by Gregory Ashe
Chapter 22, Saturday 10 September
No weapon. I had nothing. I scrambled up the tree, fast as I could, and I cursed myself for an idiot. I’d been there twice before, escaped the sprawls both times. I’d thought them as mindless as the sinks, and now I was paying the price. Their trap had worked perfectly.
And the quickener? That might be the blood I was smelling, but I couldn’t be sure. It would be hard to take down a fully trained quickener, but the one I’d seen was far from experienced. I cursed myself again.
I’d been so confident, so sure that by poisoning the tree, by incapacitating the grower, that the sprawls would have stopped. Confident that I could outwit the sprawls again, if there were any. Confident that I could deal with the quickener, because I’d already dealt with the grower.
And so I’d come here alone, again, because of that over-confidence. I was going to die because of that stupidity. Hell, Isaac and Christopher were probably sharing a laugh over this, wherever they were.
The sprawls, some of them at least, were starting up the tree. Their fingers drove through the bark and wood easily, ripping out long slashes as they climbed. And they climbed fast. I moved higher as best I could, but the branches thinned out, and I stopped before one of them could break under me and send me falling.
The cemetery spread out below me like a map. I could see the sprawls stationed, some of them at least, from here. I took a moment to consider the scene below me, ignoring the sprawls coming towards me. It was, as much as anything, a way to keep from pissing myself in terror.
Along the fence, and near the gate, sprawls lurked, dark shapes against the grass. I imagined more were hidden in the trees. And below me, a tight ring of sprawls. It didn’t seem to make sense, not exactly. If the sprawls were trying to capture people, they’d do better branching out, heading into the city, instead of keeping so many clustered together at the tree. But if they were trying to guard it, why let me through? Why not stop me when they had a chance? I couldn’t figure it out.
Right then, though, a sprawl came within reach of me. I eyed a nearby branch and jumped, and the tree creaked and swayed as I flew through the air. I hit hard, right on the cuts on my chest, and let out a gasp. But I pulled myself up onto the branch. Another minute of life.
And then the sprawl duplicated my jump, latching onto the same branch I stood on. I had forgotten how agile they were—not like sinks at all, really. So I started smashing its hands as best I could. My tennis shoes dug into the rotting flesh. I grabbed the branch above me to steady myself, and I heard a crack beneath me. Good. I bounced up and down, trying to knock the thing free. The other sprawls were still moving up, but more slowly now, watching. They were too smart, smarter than sinks.
Another crack. I really got into it, practically jumping up and down. I was so close to knocking it free; no matter how strong it was, it wouldn’t be able to hold itself up with broken fingers. I hoped.
Long and low, a new sound filled the stillness of the air. It took me a moment to realize what it was. The branch, breaking beneath me.
I fell.
If the sprawl fell too, I don’t know, because everything was moving too quickly. Branches and leaves scraped my face. Tugged at my arms. Caught my shirt. Faces, flesh peeling away to reveal hungry mouths, flashed up at me from between the flicker-stop vision of my flight.
Light, brilliant, filling the air with the smell of burned hair—my hair, I realized, when I felt heat racing along my back. Something caught me by the arm. I heard a thud and a grunt, and I swung sideways, the tree swaying in response. The sudden stop sent a jolt of pain through my shoulder.
I hung there, staring down into the face of a sprawl. It was the teenager with the piercings across her chest. Less than a foot below my head. All I could do was gasp for breath and, in a sort of ridiculous moment of clarity, realize I had been screaming as I fell.
“Hold on,” someone said above me. My rescuer. “This is going to hurt.”
Everything dissolved into white, like a cheap special effect. Grainy, shifting white. Hot white. Fire raced up my arms, pried at my mouth, trying to get in and devour my screams, but that white place was a space without movement, without time, without anything. Just me, frozen in pain, and the distant sensation of a hand on my arm.
Night rushed back in around us, the way things look when you’re blacking out, or dizzy from standing up too fast. I took two deep breaths of humid, river-mud air and screamed. Really screamed. I could still feel the flames running up and down me, like I’d been dumped into a bonfire.
It faded slowly, until my skin just felt tingling and hot, the way it would after a sunburn. Grass poked up between my fingers, cool and damp and prickly. I let myself take a few more breaths, try to calm down, before I glared at up my rescuer. The quickener. Still using that focus that hid his features, so all I could see was blurred shadows under the hood. It didn’t soften my gaze.
“What the hell was that?” I shouted. Well, shout is an overstatement. It came out kind of a croak.
“Sorry, I’ve never actually taken someone with me before. Are you alright? I need to get back there.”
“Obviously you’ve never quickened with someone else before,” I said, brushing myself off and standing up. Everything still ached, but worst was my shoulder. “You’re lucky you haven’t burned yourself to a cinder. Are you even using a focus to travel? Or are you just riding your ground?” I was too angry at him, at his incompetence, to realize what I was saying. “Hell, go back to the cemetery, see if I care. You’ll be lucky if they don’t rip you to shreds; God, I’ve never seen anyone so incompetent.”
“You . . .” he said. “How could—” He stopped and vanished in another flash of light, so hot it almost burned off my eyebrows. I blinked against the after-image, trying to regain my night vision. As part of that process, I collapsed onto my back and groaned. Everything hurt, but the feel of the grass tickling my neck, the back of my arms, was a slight relief. What had I done?
Well, I’d revealed to him that I knew he was a quickener. And that I thought he was untrained. Which means, if he knew anything about quickening, he would suspect I was trying to kill him. That’s sort of the procedure, if you’re untrained. Of course, considering he was untrained, he probably didn’t know what that meant. Judging by the sunburn-feeling that still lingered, he’d probably had no training at all.
Regardless, I rolled to my feet. Whether or not he knew what I was supposed to do, I didn’t want to be here when he came back. If he came back. Hell, he’d been surprisingly late tonight. I was lucky he’d shown up at all. Lucky he’d shown up, and stupid to have gone again to the cemetery. I shivered, trying to gauge my position in the city. Somewhere near the river. Probably south end of town, judging by the massive, dark buildings I judged to be the industrial complexes.
I was never going to that cemetery alone again. And especially not at night. Not if that grower in the hospital woke up; not if a dozen growers showed up and offered sacrifices at lunch one day. Not me. I wasn’t a quickener any more, and I’d put my life in danger enough times. I was done with that. Not just my life, either; I’d jeopardized the one good thing that had happened to me, and all because I couldn’t get past the stupid training my grandfather had forced on me. Well, that part of my life was over. I wasn’t a quickener. I needed to learn that. The sunburn was just one more reminder I added to my list.
It took me almost half an hour to find my way back to the cemetery. My bike was still parked at the gate, thank goodness. I got on gingerly, wincing at the lines of heat where sunburned skin moved, and started the bike. Then I made my way back home, grateful for a chance to rest and figure out a way to patch things up with Olivia. Maybe she wouldn’t be mad. She’d been surprisingly cool about everything so far. But I’d have to tell her something, and I didn’t want to lie to her. Lying to Isaac, lying to myself, had gotten me killed. I didn’t want to have to lie anymore.
When I pulled up to the house and opened the
garage, lights started to go on. Lots of lights. Too many lights. Glaring out at me from the front windows. Accusing. It gave me a sort of self-satisfied thrill. There was a confrontation coming. I could feel it in the air. And I was ready for it. Because I was angry, I realized. Angry at how incompetent that quickener was. Angry that he could still quicken, while I had nothing left. Angry at Isaac and Christopher both, because I had to carry that guilt with me everywhere. And most of all, angry at my grandfather. Because he, more than anyone, had set the path that led to their deaths, to my responsibility. A weight I could never escape. I wanted to dig him up and spit in his face, the old bastard, for doing this to me.
I nestled the motorcycle next to Isaac’s car, shut the garage, and went in the front door. Dad was standing in the hall that led to the great room. The silence of his typewriter was audible, like an inversion of all those clicks and clacks, rising up between us. He broke it by speaking first, when I started up the stairs.
“Alex, your friend is waiting upstairs in your room, but your mother and I would like to talk to you first.”
“Friend?” I said.
Dad didn’t answer. He went into the great room, and I followed. Mom was sitting there, her eyes red-rimmed, but if she’d been crying, she just looked angry now.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she said, before I could even make it to the couch. She took two steps across the room and slapped me. Not hard. But it shocked me. My parents had never hit me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing with a motorcycle?”
“Essie,” Dad said, and he stood back up, moved to stand next to her. “Calm down.”
“No, Josh, I won’t calm down,” she said. “Answer the question. What do you think you’re doing with a motorcycle?”
“Whatever I want,” I said. “What do you care? You spend all your time in the garden.”
“Alex,” Dad said, and this time I could hear the anger in his voice. “Watch your mouth.”
“You have a perfectly good, safe car in the garage,” Mom said. “I will not allow you to ride that motorcycle again. Do you know how dangerous those are? Do you have any idea what could happen to you? Did you even think about that? Think about what it would do to us?”
And there it was. This was all about them, again. Not about me at all.
“I’m not going to drive Isaac’s car,” I said. “I’ve told you that before. You both refuse to listen to me.”
“And give us one good reason why you can’t.” Dad said. He was getting into it now. “It’s a great car; Isaac loved that car.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Isaac loved that car. You know, I guess that’s the problem, isn’t it? We all know what Isaac would have done. But he wanted a motorcycle too, and I can bet you money that if he’d gotten one, you wouldn’t have reacted this way.”
“This isn’t about Isaac,” Mom said.
“Why can’t you just—” Dad started.
I stopped him before he could say it. Be like Isaac. “Don’t,” I said. I was shaking I realized. “Don’t say that. I’m trying. I’m doing my best.”
Dad looked confused, but it didn’t fool me. “Alex,” he said after a moment. “Listen, please. We know it’s been hard, with what happened to Isaac. If you’d just talk to us every once and a while—we’re worried about you, Alex. We love you.”
Mom was crying now. But what could I say to that? Did I tell them what they already knew? That I was responsible for Isaac’s death. That it was all my fault. That he had followed me, when I snuck out of the house to meet Christopher. That he had followed me to that subway station. That he had . . . that he had done exactly what Grandfather would have wanted, because I had already betrayed what we were supposed to be. And that I had tried to save him too late, because I had wanted to have Christopher too. Because I had been selfish.
All those words jumbled together in my mouth. “I’m not getting rid of the motorcycle,” was the only thing I could say. The only thing that we could talk about without falling into dangerous truths. I turned and stormed out of the room.
I hurried up the stairs, into my room, slammed the door and leaned against it. My breath came in great hiccoughs, threatening to tumble over into tears. I didn’t know who I was angry at, or even really what I was angry at. I wanted to believe my parents still loved me, even in spite of what they’d been able to figure out about that night. But one thing was certain: if they knew the truth of that night, they would hate me for sure.
“Um,” a voice said in the dark.
I started, wiped my eyes, my cheeks hotter even than the sunburned feeling. “Who’s there?” I said. A friend, Dad had said. I didn’t have any friends, not really. “Wyatt, is that you?” I stalled, trying to get my breathing under control, clear my face, but after a minute, I gave it up for hopeless. Wyatt had been sitting there the whole time, so he hadn’t missed anything. I flicked on the light.
Sitting on my bed in nothing but a wife-beater and a pair of gym shorts—no shoes, even—was Mike. Not Wyatt. The air suddenly felt too heavy to breathe, pressing in on my skin, the hairs on my arms standing up as a current ran through me.
“Hey Asa,” he said with a pained smile. Then he pulled out a fork and stabbed it into the electrical socket.