by Lola StVil
As I reach them, Regal goes down, his face a mask of pain like Saudia’s was. The others are all battling their own private swarms, and no one is covering Regal. The wasp that stung him hovers over him, and then it swoops down in a dive.
I’m close enough to take it out. I want him dead, but he did save me back in the fun house.
He kissed Atlas. He saved me. He kissed Atlas. He saved me.
I have only seconds to decide what to do.
“Fuck,” I say as I blast away the attacking wasp.
I won’t be in anyone’s debt.
The paralysis wears off, and Regal gets to his feet and removes the stinger.
“Now we’re even,” I snarl at him.
I turn away and blast away a couple of wasps that were getting dangerously close to Remy. I still can’t let go of the idea that’s she’s somehow the key to all of this.
We’ve almost wiped out the wasps, and I’m starting to think we’re only minutes away from victory. I’m wrong.
A loud buzzing comes from behind me, and I look over my shoulder to see another large swarm heading our way. I look through the swarm, and I can see they’re coming from one of the abandoned houses. Only this one isn’t abandoned. A woman stands on the doorstep.
Her eyes are closed, and her hands are raised. Her body moves in a rhythm only she can hear.
And that’s when I know. She’s controlling the wasps. That’s why they’re concentrating on Remy. She can use mind control to destroy the woman, and that’ll be the end of the attack. She just has to get close enough.
I duck underneath Perry’s arm and kneel down beside Remy.
“Remy, listen to me,” I say urgently.
Something in my tone gets through her panic, and she sit up and looks at me. She’s shaking all over, and her eyes are like pinpricks in the stark whiteness of her face.
I point to the house.
“See the woman there?”
She nods. Her eyes still have a vacant look, but I think she understands what I’m saying.
“She’s controlling the wasps. You have to get to her and destroy her mind.”
She just looks at me.
“Do you understand?” I ask.
She nods. “I understand. But I can’t do it. I can’t. Look at them all.”
She shudders as she peers up at the wasps.
“Listen to me. You’re our only shot. Your brother, your friends. They’re all going to die if you don’t do this. You’ll be safe. We’ll cover you.”
“I can’t,” she says, shaking her head violently from side to side.
I stand up and pull her to her feet. The terror on her face makes me feel bad for doing this to her, but I’m not exaggerating when I say she’s our only hope.
The woman can sense something has changed, and she sends yet more wasps towards us. I blast away the ones that are getting too close to Remy. The team keeps on battling, but they’re losing ground, and it’s only a matter of time before the wasps overpower us.
“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t,” Remy chants over and over again.
A scream of pain and Quinn goes down. We’re running out of time. I have to find a way to break through Remy’s panic. I can only think of one way. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s all I can think of. I have to turn her panic to anger.
I drop the gentle tone I’ve been using with her. I stand tall, towering over her.
“If you don’t do this, I’ll feed you to the fucking wasps myself,” I shout.
“Kane!” Atlas shouts, shock on her face. “What the fuck?”
The team are all glaring at me now.
“Trust me. Please,” I say to Atlas.
I don’t know if her turning her attention back to the wasps is her silent agreement to that or if she’s just conscious of dying if she gets distracted for too long.
I turn back to Remy.
“You’re nothing but a fucking coward,” I taunt her. “Letting your team die for you this way. Your parents would be ashamed of you.”
The last part is a low blow, and I know it, but it works. The vacant expression disappears, and all traces of fear are gone as Remy’s anger surfaces.
“You bastard,” she screams, launching herself at me.
I hold her at arm’s length.
“Use the anger, Remy. Use it to beat your fear and take that bitch down,” I say.
She gives me a grim nod. “Cover me,” she says.
She sets off running towards the woman. The wasps all turn as one and swarm behind her. I fire into them as quickly as I can. I promised her she wouldn’t get hurt, but there are too many of them.
“Langston, throw a shield over Remy,” Atlas shouts.
She still doesn’t understand what’s happening, but she senses something is up.
Langston does as Atlas says. The shield won’t hold for long, but hopefully, it will hold for long enough.
We run behind Remy, firing at the wasps that surround her. A few get out in front of her, and she falters. For one long fucking moment, I think she’s going to let the fear control her, but instead, she fires at them, taking them down.
She reaches the woman as the shield explodes. She has seconds to do this. We hold our fire. The wasps are close to her now, and we risk hitting her instead of the wasps.
The woman sees what’s going to happen, and she tries to run, but she’s too late. Remy reaches out and places her hands on the woman’s temples. The woman falls to the ground, dead, and so do the wasps.
As soon as the danger is over, Atlas rounds on me.
“I heard what you said to her, Kane. How could you?” she shouts.
“Stop,” Remy says, coming to Atlas’s side and putting a restraining hand on her arm. “It was what I needed to hear; if it weren’t for Kane, we’d all be dead.”
Atlas gives her a questioning look.
“I let the fear consume me. Kane made me angry enough to swallow it,” she explains.
Atlas relaxes a little. Remy turns to me.
“Thank you,” she says. “But if you ever mention my parents again, it’ll be your brain getting fried.”
“Fair enough,” I agree with admiration.
“I don’t understand how the woman was controlling the wasps,” Quinn says. “It’s bees that have a hive mentality that you could tap into, not wasps.”
“They weren’t real,” I say as understanding fills me.
“You’re saying we imagined them?” Perry asks.
“No. Not exactly. When I was fighting Dax to get the key to the island, he used mind games on me. He conjured shit up that affected my mind, made me believe I was hurt when I wasn’t. He doesn’t attack physically; he attacks mentally. And this is his island. He’s still using mind games.”
The team still looks blank.
“So, the wasps were real in the sense that they were attacking us for real. But they weren’t actually Jungong Wasps. They were a psychic attack that manifested itself as a wasp. Is this making any sense?” I say.
Quinn nods thoughtfully.
“Yeah. I get what you’re saying. The attackers take on a form we’ll recognize, but they don’t necessarily have to have all of the traits of that creature because they’re not the actual creature.”
“Yeah. That,” I agree.
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Perry says glumly.
“We’ve got company,” Remy says.
She nods towards the houses that line the street. Faces stare out at us, pressing up against the windows.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t see those,” Quinn says.
“Why? What are they?” Atlas asks.
“Remember when I told you that if we run out of time here, we die? Well, that wasn’t entirely truthful. If we die here, we’ll become like them. They’re what are left of the people who got trapped here before. They either got a key from Dax for one reason or another, or they found another way in, but now they can never leave.”
“Why would anyone come here by
choice?” Remy asks quietly, looking around her at the eerie street.
Quinn shrugs.
“There are Manolo herbs growing here somewhere that can make mixtures more potent. It’s the only place you can get them now.”
“And you didn’t think it was important to mention the eternal damnation before we came in?” I interrupt.
“Why? Would knowing that have made you turn back and abandon Atlas?” she fires back.
“No,” I answer.
If she’d told me I’d spend eternity trapped in my Wave, I’d still have come. And this fate doesn’t seem quite as bad as that.
“So, what exactly are they?” Saudia asks.
“They’re Soul Suckers. They can’t attack us because they can’t leave the houses, but if we hang around here too long, they can affect us. They can make us feel so much empathy for them that we can’t stop ourselves from approaching them. The second you step over the threshold of any of the houses, you can’t get out, and the soul suckers will feast on the very essence of what makes you, well, you.”
“Nice,” Saudia says.
“I suggest we get moving then,” Regal adds.
“We should send the demon in first. He doesn’t know what compassion is,” Perry says.
Atlas throws him a look.
“He’s right. I don’t,” I agree. “But he’s wrong about me going first. I’ll bring up the rear, and then if any of you get distracted or pulled in by the soul suckers, I can grab you.”
“But why would you, though? No offense. Why not just look the other way?” Perry asks with genuine curiosity.
“Yeah, letting us wander off to our destruction just makes your job that much easier,” Quinn adds.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve saved their asses since we arrived on this island, and they still assume I’m going to double-cross them. Fuck it; life’s too short to argue with idiots.
Regal and Remy just stand back and don’t say anything even though I just saved them both.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” I grin.
Atlas rolls her eyes.
“Let’s just go.”
We head up the street. Even to my mind, it’s a depressing place. I can almost taste the depression in the air. It’s beginning to affect the team. Their footsteps are becoming slower as they sink into despondency.
A tear shimmers on Quinn’s cheek. She glances at one of the houses and looks away. Quickly, she turns her head back, and I see what grabbed her attention. One of the faces in the window belongs to a child.
“Help me,” the child says in a quiet voice.
Quinn veers towards her.
“Keep moving. I can’t stop all of you at once,” I say when the team stops and turns back.
I run after Quinn and grab her arm.
“Get off me,” she snarls.
“You have to keep moving,” I tell her.
“But she’s just a kid. She doesn’t belong here.”
“That’s not a kid, Quinn. It’s another trick. Remember? Mind games.”
“I… I’m not sure,” she says.
“Yes you are. Look again,” I reassure her.
She shakes her head.
“I can’t,” she says, tears filling her eyes.
She’s in an almost trance-like state, but she allows me to lead her away from the house. The others are off the street now, and they wait for us a couple of feet away from the end of the houses.
Quinn walks beside me, her head down. She is compliant enough, and she allows me to keep leading her along. We’re almost at the end of the street when she comes to life.
She twists her arm and sprints away from me, heading back to the house she almost entered.
“Quinn, no,” I shout.
I run after her and quickly catch her. I grab her. She twists and writhes. She kicks, hits, and scratches at me. She’s surprisingly strong, but I manage to keep my grip on her. I drag her, kicking and screaming obscenities, back to the end of the street.
I have to admit I get it. Seeing a child’s face in one of those windows almost got to even me. It took me back to my Wave. The haunted, empty eyes of the boys in Market Place. The pleas for help. But no one came.
Am I dragging Quinn away from a child who desperately needs saving?
With a grunt of effort, I give one last tug and pull Quinn out of the street before we both end up trapped. My doubts vanish the second I’m out of there. Quinn relaxes in my grip and breathes out a shaky sigh.
“Shit,” she says.
When I’m sure she’s back to her normal self, I release her. I’m tensed, ready to grab her if it was a trick, but she makes no move to go back in. The effects have worn off. She rubs her arm where I gripped her. She looks down and sees bruises there in the shape of my fingers.
“Guess I deserved that,” she says.
She nods towards my face, and I reach up and touch it. A deep scratch stings at my touch and my fingers come away bloody.
“You’re stronger than you look,” I say.
I take a moment to look around. To one side of us is a large expanse of water that we have no hope of crossing. That leaves us the other option. It’s not a whole lot better than the first one, but at least it might be possible.
Another street sits in front of us, but this one isn’t lined with houses. It’s just a long paved strip of land. To one side is the water, to the other, cliffs and a fall to certain death.
“I guess we go that way then,” Perry says, pointing at the water with a grin.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. How does the team not tell him to shut the fuck up with these constant wisecracks?
“Wait,” Atlas cautions as we approach the walkway.
She points to something that looks like a motion sensor. There’s one positioned at either side of the walkway.
“What’s this?”
Regal bends down to get a closer look.
“Looks like a Green Gas releaser,” he says and straightens back up.
“Which is?” Atlas asks.
“Green Gas is highly toxic. It burns but not just on the outside. When you breathe it in, it practically melts your insides too. Once you come into contact with it, you have around thirty seconds before it turns green and you start to feel the effects. And around fifty seconds before you’re dead,” Regal says.
I look at the walkway, trying to gauge how long it will take to cross it. It’s not a huge length, but it’s long enough to make me have my doubts that we can make it quickly enough.
“So, how do we get across it?” Atlas asks.
“We don’t. We find another way,” Regal answers, standing up.
“No way. It’ll take too long.” Atlas disagrees, shaking her head.
“There’s one thing we can try,” Quinn says.
“What?” Atlas asks her.
“Well, Kane could run across and see if it’s possible to get through quickly enough. Anyone with demon blood is immune to the Green Gas. Or so I’ve read.”
“So you’ve read? So, you’re not actually sure that’s true. What if it isn’t?” I ask, offended.
Perry grins at me.
“Well, in your words, there’s only one way to find out.”
I’m not sure I like this new development. The one time they trust me to do something useful without me having to prove myself is the one time I’m pretty much guaranteed instant death if it doesn’t work out. I could make my peace with that, but the thought of being trapped in one of those houses turns my fucking stomach.
But I can’t let them see I’m afraid. I’m a demon, for fuck’s sake. I’m not supposed to be afraid of anything.
I step forward.
“Someone time me,” I say.
Quinn sets her watch, and I run before there can be any more debate about it. I’m three-quarters of the way along when the Green Gas flows around me. It doesn’t hurt, and even when I breathe it in, I’m fine. I feel a slight pang of dizziness, but nothing else. I re
ach the other side.
I stand on the edge of the cliff. The ground is white and chalky, but there are trees sprouting through it forming a short patch of forest. I wonder how they are growing out of this ground, but the conversation from the other end of the walkway soon grabs my attention.
“Thirty-five seconds,” I hear Quinn say. “We can do it, but it’s going to be painful.”
“Let’s hope that Kane was right about the mind games. If he is, then as soon as we leave the walkway, we’ll be okay.”
“We’ll just have to live with the pain,” Atlas says as she runs towards me without warning.
It’s a half-assed plan at best. What if I’m wrong?
The team reluctantly follows Atlas. I count the seconds in my head.
Halfway. Eighteen seconds.
Closer, closer. Twenty-nine seconds.
I hit the thirty second count, and the gas turns solid green. Instantly, the team begins screaming, clawing at their throats, patting at their bodies. I can see their skin bubbling, blisters rising everywhere.
They’re almost here. Thirty-eight seconds.
The pain is slowing them down.
Saudia trips and it feels like everything goes into slow motion. She goes down, and there’s no sign of her getting back up.
Forty seconds. The rest of the team is almost clear. Another second and they’ll make it.
I take a step forward, planning on running back to get to Saudia, but the ground beneath me starts to shake violently. Fissures appear, giant cracks running along the cliff face. I fall to my knees.
The ground is shaking so violently I can’t get up. The team burst out of the gas, and their blisters are gone instantly, along with the pain.
Forty-one seconds.
The violent shaking sends them all tumbling to the ground except for Perry, who has spotted Saudia and leaped back onto the walkway. This time, the effects of the gas are instantaneous, and he’s screaming as he runs to her side.
Forty-three seconds.
Perry reaches down and hoists Saudia over his shoulder. She’s too far gone to stand. Her skin is gone, replaced with an exposed layer of wet flesh.
Perry tries to get back to us. The ground is still shaking, and the vibrations are getting stronger and stronger. I can no longer lie pressed flat to the ground. I can feel myself being thrown into the air, and then I come slamming back down. Over and over again it happens. I’m becoming more disoriented by the second.