on our tail so quickly.” He shields his eyes, looking at the sky.
The trees spring back to their normal positions and the whirlwind of leaves comes to a stop. The helicopter retreats and begins a low, lazy circle over another quadrant of the woods.
Dad nudges my arm. “Let’s get going. We need to up the pace.”
“Can you manage with your ankle?”
Lips compressed, he nods.
The ground is mercifully flat as we weave through the trees, keeping ourselves camouflaged among the thick undergrowth. We dodge and duck under tree limbs, and I help Dad climb over fallen trees. The sounds of the rotor blades are always present, sometimes right overhead, sometimes exploring a distant corner of the woods.
When we stop for a moment, I ask, “Do you think they know we’re in the woods?”
“They’ve probably got searches in every direction,” Dad says.
The hours crawl by. Dad pops more painkillers—a combination of ibuprofen and codeine. He refuses to stop moving. Occasionally he glances back the way we’ve come and I know he’s thinking of my mother.
Eventually, when the path weaves up a calf-shuddering incline, he’s not the only one who needs to stop for sips of water and to catch their breath.
As the sunlight begins to fade, so do the sounds of the helicopters.
“Maybe a shift change,” Dad says. “They could be gone for a while.”
Another hour passes before he rests. Dad sits, hand circling his ankle, and gulps more painkillers. Guilt winds through me every time I look at his pain-pinched face, but I can’t leave him to die in the woods alone.
And I need him, goddammit. He’s my dad.
We dine on another two cans of peaches and more crackers. I portion out a chocolate bar, and my jaw aches with its sweetness.
“I think we need to keep moving through the night,” Dad says, gazing at the sky. “I want to put as much distance as we can between us and those helicopters when they return tomorrow.”
My head swims with fatigue. My body aches, my feet blistering, and my eyes sting. What I want most is sleep, closely followed by a hug from Matt. But I know Dad’s right. We need to keep moving.
Again, darkness slows our pace. Even though the night vision nanites help us see clearly, they cast everything in an eerie glow. The glints of nocturnal animals’ pupils flash through the forest, making us pause. My hand, wrapped around the hilt of my knife, aches with tension. Any one of those pairs of eyes could be a wolf’s.
Broken moonlight skirts through the branches, dancing on tree lim
bs and insect wings. Dad trails behind me, sometimes standing still for seconds at a time to listen. Other times he chooses to walk over the thinner ferns rather than snap twigs on the more accessible path.
“What’s the matter?” I ask when he looks over his shoulder for the fiftieth time.
He turns to face me.
“What are you looking for?”
Dad’s lips pucker and his brow wrinkles. “Hellhounds.”
I glance left and right. “Hell...what?”
“Hellhounds,” Dad repeats, then sighs. “Genetically modified dogs. Very top secret. They’re used by the army and City Investigation Force to hunt down escaped prisoners and the like. They’re huge, powerful, and fast.”
I gasp. “Why on earth would you create something like that?”
Dad’s shoulders drop. “I didn’t. It was Earl’s project. When he showed me his first creation I had nightmares for a week.” Earl. I flash back to the sketch of the male lion I saw on his worktop. But that was a cat, not a canine.
Cold sweat beads on my upper lip and the small of my back. “Why are you worrying about them?”
“I’m afraid they might be on to our scent. I suspect the helicopters may have dropped off a team of bulks and hellhounds to track us in the woods,” Dad admits. “They can smell their prey up to five miles away.”
“And what will happen if they find us?” I try to control the tremor in my voice.
Dad blows out a breath and leans against a tree. He scrapes at the bark with his fingernails. An owl hoots, startling us both. “I’m not sure. I think we’re too valuable to kill, but hellhounds aren’t known for their obedience or restraint.”
I swallow and try to work saliva into my mouth. “But we’ve taken those pills to mask our human smell.”
“Yes, but I don’t know how long that’ll last. And I don’t know how effective they are against hellhounds.” Dad rises to his feet again and turns in a slow circle.
“But you’ve got more, I saw more in your bag.” We can’t come this far only to be eviscerated by a freaking dog.
“I do have more pills. There are limitations, though. With each pill the effect of the cloak is less effective.”
The Unadjusteds Page 5