He’s so big he makes her look like a mouse. In the failing light, he doesn’t even look human—so much muscle there’s hardly any neck, bald head gleaming. The silver wire and key to her bracelet stand out on his black jacket.
Daphne doesn’t stop trying to break the chain. In fact, she’s going at it harder now. I’m sweating just watching her.
Stop, I think at her. I want to scream it. Solitary’s messed up her head, that’s the only explanation. The Watcher is going to give her the beating of a lifetime, and she’s doing nothing to defend herself.
Suddenly, I’m thinking of Straw Hair, running towards the fence. I’m yelling at Daphne to stop her, but she and her friends do nothing, as if they’re rooted to the ground. Again, that heavy, helpless feeling comes over me, like a wet blanket on my shoulders. I want to stop Daphne like I wanted to stop Straw Hair, but I can’t. If I leave here, I risk everything. My life. Kiran’s life. My freedom.
I blink, and when I open my eyes the Watcher has Daphne by the forearm. He lifts her with one arm, and her feet fly out from beneath her. Then he throws her down and kicks her. It’s not as hard as he can, but hard enough that her cry is cut short.
The water jug spills across Kiran’s bedroll, breaking my trance. My fingers ache from squeezing it so hard. I can’t even right it. My eyes are stuck on the scene before me, and I’m sick with anger.
A dog may eat a man’s food, and sleep in a man’s bed, but that does not make it a man.
The Watcher kicks Daphne twice more. He doesn’t have to, she’s already down. She’s not even moving.
“Stop.” A strained whisper comes from my lips.
I’ve known Daphne as long as I’ve been in the city. She’s not one to be daring, unless it involves drawing the street crowd with her kissing act. Most of the time she keeps to someone else’s shadow. So I’m shocked when she snags the knife handle out of the dirt and jams it straight into the Watcher’s foot.
At that moment, half of me is cheering. The other half is horrified.
Very slowly, the Watcher removes the metal from his boot, balancing easily on one foot. When it’s clear, he grabs the slack in Daphne’s chain and gives it a hard yank. The handle is in his hand, and I know that means the broken shard of metal is sticking out of his fist.
Daphne screams.
I’m halfway down the ladder before my head catches up. I can’t cross the stream. I can’t be seen. I’m nearly free—out of the Garden, out of the mayor’s house. Helping Daphne is as good as soaking myself in water and running for the electric fence.
I don’t even like her. Not really.
She’s only a half friend.
Her scream stops short.
I jump the last three rungs down, and now my feet are on the barn floor and I’m running for the back exit I know is just below the loft. Kiran is racing towards me from the opposite side, but I reach the turn first, and streak out the back door. My white dress, now smeared with dirt and speckled with horsehair, catches on the paddock fence and rips from the thigh down.
At the edge of the stream I see them: The Watcher is facing away from me, and Daphne is shoved up against the office wall. In his raised hand shines the broken knife.
I slide down the gravel bank and leap across the stream, landing with a splash just short of the other bank. Blue water dyes the body of my dress and makes the fabric stick to my skin. I rise just as the Watcher is turning, his giant hand still holding Daphne’s shoulder.
I have no weapons. I have only my fists.
What have I done?
I should run, but the Watcher is reaching for the belt across his chest. I hold my breath, fearing the wire, but instead he removes his messagebox. I know he means to send an alarm to the Garden, maybe even to the other Watchers, and I can’t allow that to happen. I need more time. Time to get to the gates.
I charge him. He can’t hold both of us so he throws Daphne down, opening both his arms towards me. My diversion has worked; he can’t finish the code before I collide into his brick-wall body.
I go for the lower gut. Watchers have muscles like steel, but they’re still slightly softer below the reinforced bones of their rib cage. I aim for that spot and pummel it with my fists until he heaves me clear off the ground.
I think he’s going to toss me against the wall, so I splay my limbs out in all different directions in order to make myself as difficult to throw as possible. The world tilts, I’m upside down. I kick hard, and my knee slams into his face. His nose breaks with a crack.
In the background I hear a faint gasping and realize Daphne’s been freed. My plan was to help her, but now all I want is to get away.
“The key!” I say. “Get it!”
Daphne swipes down his chest and rips the entire belt free. She scrambles across the ground at his feet, but I can’t see if she gets the key to her bracelet because the Watcher is once again reaching for my throat.
He doesn’t get me. I thrash hard, and he ends up rolling me into his side, my legs behind me, my upper body beneath his arm, the way he would carry a bundle of sticks. He’s pinned my arms against my sides, and though I struggle, I can’t break free. There’s a thunk and the Watcher goes suddenly still. A rock falls into my path of vision and hits the ground.
I jerk my head back and see Kiran. He’s standing on our side of the stream, arms braced before him, fists ready. His shirt is damp from the water, plastered to his his chest. In the moonlight he looks like a wildcat, muscles lean and taut, body ready to pounce.
The Watcher’s hold on me loosens, and I can work my hand free and hit him again, anywhere I can. He’s bleeding from where Kiran’s rock smacked him in the eye; a drop splashes onto my face.
Kiran throws himself at us. He must have figured the best plan was mine; take him by surprise, hit fast and hard. There’s not much use going for the face. If Kiran leaves his body exposed and the Watcher hits him, he’ll end up broken in half.
In one move, the Watcher shoves Kiran back and drops me. I hit the ground flat on my back. The air is knocked out of my chest, and though my mouth gapes, I can’t swallow a breath. Stars burst before my vision. Finally the air comes through.
All my thoughts turn to Kiran.
I flip over just in time to see him. He’s tall, but still a head below the Watcher. There’s a moment when they square off, staring at each other, and then the worst happens.
In a flash, the Watcher grabs his wire, and snaps his wrist towards Kiran. The metal extends through the air like a striking snake. Kiran’s fast, but not fast enough. He dodges to the side, and the metal snake latches below his arm, smacking against his ribs.
There is no time. Soon, the wire will coil around Kiran’s body. It will freeze at first, then heat gradually, until it burns and tears through his flesh, his ribs, into his organs. I crawl towards the only thing I think can help. The broken knife handle.
And then I’m up, running back towards the Watcher. With a heave, I leap onto his back and gouge the knife down hard.
It connects. I hear the tear of flesh, made callused by skin treatments, and then the broken blade slides into something soft. I fight back the nausea scratching its way up my throat. This is different from killing an animal. Different even than killing a man, I imagine. I’m trying to kill a monster.
I fall off and stagger back. He falls on me, grasping my throat. The handle is sticking out of his neck at an angle. Blood is spraying out in the pulse of his life force. His thick hand squeezes my neck, and I can feel my windpipe close and bruise. The breath to my brain is cut off. I begin to panic and flail.
Out of the darkness springs a silver beast. With a ferocious snarl, the animal latches onto the Watcher’s calf, tearing through his skin in one bite. He whips his head from side to side, trying to rip the flesh from the Watcher’s leg.
I am released. I suck in a hard, ragged breath, and peel the handle of the wire out of the Watcher’s grip. Struggling, I press a red button, praying that this is the release. It works. The wire retracts from Kiran’s body in a whir of metal and blood.
Kiran falls to his knees. The wound is not fatal, but it’s deep enough to have begun to eat through his skin. The wire never made it around his core; it locked, like a hook, only around one side of his rib cage. I don’t see bone, and for that I’m thankful, but the blood has stained his shirt and is draining in long lines down into the gravel below.
The Watcher is swiping at Brax, but the wolf is edging him back towards the office. Pride flushes through me. Brax has just saved our lives.
Frantically, I search for Daphne, but she’s missing. She must have run around the other side of the office. At least she’s free; the chain with the metal bracelet is strewn across the dirt.
I try my best to haul Kiran to his feet, and though he’s dazed at first, his eyes clear a little as he stands. His jaw is working beneath the skin. I know it’s taking everything he has to stay silent.
He staggers into the poisoned stream. I hesitate, glancing back, but Kiran grabs my hand and we slosh through together. It doesn’t register immediately that I am afraid, but that’s what it is. I’m scared. More scared than I have ever been.
Brax cries—a short, high whine. From behind me comes a thunk, like a tree falling to the ground.
“Brax!” I shout.
The Watcher is on his knees crawling after us, the wound in his neck leaking crimson in a slow drip. One eye is round and crazed, a black circle in a sea of white. The other is mashed to bruises by Kiran’s well-aimed rock. Behind him, Brax shakes and slowly rises from the ground.
The Watcher makes it to the stream. Kiran and I pause on the opposite shore and watch him with bated breath.
A groan gargles out from the giant’s throat. And then he falls face first in the water and lies still.