Chapter 43 #2
But I continue anyway. They need to know the truth. “The Centress sent me to Caldera as a baby. And thousands of others.”
“Lies!” A woman yells, reaching the top of the trunk that Atom grasps.
Even through the weave of branches, I can see her cruel face.
Blonde wisps of hair hang over her temples, once tucked into the wild bun atop her head.
Her snarl is a hideous mix of threat and loathing.
A dozen others reach the top of the ring of trunks at the same time, their faces appearing in a circle above us.
Sypher and Maverick J. are barely visible, but the loud whacks of fists colliding with anything and everything and the screams of Vaile falling from the trunks tell me they’re managing well enough.
I try to persuade the branches above to knock the blonde woman down as she swings an arm toward Atom.
He scrambles backward to avoid her grasp—right into the arms of another.
A man in a gray jumpsuit snatches him up by the collar of his shirt and hangs him through an opening in the criss-cross pattern of branches.
Atom kicks his legs and locks his elbows at his sides in an attempt to prevent his shirt from pulling over his head.
He’s quiet in a heart-splitting way. I trace the path down from his pale bare feet to the sea of metal below. A death drop.
I press my back closer to Eli, begging the trees to help and searching for one pair of kind eyes in the cluster of Vaile above us, one person I can convince to listen, one person who cares.
Finding none, I try to sway them all, my cries breathless and frantic.
“Put him down! He’s one of your own. None of this is a lie.
All the Centresses have deceived you for centuries.
Hollows aren’t even dangerous, and now they’re dying! ”
The uproar that follows is deafening, only growing louder as my words are passed through the crowd like poisonous gas.
“They don’t believe me!” I cry. But it’s like screaming during a dream—useless and suffocating. And it doesn’t wake me up.
“Drop him!” a Vaile yells from above.
The ominous words suck me into my own mind, deep enough to smother me in a vision.
I’m alone in the woods. Liquid black metal creeps up my legs, over my hips.
But it’s as cold as Eli. As reassuring. As lethal.
It engulfs my arms, slinks up my chest. I’m caught in a trance, not even fighting as the metallic shine masks my face, pushing past my lips, crawling up my nose.
I expect my lungs to be taken over, but it’s my heart that fills with cold blackness, that raps its last struggling beat.
I return with a harsh gasp, my senses gone haywire. I squint at the glinting metal, at the tiny crannies on the branches. Eli’s hold on me is consuming, every point of contact like a thousand touches in one. He shakes as though he felt that final beat too.
But the scream is what scars my senses.
“Mommy!”
Atom falls at a body-numbing speed.
Wherever this kid came from, it’s not here. No child separated from their mother at one-year-old and raised to kill would scream for her in a moment like this. Or call her mommy. He’s far from home. And family. And about to melt.
“No!” I try to dive forward, begging my limbs to be long enough, strong enough, fast enough, only to have Eli’s arm snap around my waist. Inches from impact, the metal divides, peeling away from the ground and pushing outward.
Roots punch up through the ground and link together, catching Atom with a soft bounce.
They deliver him to the mud at my feet with a gentle toss. My tongue is tangled. I’m too stunned to speak. Atom curls up in a ball and covers his head.
Even without a voice, I won’t cower. I won’t let them see how scared of myself I am right now. I elbow Eli in the gut until he releases me, a tentative hand lingering at my waist in warning.
Vengeance has the front seat now, and she’s on fire.
I lift my chin, and the ground shakes. Roots rise, disrupting the entire forest floor for as far as I can see. They pierce the ground and climb toward the sky. Then those thick, serpentine roots attack. Wrapping around necks. Breaking backs. Bashing heads.
It’s a masterpiece. And terrifying.
And it’s me.
The Vaile wail in pain, every crunch of bone reverberating through me. Kaleida holds a hand over her mouth, the other bruising Milo’s arm.
“They’re running away,” she says, watching the crowd thin. They leave behind a bed of twisted, broken bodies.
“They’ll escape,” I whisper, my thoughts hardly my own. I flick my wrists. The ground jerks violently, knocking Vaile flat on their faces. Their startled cries reach my ears. Music.
Eli grabs my shoulders and flips me around to face him. “That’s enough.”
Not until he tries to hold me still do I notice I’m quaking all over, drenched in cold sweat. “It’s not.” I breathe through clenched teeth. “They don’t want to hear the truth.”
It’s not lost on me that I’m the same. That I resist the truth in front of me time and again. That I crawl deep into the dark tunnels of Eli’s eyes and find the farthest corner, the coldest wall. There, I’m safe.