Without warning, the western wall of the birthing hut collapses inward, and the sound is tremendous—wood splintering, sparks whooshing up into the sky like a tornado of angry bees. If the others in Pastoral haven’t woken at the sound of the fire, this thunderous crash will surely wake someone.
Parker makes a quick movement, and at first I can’t tell what he’s doing. His arm jerks to his side and when I’m able to focus again, I see that he’s pulled the gun from his holster.
“Whoa, easy.” Theo lifts both his hands in the air, palms facing Parker. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t let you leave with that baby,” Parker says. But his voice isn’t sure or strong, it’s shaking, trembling along the slope of each vowel. “You’ll catch the pox; you’ll be infected. I can’t have you bringing it back with you, risking everyone else.”
Theo shakes his head. “We won’t come back.”
I see Faye and Colette exchange a look. They hadn’t anticipated that we would never come back. That this would be goodbye.
“We just want to help Colette,” Theo says. “Let us take her into town for medicine.”
“You can’t,” Parker answers, keeping the gun trained on Theo, his closest target. “It’s too dangerous. You won’t make it that far, you’ll get sick, I can’t let you go.”
“No one has to know we were here,” Theo says, stepping closer to Parker. But Parker keeps the gun trained at Theo’s chest, finger itching at the trigger, tapping it lightly. “You can go back to the gate, sit down in your chair, and pretend you never saw the fire.”
Parker’s feet shift in the dirt, stirring up clouds of dust around him.
“Please, Parker,” Theo says. He’s only a couple feet from Parker now. He might be able to reach forward and yank the gun from Parker’s hand. But he also might get shot, a bullet straight into his stomach. And out here, without a doctor—a surgeon—he likely wouldn’t survive.
But then there is movement, a sound from the edge of the trees.
A branch breaks underfoot and Parker whips his head around to see what it is. The wind stirs, sending more ash and sparks up into the already-gritty sky, and I can just make out the outline of someone partly hidden in the dark, standing several feet back in the trees—watching us. I try to make out who it is, but there is too much smoke and too many shadows, and when I blink, for a moment I think there might not be anyone there at all. Only tree limbs pretending to be arms.
I swivel my gaze back to Parker in the same instant that Theo dives toward him, and there is the blunt exhale of air—of one body slamming into another. Both men struggle for the gun, while spasms of firelight erupt behind me, and a half-second later, the gun discharges. Both Theo and Parker hit the ground hard.
A sound leaves my lungs—a shriek, a scream, a struggle for air. I’m certain that Theo’s been shot and I try to take a step forward, to run to him, but then I feel the white-hot throb. My chin dips, eyes lowering, and my fingers find the wound, touching the blood already pooling across my shirt—tacky like honey.
“Calla!” someone screams. It’s Bee, and the seconds flash forward in strange staccato. She is standing over me now, and I’m on the ground, her palm pressing against the wound.
“I’m okay,” I sputter; I gurgle. But it’s like she doesn’t hear me, her eyes watering, head whipping around to yell for help.
From the corner of my vision, I see Theo stand up from the ground, breathing heavy, dirt and soot smearing the lines of his face. He’s wrestled the gun free from Parker and he holds it at his side. Behind him, Parker also scrambles to his feet, but his expression has lost all its hardness. He looks frightened, like a little boy again, staring over at me with regret piercing his eyes. He didn’t mean to do it, and I try to lift my arm toward him, to tell him it’s okay. But Bee touches my hand with hers, forcing me not to move.
Theo is at my side then, touching my face. “Calla?”
I watch as Parker turns, taking several steps back away from us, and his body seems to be shaking. Or maybe it’s my own—a tremble moving up my torso, making my eyes wobble in my skull. Parker vanishes into the trees, and I know he will go wake the others, tell them what’s happened, or maybe he will sprint back to his home, slide into bed, and cry against his pillow. Too afraid to admit what he’s done.
The burning ache becomes a searing, flesh-torn-open kind of pain, and I blink up at the trees, trying to breathe. “I can stand,” I say, attempting to move my hands beneath me. I know we don’t have much time; we need to get out of here.
“No,” Theo says, his palm held against my ribs, the place where the bullet tore through my flesh. A piece of metal is lodged inside me, and it feels like its wriggling deeper, a beetle through alder wood. It’s not that bad, I tell myself. It’s only flesh and muscle, fractured bones perhaps. It can be stitched back together. But the trees above me begin to swirl and change shape; I worry I might pass out.
Bee stands up and then Faye is bent over me, talking to Theo, but their words are far-off chatter, not meant for me.
And my focus is only on Bee. She steps toward the trees, where Parker vanished—she’s looking at something.
Another figure slinks back into the evergreens.
Someone had been watching us, and now they’re trying to slip away unseen.
But Bee sees him, and she glances back at us. “Just go,” she says. “I’ll catch up.”
“No!” I try to call out, but she doesn’t look back. She sprints into the forest, into the dark, where the light from the fire doesn’t reach. And she disappears.
“We can’t stay here,” Theo says, his face only a few inches from mine. There’s no time left, others will be here soon; they will have heard the gunshot, a sound that rips into dreams and wakes even the deepest sleepers.
Faye tears something, a piece of fabric, and ties it around my lower ribs, cinching it tight. The sudden pressure shoots a dagger through my body, and I let out a low moan.