Scorch

  “Why aren’t you guys working the graveyard shift?” Lex asked them.

  “We took a personal day, got some subs to watch the vault,” said Roze. “We’ve never missed a game.”

  “Okay, rules!” Uncle Mort had started yelling again. “Each side has a hidden base. The Killers’ is somewhere on the north side of town, guarded by Pandora, and the Cullers’ is in the south, guarded by Corpp. Your job is to seize the opposite team’s base without getting tagged.”

  He held up one of the gooey blobs. “The tags you’ve received have been generously donated by our dear spider friends and treated so that they can’t be removed for at least twenty-four hours. When you see a member of the opposing team, slap that sucker on them. If you get tagged, you are out of the game and must return back here to the starting point, the fountain. If you’re still in play, you can return to the fountain to collect unused tags from your fallen comrades—but due to its high visibility, that may leave you vulnerable to attack.”

  Lex’s skin began to tingle. This sounded awesome.

  “First team to successfully seize the opposing team’s base wins the game,” Uncle Mort finished. “Any questions?”

  The crowd was uncomfortably silent. The only people who looked excited were Wicket, Roze, and the Juniors.

  Lex and Driggs gave each other a quick squeeze. “Hope you’re okay with boyfriend-girlfriend-leniency rules not applying here,” he told her.

  “Hope you’re okay with getting your ass kicked.”

  “When I give the first signal,” Uncle Mort said, “your head start begins. Spread out, strategize, do your thing. When I give the second signal five minutes later, the game has officially begun. Stay within the limits of the town—no farther north than my house, no farther south than the Croak population sign, and no farther than the foot of the hills to the east and west. Got it?”

  Everyone got it. And as soon as he blew his air horn, they were gone. Some paired up, some took off on their own, and a confused few crashed into one another as they scattered about. Lex followed the lead of those who had gone solo and ran by herself into the trees behind Corpp’s. As soon as she found a good hiding place, the second air horn went off.

  She instantly realized her mistake. A dozen other people had chosen the same patch of forest that she had, and half of those were on the other team. Cries of defeat and triumph soon rang out through the trees. Lex watched as several figures left the woods, their shoulders slumped in disappointment. Just as she was about to beat a quick retreat, a Senior Culler snuck up from behind. Luckily, a twig snapped beneath his foot, giving Lex the yoctosecond of warning she needed to duck away, whirl around, and slap the tag square on his chest.

  “Agh!” he shouted. “Goddamn Juniors!”

  She ran at full speed out of the forest, dodging another Senior on the way. At last she broke through the trees, only to be blindsided by Elysia, of all people.

  “Hi, Lex!” she chirped, tag in hand. “Are you having fun?”

  Lex had to laugh. Only Elysia could strike up a friendly conversation in the middle of a bloodbath. “Yeah, I am. Why aren’t you tagging me?”

  Elysia looked torn. “I should, but . . . I really want to get Ferbus. He tagged me within the first two minutes last year. I had to spend the rest of the night at the fountain, Kilda gushing my ear off the whole time.”

  “So I get a free pass?”

  “Yeah,” Elysia said, smiling. “It’s your first year, you should enjoy it. But I won’t be so merciful next time,” she warned, running away. “And tell Ferbus he’s a dead man!”

  Lex was tagless, so she decided to check out the fountain and see if anyone on her team who’d been tagged could give her some more. But to her surprise, there were almost no Killers. Instead, Kloo, Driggs, Roze, and Lazlo all sat atop the ledge, their faces bitter.

  “You’re out already?” she said as she approached, forgetting all about how vulnerable this would make her.

  Driggs scowled. “She’s like a ninja!”

  “Who?”

  “Bang!” said Kloo. “She’s so quiet, no one can hear her coming!”

  “Stocked up on tags early on, then started picking us off one by one,” said Roze, a hint of awe in her voice. “You’re lucky she’s on your team.”

  “Why are you consorting with the enemy?” said Lazlo. He let out a whoop to his teammates in the woods, then flashed Lex a wicked grin. “Better run, sweetheart.”

  Lex did just that as a handful of Cullers emerged. She spied a gap in their lines and headed straight for it, finding refuge behind a shrub up against the library. She watched through its leaves, assessing the situation, until something started to feel strange. Someone crept to her left, watching her. The white figure from the woods flashed through her mind—but she was right in the middle of town; there was no way she’d be the only one to see it. She swallowed, turned her head, and nearly let out a scream.

  Bang sat right beside her, staring with those gigantic greenish eyes.

  “Christ, Bang, you scared me.” Lex let out a nervous breath. “How were you able to get so many people?”

  Bang shrugged and slunk away as usual, but Lex could have sworn she caught a smile.

  “Hey.” Ferbus was crawling toward her on his elbows, as if he were under heavy artillery fire. “Here’s the situation. We’re doing pretty well thanks to Silent Bob over there,” he said, pointing at a skulking Bang, “but we’re not in the clear yet. Word is that Sofi’s gunning for you—”

  Lex’s mouth fell open. “But she’s on our team!”

  “Personal vendetta or something,” he said, getting to his feet and leading Lex from bush to bush. “Like we Juniors need any traitors right now. The Seniors already want your head on a spike.”

  Lex grimaced. She was starting to wonder if they were just talking about the game.

  She crawled behind him into another shrub. “You’re screwed too,” she said. “Elysia’s gone rabid—agh!” A shadow darted across the branches of the tree above, the limbs bouncing and shaking off what few leaves were left. It swooped down and aimed for Ferbus, missing by inches.

  “Dammit, Pip!” Ferbus cried. He grabbed Lex by the hoodie and sprinted toward the Bank. Pip followed above them, jumping effortlessly. “Talk about rabid,” Ferbus said, gulping for air as they ran. “That little snot rag has been stalking me all night.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  They searched the Bank’s exterior for a place to hide. On the ground at the rear of the building was a slanted pair of doors leading to what Lex assumed was the basement. She kicked at the heavy steel, but nothing budged. She continued toward the front, her fingers desperately groping for asylum.

  Miraculously, it came.

  Her hand fell on an old wooden plank forming a sort of door in the side of the Bank. She pushed it. It bowed and creaked and finally swung open to reveal a pitch-black hiding place. “Get in!” she whispered, pulling Ferbus inside and shutting the little door behind them.

  The room was only about four feet high, so they sat on the ground to catch their breath. “Well,” said Ferbus, “I think it’s safe to say I never envisioned this scenario.”

  “Let’s pray it never happens again,” said Lex, not relishing the thought of spending any amount of time in a confined space with Ferbus.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “Under the porch, I think.” She looked around as her eyes adjusted to the dark. She was right; they could look out onto the town square through the thin slats of the wood that made up the stairs of the porch. If she squinted hard enough, she could make out Driggs sitting on the fountain, grumpily throwing rocks into the water.

  A loud shriek sounded to the left of the fountain. Elysia had jumped onto Ayjay’s back. “Where’s Ferbus?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know!”

  “Tell me or I’ll shove this tag down your throat!”

  Ferbus let out a low whistle. “Elysia the badass,” he said with no smal
l amount of admiration. “Who knew?”

  With a final grunt Elysia tagged Ayjay anyway and scampered off. He threw up his hands and made his way in shame toward the fountain, where his fellow fallen players awaited to mock him.

  “How long are we allowed to hide in here?” Lex asked Ferbus.

  “As long as we want, but that won’t help us win. We have to get to the base.” In the small amount of light, she caught him sneering at her. “Too bad you can’t just Crash us there.”

  Lex gritted her teeth and wondered how long she could go before ramming his face into the wall. Not long, she decided.

  “Or maybe you only Crash in emergency situations,” he went on. “Gotta save up for all of those. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of them, not with you around.”

  Lex threw her flashlight at him. He ducked out of the way and it clattered to the ground, switching on in the process. “Fungus, I’m only going to say this one more time. What happened to Driggs was not my fault. If you’ve somehow got it into that oddly shaped head of yours that I want to see my friends get hurt, then you’re even dumber than you . . .”

  Ferbus looked at her surprised face. “What?”

  She pointed. The flashlight had fallen into a corner, near the side that made up the foundation of the Bank. But instead of the light reflecting off the wall, it shone down a tunnel.

  “Whoa,” he said, backing up. “What the hell is that?”

  She stuck the flashlight into the hollow. The dirt tunnel sloped down for a few feet before leveling out and leading onward, past where the light could reach.

  Crouching, Lex stuck one foot in and looked back at Ferbus. “Well?”

  He was aghast. “You’re not really going in there, are you?”

  “Why, are you scared?”

  “No, I’m an intelligent human being who doesn’t want to get devoured alive by a den of man-eating rats. Sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as you’re going to be when I tell everyone you pissed your pants and cried like a baby.” She inched farther into the tunnel. “I think Pip will be the first one I’ll tell. He’ll love that. Or even better, Elysia—”

  “Fine!” he relented, giving her a dirty look. “But only if you stay in front.”

  She rolled her eyes. “My, what chivalry.”

  “To hell with chivalry. Your idea, you die first.”

  After a few twists and turns the path eventually straightened out into a smooth passage. Ferbus brightened as they walked, stooping under the low ceiling. “Hey, I think this is leading south,” he said. “Maybe it’ll lead us to the base!”

  “Yeah! I bet Corpp dug it himself!”

  “Shut up.”

  After several minutes they came to a steep incline. They climbed up, careful not to slip or fall backwards, as the dirt wasn’t packed tightly enough for them to grasp a firm footing. Lex wondered when this had last been used. And for what.

  Ferbus sniffed the air. “Feel that?” he said, pushing her along. “Wind. I think we’re almost out.”

  He was right. A few more steps, and Lex’s head poked out of the ground beside a gigantic gray boulder. She heaved herself up and wriggled through the opening.

  “Holy crap,” she said, brushing herself off. “Ferbus, you have to see this.”

  Below them stretched all of Croak, its streetlights shining with a soft yellow warmth. A few spots of flashlights twinkled within the trees while the fountain reflected the light of the moon, the figures gathered around it as small as bugs.

  “This is Greycliff,” Ferbus said in wonder, looking at the large rock, then back down at the town. “Man, I haven’t been up here since I was a rookie.”

  “Best place to watch the sunset,” Lex said, repeating what Uncle Mort had said when he’d brought her up here on her first day in Croak.

  A crisp breeze swept across the cliff. Lex hugged herself and took a deep breath, the cool air bathing her lungs. It was so beautiful up here; she wondered why she never thought to visit. It’d be a nice place for her and Driggs to—

  Next thing Lex knew, she and Ferbus were on the ground, digging their fingers into each other’s arms and gaping at the source of the deafening boom that had knocked them over.

  Where the fountain had been moments ago, a bright orange blaze now mushroomed above the square, followed by a thick plume of smoke. An acrid smell filled the air. Echoes of the explosion reverberated across the hillsides, then faded, giving way to the panicked cries of the people below. A wave of heat rushed up the cliff, bathing Lex and Ferbus in a fiery glow as they clung to each other, trembling, their faces white.

  10

  The tunnel felt downright oppressive on the way back—the way the walls seemed to close in, the suffocating dirt that got kicked up as they ran, the unending darkness. Lex hurried on, trying not to think about who may or may not be dead, instead telling herself that as soon as she burst through the little wooden plank door under the porch, she could take a gulp of fresh air.

  But that wasn’t the case at all.

  The air around the fountain was thick with smoke, obscuring the people whose voices cried out from every direction. A loud whooshing noise sounded somewhere in front of them. Lex and Ferbus pulled the bottoms of their hoodies up to their noses to breathe easier, staying close as they felt their way around.

  Lex’s foot brushed up against something. She grabbed Ferbus.

  He followed her gaze. “Is that an arm?”

  She nodded and bent down to look at the hand. A flowery tattooed design flickered in the ambient light.

  She stood back up, gagging. “It’s Roze’s.”

  A gust of wind swept through the square, finally clearing the air enough to see. There was another sharp burst of the whooshing sound, and as a white cloud erupted to their left, Lex realized that it was coming from a fire extinguisher. Its operator was yelling instructions to anyone who would listen.

  “Get all the injured inside!” Uncle Mort shouted from the fountain—or what was left of it. His face was covered with soot. “Into the Morgue, now!”

  Lex ran to him. “What happened?”

  “Lex!” He swept her into a violent hug. “Where the hell have you been? I thought you were—” He stopped talking but didn’t let go.

  “We were hiding. We just got here,” she said, panic rising in her voice. “What’s going on?”

  He finally released her. “A bomb,” he said, his face hard. “Must have been at the bottom of the fountain, too dark to see. Goddammit.”

  All Lex could think about was the last thing she had seen through the slats of the wood—all those people sitting around the fountain—Driggs one of them—

  She grabbed at her uncle’s hoodie. “Where is everyone?”

  “Either hurt or tending to those who are hurt. Too soon to tell which is which.” He pointed at a couple of people on the ground. “Go help them. Help whoever you can find.”

  Lex and Ferbus ran to the figures. Lex held her breath as she reached for them, but both were Seniors she didn’t know.

  “Ayjay!” she cried, spotting him as he walked past. “Help us!”

  Ayjay stared blankly, as if he didn’t even recognize them. “Kloo?” he asked.

  “No, it’s me and Lex,” Ferbus said. “What’s wrong? You can’t find her?”

  He ignored them and kept walking, his eye glazed over.

  The Morgue had never looked more like its namesake. Dozens of moaning people stretched across the tables, the chairs, every available surface. The already dingy floor was made even fouler by pools of blood seeping across its tiles. Those who weren’t injured ran hurriedly around the room, tossing bandages and medical supplies. Lex spotted Sofi, Lazlo, and Snodgrass among them.

  A team of strong hands took the victims from Lex’s and Ferbus’s arms and carried them away, leaving Lex to switch into full-blown panic mode as she scanned the restaurant. “I don’t see him!”

  Ferbus swallowed. “I don’t see any of them.”

  Lex cho
ked back a sob, fears screaming through her. Was this all it took? One little explosion to wipe out the only things she’d ever cared about?

  She eyed something with a sheet over it. Blood seeped out onto the floor from the lumpy figure underneath. Lex bent down.

  Ferbus grabbed her arm. “Lex, don’t—”

  She tore off the sheet. Roze’s glassy eyes stared up at her, the bloody stump of her shoulder oozing a black fluid. Lex reached out to touch her face when she was grabbed around the waist from behind, a messy strand of brown hair poking into view.

  Lex struggled for breath as she hugged Driggs, her ribs nearly cracking. Ferbus piled on top of both of them. “You’re okay,” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” Driggs breathed, shaking his head, “but I shouldn’t be. I was at the fountain all night, then I leave for two seconds to take a piss, and . . .” He pulled himself away from them and looked down. “I shouldn’t be.”

  “You got lucky,” said Lex. “That’s not your fault.”

  “Still.” His eyes were troubled. “Where have you been?”

  “We’ll explain later,” said Ferbus, anxious. “Where’s Elysia? Kloo? The rookies?”

  “Elysia’s over there,” he said, pointing to the corner. “Burned arm, but otherwise okay. I don’t know where the rookies are, or Kloo. Or Ayjay.”

  “Ayjay’s outside, looking for—” The words were barely out of Lex’s mouth when Ayjay ran in through the door, Kloo limp in his arms. Her eyes were fluttering.

  “Clear a table!” he shouted.

  Riley, who’d been directing traffic and holding a piece of gauze on her forehead, looked around the room. “There aren’t any left. Maybe the space on the floor over there—”

  “No, take mine!” A blond head poked up from the corner. Elysia hopped out of her booth, wincing at the pain in her bandaged arm. She walked toward the rest of the Juniors, fine for a moment until she began to stagger. Ferbus lunged forward and caught her.

  Ayjay raced to the table and held Kloo’s hand as the Seniors assessed her. She was trying to give them medical instructions, but it seemed that she couldn’t quite form the words.