GET UP HIGH. RUNNING IN will just mean both of our heads on the Chairman’s desk. I can’t shoot someone, not even Reds who would happily tear me apart. I won’t. I’m better than that, better than my mother. I just have to scare them off. I can do this. This is Kasim’s life.
But then I see it below me. A single black eye winking up at me, the only point of light in the giant, muddled shadow lurking beneath my tree. Everything inside me screams for the Reds to run, to get away before the gore comes for them, but my voice is melted glass, ablaze in my throat. I watch, every move painfully slow and inevitable as the creature charges, jagged teeth finding flesh and bone. Screams. Kasim with a blood-smeared arc carved into his chest. Cale, her gun pointed at me.
It’s a dream. I know it’s a dream. But no matter how I twist and turn, the gun doesn’t move, the gore doesn’t sleep. I’m trapped in the tar of my own memories until I can force myself to wake. Nightmares don’t retract their claws no matter how much you struggle, bringing you to the very edge before letting you fall. Cale’s finger squeezes her trigger, and the sound fills my whole world.
My eyes tear open. Sweat streams down my temples, my sleeping bag wet under my cheek. I roll to my back and stare up into the dark, hands clasped over my mouth to quiet the sounds of my gasps.
“Sev?” It’s a whisper from where Tai-ge is keeping watch over the cargo bay door, the only way into the heli when the hatch is locked. “What’s the matter?” the voice asks.
I sit up, inching closer to where Tai-ge sits slumped against the doors, his breaths rasping long and slow out of that monster mask. He’s asleep. Not in a state to whisper anything.
And then my eyes find Howl’s door next to Tai-ge’s still form. Open.
Panic rushes over me in a swell, choking my lungs, and for a moment I can’t speak. How did Howl get the door open? Is Tai-ge really asleep? Or did Howl get to him somehow?
Howl eases himself backward into the doorway, his hands extended into the room where they’re tethered to the shelves inside. He can’t get any farther, craning his neck over his shoulder to look at me.
“I heard you wake up. Are you okay?” he asks, the whisper hoarse. Whispers are tricky, scrubbing the owner’s voice to a tattered remnant of the truth. “Dreams?”
I lie down, not willing to go close enough to shut the door. Howl can’t get out. He can’t reach Tai-ge. If he wants to pull against the shelves all night and bruise his wrists, it’s not my problem.
“Sometimes, if you’ve been through hard things . . .” He stops, the silence heavy with indecision. “When I was with the Menghu, it would happen to some of them. The worst moments assaulting you when your guard is down and you can’t make yourself forget.”
I’m millimeters from saying something about Howl being the cause of my bad dreams, the catalyst that started the war in my head, but I shut my mouth instead. It’s not fair to say that leaving the City was the beginning of sleepless nights, of wishing I could forget everything that came before this moment. Dead men and guns have just come to replace the dreams I had before. Of Father burning, Aya falling in the street, blood spattering the concrete. Of Mother’s voice, crying, telling me she was sorry. Of darkness. Of Sleep.
“I just . . . understand,” Howl whispers. “If you’re scared. If you don’t want to sit there alone, wondering if you’ll ever be able to sleep again.”
I roll over, facing the blur of darkness in his direction. “You have bad dreams too?”
He doesn’t answer for a moment, but when he does, it’s so quiet I can hardly hear him. As if it’s a confession he’s not quite comfortable airing. “No.”
I turn away. Swallow. Force my eyes to close. Even if I wish the dead would leave me alone, I’m glad I’m human enough to remember them.
• • •
Before light creeps in through the seams in the heli’s tarp over the cockpit window, a hand grabs my shoulder, jerking me out of my half sleep. I roll over to find a writhing mass of rubber tentacles and mesh filter in my face. Fear knifes through my heart, but before I can scream, the thing pulls the filters down, and my brain haltingly recognizes Tai-ge’s face underneath.
“We need to get in the air if we want to make Dazhai before dawn.” He pulls the mask back over his nose and mouth. “Come help me pull back the tarp?”
My breath shivers from my lungs in reluctant streams, but I nod and follow him out. Outside, the night sky is clouded over, blocking all but a few silvery wisps of moonlight. Tai-ge pulls open the first set of controls, then goes still, staring out into the trees. I follow his gaze, my heart racing when it lands on . . . something.
It’s too dark to make out anything, but it’s more a feeling, like the scrape of a blade against my bare skin, the itch of knowing it’s about to stab you straight through. There’s something out there watching us. Both of us can feel it.
“Get the back side, Sevvy.” Tai-ge hits the control to unlock the tarp from its anchoring points and runs to unlatch it from the cockpit’s great glass eye and front propellers. I run around the back of the heli, my hands fumbling to pull the plastic covering free from the belly of the cargo bay and the four propellers jutting out on either side of it. By the time the plastic is slowly feeding itself back into its housing, I’m already at the ladder, trying not to think of what will happen if it jams.
Just as Tai-ge comes running, a dark smudge detaches from the edge of the forest, skittering toward us as if the shadows themselves are reaching out to drag us into the gloom. Then another shape, and another. I push him onto the ladder, worming my way up next to him so we both squeeze into the cockpit at the same time. Tai-ge slams his hand across the control to lock the hatch and runs for the captain’s chair. I wait for the thunk that will mean the ladder has pulled all the way up, a shudder rippling through me when the mechanism whines instead.
The propellers ignite, filling the air with a steely roar. Finally, the ladder mechanism gives one last protest, and the ladder clicks into place. Our craft shivers into the air with an extra swing as if it is shaking something off.
I perch on the copilot’s chair next to Tai-ge, breathing long and slow, as if I can exhale the adrenaline buzzing through me. Was it the watcher from last night, with friends to help? Made bold by a bowl of soup and the promises of an owl’s call?
Looking through the cockpit windows, I can’t see anything but the glare of the heli’s underlights against the ragged field below us. Whatever—whoever—was out there, it doesn’t matter. We’re in the air. We’re safe. But even though my view of the ground looks empty, it feels as if something is watching us.
The feeling solidifies inside me, prickled and sharp. We can’t fail. The people in these mountains won’t survive much longer if something doesn’t change. None of us will. We have to find the cure. It won’t change the Wood Rats who live alone and prey on others because it’s all they know. But it will at least give more options to everyone else stuck out in the cold. I grit my teeth. We need a kiss to wake up the sleeping princess, one that isn’t doled out by someone based on what they can take from you. We’ll find a happy ending, because I won’t stop until we do.
And that resolve, that feeling of control, banishes some of the fear boiling in my head. Fear that’s been there my whole life, laughing at me. But no more. I am not helpless. I’m not a victim. I won’t be.