FLOOD

Night Chase

There was a brief moment where the floodlights went out, plunging the woods around us into a velvety darkness, and Fiske and I had a quick, intense argument in furious whispers.

“Go on without me, Vee. You have to run.”

“We’ve been over this, I’m not leaving you.”

“This may be your only chance—”

“No.”

We were interrupted when another flood of light hit the woods, and we both froze, going quiet. In the seconds that followed I could hear Fiske panting, and my own heart pulsing in my ears. Light was spilling over the trees just in front of us, and it seemed like I could make out every crack and crevice on the tree trunks, every line in every leaf in the bushes around us.

Panic rose in my throat, making me feel like I was choking. We were slightly shadowed right now, but when they went deeper into the forest we’d be completely obvious. The blaze of light made it impossible to hide.

Fiske was right, we had to run. But he’d also been right when he’d said he wouldn’t make it. A thought occurred to me in the space of that moment. Something horrible. If I stayed behind for Fiske, I risked us both being killed, and there would be no one to go back and warn the others.

At least I could try to make it with him. Reluctantly, I reached down and touched his back. Fiske jerked his head up and I gestured behind us, counting on his ability to see in the darkness.

Fiske turned sharply and began to make his way into the underbrush, slinky away so quietly he made no noise. I waited for a few seconds to follow him, knowing that he was naturally quieter than I was. He was low to the ground and wouldn’t attract as much attention. The moment I started to move I’d attract their attention.

The spotlights swept through the trees, and I ducked down, turning, creeping as silently as I could in the direction that Fiske had vanished. It was awkward slinking so low to the ground, I was too tall for this.

Suddenly the light was brighter, bouncing off the trees around me in a yellow blaze before it flickered away again. Someone in the distance gave an excited shout.

“There! I saw something moving!”

“Turn it back,” a second voice barked, low and gravely. I knew that voice. I was pretty certain it was the man who had talked to Cain in front of my plastic prison. The man who had Kalda killed. My body seemed to have stopped moving of its own accord. My chest was so tight I could barely draw breath, and my nails cut into the palms of my hands. I could turn back now, I could go find that man and rip all the water out of his body a droplet at a time. Avenge Kalda’s death.

But Fiske had gone in the other direction, and they had spotted me. I hesitated, torn, and the light flicked my way again, right in my eyes. Being momentarily blinded was enough to send an electric jolt of panic through me, and I turned and ran out of instinct more than anything else.

Crashing in the woods behind me, an angry shout. They could see me. They knew I was running.

Putting on a burst of speed, I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, the cold night air tearing in and out of my lungs painfully. I hated feeling the cold. It made me feel weak.

The crashing was so close. They were only minutes behind me.

Part of my panic was due to how dark it was. All I could see were the outlines of trees looming over me, the canopy of branches above me was a solid black mass, blocking out any moonlight that the night sky might have given me.

I couldn’t see, so when I tripped over the still dark form in the middle of the path, I never saw it coming.

Fiske.