3. Aliana
ALIANA
I wake up only when my stomach spirals madly and I feel like I’m falling—that sensation you sometimes get when you drift off to sleep, when you tumble through a pitch-black abyss and land smack dab into unconsciousness.
But when my eyelids peel back, I find myself actually falling through the air, tumbling down toward a circle of dark trees in an overgrown parking lot.
For some reason, I don’t scream. I’m pretty certain that my motor functions have not caught up with my brain and registered the fact that I’m about to die. The wind claws at me, and I feel ice cold. My fingers are frozen sticks and won’t move an inch, not that they could do anything to save me.
I start to spin as I tumble and end up looking above me instead of at the ground that’s rushing towards me.
Backlit by the sun are at least a dozen night visions descending toward the ring of trees.
Some have prey held within their talons while others are empty-handed.
None are close enough for me to see who’s there.
I’m not certain I’d be able to concentrate if they were, because even though the rest of my body is sluggish, my stomach heaves.
I just barely manage to twist my head to the side before I puke.
Several monsters have to dodge out of the way.
“Sssstop playing, Kerrrrkat,” a voice hisses. “She’s making messes.”
“Fine,” another grumpy voice responds, and I find myself jerked roughly by my upper arms, caught in the monster’s grip. They pop, stretching painfully as my tumble through the night halts. That fucker had apparently been letting me freefall for fun.
My mouth tastes sour, and my heart thuds far too slowly for the panic that should be flooding my system from the monster’s grip. It angles through the air, approaching the circle of trees. I can only assume that their venom is some kind of tranquilizer. Or maybe a paralytic. Or both…
I focus on swallowing to clear my mouth and blinking because the wind has dried out my eyes.
By the time I finish those two tasks, which are far harder than they should be, we’re hovering low over the treetops.
Since it’s summer, the leaves are full and lush, a gorgeous green color that immediately sends a pang of nostalgia ricocheting through me.
I’m never going to see my forest home again.
No more huts hidden in the trees. No more winter cave hideouts.
No more filching strips of meat from our drying lines, where we hang it to become jerky because fires attract monsters.
I won’t tap the maples for sugar anymore or go out hunting nuts and trapping squirrels.
My thoughts flick to Gemma, my best friend. I’ll never see her giggling face again.
My vision starts to waver as tears gather in my eyes, and at first, I think that’s the reason the trees start to move. The branches curl out to the sides, like they’re iris petals blooming and drooping outward to create a giant gaping hole in the center.
I spot people in the gap beneath the trees, their faces turning up to look at us. They’re shabby and unwashed, and a horrific rotting scent drifts up to me from where they stand.
The night vision holding me hisses, “Sssscooot back.”
They trip over themselves as they hustle backward, trying to find shelter from the descending swarm.
But there is no shelter. I realize that the tree trunks are unnaturally stacked next to one another.
The gap between each trunk is only about two inches.
As my captor lands, I realize that this copse of trees is a magical holding cell.
This is where the traders must keep humans before an auction.
When I’m set down, my ankles collapse underneath me, and I fall to the ground, my cheek slamming hard into the dirt.
I’m left there as the monster takes off back into the sky.
Not one of the other humans comes to help.
They all cower as far from me as possible, trying to squeeze into those gaps between the trunks, as if that were possible.
Another person is deposited beside me. I work hard to get my muscles to cooperate.
Finally, they move enough that I can turn my head.
Chase is on his knees. I’ve never been relieved to see that fucker until now.
Though I should wish death on him. That would be more merciful than what’s going to happen to us.
With his hands planted on the ground, Chase doesn’t bother to push himself up. But he does turn and look at me. I wonder if the empty helplessness I see in his green eyes is reflected in my own. Probably.
We don’t get to exchange more than a look before there’s a thud and someone else is dropped near us. I turn to see Lucas’s brawny form sprawled in the dirt. When he pushes up onto his hands and knees, blood coats his face and mats his beard.
Another thump , and my heart wrings, twisting painfully. Eon joins us on the ground, groaning, his hands around his middle, face pale and coated in sweat.
He didn’t get away. All that medicine our people need will never get to them. All of this…our entire trip is for nothing.
I glance up, searching for Bella, expecting her to fall down near us. She doesn’t.
My throat constricts painfully when I realize she isn’t coming. That she’s gone.
But I don’t get more than a few moments to reflect on that before a harsh, monster voice calls out from above, “Sssslaves. Fresh meat.”
A shot sounds, and I flinch because the blast smacks my eardrums. My body tenses in the expectation of pain, but there is none. I’m not shot.
I dart my gaze around, and to my horror, a pool of blood spreads underneath Lucas’s chest. My giant lumberjack’s eyes search out mine, and all I can do is hold his gaze as it dims, watch as his arms fail him and he falls face-first into the dirt.
There’s a buzz overhead as the night visions fly off and then an unnatural creak as the trees uncurl and the shadows of their leaves fall over us once more.
But that’s all in the background. I don’t look up from Lucas.
I stare at his body long after he’s gone, one thought repeating through my head. I wish that were me.
Once the trees overhead have bent back over us and we’re coated in dull green shadows, the other slaves creep forward.
A skinny man with a missing front tooth glances over at Chase apologetically as he reaches for Lucas’s arm. “Sorry, mate. This is the first time they’ve fed us in a week.” He and another man grab onto Lucas and start pulling the lumberjack across the circle of our prison yard.
I turn my head, feeling ill. But I’ve already emptied the contents of my stomach. My eyes catch on Eon’s. He’s sitting up, shaking violently, and I drag myself over to him, forcing my stiff and aching limbs to move.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” I say, in a low, comforting voice. I’m lying. It’s not okay. But I don’t know what else to do. I put a hand on his thin shoulder.
He starts gasping.
I’m unsure if he’s having a panic attack or not. I don’t know what to do to make him stop, other than try to break his focus and get his mind to move on to something else. “Eon. Eon. Focus on me. Look at me.”
His eyes dart over to mine.
“How’d they find you?” I ask. It’s not the best fucking question, I know, but my mind is so rattled and I can hear the rustle of clothing behind us as the other humans captured by traders strip Lucas of his clothing.
Eon’s fingers clamp onto my arm. He gets out one word, “chase,” before foaming at the mouth and falling forward into me.
I hold him as he convulses. “Shit. Fuck!”
I’m a hunter, not a medic. But I gently lower him to the ground and turn him onto his side so he doesn’t choke on his own spit.
I see at least four puncture wounds in Eon’s torso, cuts right through his shirt where the monsters injected him with that foul green venom.
Blood and green pus ooze from his sores.
“They poisoned him.” Chase’s voice drifts over me, stating the obvious like always. But his voice is unnaturally, irritatingly calm as he says it.
How can he be calm at a moment like this? What the fuck is wrong with him?
I avoid looking at him, because I know if I do, I’ll want to slap him. Instead, I hold Eon’s gaze just like I did with Lucas. It’s all I have left to give—to be there with them in their final moments. Because they don’t deserve to die alone.
Eon gives off one final rattling breath before he stills, his eyes wide open.
My insides fray like a rope gnawed apart by rats. Eon. Lucas. Bella. They’re all gone. That reality leaves me lightheaded as I push up to my feet and stumble away.
I need to be alone. I need to avoid the hacking sound in the distance as the other prisoners start a fire and prepare their horrific new meal—the sort of desperate thing that monsters drive us to do.
I stagger over to the roots of one of the trees encasing us and push my face as far as I can between two jagged, scratchy trunks.
I try to suck in the fresh air outside the prison, try to erase everything that’s just happened and shove it from my mind so I can cope.
I stay there until the sunset paints the sky a sickening blood red that brings far too many memories rushing back.
Then I turn away and immediately see him.
Standing tall and lit by firelight, muscles on display since he shucked off his shirt, Chase is talking to one of the other prisoners, talking normally as if they aren’t roasting the body of one of our crewmates and friends.
Who could do that? Who could be so callously casual?
Orange flames lick his handsome face, and realization punches me hard in the gut. Eon’s last word was chase. I didn’t initially process it as a name. We were all being chased.
But what if Eon was telling me that the fucker I’ve always hated betrayed him?
What if Chase wasn’t helping us escape the monsters?
What if he led them to us?