Charlie
We took to the back roads, sticking to the paths that had never been paved and had since overgrown with poison ivy, weeds, and tree roots. I knew the paths well; I had explored them for hours in my earlier summers and had found all the best hiding spots for hide and seek.
It was hard keeping up with Tane, seeing as she was some kind of female version of the Flash. But Gaius, who was holding onto Kelsie, I could stay next to for the most part. Kelsie was just a regular human like me. Dethany ran behind me but she wasn't exactly a track star. We passed houses, our shadows getting longer and longer.
The sun came in flashes between each house; it was getting lower in the sky. Sunset was good. It meant cover of darkness, which was definitely something we needed.
"This way ends soon!" I gasped out, my body screaming at me to stop. "We have to take the main road for a while." Gaius growled under his breath, but he nodded and jerked hard to the right. We all seemed like some strange sprinting group except for Kelsie in her obviously medical outfit.
No sooner had we entered the large road did we hear shouts and yells from far off.
"Oh, shit," Dethany cursed from behind me.
"We must move faster."
I nodded at Tane's demand. I could do faster. Not for long, but I could do it. Dethany would have to, too.
"D, catch up!" I yelled, not even hearing her footsteps anymore. I looked over my shoulder at her and my stomach dropped. She was too far behind us. "Dethany!"
Dethany sped up and tripped. I went back for her, seeing that Tane and Gaius were taking Kelsie ahead.
"Come on, D, get up!" I urged, feeling sweat trickle down the middle of my chest.
Dethany shook her head. "GO!" Then I shook my head. "Do you think with smoker's lung and two left feet I can really keep up? I can distract them! Go!" I bit my lip and knew that if my life were a movie, Dethany would have been the one to sacrifice herself. And that was, I guess, essentially what she was doing.
How did she think she was going to distract them? They'd just stampede right over her. I blinked, trying to rephrase in my mind. Stampede sounded like we were outnumbered, which I didn't want to think about.
I couldn't waste time talking to Dethany when Tane and Gaius and Kelsie were nearly out of sight.
The sun was gone. The sky was an odd purple-blue. I nodded at Dethany and turned heel to catch up with them. I saw Tane's hair swinging first, the moon helped with light. It wasn't full, but it was pretty close.
"The woods!" I yelled ahead, "We can lose them in the woods!" There was only one wood for miles. Everything else was swamp. I hoped we'd get lucky and the search squad would start in the swamps. We just needed some time. Any time.
We bolted over some fences, Gaius and Tane far more easily than Kelsie and I. I felt like we were slowing them down, from their nervous looks to one another. They didn't complain and never even showed signs of irritation. I swatted a tree branch out of my way and ducked under a low twig.
Gaius grabbed Kelsie's wrist; it boosted her speed whether she wanted it to or not. Tane ran behind them, looking like she was protecting the flank, and I brought up the rear, always calling out directions and keeping us to the back-routes into the woods.
Soon the trees were in sight, and we sprinted for them. My breath came in harsh, ragged spurts. I couldn't do this for much longer. I heard barking. Dogs. They were sending search dogs after us?
"GO!" I screamed, making Tane visibly wince. They darted into the woods and me after them, the shadows of the trees disorienting and slanted. The trees were staggered in such a way that was definitely unfortunate for us.
Gaius' speed was ridiculous. But every time he would dodge a tree, another one would be only five feet from it. It slowed us down way more than we could afford, and Gaius seemed to become more frustrated.
"Stop!" Kelsie cried, falling to her knees. I watched her and came to a halt as well, leaning over and supporting myself with my hands on my knees. I was secretly grateful that she had needed a rest. I couldn't keep running. Tane and Gaius stopped, but they looked even more nervous then. "I can't," she wheezed, clutching her stomach like she was about to spew chunks.
"Yes," Tane said, kneeling in front of her, "you can." Tane touched her forehead to Kelsie's and closed her eyes, doing God knows what for whatever reason. Kelsie's face and whole body relaxed. She even had a faint smile on her lips. Kelsie was oddly nice looking. Or maybe she was really nice looking and the lack of oxygen to my brain was making my vision go Picasso.
"Do you promise it's like that?" she asked, weakly getting to her feet.
Tane nodded. "I cannot lie."
A beam of light swept over through the trees. "Flashlights!" I hissed, as if they were already close enough to hear me. I heard the grass and the fallen leaves shuffling at a high speed. As if a stampede was coming. The dogs.
Tane
"Run!" Charlie shouted, and we did. We bolted through the forest, Gaius and I faster than Kelsie and Charlie. But Charlie had a head-start and Gaius held on to Kelsie.
There was a distinct, animalistic bark followed by several more from behind us, and I got the unshakeable feeling that we were being hunted. Cornered.
Male voices hollered and shouted orders from what sounded like fifty feet away. The beams of light swung in every direction, making the forest seem scary and haunted.
My breath came in an even, concentrated rhythm. Charlie was not as fortunate. I could hear his panting far too clearly.
"The trees," Gaius' voice came as I ran, "they're telling us to go right. There is a field." I nodded, hearing the wise directions as well. I moved to guide Charlie but he began to fall behind. His breaths were becoming increasingly ragged and heavy.
"Don't stop, Charlie," I encouraged as I passed him, putting him now in the back of our group.
He pushed himself harder at my direction, his brown hair sticking flat to his forehead with sweat. I could hear the pounding treads of the gaining animals. I could feel the air closing in around my throat.
Suddenly we burst out into the field, the grass to our hips in height. Kelsie fell, taking Gaius with her and I couldn't force myself to stop. The stars seemed to beg us to run just a little faster, the sky reaching for our hands. The field stretched on for as far as I could see, and I could do nothing but run.
"Tane!" Charlie screamed. I winced and tripped, falling to my hands and knees. I was unable to see anything but grass and sky. My knee hit a rock hard, my elbow scraping a few pebbles as my body dipped to the side in pain. The dull sting was a pinprick of reality.
Charlie was calling me repeatedly. I lurched to my feet and tried to listen for him. My hands and elbows were smeared with dirt and blood. I found him being torn to shreds by a furry animal with pointed ears and a swishing tail. It latched onto Charlie's neck and then mercilessly shook its head. It growled ferociously, clear liquid pooling in its mouth and pouring out soon after.
"STOP!" I screamed, stumbling with the echo of my own voice. I grabbed the thing's muzzle and stared into its eyes. It whimpered and crouched low to the ground. I began to pace forward, forcing it to walk backward.
You will leave. You will not return.
There was menace in my thoughts. I did not contain it. I flashed thoughts of what I would do to it if it came back for Charlie. I told it that it would lead the rest of its followers away from this place. I knew the other animals would eventually lead the men to us, but I needed more time.
It had a long, leather leash dangling from a collar. It must have broken away from the group. I released the animal, and its tail curled under between its legs before it turned and dashed out of the field. A whimper was all that followed it.
Charlie was on the ground and scarily still, blood seeping from him in every possible direction. I ran to him, falling to my knees.
"Charlie," I said calmly, watching his eyes slowly connect with mine. "I'm here." Blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth as he grimly smiled up at me. His gray eyes, always so intrigued and alive, were fading, pulling away from me. "Charlie, please stay with me," I begged, a desperate tone to my voice. My voice did not sound like my own. It sounded dangerously close to fracturing. A gurgling choke was the only response. I placed my hands on either side of his head and touched my forehead to his, a gesture of deep kinship for my people. I heard his heart struggling to beat and my soul poured out of me. "Please, Charlie."
A reluctant sigh pulled out of his mouth, and his eyes were cold. Blank. Empty. Dead.
Gaius ran past me, his hand gripping Kelsie's wrist. His eyes passed over the scene in front of him. I could not make tears come.
"Tane, it begins now! We must leave!" he insisted, and I could see what Charlie had called flashlights in the distance from between the trees. "Now, Tane!"
I shook my head and clung tighter to Charlie. "I will not let him die."
I knew Gaius would hear me. My voice was small but his ears were still strong. He was beginning to glow with the first indications of Initiation. The Septars were pulling them. I stroked Charlie's soft, wet hair and shook my head again, closing my eyes. I listened for what I wanted to hear. A heartbeat. A voice. Anything.
I bleakly looked back to Gaius. He stopped and Kelsie gripped his upper arm in fear, her nervous glances darting every second to the nearing flashlights and hollers.
"Then heal him," he said. I looked up at Gaius, my heart constricting and my lungs pained from the absence of sobs. I silently told him that I could not. That he was the healer. "I cannot heal once Initiation has begun. I need all of my energy now, Tane. Heal him, or leave him."
Healing the dead was not only extremely advanced but expressly forbidden in Fismuth. It was held to be morally wrong. But we were not in Fismuth.
Charlie's hand lay in his own blood, and I bit my lip.
"Gaius, I could never heal." I weakly lifted the sleeve of my shirt to show him the wound on my arm that had never healed. It was a deep purple and red and something mostly clear seeped from it.
He spoke in our language then, alerting me to how close he was to Initiating. "Find it in yourself to heal him. Use the one pure thought you have and wield it." Gaius' voice sounded far away as I looked down into Charlie's increasingly pale face, his green-gray eyes now a stone gray that was unwelcoming and unfair. I looked to Gaius, knowing he'd understand. "My pure thought?" he asked as his feet lifted off the ground. Kelsie rose with him, her mouth falling open. "It's always been you."
Gaius smiled without showing his teeth, and his head tilted back like he could see Fismuth from Earth and Kelsie was illuminated as well. I had no time. I had no hope.
I held Charlie close to me even as Gaius and Kelsie hovered further and further over my head. The yelling was almost too loud to bear. They would be upon us soon. I lowered my lips to Charlie's ear. I shut my eyes and felt his still-warm skin, my fingers slipping a little in the blood on his neck.
"Do you know who I am, Charlie?" I started, my voice so quiet I wasn't sure I was actually speaking. "I am a part of a prophecy. A destiny made long before I was even a thought. My life was planned for me, and I must go to fulfill that life. I am sorry that I must go. But do you know what you are?" I asked, my voice building in strength. "You are the part that was not planned. You are the spaces in between the words of the prophecy. You are... always making mistakes," I laughed with no real humor, "and always asking questions, and eternally scatterbrained. You are the guide that brought me and kept me in this beautiful place. You are the evidence that man is good and just, when given the chance to be. You are the beacon that brought me to my purpose." I looked into Charlie's dead eyes and whispered, "You are the light."
There was wind, and the tall yellow-green grass around us bowed and shivered in it. I closed my eyes, fearful of what I would see. Charlie grew warm under my hands, too warm. A gasp escaped my throat as I felt what seemed to be the very life of me flow into him. My hands instinctively clutched him tighter and a tear came to my eye.
I was transfixed on that tear and the way it felt. No. The way I could feel it. It trickled down and over my cheek with startlingly purpose. It lingered on my jaw then dropped, leaving my skin feeling cold.
A cough. It was only a cough from a young man who had most likely coughed at least twenty thousand other times in his lifetime. But it was a cough that made my eyes fly open and my heart race. A cough that meant Charlie was alive. I whispered his name. His eyes opened slightly, and there was life in them. I smiled.
Charlie weakly took my hand and pressed his thumb into my palm. I laughed softly, resisting the urge to clutch him to me as tightly as I could. "You're welcome." He brushed the back of his hand across my cheek, wiping away the streak of water that had begun to dry. "We must get up," I added.
With a feeble nod, Charlie allowed me to assist him in standing. He draped an arm around my shoulder and I pointed to a tree that was a short distance away from us. "If we can make it there—"
"Then what?" Charlie asked, groaning when we started the fast walking pace we had to keep in order to stay ahead. I hadn't the slightest idea what then. Charlie huffed next to me, straining to keep the stride I wanted him to.
"Just keep pace with me. I will keep you safe," I said, a solemn promise in my voice. The men entered the field then, but they were far away. I could hear their pants rustling against the tall, yellowing grass. Their stride was rushed and angry. "Please keep up with me, Charlie."
But Charlie was weak and I was out of time. Gaius was gone; Kelsie safe with him. I could not Initiate on my own. Palleman had to have known that. We came upon the tree and I leaned Charlie against it, checking his wounds. They were still open, the one on his neck particularly worrying, but significantly less deadly. He lifted his grey eyes to mine, and his smile was just a sloping curve of his lips like the bottom of the champagne glasses in his mother's cabinet.
"I thought you couldn't heal," he joked. The pain was hard to miss in his tone. I bit my lip and looked to the skies. There was something different about the stars.
There was a shift. A definite stillness in their placement. I tilted my head and watched. A bird, very far away, circled the field.
"What is it, Tane?"
I ignored Charlie and began backing up from him, only a few steps. The bird circled closer and closer to the field. It was difficult to look at Charlie then, knowing it would be the last time. The yelling voices were further off but the men themselves were visible. Tiny dots at the edge of the field, their lights swinging. Too close.
"Tane, don't look at me like that," he said, pushing himself off of the tree and hobbling towards me, "It's like you're saying goodbye." I wanted to clutch him close to me. As soon as the thought occurred to me, I visibly staggered. I wanted. "What are you doing?" This question was followed by a few others that had no real sway on what was going to happen. On what was happening.
I held out my hands to him, and he made the effort to close the gap between us to take them. I cradled his hands so gently in mine, my breath coming faster than when I had been running for my life. For all of our lives.
I leaned over until my lips were once again at his ear. "Close your eyes," I instructed softly. He shut them. I touched his palm in a very specific pattern. With words that had not been taught to us in Fismuth, with motions that meant nothing to anyone but me.
"You never taught me that one." His breath was warm on my neck. I pulled back slightly to gaze at him; but there was no time to gaze at him. I repeated the touch in his palm and closed his fingers around it as if to force him to hold onto it.
"Keep it," I breathed. "Don't let it go."
I pressed my lips to his for a fraction of forever before I shoved myself away from him and turned to run.
Charlie
She was the most beautiful piece of heaven I'd ever seen. She was running away from me, her light rose-dusted hair bouncing with her movements. She ran hard.
The grass seemed to part for her, and I took two feeble steps to follow her. She was where I wanted to be. Then I saw it. The large bird that flew at her from high above; but it wasn't a bird. My mouth opened and I lost breath as I watched the graceful angel swoop down almost in slow-motion, her wings like an eagle's, brown and speckled with grey and white.
Her hair billowed with the wind as she dove from the sky straight for Tane. Tane jumped like she was on a high diving board and outstretched her arms. She was suspended in mid-air for only a precious second. Then she was being carried by the angel that had descended from the heavens to take her. I fell almost immediately to my knees.
I watched them grow smaller and smaller in the sky, my hand still curled around the words Tane had pressed there. I was hollow and I was tired. She was gone.
When the men finally caught up to me, I was slumped against the tree. Blood smeared the trunk above me. A man roughly grabbed my shoulder; his hand was meaty and he smelled like fresh-cut grass.
"Hey, son, where'd the rest of 'em go?" I looked up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. It sounded like he had tobacco dip in his bottom lip. "You hear me, boy?"
"I'm alone, sir," I managed to mutter. Six other men crowded around me before I slid all the way down to the ground. "I'm alone."