by Margs Murray
“I thought they were going to kill you.”
Greer took one man’s hands and with little effort tied them behind the man’s back. Greer tried to walk him over to the other men, but he wouldn’t budge, his eyes still on me. “Walk over to the Diddles,” he told me.
I did, and the hunters lumbered toward them with me. In fact, all of them—the Diddles struggling from their seated, tied positions and the hunters—strained to be near me. Greer tied them all to nearby trees.
“What’s going on with them? Did you, um… did you do something to them?”
He gave me an incredulous look and shook his head. “You did this.”
“Me? I didn’t do this.” I’d done nothing.
“Where’s the youngest?” Greer asked.
“Why? What are you going to do to her?”
He walked towards the house. “Is she still in the house?”
“She helped me escape,” I pleaded, but he ignored me. Donna dropped from her window, but Greer was ready; he caught her before she had a chance to make it to the nearby trees.
Donna fought against him until her eyes landed on me, and her fight evaporated as she succumbed to the strange hypnotism. Greer tied her down near her parents.
“What are you going to do to them?” I asked.
“I’m fixing the mess you created.” He trooped toward the edge of the clearing. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
“I thought I was helping you!” I called after him.
He yelled back. “I’m not the one who needs help!”
Greer returned in no time with his bag. He pulled from it his mask and a brown spray bottle. He placed the mask over his face and sprayed them. All seven slumped, instantaneously knocked out. Greer gave The Hunters a second and third dose. He then cut the ropes that bound the Diddles. And if I wasn’t mistaken, and I don’t think I was, Greer stuffed money into Nate’s hand.
“Let’s go,” Greer said, taking my hand and pulling me forward.
“What will happen to them?”
He ignored me, rushing us back to the tent and packing everything up in seconds. I asked him. “But what did you do to them? Did you hurt them?”
“They’ll be fine. Now stop asking questions and move because the Libratiers will be here any second.”
He had a point.
We ran into the woods and didn’t stop running.
Chapter 27
Them’s Fighting Words
We walked all day and night through the mountains and valleys, taking short breaks but never longer than two hours. It was an endless march of extreme hiking and falling asleep under a tree or in the tall grass of a field. Every time I spoke to Greer, he either sped up our pace or went to make another phone call. Part of me wanted to grab his phone and launch it into the annoying, endless woods. The silence between us was deafening, but I plainly saw Greer’s dagger stares from the corner of his eyes.
He didn’t want this conversation, but I needed to have my questions answered, and we needed to discuss what happened. If I had to wait, I’d wait, but we couldn’t hike forever.
Finally, about thirty hours later, Greer set up camp so we could get a proper night’s sleep. After throwing up the tent, Greer climbed in. It was late at night, and I followed him in and laid down on my side of the tent. I kept my eyes on the ceiling, but even as bone tired as I was I had questions, and this guy had answers.
Like, if I was the one who did that—whatever that was—I desperately needed to know how and why.
Greer tossed me a raspberry protein bar. “Greer, you know I didn’t intentionally walk away from camp or go to the Diddles.”
“We don’t have to talk about it,” he said. “We are only on this little hike together until I can get you somewhere safe. We don’t have to talk about anything.”
Not tonight, Greer, I thought. We’d ignore each other later. But I had to say my peace and ask my questions. “I shouldn’t have wandered away from camp. It was an accident, and then Nate found me. I never agreed to stay, either. They twisted my words.”
Greer didn’t respond, choosing instead to dig in his bag.
“Look, fine, don’t talk. It’s not like we’ve really talked this entire hike but tell me, what did you do to the Diddles?”
“I sprayed Obliformin. It’s a memory-altering drug. It erases the last twenty-four hours from their minds. The other men, I knocked out for longer and erased the last three days. If the Diddles have any sense, they will leave the hunters tied to the tree and get out of there.”
Good, they were still alive. “And the money?”
“What money?” he lied.
“The money you slipped into Nate’s hand.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied again.
Fine. He didn’t want to confirm it was enough money to pay off the hunters. Greer had saved the Diddles even though they’d been planning on turning us in.
Greer pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I have a phone call to make.”
“No,” I said.
“What do you mean no?”
“I mean no. Look, I have some huge questions for you, and I deserve answers.” Greer attempted to move around me, but I wouldn’t let him pass.
“I can’t even deal with you right now. I—I’m leaving,” Greer barked.
I grabbed the tent zipper. “Not until you actually explain things to me.”
Greer easily picked me up and moved me out of the way. I dove for the zipper again.
“Stop, Waverly. Just stop. I’m not an idiot and I’m no fool so stop!” He moved me out of the way, opened the zipper, and disappeared into the forest.
Well, he thought he was done, but I wasn’t. I’d been lied to, and the truth kept from me. I’d been locked up, captured, strangled, forced to watch the unthinkable, and I was done with not having answers.
Outside, the sky was light, the moon gigantic. A warm breeze shook the shadowy branches. He wasn’t in the immediate area, but he was close. I took a guess he’d gone up the hill.
When I found him, Greer was sitting on a fallen log. To my surprise, he wasn’t on the phone. He held his head in his hands, his hair falling over his face. Even in the dark, I saw how tired he was, how stressed. I realized then that Greer didn’t have a phone call to make but just needed a break from me.
It had been a long day, longer for him than I had considered. He tilted his face up to the sky, his eyes closed.
I leaned back against a tree, content to watch him. He’d rescued me, risked his life repeatedly. A light breeze ruffled up his hair, and I was awestruck by him. For the first time in my life, I understood why Dad liked observing Mom so much. I guessed sometimes watching someone made you feel better, although I couldn’t think of any other person I’d like seeing more than him.
Under all my emotions—anger, worry, loneliness, terror—I felt a new one I didn’t understand. It was deeper than all of those, deeper and hidden, but there.
Ruining this moment of peace for him felt so wrong that I decided my questions could wait. He needed this. I was heading back to the tent, or at least that was the plan, but like everything else in this godforsaken land, nothing worked out like it should.
For when I turned to leave, I came face to face with a huge blue and black creature straight out of prehistoric times. The beast so strange, that I couldn’t even tell what the thing was for a minute.
A bird. It had to be at least six feet tall. This thing was the size of Big Bird but with none of the pleasantness. The huge thing had a red swaying wattle like a turkey. There was a helmet on the bird’s head.
“Oh, sh—” I stopped mid-word because the bird’s cheeks puffed, and it gave me the growl of a raptor.
I didn’t know what to do. I had nowhere to run. I couldn’t get around the bird. It was too big and fierce. It squawked again, and that’s when I saw its feet. At the end of each of the bird’s middle toes was a long talon perfect for ripping into a person. The bird’s eyes were wil
d. I was so dead. I couldn’t move, and my eyes filled with tears. Apparently, it was my destiny to be killed by a bird.
The bird leapt towards me.
An arm grabbed my waist and pulled me to the ground, causing the bird to miss.
Greer picked me up, putting his body between me and the bird. The bird circled us. Greer circled too, keeping me behind him the whole time.
The bird roared. Greer pulled his cubox from his pocket and a giant dog projected out, snarling and barking. Greer threw his cubox to the ground. With the dog barking between us, the bird focused on the dog. It jumped at the projection, only to go right through the dog. The bird screeched one more time before moving on.
Greer turned to me. “Are you hurt?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Are you hurt?”
I shook my head.
“What happened? Why did you leave camp?”
“I...I... have no luck with birds. ”
He almost smiled. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to get you back to the tent. Come on.” He grabbed his cubox. “We don’t want to be here if the cassowary returns.” He pulled my hand, but my feet didn’t move. “Waverly, come on!”
“What was that?” My voice shook.
“What?” His fingers raked through his hair in frustration. “We don’t have time to talk right now.” Without another word, Greer threw me over his shoulder and bolted for the tent. Once inside, he put me down, zipped the tent, and slammed the red lock button.
“You have any idea how dangerous these woods are? Are you insane? Where are your sunglasses?”
“Sunglasses? Sunglasses? It’s night out there, we’ve been attacked by a stupid big bird on top of everything else and you bring up my stupid sunglasses.” I trembled as shock took over. It had been a long, hard day and now there was a giant, terrible bird in the forest.
Greer searched my side of the tent for the sunglasses. “It’s exhausting keeping you alive, and for what?”
“I didn’t know there were giant birds in these woods. How could I ever think some prehistoric monster was coming for me?”
“I told you—”
“Nothing. You tell me nothing. We have nothing to talk about, remember? We never have time to talk and with everything that has happened—”
“After everything—you still need an explanation! I tell you what you need to know.”
“Oh, like put on your sunglasses and eat up because we’re going to run, or go to sleep, but not once did you tell me about big dinosaur birds.”
He had nothing to reply to that, so he changed the subject. “What were you doing, anyway? Were you spying on me? Is that it?”
“I wasn’t spying on you.” I sat down on the end of Greer’s sleeping bag and I crossed my arms.
“Then what were you doing just now?”
I was not about to say watching you in the moonlight, and I was a little too emotional to think clearly and to admit I needed to apologize. “I wanted to go for a walk.”
“You didn’t get enough of that already?” he asked, and I thought how lame an excuse it was. He added, pointing towards the zipper. “We’re walking plenty tomorrow.”
“Fine.” Embarrassed, I pushed past him in the dimly lit tent so I could get to the door. I had too many emotions, and I didn’t really know what I was doing.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I never got to finish that walk.” My fingers fumbled on the tent zipper.
Greer came up from behind. “Like hell you do.”
“Want to make a bet?” I said. His hand clasped over mine, holding my hand and zipper down and shut.
Just as I was turning around to tell him off, something big thwacked against the tent, followed by a loud growl. I crawled to the other end of the tent, terrified for the moment the bird would tear through the fabric. Greer didn’t even bother to flinch.
“The tent’s impermeable,” Greer explained. “Hellfire couldn’t get inside.”
The bird jumped and hacked at the material with its big toe, but the tent didn’t budge.
“Forget the walk.” Bitterness and anger tinged Greer’s voice. “That bird will be at it all night. Besides, cassowaries aren’t the only things out there. There’s worse, much worse. At some point, I’d think you’d realize that. Looking at your history, tomorrow a penguin might do you in.”
“There aren’t penguins in the woods,” I said in defiance.
“Shows what you know. Your family created genetically modified animals to survive the different environments. They made America a living zoo. ”
“What? Penguins? How is that possible? They eat fish.”
“Not the Northeastern Termite Penguin, a poor and unfortunate freak of nature. Long-legged, with a tongue that can zip out at seven inches. Natural penguins have weird enough tongues, but the genetically altered ones are the stuff of nightmares. You should see the Mid-Western Hyena. They eat rats in a way that makes you feel sorry for the rat.”
I moved next to Greer on my sleeping bag. “I thought the koala—”
“Were the only animals? Or that they only release cute, fluffy animals? The Merrics don’t think like that. They add whatever animal they like. Tilbolt Merric thought the country needed kangaroos. Grenoble Merric thought we could use more jaguars. Melville Merric added ten thousand wild poodles.”
The Merrics. “What else is out there?”
“I don’t think you really want to know.” Greer slipped off one of his boots, followed by the other. He had cooled down considerably, and he was acting so natural, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The bird still slashed at the tent to try to get at us. “Genetically modifying the animals can increase aggressive behaviors.”
The bird rammed the tent again. “How much longer is it going to keep this up?”
“He’ll go all night.”
He had saved me yet again. Again and again, this guy had been my hero, and I kept bringing him into danger.
“We need to talk, you know,” I said to him.
To my surprise, Greer responded with, “I know.”
I took a deep breath and moved across from Greer so I could look him in the face. “I’m not too trusting. I mean, I used to be. I grew up trusting that people were good. My mom always said there were more good people in this world than bad. I didn’t know the man posing as my uncle was one of the terrible ones, and I didn’t trust the Diddles. I ran into Nate because I was lost.”
Greer stared down at his feet. “Looked like you were running away to get back to the Merrics.”
“Bollard’s a vile human being, and I’m terrified of him.” Tears were filling my eyes. “I don’t ever, ever want to see him again.”
“But you walking off like that almost brought you right back to him,” Greer explained, and he looked up at me. “Do you know what would have happened if the Diddles had called the Libratiers and not those hunters? I’d be worse than dead by now and you… you think losing a day’s memory is bad? They’d have taken your memories all the way back to before the Boston attack. Heck, they’d likely take all your memories back to the day you left home and erase the whole summer.”
“They can do that?” Oh God. My face fell. Of all the things I had considered might happen if they captured me, losing all my memories wasn’t one.
“And worse, but you already know that, don’t you?” Greer’s jaw tightened.
Lothaire, the nightmare, the bird, Claudette, and now me. I shrugged and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Greer shook his head and took a deep breath. “You play innocent well, I’ll give you that. But it’s a lie, isn’t it? I could forgive you going to talk to the Diddles. You’re practically a kid—“
My hands flew to my hips. “I am not a kid. I graduated high school and I’m almost eighteen.”
He held his ground. “I could forgive the Diddles. It was poor judgment. Reckless. I hoped the nightmare was a side effect of all you’ve been throu
gh but after yesterday… how am I supposed to testify for you at the trial?”
“Trial? What Trial?”
“Yes, the Galvantry trial. The trial that decides if the Galvantry will help you or not. I took you assuming the Merrics had never trained you.”
“I’m not following,” I said, because I wasn’t.
Greer’s eyes narrowed. “I know what it all means; I’m not new to the Merrics. The nightmares, the hypnotism.”
My eyebrows squished together, and I shrugged. “What does my nightmare have to do with me accidentally doing what I did yesterday?”
“Accidentally?! Waverly, it takes years of training for a Merric to entrance a group of people and especially to leave out a selected—it took Queen Bianca nearly two years before she could hold the trance. Claudette took four years.”
“I wasn’t trained.” When he didn’t look as if he believed me, I added, “I wasn’t.”
Greer rubbed his eyebrows. “If you… you’ll never pass the Galvantry trial. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you now.”
“Now? What do you mean by now?”
“Waverly, this all matters from here on out. Be honest with me,” he said, and I knew I wasn’t the only one with deep trust issues. “How much training did the Merrics have you do?” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “The dream you had… the Merrics have nightmares all the time. It’s a side effect of the training and what they do.” He looked me in the eyes and Greer’s body was tense. He needed to know this answer and by the way he looked, this answer would change everything. “This is very important. Did the Merrics train you?”
“The Merrics didn’t train me.”
He raised his eyebrows, incredulous and I knew he needed a lot more.
“Okay, fine, I’ll tell you what I know. The dream was bad. It was the worst dream I’ve ever had. I saw things, but it didn’t even make sense. And that dream had nothing to do with anything they taught me in L’Autre Bête.” Only what I saw, I thought. “Greer, I didn’t use my powers though. They never trained me. They planned to ease me into it, but then Boston happened and things went so quickly after that. Yesterday was as big of a surprise to me as it was to you. You can give me the Exodrodinal if you don’t believe me.”