Mateo approaches me cautiously. “You okay?”
“I . . . need to be alone. Please.”
After a few seconds of studying me, he turns and limps back toward his seat. He’s hurt, but I don’t care.
Smudge glances at me. “Why are you doing that?”
“What?”
“Wallowing in self-pity. It won’t make things any better.”
I don’t have an answer for her, for me, or for anyone. Inside, I’ve lost something, and I’m not sure what it is yet. The will to live . . . ? Perhaps.
“Ma-ma!” Baby Lou calls for me from Ms. Ruby’s arms. Over my shoulder, and from the back of the ship, she reaches for me, and I can’t stave off my mother’s tears. “Ma-ma,” she whimpers.
I rise on weak legs, stumble over to her. When I get there, I collapse into Ms. Ruby’s lap, hugging my Baby.
“Ya are her momma, ya know,” Ms. Ruby says. “Stay strong, dear.”
It’s what strong mothers do.
That’s what I’d thought after Miguel died, and after Aby . . .
“For how long? How much longer do I have to stay strong?” I clutch Baby Lou’s blanket and cry with her. “I can’t be a good mother, I’m only sixteen! They deserve better! Everyone’s dying! Soon, there’ll be no one left!” And I break down in heaving sobs.
“Stop this, dear.” She pats my back. “You’re upsettin’ the children.”
I look up from her lap. Every face is staring at me, bewildered.
“I’m so sorry! I failed you all!”
“No”—Ms. Ruby kisses my cheek—“you haven’t. You’ve done the very best ya could do.” She unsticks the hairs from my wet face and brushes them back with her fingers. “That’s all ya can do.”
“We’re here.” Smudge pulls back on a lever and the ship rises out of the water. The sight of a dark jungle through the round windows makes my hair stand on end.
“Smudge, why are we here? I thought we were going through a waterfall?”
“We cannot go that way; we have to go this way.” And she rises from the captain’s chair, stiff as iron, walks to the hatch and slides it open. “Don’t worry. The Reapers have been taken care of.”
Tallulah squeaks, wiggles, and claws until she gets her drawstring undone. She scampers over and jumps into my arms with Baby Lou.
Smudge’s expressionless face sends a chill through me.
“I don’t want to go out there, Momma Joy!” Chloe clings to me.
“I don’t, either.” I stand and meet Smudge at the door. “What’s going on?”
“We had to change course. The other way was too dangerous. Tell the children to come.”
“You’re not acting right. Why are you being so strange?”
“Please, we have to hurry.”
For a long moment, I stare into her blank face, trying to read it. There’s nothing there, so I surprise myself when I concede. “Okay . . . I trust you.” What other choice do I have?
“No way,” says Pedro. “You’re bonkers if you think we’re going out there. It’s dark! And those monsters that killed my brother are out there! There’s no—”
Smudge whips around, a red spear shooting from her hand. Its point stops short of Pedro’s face, hovers in mid-air. “Yes. You are.”
“Damn!” Pedro recoils, both hand and stump raised. “Okay, just put your laser sword away. Are you insane?”
The spear retracts into Smudge’s palm. “Everyone out—now.”
“Smudge, what’s wrong with you?” asks Johnny.
“You first, Joy,” she tells me.
After a moment’s standoff, I motion for Serna and she hurries to my side. “Protect her at all costs.” I hand Baby Lou over, though she screams and clings to me. “Come on, children,” I announce. “Follow me.”
One by one, we step up and out of the ship, which rests against a platform identical to the one at Gomorrah Station. We line up with all of our bags, lanterns, and the piglet cage, while Emerson, Pedro, and Johnny scan the area for Reapers, crossbows at the ready. Mateo sidles up beside me, and I snake my hand behind him, over to his waistband where the gun is.
He arcs an eyebrow at me, and I nod at the pig cage in his hand, slipping the gun down into the waistband of my own pants. “I have to protect our family,” I say. “All right, everyone, group together, let’s stay close. Emerson, Johnny, distribute the crossbows and lanterns among the olders to guard our circumference and to light our way.”
They pass out the weapons and lanterns to a handful of frightened boys and a girl, who take them into their trembling hands. Ms. Ruby, Serna, and Baby Lou are the last ones out of the ship. I help them down the ladder, and Smudge slams the hatch door down with a bang that reverberates in the eerie, green-lit darkness. It rattles my ear drums and makes Tallulah jump. She wraps herself around the back of my neck, perched on my shoulders. With a twitch of her whiskers, she growls at Smudge and the wide open darkness around us.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“This way.” Smudge heads straight into the thick of the jungle, without even one lit finger in front of her. “Follow me.”
Mere feet from us, a fanged plant snaps its green jaws around a butterfly.
An ominous foretelling of things to come? I’m not optimistic.
“Come on, children,” I say. “Hold hands and stay close together. Don’t touch any leaves.”
The boys with the crossbows encircle the group, and the others raise lanterns in shaky fists. Spotlighted and burdened with all of our belongings, we move along slowly. We’re a visible, easy target for anyone—or anything—who might want to capture, eat, or kill us. I hurry up the line of terrified children to where Smudge forges the way. Thick leaves and foreboding shadows surround us on all sides. We could be seconds from a Reaper attack and not even know it.
An older girl swings her lantern to the right ahead of me, illuminating a massive black bug with two-inch spines, crawling up the side of a mammoth mushroom. It stops when it registers our presence. Seconds later, a dozen needles eject from its body to pierce the girl and her younger boy buddy in the face, neck, arms, and abdomen. Before I can even react, she’s dropped the lantern, and they’re flopping on the ground, skin bubbling around the injection sites.
Johnny aims his crossbow and impales the bug, sending it flying through the trees. I race to them and crouch down along with Pedro and Emerson, Ms. Ruby hovering behind. The rest of the children stand in petrified shock.
“Leave them,” says Smudge. “They are dead already.”
I retract my hand and face her. “Why are you doing this? It’s dangerous out here! Where are you taking us?” Saying she isn’t the Smudge I know would be the understatement of the century.
“There.” She points farther ahead, deeper into the belly of a jungle that seemed much smaller from the river. If we need to go there, then we’re all dead already.
We walk on in silence, though the rustling and fluttering, slithering and shuffling in the surrounding shadows are a deafening reminder of how dire our situation has become. The green lights on the ceiling high above, following the curve of the river, fall farther and farther behind, the forest darkening ahead, a swift and deadly dusk. Beneath our feet, the crunch of ancient earth, coupled with the sniffles of young lives destined for some unknown doom, are a cacophony of truths. We’ve gone from being scared and led toward a dream, to lost and forced into a nightmare. I have no idea how we’ll make it out of this one.
Soon, we round a group of trees, and I gasp. Dressed in all white and standing tall in front of a large stone archway with two huge men on either side, is the woman who screamed at us while the elevator doors closed at the Northeast Subterrane. Queen Nataniah. She grips a staff adorned by a small skull.
“Smudge, what did you do?” I scream. “Why did you bring us here?”
&nb
sp; “Move back!” Johnny shouts at the children, aims his crossbow at the Queen. “Go!”
I whip out my gun and aim it at her, but a red orb shot from Smudge’s palm knocks it from my grasp. She does the same with all of the crossbows, singeing the flesh of Johnny’s hand with the blast of his weapon to the ground. Johnny cries out, reeling from the wound, but Smudge doesn’t flinch.
“Run!” I shout, and we turn to flee, but stop dead in our tracks. Emerging from the trees and underbrush, and surrounding us on all sides, are dozens of Reapers. The children shriek, scrambling toward the middle of the group. Tallulah claws at my neck and hisses, while the monsters stalk behind, cornering us on the trail to the Queen and her men.
Smudge leads the way.
This isn’t real—can’t be! How could I think it was? Already so many things I believed were real were an illusion. This has to be a dream. I inhale, searching for the citrus scent that says I’m right. Nothing. But dozens of flesh-eating monsters aren’t ripping our bodies to shreds . . . and it seems Smudge is being . . . controlled.
Smoke and mirrors are at play here.
An image hits me so fast, it pulls up my step: Arianna Superior, riding on the back of a Reaper, dozens racing toward us, under her control somehow. The children push ahead of me, squealing with terror. I spin around, and the hot breath of a huge, black Reaper rushes into my face. The greenish-yellow pupils glow like the computer screens that used to calibrate the machines at the Tree Factory. Fangs longer than my forearm hang over a fat, purplish lower lip, and the spiked fur might be jagged metal. It shakes its head and snorts, ushering me forward with a spray of vile mucus.
“Come on, Momma Joy!” Chloe screams. “Please!”
Tallulah leaps from my neck to scurry off into the trees.
“Tallulah, no!” I take off after her, followed by the Reaper. I won’t be getting out of this.
And then, I remember the paper and “key” in my pocket, Professor Al’s words: Don’t let this fall into the wrong hands. Memorize it, then destroy it. Let no AOAIs—even your friend—lay eyes on it. Promise me. I may have no clue what it is, but I have to trust him. I can’t let these people get these seemingly precious items. I should’ve destroyed that paper when I had the chance.
I dramatize a fall, digging the key—with the paper wrapped around it—from my pocket, and discarding them beneath the thick layers of leaves hanging low to the ground. The Reaper roars above me, saliva and mucus slinging from its mouth into my face, while its pupils change from greenish-yellow to red.
“Okay!” Trembling and with hands in the air, I stumble to my feet. “I’m coming.”
It falls in behind me as I hurry back to the group.
“Momma Joy!” Chloe sobs and clutches me. “We thought you were dead!”
“I’m okay, sweetheart.” I hold her tight.
“Where’s—where’s Tallulah?” She wipes her nose and sticks her thumb in her mouth.
“She’s . . . free.”
But there’s little hope for her out here. She’s never lived in the wild before. But maybe she’ll find and guard the key for us until we return to retrieve it. And we can retrieve her, too.
I almost laugh out loud. Our situation’s gone from dire, to utterly hopeless. Most likely no one will ever be back for that key. I’ll never see Jax again. And we’re all going to be meals for the Queen and her people.
I take Baby Lou from Serna to shush her. “My sweet Baby . . . I love you so much. And I’m so sorry I failed you. At least we’ll die together.”
“No.” Ms. Ruby places a hand onto my arm. “There’ll be no more dying today.”
We approach the Queen and her men, who all stand tall and fearless before the beasts surrounding us. The Queen grins, showing off scant, jagged teeth and black holes where they’re missing.
“What do ya want with these children?” asks Ms. Ruby. “Please, leave them alone. They don’t deserve this.”
But the Queen merely laughs. “Rubitanyah . . . my sister . . . I thought I’d never see ya again.”
The Queen ushers us through the archway, then wraps an arm around Ms. Ruby’s shoulders. “Sweet sister, why did ya leave me all those years ago? I thought ya loved our home? I’ve missed ya so . . .”
The shock of this news is disorienting. Now that I hear her speak in a normal tone, not screaming, the similarities in her and Ms. Ruby’s accents are obvious. Same with facial structure and eyes; a distinct resemblance.
Ms. Ruby shrugs her arm away. “Oh, I’m sure ya’ve been just fine. Ya never cared for me much when I was around, and ya know I always hated it here . . . the tings done to innocent people, all in the name of gods who wish death upon children? That’s no life for me.”
We file through the stone archway, and the Reapers go no farther. The two guards point their spears at our backs, and we have no choice but to keep moving. They may have been the two guarding the chamber the night we rescued Pedro. The metal grate slams shut over the archway opening, and I start. Chloe, Pia, and Raven all huddle together beside me, with Mateo’s arm wrapped around them.
“But we’ve grown so much since ya’ve been away,” the Queen continues. “Ya may change your mind about it—”
“I won’t stay here.” Ms. Ruby folds her arms across her chest.
“And where will ya go?” The Queen laughs. “There is nowhere left for you.” She stops at the tunnel entrance, which opens to a towering structure over us. Levels upon levels of shadowy passages lined with the gold railing and dotted with the small silver trees from the other tree factory. To our right unfolds a dank, dark corridor. Torches with flickering orange flames line the walls, bathing the place in an eerie ambience. Across the large foyer where a handful of townspeople and a few of the Queen’s men fell because of us, stands the elevator we escaped through after Aby died. My heart sinks. We may soon join her, and all of the rest before her.
“Was it you who flooded Zentao?” I ask.
Queen Nataniah adjusts a gold necklace on her bosom, smirks to herself. “Do ya tink we are the only ones who wanted to find you children?”
“They aren’t staying here, either,” Ms. Ruby says. “Ya need to let us go. If ya care ana-ting about me as ya say you do, then ya will.”
The Queen stamps her foot, pounds the end of her staff onto the ground. “You are not leaving! You’re my sister, and dis is where ya belong—”
“No!” Ms. Ruby turns and, with open arms, ushers us toward the elevator. “Come on, children. We’re leavin’.”
Smudge’s hand darts out and a red beam shoots from it, straight into Ms. Ruby’s chest. Her body jolts, convulses. I thrust Baby Lou into Mateo’s arms and jump to her side with the Queen. Together, we hold her in this blur of real and unreal, of this terrible, abysmal nightmare.
“You are not leaving.” The beam retracts into Smudge’s palm.
“Be-be sister!” The Queen sobs, brushing Ms. Ruby’s braids from her face. “No! I do love ya. I’m sorry! I only wanted ya to be here . . . with me.”
Ms. Ruby chokes a labored breath. “Our mother . . . would be so disappointed . . . in ya . . . Natti. Please . . . help . . . the children.” Her eyelids close, and her chest falls, never to rise again. And in the blink of an eye, another person I’ve grown to love dies in my arms.
“Noooo!” the Queen clutches her sister, strokes her face and rocks her. “Ya promised you wouldn’t hurt her!” She shakes a fist at Smudge. “Ya promised!”
“Smudge!” I shout. “You . . . you killed her!”
“You two”—Smudge motions to the guards—“put them away.”
They grunt, jab their spears into the air to force the frightened, sobbing children to move. I kiss Ms. Ruby’s cheek, then let her head fall into the Queen’s lap. Queen Nataniah wails, releasing a sea of sorrow to the death of love below.
“Ma-ma!” Baby Lou
reaches for me. “Ma-ma, ma-ma!”
I hurry to catch up to her and Mateo, down a torch-lit corridor with the others. I take her from Serna and hold her tight, but she’s inconsolable, hyperventilating sobs as her brothers and sisters are shoved into one cell after another, alone. And it’s a blur of separation in the shadows, the guards moving too swift for me to keep track of who goes where.
Smudge herself pushes me into a cell, stripping Baby Lou from my arms and shoving me across the room. The door slams and my head hits stone.
I’m not sure when, but I must’ve dozed off. A jingling in the lock wakes me up. The door creaks open, and I freeze. Something scurries along the floor and jumps into my lap, keys dangling from its mouth.
“Tallulah!” I take the keys. “How—?”
“Let’s go.” A familiar voice beckons from the doorway. “We have to hurry.”
It can’t be!
“Aby?” I squint into the darkness. “Is that you?”
“Yes. Come on, Joy. We have to go before they return, while the others are distracted.”
“No”—I shake my head—“this isn’t real. You’re dead. I watched you die.” Panic and utter disbelief collide with elation at the sound of my sister’s voice again.
“Things haven’t been . . . as they seem for a few years, Joy. You’ve been a test subject for various transfer programs and memory-altering technology. Many of your memories, along with the people you’ve known—are all fabricated.”
Tallulah wraps herself across my shoulders, and I creep over to the cell door, baffled, unnerved. But when Aby’s face appears in the dim light, I break down. Her beautiful red curls have all grown back. How is that even possible?
I gather her into my arms, and she squeezes me back. “Aby, your . . . your hair—”
“That never happened. So many things never happened . . . But we’ve done our time now, they’ve freed us. We can go live real lives.”
The Soultakers (The Treemakers Trilogy Book 2) Page 12