by Kelli Kimble
When I fell to my knees and nearly knocked my head against a tree trunk, I cursed myself for being so stupid. I really needed to learn to take better advantage of my abilities. I floated up and shot between the trees much faster than I could’ve run, even if I were in great shape.
I came to her and put a hand on her arm. “Gayle? It’s me, Nim.” I tried to ease her arm away from her face.
“This was a mistake, Nimisila,” she said. “Me and my stupid ideas are going to get us both killed.”
I glanced around again, stretched out, and felt for something alive. But, there was nothing nearby.
I sighed. Gayle was becoming more paranoid every day. If anything was going to get us killed, it was her panic. “Come on,” I said. I stood up and held a hand out to her. She latched onto it, and I pulled her up.
But that’s when I felt it.
There was something—but, it wasn’t on the ground. It was right above us. In the trees.
My breath whooshed out.
It was big.
Gayle noticed my change in demeanor and stiffened. “What?”
“Why were you on the ground like that?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“I—I thought I saw eyes. Reflected in the water, looking at me.”
An alarming amount of spit flooded my mouth. I thought I might vomit.
“You’re scaring me, Nim. Tell me what you sense.” Her eyes darted around us, searching for the source. Just like me, she never looked up for danger.
City girls. We were going to die because we were stupid city girls.
I felt a surge in hostility from the thing in the tree. It didn’t seem to have a shape I could identify; the leaves and branches masked it from my senses, and I didn’t dare turn my face up to look at it with my own eyes.
“Get on my back,” I said.
“You mean, like a pack? I’m twice as big as you, Nimisila,” she said.
I spun around and backed up to her, then used the air around her to force her against me, lift her legs around my waist, and her arms over my shoulder. I jumped maybe 15 feet to the left, and then floated into the air, away from it.
Oh, sweet Lord. It wasn’t alone.
They began calling to each other in a horrible wail that sounded a lot like a baby in pain. Gayle’s grip around my neck tightened, and the sounds thickened and swelled with the addition of her screams. I managed to keep my own in check as I tried to find a clear path through the canopy.
Now, I could sense them all; there were easily a dozen. Their bodies were a strange color, sort of a brackish brown that hid them in the leaves. But their faces were black, with yellow eyes. Cat eyes. Were these some sort of cat species? They were easily 10 or 20 times the size of the largest cat I’d ever seen in the city.
“Shh!” I demanded. “I need to think, Gayle. I can’t do that while you’re screaming in my ear.”
“Sorry,” she said. She quieted to a whimper. She buried her face in my hair.
We were floating up, but I could feel two of the cats on either side of us and just above us. We weren’t going to get past them.
I mentally punched at one. It howled in defiance and tried to swipe back, but I wasn’t close enough for it to touch me. Its paws were gigantic and tipped with black claws that looked sharp enough to cut through metal. I hit it again, and this time, it lost its footing. It scrabbled against the branch but couldn’t find enough resistance to right itself. It tumbled from the tree just to our right, howling maniacally the whole way down. It landed with a thud.
The rest were quiet, just for a moment. I used the time to move to the right, out of reach of the other cat that was still in the tree above us. Then, I floated higher above it.
The quiet from the cats didn’t last. The trees seemed to explode with activity, as they all bounded towards Gayle and me. The leaves and branches danced in every direction, making upward movement difficult. But I pushed on and finally got above the largest of the trees. Below us, the trees pulsed with activity. I started floating back towards camp.
The cats followed.
“They aren’t going to let us go,” Gayle said. “You’re going to have to kill them.”
I frowned. I didn’t like killing things, and I’d hoped to never have to kill anything else again. But I also wanted to live to see tomorrow.
Gayle sensed my hesitation. “This is life-or-death, Nim. We can’t just fly away from them.”
I rolled that thought around for a minute. Could we just fly away? But—our things. If Gayle could barely sleep now, she’d never sleep again if we didn’t have a shelter and her bedroll.
My concentration ebbed, and we started to dip down towards the treetops. One of the cats was waiting, and it jumped at us, seemingly without concern for where it was going to land.
Its claw caught the skin of my right shin and left a burning trail, followed by that feeling of fresh air against an open wound. I suppressed a scream and moved upwards. I gritted my teeth against the pain.
Unfortunately for the cats, the pain hardened my resolve. I did not like pain being inflicted on me by another, and I would never tolerate it again.
Never.
I reached out with my senses and found the closest cat. It was in a tree, sitting on a branch. I imagined the branch breaking free. It wailed as it fell, but when it hit the ground and the branch fell over its back, there was a horrific snapping sound. The cat splayed onto its belly, feet spread akimbo, and it didn’t move again.
“Good job, Nim. There’s another one!” Gayle said, pointing to a cat on the ground, near our shelter.
I cringed at her glee. I didn’t want to kill the cat; I just didn’t want to die. Maybe the rest would run off, now that I’d killed one?
Another cat joined the one on the ground, and they stood together, staring up at us, their heads moving in unison as they tracked our movement through the air.
I sighed. I wished I had a gun, or any kind of weapon. I didn’t want the animals to suffer.
I concentrated on the heads of the two on the ground and imagined squeezing—hard—so that their skulls would be crushed in only a moment.
They fell limply to the ground without making a sound.
I don’t want to hurt anyone else, I projected to the animals in the vicinity. If you’ll just leave us alone, then I’ll leave you alone. Just go.
A cat that was larger than the others came into the clearing and stood over the bodies of the other two. He nudged one with his nose, and then the other. He looked up at me and let out a ferocious roar. He twitched his tail, and he started pacing back and forth beside the bodies, never taking his yellow eyes off me.
Please, I said. I didn’t want to hurt them. We’re afraid.
It planted its paws and glared up at me. I distinctly heard its voice in my head: You should be!
You understand me, then?
It didn’t answer.
I started to float closer to the ground. But I stayed out of reach. If I have to, I’ll kill all of you, I said. We just want to collect our things and be on our way.
The cat’s eyes narrowed. Humans, it scoffed. You think that’s all you want. You might even believe it. But, you’re all the same: Take what you can, and everything else be damned.
“Stop talking to it already and kill it,” Gayle said. “My arms are getting tired, and you can’t hold us up here all day.”
Did you hear that? I asked. She wants me to kill you. Maybe she’s right.
It only took a thought to knock the nearest cat from its tree and drag it into the clearing in front of the leader. I held my hands up, the same way I had when I’d crushed the first two. I pretended I was going to crush it.
Wait! the cat said.
Are you going to leave us alone? Will you let us come down, collect our things, and move on?
It roared again, and this time, the other cats roared back in answer. The cat I’d pulled from the tree retreated to stand at the haunches of the leader.
I’m warning you: No
tricks, I said.
We’ll leave you alone, the leader cat. Come on down.
You have to retreat first. All the cats, out of the trees. I want them sitting right over there, where we can see them. I pointed across the clearing. It was uncomfortably close, but I needed them in sight.
The leader paced back and forth. Fine. It moved to the spot I’d pointed to, and one by one, the other cats jumped from the trees and gathered there.
I checked to make sure none of them were hiding in the trees, then we eased to the ground, and Gayle jumped off.
“I’d prefer not to have to do that again,” she said, brushing her shirt and pants, as if they were dusty.
I glared at her. “Get your stuff,” I said.
She went into the shelter and packed everything up, while I stood and watched the cats. Some of them were lying down; a few were casually grooming their fur with their tongues. But the leader kept his sharp eyes on me, and I kept mine on him.
Gayle dragged my pack over. She’d already attached her own to her back. “All set,” she said. “Let me help you get this on.”
That was our mistake.
Just as she lifted it, and I shifted my focus to getting my arms through the straps, the cats pounced. It seemed like they flew to us, and just for a moment, I was stunned.
But desperation makes my abilities stronger.
It’s a good thing they didn’t know that.
I curled down to one knee, my fists to my forehead. My jaw clenched, and I pushed all my strength – every ounce – into the spot under my hands.
The cats were almost upon us.
Behind me, Gayle was screaming bloody murder, and she was clawing at the pack only halfway onto my back, trying to get me to do something to protect us.
The world stilled, and I inhaled, just a tiny breath.
Then, I released. I let all my strength expand towards the cats in a wave.
The air pulsed from the compression. The cats disintegrated as they were blown apart by the wave. One or two faltered and tried to turn away, but it was too late. They didn’t even know what hit them.
The wave kept going, beyond them, into the trees. They leveled, and I watched in horror as a swath of trees a hundred feet wide shattered into toothpicks. The wave kept going, and I tried to call it back, but it wasn’t mine to retrieve. It continued up the rise, away from us and out of sight.
“Holy Mary, what did you do?” Gayle asked.
I hitched the pack onto my back. “I did what you asked.”
I glanced around camp. Everything seemed packed up. I kicked some dirt over the fire and jerked my head in the direction of the devastation.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter 2
My stomach growled. For the hundredth time, I tried to forget Gayle had accidentally dropped our last bit of food into the fire yesterday. This time, it was somewhat easier, because we could finally see our destination.
The mountain.
Not any old mountain, of course. It was the mountain the outsiders had come from. They’d managed to hole up there for more than a thousand years – an impressive stretch.
“Explain again where their food came from,” I said to Gayle.
“They grew it. Inside the mountain, in tanks. It was algae. At least, that’s what the computer says.” She waved her hand at the tablet I was using to navigate to the mountain.
“Algae. Blech,” I said.
“Well, I guess, whatever you’re used to, right?” She paused, and I could hear her gasping for breath, even as I moved away.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Just out of breath, is all,” she said between pants. “We’re at a pretty high elevation, you know. The air’s thinner.”
I rolled my eyes. She’d been out of breath when we were a mile outside the city.
“I really wish we could have taken some of that cat meat,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “You’ve said so a dozen times since yesterday.” I tried not to think of her statement as critical. She was only voicing her hunger, and who was I to be critical of that?
“You didn’t know they were going to disintegrate like that, right?”
I suppressed a sigh. She’d also asked me that a dozen times. “No. I told you. When I’m threatened, my abilities are stronger.” I changed the subject. “That’s where we’re headed. That mountain right ahead.”
We were still a good distance off. We’d learned the hard way that the distance across flat land to a mountain is deceptively long. But we’d probably reach it by tonight if we kept moving.
“Is it? Let me see.” Gayle took the tablet and tapped around the map a bit.
I waited patiently, since it was clear she was just trying to take a minute to rest. I shielded my eyes from the sun and glanced around. The area ahead of us was mostly flat and didn’t have a lot of trees. The lack of shelter concerned me, but when I reached out to sense if anything else was around, I didn’t feel anything significant.
Gayle finally handed the tablet back to me. “Looks like you’re right. We’d better get moving if we want to get there by dark.”
“Right,” I said, following behind her. “Let’s go.”
The ground was at least easy to navigate. There weren’t tree roots or tons of loose rocks to trip us up. Still, I couldn’t help but feel the occasional tickle that we were awfully exposed out there in the open.
After I checked for the third time if we were alone, I mentally scolded myself and resolved to only check once an hour.
That was probably my mistake.
We stumbled upon them in a slightly lower dip we hadn’t seen upon our approach: Two little bear cubs, playing a wrestling game with each other.
“Oh, my gosh, look at how adorable they are,” Gayle said. “I just want to pick them up and squeeze them!”
We were probably a dozen feet away, so I didn’t feel like we were in any danger. One of the bear cubs suddenly whimpered; just like human siblings, it was all fun and games until someone got hurt.
Then, I felt the tingle of danger.
Gayle screamed, and then there was a roar. I looked over to her.
An enormous bear was standing on its hind legs, its mouth gaping open to reveal a lot of sharp teeth. It drew back a paw and swiped it at Gayle, who was still screaming in what sounded like one continuous breath. As the paw scraped across her shoulder, her scream got even louder.
I pushed at the bear with my mind, and it stumbled backwards, then dropped to all fours. It seemed to know I was the source of the push, and it looked at me as it huffed a heavy breath.
Then, it charged towards me.
Fast.
I ducked to the side and pushed again — this time, towards the cubs. The bear rolled down the slight incline and came to rest next to one of the babies. The baby bear clutched the leg of the mother bear, but she shook it off and rushed back up the incline towards me.
Stop, I projected into its mind.
The bear startled.
So, it’s you, she said. I wondered if we’d meet.
I narrowed my eyes. How do you know me?
She lowered her hindquarters to the ground and regarded me. You’re the cat killer. I have you to thank for being able to retake the meadow here. The cubs have missed it.
I glanced down at the cubs. They’d already forgotten danger was present, and they were rolling around, wrestling in play.
It was self-defense, I said. I’ll do the same to you if I have to.
The bear rolled a shoulder, nearly copying the shrugging motion of a human. There’s nothing for you to do here. I came only to protect the cubs. Do you mean them harm?
No.
Gayle whimpered from where she was kneeling in the grass. Her back was to the bear. She probably thought I’d killed it.
“Are you hurt?” I asked her, not taking my eyes from the bear.
She continued to regard me, as if I were nothing more than a daisy growing in the grass. “I’m bleed
ing,” she said. “That blasted bear cut my shoulder. Just look.”
I went over to her, keeping watch on the bear. It was studying a paw, licking it in intervals. I wondered if it was tasting Gayle’s blood. Her shoulder had a series of three gashes; the biggest was maybe as long as my pointer finger, and the smallest was only an inch. I summoned heat into my fingertip and touched the smallest one, causing a wisp of smoke to rise from her shoulder.
“Ow,” she said, hissing air between her teeth. “What are you doing? Don’t touch it.”
“Shh, be still. I’m cauterizing it.”
The bear stirred, sniffing at the air. What’s that? It smells delicious, it said.
You just keep to yourself over there, I said. You hurt her, so I’m trying to heal her.
You can heal? the bear asked.
I shook my head and touched my finger to the next cut, then the last.
Gayle moaned and looked down at her arm.
I took off my pack and found some medical salve, then rubbed it on. “This will keep it from getting infected,” I said.
She stumbled to her feet. “This was a stupid idea. I’m never going to find Tabby, and we’re going to die out here with all these. . .”
She trailed off when she saw the bear was still sitting there, watching her with keen eyes. “I thought you killed it,” she said. She started to back away and tripped over a tuft of grass, falling onto her butt. That didn’t stop her retreat. She simply began scrabbling backwards on all fours.
“What are you waiting for? Kill it,” she demanded.
The bear looked from her to me and back again. What’s she doing?
She’s afraid of you. You hurt her, so she thinks you’re going to hurt us more.
The bear got to its feet and began rounding up the cubs. She grabbed one of them by the scruff of the neck and picked it up. The other took the hint and sidled up to her. They began moving away from us, to the right of the direction we were headed. We’ll be on our way. I won’t hurt you, and I’ll tell the others. Though I have to warn you: Not all of my kind will feel indebted to you.