"RILEY," ETHAN HAILED, bending over and ripping something from under his pant leg.
An object found me in the dark, nudging the hand that was gripping the bloodied heel like there was no tomorrow. It was a knife, a wicked sharp blade that reflected the moonlight and my own face. Luc was falling back to us, eyes trained on the ones in front of him, while Ethan approached me, also facing his side.
I exchanged my weapon of fortune for the knife, but truly didn't feel any safer. My knees were shaking. I was using conscious effort to stay upright.
Luc stomped, and a ring of fire roared in front of the wall of bristling leaves, barricading us three within. It was so bright I couldn't directly stare into it, nor did I understand how the Wanderers could tolerate being this close to its deadly heat.
He twisted and ushered me to his back.
"Too far for now," he said so only I could hear.
His hold tightened like he expected me to reject it again. For once, I didn't want to argue.
"How long can you keep this up?"
He peeked at Ethan, making sure he was fine. "Hopefully longer than they can wait, but this isn't... If they think harder, there are things they can do about it."
I watched silhouettes skulk beyond the fire, squinting and testing hands over it. Could this barrier work against us? At best, this was attracting more of them and they were pressing against it, waiting.
Luc raised a hand to the sky, and a vertical beam of light seared above our heads, reminding me of the bat signal. No sooner after doing that, an identical one shot through the flames and nearly caught him in the head if he hadn't leaned away in time. In dodging that, it went for Ethan.
I screamed for him. He whirled and stumbled over a carcass, narrowly avoiding an arm that had tried to slash where he'd been a second ago.
Pissed, the boy retaliated with a third one, sending it into the void. I think it hit when a resounding screech roiled my gut. This... this barrier would not stop this kind of attack and we were shut in.
Luc's hand heated. Veins lit up along the rear of it and he let me go. Static crackled in the air, sparking little prickly fingers along my skin. He released a blast with that worrying sizzle, the same kind when I was in the meadow after the party. It knocked off one prowler, then several others yelped in pain further away.
"We can play that game," Luc snapped.
Fires blew outward as they would under a strong wind, spreading until more bodies were engulfed. Instantly, they wriggled in an attempt to choke it out, but no amount of rolling fixed a full incineration. Skin charred, its stench filling the smoke.
The roils in my stomach were so intense I had to lean on Luc's shoulder and look down, stifling my breath. It moved into my eyes.
I felt him abruptly pull us, and I didn't get a moment to recover. A bony figure had landed in front of us, somehow having crossed through the flames. It lunged, but Luc was swift to end its life with a bolt of raw energy. Several more leaped through the barrier, and I saw what made it possible now.
Luc couldn't maintain it all at once. When he focused on something else, the flames guttered. Behind me, a Wanderer had crossed the limit and met with Ethan. Corpses kept piling around us, and I couldn't wrap my mind around how many must have approached the crowd with the intention to pounce.
A leathery arm reached between me and Luc and managed to grab his collar. Mine lashed without a second thought. He didn't even have time to compute what I'd done, he just glanced up from his target to witness this one collapsing to its knees, blood gushing from the slit in the throat.
"Damn," he whispered, but not to me. It was like he unintentionally said it out loud.
And he blasted his in the head and stepped away. I couldn't believe the speed of my own response. I still felt the fury and power in my arm, replacing the nausea.
They were taking advantage of the weakness, and new ones regularly shot through, some carrying on with flames clinging to their ankles. The boys grouped on either side of me, tapping into their abilities to slam them into the ground or using their fists.
Shockwaves erupted from Luc every few seconds, disbalancing the horde of monsters. He seized one that got too close by the head, both hands on either side, and its entire eyeballs and mouth whited out. Light burned under its skin, and it crumpled.
A force tugged me away, and I thought at first it might be a secondary effect, but my feet were slipping across the freezing soil and toward the blaze. A Wanderer waited there, fingers splayed mid-air as the distance between us grew smaller. I fell, screaming, clinging to the soil with my nails and knife.
It pulled harder, and the earth gave way.
I lost the knife, but it flung over me in a straight line and lodged itself into the Wanderer's skull, center of the forehead. As it crumpled too, the flames kept bloating and stretching, so much higher than they've ever been. Gaps closed.
Sweat slicked my chest and back, like I was cooking in a furnace. Air became too thick to inhale.
Luc shouted something, then hands dragged me back by the elbows before I could regain a stand. In a heartbeat, he was doubling over me and caging me in, adding to the unbearable heat. The world drowned in flames; the sky was a sweeping inferno around us.
Demonic cries rose in the night. Whatever was happening, something was out of control and we were going to join them soon.
I risked a glimpse, realized that we were in a bubble while the fire was tearing through the woods. But it was so near, I could burn my fingertips. Ethan was crouched under Luc too, held at the nape of the neck.
Even though I was melting, I shuddered. A minute later, it cleared—the last wave fanned past and cool air breezed through my dress. Before us, a tall girl with tight black curls stood among the mass of carbonised bodies.
"Shit," Devin dropped when she saw all three of us.
Luc loosened his grip. "Yeah, shit. Almost barbecued them."
"Well, they're not supposed to be here," she answered, her stare knowingly pausing at Ethan.
"We were going to head to the car but..." he tried, then gave up.
Luc sighed, straightened, and I got to discover just how many had been huddling around the ring. They'd fallen on top of each other in chunks of scorched meat. Some limbs were already nothing but ash.
I didn't want to get up, but I needed to.
"Ethan," I said, noticing a bright red circle oozing from his sooty sleeve. "You're bleeding."
Luc immediately lowered himself again. "Show me."
He didn't complain when Luc rolled the fabric a few inches, putting the fresh bite out in the open for all to witness. Ethan hissed at the pain, then huffed.
"Finally, huh?"
"Are you good?" Devin asked, stalking closer. "It looks deep."
Ethan stared up and nodded, though it didn't strike me as confident. Meanwhile, Luc was already doing his freaky mojo, transferring light and mending energy. A kernel of envy popped inside me as the wound healed without a scar, unlike mine.
"Can you get these two to the Rover?" Luc told Devin when it was over. He remained crouched, a hand pinching the space between his brows. "I gotta stay out here, search for Emma and track down the rest. There's more around these parts, I can still feel them."
"Emma? I was up and down the place. Found her date, but no sign of her."
Everyone's attention migrated to her.
"What?" I said. "You found her date? Where?"
"Pretty far from the field. Dead." She let a few seconds pass for me to understand. My eyes burned and I shook my head. No.
I knew this was not the right place or moment to break down. I put a hand over my mouth to stifle a sob. Knuckles brushed along my forearm.
"Maybe she hid," Luc countered, even though it wasn't convincing. "She knows what these things are and might have escaped while that guy was being... If I was her, I wouldn't come out yet."
Devin shrugged. "I can show you the spot. Or do you still want me to escort these two off the field?"
"There's no time," I cut off, then peered over to him. "The faster we find her, the better. We all go."
▲▲▲
Our quiet procession through the debris and foliage didn't attract any attacker, at least not for now. We scanned the distance, put an ear out, checked behind us as Devin led the path deeper into the forest slopes.
Ethan was traveling ahead of me when he jerked and searched himself. I jumped, backing into Luc, clutching the knife before he ever articulated what was wrong. Then I sensed the cold, heavy droplets leaking down my arm. Shivering, I tracked my stare upward, expecting to feel imminent rain through the trees.
In fact, I'd stepped right under a body.
"Holy..." Ethan murmured as my mouth gaped.
Beefy hands and legs dangled from the branch the student had been speared through, but I tried to check if it was Martin and couldn't tell. We would have stopped if it was the case. This was yet another victim.
Luc, who'd been closing the march, wordlessly retrieved the body and floated it down where we saw the hole in his midriff and the stain in his blouse. Much like the girl at the start of this nightmare, his skin had sagged, greyed and wrinkled, like something was sucked out of him. Edges of his skull had become prominent. It was more skeleton than actual human being.
I would have gazed at it for a long time. Maybe he had a hunch because Luc steered me forward with a brick-wall calmness.
"We're almost there," Devin spurred, mounting another hill.
Ethan followed and started the climb but snagged his sneaker after a root. He freed it except that he continued to stumble back down until he hit a rotting tree.
"You okay?" Luc shone a light over his pallid face.
Ethan leaned his head on a forearm, heaving. "I think it got me good. Starting to feel it."
"What's going on? Will he be all right?"
Luc made his way over, prying him from the tree. "If the bite is serious, we get reactions. Dizziness is the big one. It'll pass."
This night was moving from dangerously bad to epically worse. It didn't take a genius to picture how this impacted him if we were to confront them again, and it was likely. Luc helped him keep pace, though it seemed he'd puke any minute now.
We found Martin left sitting by an elm, also with a hole in the midriff, that old-corpse appearance and a dried waterfall of blood over the chin. I was never going to sleep after this, and my heart cracked thinking that I might find Emma the same way, propped like a cursed doll.
"She couldn't have gone far," Luc reasoned, still studying the guy. "We need to split up to search fast. Ethan, you head with Devin. Never too far from this point."
We agreed to the plan, and I departed with him, scouting in the direction of the clearing while they explored the opposite one.
"Hey."
I shook my head, knowing he couldn't see my face. Nope. I wasn't having a conversation now or pausing to let the thoughts catch up. Just needed to focus on moving my legs and filling my lungs.
"Sunshine..." His voice was taut, but beckoning.
I almost ignored it yet decided to turn. I rubbed my nose with the back of a shaking hand. "What?"
Luc didn't speak, and it was getting hard to stand there with the silence, so I asked again.
"What?"
"I just wanted to look at you."
I didn't know what to make of that, couldn't fathom what he was reading, but I allowed it for no real purpose, holding his probing green eyes defiantly. When I felt he'd had enough, I flipped around.
The forest was dense with vegetation and boulders. Not a living soul dared to create a sound, not even the insects. I could discern the closest trees and shrubs and spot the obstacles in the moonlight. Luc trailed behind without an objection.
But I couldn't figure out where she could have hidden. None of these crannies would fool a Wanderer or their sense of smell. Ideas haunted me, occupied every part of me while we covered more area, until I spied a fallen tree.
Not any fallen tree. A large, hollow, close to the ground tree judging by the ends broken off. The perfect hiding niche for someone her size. I tripped in my attempt to rush there, then hauled myself over.
"Emma?" I ran my palms across the soft bark, then grabbed the bottom.
Luc toppled it before I could gather my strength, and the first thing I laid eyes on was the faint moon reflection on the skirt, then the pale arms and matted red hair. Bugs scurried from the glaring light.
My hands kind of hovered, afraid to touch anywhere I shouldn't. The more I looked, the more gruesome the sight became. Her beautiful dress was ruined with dirt and dark stains, torn in many places.
Her eyes were closed, the glasses were missing, and a vicious bite notched her left shoulder. But she had a pulse.
He didn't waste another second; he shot the signal beam at the sky while I held her face, hot tears flooding my cheeks. Why was she unconscious?
"Hey... Hey... I'm here," I whispered, barely able to utter the words. "We're getting you someplace safe. Luc—"
Tall plants and shrubs trembled. Fifty yards or so away, a familiar shape sprang out. It charged, and suddenly it was twenty yards in. Luc unfolded as I pressed against the hollow log. He matched the monster's rocket speed and forced the claws away with one hand, then crunched its neck with the other.
I couldn't watch any of it.
Emma squirmed. I gasped, hoping she'd wake up, instead her eyes rolled up to the whites and her muscles locked. She began to convulse. Panic bloomed in every fiber of my being, because I was pretty sure she was not epileptic.
I twisted at the low clicks. A newcomer jumped down from a branch, pupils shining bright.
"Luc!" I called until my throat hurt.
He gunned it, trying to reach us before the Wanderer. A bolt of energy arced upon the space, but the damn thing avoided it, bouncing off a trunk. I hugged Emma and pointed the knife's edge, teeth clenched.
A glowing body crashed into it, shoving it off track. I blinked and it was stomping on its skull while Ethan emerged from the shadows. The luminous shape reared, head and shoulders straightening, and it receded.
"Give her to me," Devin ordered, drawing urgent strides. She stared above me. "Luc, cover us?"
"She needs a doctor," I said as she hoisted Emma's spasming figure off the ground.
Luc dug in a pocket and threw a metallic jingling object at me. I was examining car keys.
"You and Ethan get her there, I'll cover until you guys drive off."
Bewildered, I waited for him to add something. He was going to leave us alone? "You're not...?"
He gave a stern nod to Devin, shifting the shadow lines along his features. "I still got some in the tank and we have to kill as many as possible. But I need you. These two will be fine on the road if Ben meets them halfway."
She nodded back. "Better hurry, then. They saw that signal."
I scrambled on wimp knees, and immediately jogged with the group. Ethan was able to stay right behind me, but none of us were good at avoiding dips and rocks in this darkness. Devin was in the lead with the extra weight in her arms, and Luc... Luc had vanished.
Sparks winked in the distance, each one spaced out.
A scream echoed in the night. A ray pulsed amid the trees, then it zigzagged and the scream turned into a hoarse whine. The forest returned to silence.
My bare feet were aching by the time we broke out, only a few dozen yards from the parking zone. The Rover was the last remaining vehicle. Car blinkers flashed and every door swung open at Devin's approach. She laid Emma, who had gone still during our journey, in the backseat and asked Ethan to hop in beside her.
She turned to me in the driver's seat. The leg room was impressive. Jesus.
She stretched, pushing open the compartment in the passenger spot. She planted a revolver in my lap.
"It's loaded. You know how to shoot?"
The question erased all of mine. "Yeah..."
"Ethan will pass you directions to the hospital in Huntington. There's money in the compartment, water, cloths, snacks, phone battery. Okay?" She checked the backseat and tapped the car's roof. "Drive fast."
✩