The Bargaining Path

  ***

  The next morning, Paul and two of the unnamed thugs were out hunting. My father was lying down, his back to us, and I could tell by the way his breaths came and went slowly that he was asleep. Rich was pulling a thorn-covered vine from the trees, his eyes looking up at me every once in a while. When that happened, he would smile slightly, and continue to saw away at the vine with a butcher’s knife.

  “That is never going to work.” I called to him, after his eyes rose to meet mine for the hundredth time. It was annoying, watching him look at me, smile, and then look away over and over again, so of course, I had to confront him on it.

  “Brynna, have you forgotten what we discussed?” Adam asked, before raising his voice and calling to Rich, “Ignore her. Her criticisms are the result of sleep and food deprivation and boredom.”

  Well, of course, I was not going to let that slide.

  “‘Her’ criticisms are the result of his foolish assumption that a butcher’s knife is going to cut through a vine that thick. You need a machete, silly.”

  One of the thugs tossed one to Rich in an underhand throw so it landed on the ground in front of him.

  “Happy?” He asked me.

  “Very.”

  “You won’t be. Not in a few minutes.”

  “Oh, no?”

  “Nope.” He said, “What was it you said about my wife, bitch? In the city?”

  “I don’t think I did anything but call her despicable. Why? Are you looking for an excuse to get violent? You abusive men, you’re all the same. It cannot just be a random burst of violence, for no reason. You need the woman whom you wish to abuse to cause it. If I call your wife some vile name now, you will use that as a reason to put me in my place. It will have been for my own good, right? You can’t just do it because you want do it.”

  “Oh, I want to do it, and I will do it.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Brynna, that is enough now.” Adam told me.

  “Why? I don’t need a reason. You’re saying that I do, but I don’t.” He hacked through the vine with the glistening blade of the machete, finally breaking it free from the tree.

  “See? That was easy, wasn’t it?”

  He stormed over to me, the thorn-covered branch clenched tightly in one hand, the other balled up into a fist.

  “You could have been with us.” He snarled at me, “But you chose his side. After all the things Daniel said happened to you, I actually felt sorry for you. But now I don’t, because you chose to align yourself with him! Your people, they have no morals. They have nothing. They just do what they want, take what they want, and kill who they want, without any regard for anything. After what happened to you when you were a kid, you aligned yourself with those types of people. Christ, you’ve got a disease and a half, don’t you? You make no sense. You aligned yourself with the people who do the same shit that the sick bastard who raped you did. Have you realized that yet?”

  I had been calm as he approached me, but when he mentioned that darkness from my past, I went not first to irritation, then to anger, and then to rage, but instead, I sky-rocketed to rage straight off. My blood was set at a rapid boil immediately; my heart pounded, sending that scorching blood blistering through my veins to burn everything; my limbs shook, my eyes turned red, my palms sweated as the desire to reach out and rip his tongue from his mouth became almost too great to bear; I could not see or think or reason in that utter wrath. It was not human, not at all; it was completely animal.

  “Really?” Adam asked, because he thought foolishly that if he continued the conversation, I would forget what Rich had just said. “That is what they are telling you now? They are telling you that we rape people? By the one God, Richard, it is funny that you would attribute that dark deed to us when it has always been Tyre’s favorite pastime.”

  “That isn’t fucking rape! And yeah, they do tell us that you people rape people.”

  If I had not been so lost in my ire, I would have certainly criticized him on that poorly constructed proclamation. I would kindly inform him that it lost all of its intended weight when the listener was distracted by how silly it sounded.

  “They tell me you people don’t have any laws. You have nothing. You just let people do whatever they want, even if it’s the darkness in them that tells them to do it.”

  “And what about your people, Rich?” I spat at him, regaining my voice suddenly, “Torturing, raping—and yes, it is rape—killing… Does that not come from ‘darkness in you?’ Oh, no… Right, I forgot: That’s all in the name of God.”

  “Yeah. You’re right it is, you smart-ass bitch. Who do you all do it in the name of?”

  “That would be ‘in whose name do you all do it?’ And we do not do anything in anyone’s name. We do not hurt each other. Goodness, I am surprised that you’re not criticizing us for that. Calling us a bunch of tree-hugging, pansy, atheist Hippies. Only we have God, too, Rich. The only difference is…” I leaned forward and whispered to him, slowly, tauntingly, “We’ve got the real one.”

  His mouth was moving as he tried to formulate a harsh enough retort, and he was scowling darkly, his eyes alight with rage.

  “Oh, you have done it now, haven’t you?” Adam murmured.

  “Daniel!” Rich bellowed in my face.

  “I'm not dealing with it!” My father called back, and he did not even sit up.

  “Guys, get over here!”

  Four of the unnamed thugs came over.

  “Adam, what do you let these young ladies do in your camp?” One of them asked, “Do you just allow them to run rampant?”

  Rich cut us free from the tree, but three of the guys held their guns on Adam so he did not try to come to my aid.

  “Really!” Rich said as he pulled me to him just so he could throw me back to the ground, “My God, this one...” From behind me, he grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me up into a sitting position. I am proud to say that I did not flinch in the slightest. Even when one of his hands twisted into the back of my hair and the other grasped my chin, I did not show any signs of pain or fear.

  “This one has been like a stubborn fucking dog since we met!”

  “A dogged dog?” I asked, and he slammed me face-first into the ground so hard that my ears were left ringing.

  “Ray!” Rich bellowed, “Why don't you come over here?”

  “No, Ray, stay where you are.” Adam said to him calmly.

  “Come over here, Ray!”

  “Ray, I suggest you stay where you are.”

  Adam was still trying to keep secret how severe his injury was, so his attempts to stand were small and barely noticeable. Of course, in order to stand, he would have needed to maneuver onto his knees first, and that was proving to be an insurmountable challenge for him. When one of the guns was held to his head, he did not stop completely, but when the other two were pointed at me, all movements ceased.

  I was laughing, simply because my body was shaking, and I did not want them to assume that I was afraid. But I was afraid. Inside, every part of me was trembling, more than likely due to the reverberations from my rapidly beating heart. The part of my brain that had no shame begged me to beg, but the part of my brain—the larger part, of course—that was proud to a fault would never allow such weakness. Not when they would laugh about my fear after I was gone. Not when it would be used to slander my name when I could not defend myself. People would certainly sympathize; every person in their moment of death experiences great fear, I am sure, even if it is simply fear of the unknown, fear of what comes after. But still, I was thought by some to be very brave, almost completely fearless. Even as I faced my death, even as I faced the pain that would surely precede my death, I would not cry, or beg, or bargain. I will admit that I was terrified; how could I not have been? But they would never know my terror, so I laughed.

  “Yes, you will laugh now.” Rich told me joyously in my ear. “This is all part of an attempt to get in our heads. Either that, or this lit
tle charade you put on is just your pride talking. I don’t know, and I don’t care, bitch. And neither will you, in a minute. You two! Hold him back, and make sure he watches. You think I don’t know that you give a fuck about her, but I do know. I see it, every time you look at her. You think you’re keeping it secret, but fuck, you stupid son of a bitch, you love her, don’t you? Hold him back, and he will fight, because he’ll want to protect her. But keep him back and make him fucking watch this. Ray!”

  In Rich’s heart, I felt his rage to the deepest extent; what he was showing was just the smallest bit of it. I felt his disgust that I, a woman, would not cower at the sight of him, a man who meant me great harm and wished to show me my rightful place. In his mind, I saw his plan for me, and as soon as it was broadcast through my mind in frighteningly clear resolution, my icy fear petrified my body but still did not show on my face. There was but one way to sort out a problem like me; there was only one way to truly break a woman, in his opinion. He knew that from experience, from committing that terrible crime and from watching others commit it. Watching countless women in their camp who had resisted. Watching those who had sworn they would never obey. Watching Maura, who had suffered at the hands of so many...

  You will have to forgive this part. Among many other moments in my long, eventful life, this was one of the worst, and therefore, it is one of the hardest to transcribe, as I still feel many things, all unpleasant, when I remember it, and I do remember it perfectly. My mind has never dimmed a single trauma as long as I have lived and suffered traumas, and though some may say that is a curse, I consider it at least partly a blessing. Remembering the pain and fear as clearly as I did the day I experienced them has always birthed the most intense and useful alertness, and a certain crystal-clear clarity that yields great understanding of the perpetrator and the situations surrounding the event. To understand human-like creatures and their human-like humanity is essential to being able to wield my power, so in that way only, even my greatest traumas have been my greatest strengths.

  “Ray, she's all yours. Give her your specialty.”

  Ray's specialty appeared to be coming at his victims like the Tasmanian devil. Once Rich had thrown me into the leaves and dirt on the cold forest ground, Ray pounced. With my hands tied behind me, I was mostly defenseless, but when his rough, shockingly strong hands flipped me over onto my back, I brought my feet back as far as I could (which was not very far, as he was already trying to grab them, knowing what my first offensive move would be) and kicked him in the chest. He stumbled, but I had not weakened him in the slightest. In fact, I had strengthened him by kicking and would continue to strengthen him if I continued to fight; as I fought, his anger rose, but so did his dangerously lustful amusement; I was a challenge, I was going to fight, and he was going to fight back, and he would make me lose. No matter how long it took, no matter how brutally he had to beat me, or how many times he had to pick my small body up and slam me into the hard ground, he would win.

  Still, I fought.

  Adam was bellowing his enraged promises of violence, and a strong wind was beginning to blow. I could not discern his words through the many flying through my head; some were my own terrified thoughts, others belonged to my attacker and those other men who were watching with sadistic enthusiasm, and some were my father's, who was far off from us, preparing himself for the moment when he had to begin pretending that he could not hear my screams, if ever I actually did scream... He knew my screams so well, and he did not want to hear them again… Not again, not again, please, God, not again… He thought it over and over again, and I could hear the tears in the voice of his mind. That voice jarred me, confused me, left me even one step closer to absolute defenselessness…

  It had taken one solid week of torment for Maura to finally begin screaming, and saying that she was sorry, and saying she would obey... A part of my father, the sick part that believed so strongly in the Old Spirit strategies for enforcing order, wondered if I would take as long, though he suspected that I would not...

  The trees bent to the will of the wind that had picked up speed and strength. A crack of lightening split a tree close to us, and Ray looked up in fear that one of the heavy wooden sides would fall squarely on top of us, but alas, that did not happen. The loudest roar of thunder I had ever heard startled him, but still, his hands ripped my shirt down the front. Luckily, that roar of thunder drowned out my startled yelp, which I would like to say was one tinted only with disgust and rage but unfortunately, fear comprised most of the emotional supply behind the sound.

  His heavy body dropped onto mine because I was thrashing in the dirt like a gutted fish atop a ship's deck. One of his arms pinned my chest down to the ground while the hand attached to the other ripped off my bra before moving down to rip open the button of my jeans.

  “Adam, you better fucking stop!” Rich shouted over the chaotic weather, Adam's shouts, and the whooping of the men watching. The gun was pointed at me; I was staring up into the barrel of it, staring, knowing that I would not see the bullet coming, I would scarcely hear the bang... The weather was calming, but Adam's fury was almost tangible. It was in the air around us.

  It was attracting darkness.

  I was so tired, but I was still fighting. My body would not give in to that brutal man on top of me. My mind would not allow me to submit, knowing that Rich, his thugs, and even my father would get far too much pleasure from it. The thugs were standing and watching, none sympathizing, none even considering coming to my aid not because they were afraid, but because they wanted to watch, they wanted to see me, the dangerous, seductive, mildly demonic accomplice to their greatest enemy, violated in the most dehumanizing ways.

  For some reason, I thought of snow. Still to this day, I do not know why the desires to watch snow clouds form in the sky above me and to feel the sting of the icy cold touch of snowflakes on my skin was felt so strongly by me. But I wished that Adam, who could not destroy those men with his power because Rich would end my life if he tried, would make it start snowing. Perhaps I felt that way because I had always found snow to be so very cleansing.

  “Move. Move!” Rich ordered Ray harshly. Ray, breathing heavily still, took his weight off of me, and my eyes registered the sight of a broken piece of thorn-covered vine in Rich's hand. My mind did not allow me to realize what it was going to be used for, as I would have screamed when I finally knew. In fact, I might have even pleaded with him not to do it. It was not until I felt the simultaneous smack of the vine and the deep, excruciating jab of one hundred thorns on my bare skin that I understood why he was holding it.

  Now I will admit it: I screamed, but who would not have screamed?

  “I will kill all of you!” I heard Adam bellowing, and the ground beneath me was rumbling again. If he could not strike them with lightning, he would cause an earthquake that would open the solid forest ground and swallow them whole.

  “Control yourself, Rexprimus...” One of the thugs said, and the other cronies laughed, and Rich did, too, even as he continued to whip me with the vine. “Otherwise, I’ll shoot her.”

  “Are you done fighting?!” Rich had dropped to his knees beside me and was bellowing in my face. When I did not answer, he twisted his hand in my hair and yanked my head off of the ground so my face was level with his; I could not help thinking that I would be bald by the end of the night if those men continued to manhandle my hair. “Answer me!” He slammed my face into the ground, and then yanked it back up again, “I said, 'Are you done?!”

  It was so stupid. It was stubborn. It was proud. It was done to show that he had not broken me, at least not yet.

  I head-butted him. I used enough force that his head jerked backwards; the back of his head almost banged against the top of his shoulder. His nose was broken, I knew. His eyes crossed momentarily, and he fell backwards into the dirt, clutching his face and spitting out insults that I could barely understand through the blood that had filled his mouth.

  “That is it!” He
shrieked when he finally regained his ability to speak. He grabbed yet another handful of my hair and dragged me through the leaves to where they had all slept. “Bring him!”

  When Rich threw me down, my upper arm landed in their fire-pit quite unfortunately; the embers were still burning, and I had to bite down into my lip to keep from crying out, and after I bit clean through my bottom lip, I had to press it forcefully together with the top as hard as I could to continue holding the scream at bay.

  “I would apologize for that because believe it or not, I did it unintentionally.” Rich explained to me brusquely, “But frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.”

  “Ruined... that line... forever.” I gasped out at him, as he pulled me up onto my knees. Once again, I was laughing, my blood-covered teeth stinging when the cold air hit them. The reason why I was laughing was not at my continued defiance of them; it was because my shirt, although ripped, was still covering my chest enough so those despicable men could not see anything. I found that to be extraordinarily lucky, and a luxury in the situation as lovely as warmth.

  “Oh, did I ruin it?” He asked, and he delivered a wallop across my face that left me seeing stars. “I don't give a damn about that, either.”

  Adam was beside me, kneeling as well.

  “This does not concern her. She was of no use to me, and she will be of no use to him, either.” Adam was saying in what sounded like mild irritation at their inability to see something that he felt was so glaringly obvious. “Just send her on her way back to Maxwell. He makes her miserable enough, so you all will have your way in that respect; she will suffer. All sides win.”

  “That is just about the oldest trick in the book, Adam. It’s common practice where we're from. All we have done to her, it has been done to so many others. Do you know how many husbands, boyfriends, brothers, fathers, and uncles said the same thing? 'This doesn't concern them.' 'Just let them go.' 'They're not important to you.' The oldest tricks in the book are the most stupid, because everyone sees them coming. You are insulting yourself and me by using it.” Rich informed him as he paced quickly in front of us, his entire body trembling with rage. “Daniel!”

  He didn’t reply for a long time.

  “What?!” He finally called from far off.

  “Your daughter is an Irredeemable. You and I both know what that means. So, come say your goodbyes.”

  A long silence ensued.

  “Bye, Dad!” I yelled, and I laughed hysterically again. But that pain-induced hysteria was vanishing quickly, being replaced by that freezing fear I had felt so strongly earlier, when Paul had held the gun to my head. Adam looked over me, sensing that sudden surge of terror in my heart.

  “Look at me.” He said, and his voice was so gentle, in such stark contrast to his enraged yells and his snide chiding of them. “Brynna... look at me.”

  I did, just as Paul moved behind us. My body tensed. Every sense was alive. My mind was screaming, sending impulses to my legs to run, but my legs did not heed the call; they merely stayed put, lame, beneath me. My breathing was starting to quicken.

  “No, my love. Shh...” Adam said, and he leaned closer to me.

  The moment my forehead was set against his, tears formed in my eyes. My last moments would be spent with him, nestled against him, feeling warmth even from that slight physical contact between us. I would close my eyes, relishing in the sensation of that warmth I felt from his body, and that cool, gentle chill that went through me whenever he and I touched. Because my face was against his, and the men were all behind us, I allowed just one, solitary tear to fall. Then I whispered to him an admittance that did not pass my lips ever:

  “I'm scared.”

  “No. You must not fear a thing, my love. I will not allow it, not now. Close your eyes, listen to me... Picture Penny. Picture her beautiful face. How she looks so like you, Brynna... I mistook her for your child when I first saw her. She has inherited your beauty, certainly.”

  “Who will care for her? God, what will they tell her?” I whispered, and my voice trembled but no tears fell.

  “Shh...” His lips pressed to mine so tenderly. “Close your eyes.” He kissed me again, and a tickling, warm sensation began in my ears, tiptoed down my neck, crept over my shoulders, and caressed every inch of my spine. “My love... my beauty... Just listen to my voice. Do not fear them.” A little more deeply, he kissed me, and my lips responded slightly, but naturally, as though they had been eagerly waiting for the day when his would come to rest upon them.

  “I want you to come with me.” I told him, rambling somewhat deliriously now. “If there's another place, I want you to be there. I'll be scared to be alone. Please come with me.”

  For some reason, I thought that he was capable of ensuring that. With all of his power, I thought that he could control the afterlife and arrange for our paths to conjoin, and our voyage to the Pearly Gates, or Nirvana, or a black void, or Hell, or wherever, would be taken together.

  “I will. We will take that final journey together, I promise.” He kissed me again, “You have my love, Brynna. My deepest, purest, most tender love. I need you to know that now, alright?”

  I nodded, remembering being told by one of my coworkers in the kitchen of Don’s house that the saying “You have my love” was a Pangaean phrase with heavy significance behind it. It was only said to those from whom one could not bear to be separated. It was the highest declaration of love, both platonic and romantic.

  “Yes.” I said, and my voice dropped to a whisper, “And you have mine.”

  My heart suffered a shudder of sadness and also, a sharp pang of shock, because I knew that it was true. That moment, and that harrowing night, in general, had bred love for him in my heart. I did not know then how resilient that love was, but I knew that it was there, so gently encasing my heart and protecting me from absolute panic and grief.

  My eyes rose to the sky, and I startled terribly upon seeing a ghastly, demonic face staring down at me, opening its jagged, misshapen mouth and snapping its jaws shut again with a crack that I thought could be heard for miles, and yet behind us, the men did not interrupt their argument over which bullets were correct to look up. Also, quite interestingly, it appeared that since they had denied the mutation, they also could not sense the thick, heavy evil that was in the air, the same evil that always clung to the Shadows.

  “Adam...” I muttered, and I gestured with my eyes for him to look up. When he did, his face remained impassive, but his jaw tightened.

  “Oh, dear...” He looked at the fire that was still burning ever so slightly. The light it was giving us was minimal, and soon, it would completely disappear. Once it did, the Shadow would leap down from the tree and begin its crazed, random, brutally violent attack. Luckily there were others with Adam and me, so perhaps one of them would be its first target... But Adam and I were right beneath it, and it was looking straight at us, opening and closing its mouth, starting to hiss like an animal but moan distinctly like a human... Still, the men behind us did not look up.

  “The sound of the gun will draw it down here, regardless of the light, correct?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  I nodded, and closed my eyes.

  For the first time, I would explore just how powerful my power truly was. It is said that Athenes, because our power is of the mind, and the mind determines what is possible, can do anything. So, I asked myself then if I could control minds and instantly decided that yes, I absolutely could.

  I began by focusing on the man I had seen standing to Rich’s right. He was holding a shotgun. After pushing aside all doubts in my abilities, I pictured the gun rising by its own volition, or rather, by my volition. Sure enough, I heard the men exclaiming, asking aloud (and loudly) what the hell was going on? I pictured the finger of the man holding the gun moving to press against the trigger. I heard the crack of the bone in that finger as he struggled against the force of my control; just as I wanted it to, his now broken finger snapped back onto the trigger,
and a blast echoed to the farthest reaches of the world, it seemed.

  The men were screaming, scrambling, asking how such a thing could occur. I lost count of the seconds it took for them to realize that I had been the one to do it, that the rumors were true, and I really did possess this great power capable of the most terrible, impossible things. When they realized it, their rage was almost tangible, and the Shadow above our heads needed no more provocation than pure rage abounding through the air. The sound had jump-started her lust for blood, but their rage drove her body to act on her desire, on her hunger. As the men came charging towards me, the shriek above our heads sounded, and they froze.

  Several things happened at once: First, I spun sideways so that I could drop down onto the ground and kick the stick I had seen in the fire so that it ricocheted towards me. Unfortunately, I caught the end that was on fire first and dropped the whole stick to the ground before scrambling to pick it up again on the non-burning side before the flame died away; one must remember that my hands were tied behind me and coordinating those movements was quite difficult. Adam flipped his hands over his feet so that they were in front of him, and used his fangs to bite easily through the vines binding him. The Shadow landed more gracefully than I expected right in front of us, and its smile contorted its already quite hideous face even more. Adam spun me around so that the torch was facing the creature. He or she (it is hard to tell with Shadows) screeched in rage and started to gallop away from our group, but then, it seemed to remember that we were not the only ones unlucky enough to be in the woods at night.

  Adam took the torch and dropped us both onto the ground so we could rest against another tree. One of the aforementioned thugs ran towards us, and his thoughts told me that he was going to try to throw one of us in the Shadow's path so we would be the ones it ate, and then he and his comrades could escape unharmed. But alas, the Shadow reached him before he could reach us. In front of the terrified eyes of Rich, my father, Paul (who had returned just in time to witness this carnage) and the surviving thugs, the Shadow ripped its long claws into the man's stomach and began to pull out his insides, all the while smiling as though he were extracting many surprises from a mystery box.

  “Adam...” I whispered, because I could feel deeper darkness approaching. I could feel in their minds and what was left of their souls that they were hungry, hungry to eat what they had lost. They had heard the screech of one of their own, and that screech had told them that a delicious buffet of varying kinds of human-like creatures had strode into their territory.

  “I know. I can smell them.”

  “I can feel them.” I murmured back, and my voice was trembling.

  “It is alright. We are going to be alright. Come. Sit here.” With his free hand, he pulled me so that I could sit between his legs with my back against his front. His arm came across my middle, and I adjusted it so it was covering my bare chest and then held onto it with both of my sweating, shaking hands that he had freed for me. Our main enemies had run off. Only a few thugs remained behind and soon, they would be dead. Though I did not want to show my fear in front of Adam, who I did not trust completely, I had no choice; I no longer had the energy to pretend I was unafraid, and once the levee holding that massive stockpile of emotions was breached, the flood was freed.

  The screams those men let out brought me no joy. I could not gloat. I could not stop myself from equating the sound with the one made by pigs right before their throats were slashed. Rounds were fired off, but all the bullets missed, even though there were many targets; the creatures now numbered in the fifties. Alone, Shadows are dangerous. In a frenetic swarm, they are impossible to survive unless one remembers one simple rule: Light, when used incorrectly, breeds shadow, but when used correctly, dissolves it. Case in point: We had a torch, and the Shadows could not get close, though they tried; the men still alive had lighters, which when their shaking hands actually managed to light them, only aggravated their supernatural aggressors more.

  “We are going to be alright. It is almost dawn. Just hold on a little longer.” Adam was whispering in my ear. “We will endure this. Soon, the sun will rise, and this will be over. Just a little longer now, my darling.”

  His hand held the torch in front of us so steadily, and I could not believe his bravery; he truly did not fear them.

  My body was practically seizing with the tremors of terror that ran through it. Once or twice, when a Shadow got too close, I whimpered. When my eyes met theirs, I could see what they once were: humans, corrupted not by greed or sloth or envy, but by sadness. Sadness bred the darkest shadow, which I found so strange... When I had made that long, agonizing eye contact with the Reaper in my apartment so many, many years earlier, it seemed, I had seen every evil thought and action ever dreamed or committed by men and women, every wrongful death, every dark advantage taken, and in that rolling sea of darkness, I had almost drowned. The same feeling took hold of me when my eyes met those of the Shadows, when my mind bore so unwillingly into theirs, and yet this darkness was that of despair, not sins committed by mankind. I asked myself how sorrow could breed evil so similar to that bred by wrath or greed, and I could not find the answer. My mind was racing. The mix of frenzied visual stimuli, the screaming of the men being ripped apart, and the desperate, heavily-loaded thoughts whizzing through my mind were enough to set my heart off into a terrible throbbing of panic even stronger than what I had been feeling when the first Shadow had jumped down from the trees.

  I wanted to close my eyes, but I would not let myself. Always, I had believed that confronting fears was the only way to desensitize oneself to them. So, despite my eyes screaming as the bitter air and the horrid sights before me stung them, I kept them open wide so I could see.

  The shrill screeches of the men dying and the gurgles of their throats breathing in only their own blood died away, and I felt the hunger in each Shadow not dissipate completely, or even slightly. Instead, it multiplied rapidly like an airborne plague between them all. Their heads jerked towards us, and each released a deep sigh of longing in unison. For a second, they all stood still, gazing at us longingly. Then, in a synchronized movement that startled me, they were crawling towards us. That sight was almost as horrifying as watching them band together to completely rip a man to shreds; some pulled themselves along blindingly fast with just their arms, and others crawled like four-legged spiders, all four limbs spread to their farthest reaches at shocking angles. Their heads twisted so that their faces were perfectly horizontal, their chins facing directly to the right or the left. Their white eyes with dark slashes of black inside widened to their farthest reaches.

  I pushed my back harder against Adam and grasped his arm even tighter.

  “Shh... It is alright.” He whispered, but now, I did hear a very quiet, very slight tremble in his voice. “Brynna... whatever you do, do... not... scream.”

  I nodded, and yet when a particularly ugly Shadow lurched forward, coming within just centimeters of the end of our circle of light, I did begin to yelp, but Adam's hand flew up to cover my mouth before the sound could be heard by them.

  My eyes rose to look at the flame burning at the end of the torch. Slowly, it was creeping towards the end that Adam was holding. I quickly went through the algorithms in my mind: The moon was out of sight, and the sky was a whole shade lighter than when I had last looked. We had approximately two hours until daylight. The fire seemed to be creeping down the torch at about three quarters of a millimeter per second. The stick was approximately seven feet long. It did not take a mathematical genius to interpret that data; the fire would reach Adam's hand before the sun rose to save us, and he would have no choice but to drop it, and then the light would extinguish, and we would be dead. As quickly as a bullet could pierce a skull, the hands of the Shadows would rip into us. But unlike a bullet in the head, we would not die quickly if it was the Shadows killing us. Instead, we would feel their clawed hands tearing into our skin, pulling out our hearts and lungs and intestines and
whatever else they could find. Until the blood that was left in our veins ran out, until we could think and feel no more, we would feel the pain of being completely destroyed. That is what I saw when I cast my eye hesitantly into the future. But in looking forward, I did not feel the great weighted resignation that I knew I would feel if there were truly no other path besides the one on which we met our deaths. Instead, I felt the frantic churning of the cogs in my mind and the sudden arousal of all my senses once again. When I smelled the air, I could smell all the plants around me, and quickly, I sorted through those scents until I found the one I was searching for: the flare tree.

  “Adam, there is a flare tree about six yards from us. We need to...”

  “Help me stand.” He said, and carefully, I stood, watching my feet to make sure that they did not travel outside of the light circle. With one arm, I pulled Adam onto his feet, and he stumbled forward into me, nearly knocking us both to the ground. But when I started to fall backwards, he pulled my body so that it was pressed to his and steadied himself. My heart was pounding; I had come so close to falling out of the light circle.

  “Are you alright?” He asked me.

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  I turned around and placed his arm over my shoulder, and he held the light as high as his painful injury would allow. Slowly, we hobbled in the direction of the smell, watching with alert eyes as the Shadows converged on us and retracted, hissing in frustration and fury, clawing the ground angrily.

  As we passed by them, I crouched down to grab a backpack and a gun that laid beside what I assumed had once been one of the thugs; all I saw was a ripped open ribcage and what looked suspiciously (and disgustingly) like a disembodied spine. Then, my eyes took in the sight of one arm, broken in half, its fingers, all the flesh eaten off of each, clawing into the ground still. Around this mess of human debris, I saw and smelled an unthinkable amount of blood; it clung to the remains; it flowed outwards on the ground in a large, rapidly spreading circle; it was covering the trees with huge, screaming splatters. A few feet away, I saw a head, its eyes and mouth still opened wide to their farthest reaches, its scalp ripped off and its brain removed. In the darkness, it looked like it was simply made of wax like a grim Halloween decoration or a movie prop. I was beginning to dissociate; the trauma was becoming too much to bear.

  “Brynna... Stay with me now.” Adam's voice warned me. “We are running out of time.”

  I looked up at the torch to find that the flames were beginning to lick the top of his hand.

  “Oh, God...” I whispered, “Just do not drop it, Adam. We are almost there.”

  Even if he had been stronger, we would not have been able to move quickly because the flame would die away in the wind. But we were so close. All we had to do was go a few more feet...

  “Brynna, it is... It is burning me. I cannot hold it anymore...”

  “Don't drop it, Adam. We're almost there! Give it to me!”

  “No.”

  “Yes!”

  “No!”

  “Then throw it! That way!” I pointed, and he threw the torch in the direction I was pointing. The whole time it was in the air, I prayed that the flame would not extinguish. Even the eyes of the Shadows were fixated on it, and I wondered if they were praying in their minds for the exact opposite.

  With dread, I watched the flame begin to die away in the wind.

  This is it, I remember thinking, This is where it ends. They will be on us before we can even blink. Before we can even feel any disappointment or halfhearted surprise that this ridiculous plan didn't work... So stupid...

  The stick clattered against the tree, now with only one feeble spark clinging to the charred wood.

  I apparently had forgotten why the flare-tree had been so named. Its flammability was astounding, so astounding that even a tiny spark could ignite a full blaze.

  Simultaneously, Adam and I dove in the direction of the tree, just as every Shadow lunged forward to grab us. By the time we hit the ground, the tree was a bright, screaming, blazing inferno. The light blinded them and sent them screeching back to wherever they had come from, and Adam and I were laughing, laughing hysterically, somewhat maniacally, lying on the ground in the leaves, watching them go, being warmed by the burning tree, and thinking, both of us, about how that tree being there had saved our lives, about how we were so lucky. The adrenaline was allowing him to laugh without pain, and he was thankful, I knew.

  I reached over and grasped his hand, and he brought mine to his lips to kiss.

  “You are a warrior queen if ever I knew one, my dearest love.”

  I beamed at him, and we laughed some more. And as we laughed, I realized that I was unable to think of any compliment ever paid to me that made me feel so proud.

  Or one that I had ever believed to be true as much.