by Y A Marks
“No,” I said, aloud. “No.”
Shannon’s body trembled. Fear had her in its cold grasp. I remember when fear first held me, first with the cops, next with Ms. Roller-Eyes, then with the scrappers. Every time, I wanted to give up. I was lucky all three times. The love I had for Mari and Miko saved me in the first two instances. Sun Hi saved me in the third. Maybe, my hope for Shannon would save me, keep me sane.
I focused on her sunburned face. She was someone like me. She wasn’t an animal. She wasn’t my lure. She was my reason to fight.
“I will protect Shannon. I will help her,” I said over and over to myself.
Her eyes turned toward me. They were filled with tears. Her head shook from side to side.
I would be Shannon’s Sun Hi. I would save her and give this volatile state of mind purpose.
Shannon pointed at me. “Paeton, behind you!”
I turned. Fifteen yards away was a man in a blue jumpsuit that had been covered with some kind of dark substance like mud. A knife spun through the air. I ducked. The knife scraped the tree that I stood behind and fell onto the ground. Without stopping, he tossed three more makeshift knives. They shimmered as they whizzed by. I avoided two of them, but the third cut me along my shoulder.
There was nowhere to go. The tree was my shelter from the storm of arrows and throwing weapons. I furiously glanced around looking for some way to get to this man before he chopped me into bits. As I was gone, he’d make quick work of Shannon.
As though by magic, the whistling weapons slowed. There was an occasional flying object, but only about a third of what was there before. At first, I thought maybe, the main archer was moving positions, like the guy throwing the knives. Shannon made me realize why the weapons were slowing.
“Jonas,” she said.
What was Jonas made of that allowed him to get around dozens of sharp, flying objects? I guess if he trained four people to be his guard that he must be smart enough to keep them alive long enough for them to be of service.
A knife shot out at me. I barely dodged it. Too many ideas warped my mind. Something nicked my left hand. I raised it and saw a thin line of blood forming on the outside. It was enough to get my adrenaline pumping again.
“You’re going to die,” I said to the man. I didn’t care if he heard me. His death played in my mind.
I shot out into the open. The trees warped themselves toward me, folding the distance between me and my would-be assassin into mere inches. He slid back into the darkness. I caught him with my left arm and let my body swing upward. I flew around his body and landed with my full weight on his right side, covering his right arm and weighing him down. He skidded forward and tried to rebalance. I rocked my weight, and he fell backward. Half of my body was pinned underneath him, but my right arm was free. I grabbed my empty gun that I had taken from the guy I killed in the Nobody Township. With the trigger loop, I spun the gun around. Like Jonas told me to, I beat him in the face with the grip.
His hand slapped my face. Five high-pitched yelps radiated from his mouth. As we struggled, I crawled out from under him. I pressed my right elbow down and used my weight to pin his arm. With my left hand, I continued to beat him in any open area that I could find.
“Stop, please,” he yelped.
Fear mixed with anger surged inside of me. I wanted him dead. I wanted to see his blood. I needed for him to never come back and haunt me. If he was dead, he was no longer a threat to hurt me or Shannon or Jonas or anyone else anymore.
“Die. Die. Die!” I yelled.
Blood splattered into my face, a few drops falling into my mouth.
“I give up. Please, stop!” my assassin begged.
Realization shocked me. When did I become the bad girl? When did I want to kill someone so bad that I wouldn’t listen to their plea for help? I yanked back my hand and relaxed my legs. Panic flooded me, mixing with the fear, only this time concerned pressed its way into my mind.
I scrambled around to look at his face. There were knots over the forehead and a large blue scrape across the nose. The bright green eyes rotated toward me. A chill drifted from the eyes, growing in intensity until it smacked me with its full power.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I mumbled. “I should’ve stopped.”
The eyes closed. The emptiness that comes with a soul releasing its host chilled me. I fell over, my head tucking into my shoulders. I reached out and rubbed the man’s wrists, looking for signs of life, but there were none. What had I done?
Weak, I gazed at my hands and the bloody grip of the gun. Before I could come to grips with what happened, a body flung into me. My legs tucked as I hit the cold earth. The world spun. The new attacker and I tumbled forward. After a few loops, we rolled to a stop. The attacker pinned my arms. Bulging arms and a massive chest hovered over me. Wet drops of something splashed into my face. I thought it was spit, but the liquid was salty. My torso flopped side to side as he reached for my arms and shoulders. Crushing weight pressed into my legs and stomach. I couldn’t do anything. He had me.
“Why?” he asked. “Why? You murderer!”
His voice trembled. I had never heard anyone sound like this before. Through the constant rocking and my struggles to get free, I couldn’t focus on anything but the sound of his voice. It was muffled and strained. Every other second, he took a deep breath to resettle himself. It was around this time I understood what was wrong—he was crying.
I had no idea why. Continuous tears splashed onto my face. There were so many of them, I wasn’t even sure he could see me.
“You’re going to die. I’m going to kill you. Murderer!” He continued to say things like that over and over between his sobs. Every other breath, he let me know that he saw me as nothing more than a killer.
In the back of my mind, I deserved this. Even though I was defending myself, I should have heard the pleas for help. I should have known something was wrong.
The attacker grabbed my wrist and thrust it into the ground repeatedly. Sharp pains shot up my arm. After a few moments, the gun flew from my hand.
He went for the gun, releasing my left hand. I balled my fist and punched his jaw as hard as I could. Nothing happened. He continued to fumble for the gun. I threw my legs up to try to kick him in the back, but it was no use. I lifted my pelvis to gain some room. He put his full weight on top of me, and I could barely breathe.
He would have the gun soon. He would beat me to death with it just like I had just done the other guy. I squirmed beneath him as my panic howled like a desperate ghost within my soul. I continued to hit him with my left fist, over and over again in the jaw as my own tears flooded my eyes. He shuffled to the left, and I pulled my arm back and started to hit him in the back of the neck. It didn’t seem like anything I did hurt him.
He took a break from his mumbles about me being a killer, and a scary laugh came from his throat. At that point, I knew that he had the gun in hand. His torso rose from my body. His weight lifted from my stomach. He put enough distance between us to force the gun’s grip down with the most massive blow he could. He wanted to break my skull in half.
His increased height drove my right hand into the ground. It felt impossible to move. My eyes zigzagged left and right. My heart exploded inside my chest. In the tiny bits of moonlight that scattered through the trees, his eyes were full of rage. His eyelids were as high as they could be. His face was open, muscles spread, and his mouth was pulled into a small smile.
As his arm reached its highest position, I saw the glimmer of the gun’s metal in his hand. The fight was over. I had lost.
I trembled on the ground, but my mind was caught in his stare. His dead-pan eyes had seen my death. He just hadn’t tasted it yet.
A wail tore inside my throat and burst through my mouth. I didn’t think about Mari and Miko or Rylan or Dhyla. I didn’t think about anyone but me and my killer. We were alone, entangled in a death lock that he would likely forget, but my spirit would remember for eternity.
His face darkened. His lips tightened. The grip around my right wrist intensified. This was it.
I closed my eyes, resolved that I would not witness my own demise. He had beaten me. I only hoped that I would lose consciousness in the first blow and not feel the constant pain as my skull was broken.
A weight hit me. My head popped back. My chest felt crushed. A moment passed, and I didn’t feel anything else. I was confused until I heard a familiar voice calling my name.
“Paeton.”
I opened my eyes. My attacker lay on top of me with an arrow through his head.
My heart thumped against my chest as if it was trying to force him off me.
“Paeton, are you okay?”
I turned my head to the right and saw Shannon propped against a tree about twenty yards away. Her bow was shaking wildly in her hands.
I rolled the guy off me and scrambled backward to free myself. I yanked the gun from his hand and drew it back just in case.
“Is he… is he dead?” Shannon asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. I turned him over and slapped my bruised left hand against his throat, trying to find signs of a pulse. After a few seconds, I glanced at Shannon.
She didn’t say anything. She looked at me with hollow eyes. Her body vibrated as though she was freezing. I understood. She had made her first kill, had tasted her first death. The man’s soul was gone, and she had caused it.
Her gaze slid everywhere and attached to mine every few moments. I needed to get to her and try to give her some comfort. I stood and took a step in her direction. Three, shiny objects shot by in front of me. I slammed into the ground, my breath pulsing from my mouth.
The fight wasn’t over. People were still trying to kill us.
Shannon fell against the tree. Her eyes were vacant, as though she couldn’t see me. I couldn’t get to her. I tried to think of something to say, and my heart broke as I watched. She was experiencing this alone, just as I had with Governor Read. Her mind scrambled to find a place where it could rationalize killing another human being.
Someone slid out from behind her. An axe gleamed from his hand. He knotted his face as he made a step toward Shannon. My gaze zigzagged over the area. I needed a weapon that would kill instantly. I saw the arrow in my attacker’s head. I grabbed it and pulled, but it wouldn’t yank free. It was stuck through two, hard pieces of skull.
I had to protect Shannon. She had saved me. She was cracking. We were both teetering on the edge of madness.
I broke the arrow off, leaving the point and half of the shaft in my attacker’s head. I dashed over the twenty yards between me and Shannon. The guy behind her was already upon her. I screamed her name. “Shannon! Shannon, watch out!”
She slunk down the tree. Her muscles froze. The man lifted the axe high and slightly to the right. He was going to decapitate her with his first swing. It seemed like an eternity for me to get over the distance. No matter how fast I ran, it wouldn’t be fast enough to save her.
Panic flooded me. I lost control. My fury exploded under my skin. My body dashed forward, aching to reach Shannon’s assailant.
The man swung the axe as soon as I arrived. The blade’s gleam shone into my eyes. I slid and kicked Shannon forward into the man. The axe struck the tree and buried itself deep. With Shannon sliding into the man’s legs, he fell forward. I raised the broken arrow and pressed it hard against his torso. A popping noise sounded as the splintered tip of the arrow shot into the man’s chest. He heaved a few times as his body continued its descent on top of me.
He jerked and reeled a few feet back. His hands grabbed the arrow, trying to yank it from his chest. I stood. My legs felt like jelly beneath me. I could barely think. The world faded into a blob of nothing. All I could see was this man and a redness that spread over everything else. This man wasn’t going to come back for Shannon or me or anyone. I had to protect everyone I cared about, no matter the cost.
I yanked on the axe stuck in the tree. The handle moved forward but the blade didn’t budge. I rocked the axe side to side, but it was in deep. I tugged at it over and over to get it to release, placing my foot against the trunk and pulling with all my might. The axe head broke free.
Shannon screamed. I glanced over. The man had her by the ankle and pulled her toward him.
I dragged the axe behind me, trying to find the strength to lift it. The man’s right hand gripped the broken arrow. He had yanked it free of his torso and was going to stab Shannon with it. I took a few quick steps and swung the axe as hard as I could.
The axe blade caught the man between his left shoulder and his neck. With the one blow, the axe cut into him about six or seven inches before stopping. The man released Shannon. I abandoned the axe, grabbed her body, and pulled her a few feet away.
The man fell over, screaming. It was a torturous yell which sounded into the distance and echoed back into my ears. His agony continued for several minutes as I held onto Shannon. An explosion of air escaped his mouth, a heavy whishing sound. Afterward, he lay still.
I glanced around. There were no more weapons in the air. The forest was quiet.
A shadow fell across my face. My vision sought out the owner. I wished it was Jonas and that he was still alive. I heard something to my left. Someone stood there, motionless, watching us. My head swiveled side to side as I took in no less than eight people surrounding me and Shannon.
They all had weapons in their hands: knives, axes, pitchforks, bows and arrows. The last bits of my energy faded. Jonas was right. I hadn’t paced myself. I needed to find reserve somewhere, to keep fighting, to save Shannon.
I pulled away from Shannon and grabbed the first thing I saw lying on the ground. The smooth metal of a homemade knife twirled in my hands as I lunged at the closest person to me. I refused to just give up and die. I had gone through too much.
Someone grabbed my left wrist. I swung around, about to drive the knife into the chest of this new enemy. The enemy caught my right arm and stopped the knife from moving forward.
“It’s over, Paeton,” the enemy said.
“No!” The word oscillated up and down the melodic spectrum, shaky and rough. Flames burst from my arms and chest from anger that I didn’t know I had. It couldn’t be over. We had to win, to live.
“Paeton, calm down,” the enemy said. “We’re safe, it’s over.”
I glared into the new enemy’s face as a few drops of moonlight spilled down through the trees. I forced my vision beyond the bubbling blur of tears and saw Jonas’s eyes.
“We’re safe. Relax,” he continued.
“Jonas?”
I dropped the knife, and my knees weakened. Before I could fall over, he grabbed me and held me tight against his body. I was cold and tired. Sweat slid from my temples and mixed with my tears. That’s when I realized that, like Shannon, I was trembling, too.
CHAPTER 15
I could barely focus. My body felt like a thousand pounds, yet I only had the same ninety or so pounds of muscle to hold myself up. Jonas was breathing hard as he held me. He was covered in sticky blood and smelled like death. The same, horrendous smell that I could never forget.
“We need to go,” one of the strangers said. He was a white man, no taller than a young boy, but with a full beard. “We don’t need the Rattler Township to start sending help.”
“Okay.” Jonas adjusted his weight.
By instinct, I pulled away to look into his face.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
I broke free of him and felt the slight tug of our blood-stained clothes sticking together, before breaking free. I went to Shannon, who held a taut hand over her leg.
“Where’s Pyra?” I asked.
“She’s alive. She’ll just need a bit more help,” Jonas said.
“And Travis and Devin?”
“They didn’t make it.”
I went to Shannon. She smelled like trees, grass, and all kinds of natural th
ings. Her breath was short, and every move she made was accompanied by groans. I put her arm over my shoulder and helped her walk. We made our way west but didn’t follow the East-West River. The moon had completely disappeared behind the clouds, creating a thick darkness that seemed to loom around us.
“How bad’s your leg?” I asked.
“Not too bad, I think.” She brightened her expression. “It’s not that deep, just surface.”
I took a deep breath and felt a weight lift off me. “Thank you for saving me back there.”
“You saved me first. I thought I’d try to be neighborly and do the same for you.” Her face warped into a confused expression, and her eyebrows tightened on her forehead. After a second, her gaze drifted away.
“Was that the first—”
She nodded before I could finish. Her body deflated under the weight of her actions. It was the same as a few moments ago when she had killed the guy. She had lain against the tree, asking her mind whether or not she had done the right thing. When Captain Davis, Governor Read, and Dhyla died, I felt a vacant void that I couldn’t explain. The void expanded inside of me, drawing on any emotion that it could find and wrestled with it. With Captain Davis, the void filled me with fear. With Governor Read, I had struggled to hold on to my sanity. I didn’t know I was capable of hurting someone to the point of death. The way I killed him still sent jolts of anxiety through me. It was even worse when I saw it on video.
Dhyla’s death was the one that hurt—that ripped at my heart and seemed to claw at my flesh. When the light in her eyes faded, I wanted to fade away with her. The world was too upside-down, too backward, too obscure. Somehow, I had been hidden from the depths of the world’s evil, but at that point, I was thrust in too fast without enough time to comprehend my place.
“It’ll be alright. You did the right thing,” I said.
I didn’t want her to feel the guilt I had festering inside of me. I wanted her to be free and not to use drugs or something else just to find relief. Emotions were a slippery slope. I had seen it with Mr. Palmer and others at the Stadium. Pain and confusion can wreck a person’s soul.