*
WE MOVE ON IN silence for some time, the gates folding into the greenish-black city smog behind us. Kiran keeps one hand on Dell’s neck, leading her this way. Daphne is still sniffling. I feel like my soul has left my body and I am floating above, through the darkness, finally free.
Kiran glances over his shoulder at me.
“Be mindful up ahead. We’re entering the Witch Camps.”
I have only vague memories of passing through this place during my capture, but even then, on that rainy afternoon when I was locked behind the bars of my prison carriage, I remember the cold breath of fear on my neck.
“Why do they call it the Witch Camps?” I ask Daphne. I hope this stops the crying, which is starting to cut into my joy.
She wipes her nose on her sleeve. “This is where the women were taken after they were rounded up by the Magistrate.” She hiccups. “Before the Watchers destroyed them.”
That definitely cuts into my joy.
After the Red Years, the Witch Camps became a dumping ground, a place for things that were abandoned in an attempt to return to the simple life. Cars, trucks, wrecking machines, old-fashioned wagons, all strewn across the land, left to rust in the damp haze.
It’s also where they toss the plagued, and the Watchers and Pips that don’t take to the treatments.
The central road remains clear, but on either side, junk is piled high. Broken, smashed, useless. A reminder that anything left outside the gate will certainly perish.
The bare skin on my legs and shoulders prickles. My ma once said that this place was full of souls stuck with no one to sing them to the next life. I think she was right; I can feel them now. Slipping from the damp ground like steam.
Panting up ahead catches my attention. It’s Brax, coming through the darkness like a silver ghost. He doesn’t look up at me. I know he’ll punish me a bit longer for what I’ve done. That’s all right; I’m just glad he’s made it. He walks by Kiran’s side as if the Driver’s an old friend.
I’m still watching Brax when he lowers his head, and I can feel the hair on the back of my neck rise just as Brax’s does. He starts to growl, a low menacing sound, and to creep forward, ready to pounce.
Kiran’s knife is out, and now mine is too. I don’t know what’s got Brax’s guard up, but I’m in a better position to fight from the ground. Using Daphne to steady myself, I throw my leg over the horse’s hindquarters and land silently.
“What is it?” I ask Kiran. He shakes his head, unknowing.
We sneak forward.
“Where are we going?” Daphne asks.
“Quiet,” I tell her.
“Well, we can’t stay out here.”
“I’m going to gag her,” I whisper to Kiran. He doesn’t respond. His eyes are still searching the darkness.
We approach a barricade of old car frames, stacked up ten high and smelling strongly of rust. There is a sudden movement behind it, and all of us, Dell included, freeze.
Brax’s lips pull to reveal sharp yellow fangs.
Out of the darkness comes a great towering figure. A Watcher, lumbering towards us. An alarm screams in my head. My muscles brace to run, but Kiran motions for me to hold.
The Watcher isn’t wearing a uniform. At least, not anymore. He’s wearing the dark pants, but the jacket is torn off and there’s no strap or weapons on him. The lights from the city reveal knotted welts that gleam in silver crisscrosses over his chest. His hands are stretched in front of him, and he’s groaning softly.
He’s blind.
But that doesn’t calm my heart as he ambles an arm’s length away across the lane, towards the skeleton of an old construction machine.
I wonder how long he’s been out here in the Witch Camps. He’s obviously failed to adapt to his treatments, but unlike the other deformed test subjects, he can’t hack it in the Black Lanes. I can’t imagine how he survives.
I don’t have long to consider it. A moment later there’s another body moving our direction, though this one is much smaller. As it approaches, I see it’s another Watcher, but he’s bent over his midsection, like he can’t stand all the way up. He walks on his hands and his feet, like an animal.
His back may not be able to support his chest, but his arms are great trunks and his legs are twice as broad. As he comes closer I can see that his midsection’s no bigger than Kiran’s.
He stops. His gleaming bald head wrenches back at an impossible angle. He can see us. The breath hitches higher in my throat. He begins to scuttle towards us faster, faster, but without a sound. That’s because half of his jaw is missing. The wound looks recent; blood is still dripping on the ground.
“Oh!” Daphne cries. “Let’s go. Now. Let’s go now.”
She’s right. Together, we veer off the path, away from the blind Watcher and around a pile of old metal wheels. Kiran is still leading Dell, and I take up the rear, dagger braced before me. Then we’re running as fast as we can through this maze of potholes and machinery. The monster can’t make a sharp turn and he stumbles with a cry that sinks its teeth into my bones. Soon he’s up again, using his arms just as he does his legs. He’s a beast, loping on all fours.
For a moment, I’m frozen. Scared stiff. And then Brax is beside me again, snapping viciously at the half Watcher as I twist my fingers in his coat. We pull backwards, both running sideways.
“Hey! Look up, look up!” I hear Kiran shout.
I spin around, just in time to see the blind Watcher. It’s too late to stop. I slam into him. Brax is barking, the sound of it firing between my temples. I spin off his solid body before I fall, and catch myself just in time to run again.
The bent-over Watcher can’t stop. He plows into the blind one seconds after me, strings of saliva and blood swinging from his missing jaw. The blind Watcher’s hands slash through the air and connect, and in an instant he’s wrapped his arms around the other’s shriveled waist and is squeezing.
A gargling scream. The crackling of bones. And then silence.
I turn. But not before I see the blind Watcher open his mouth, and bite into the flesh of the dead monster’s shoulder.
*
I CONVINCE KIRAN TO ride ahead and scout our path. He sits in front of Daphne on the saddle. Maybe she was prissy about him being a Driver before, but that’s gone now. She holds tight to him as they gallop away. Brax stays by my side and together we run hard in their tracks, winding through the piles of machinery, alert to what might lurk just around the bend.
We find nothing. Nothing but an open field marking the end of the Witch Camps.
My heart collapses in my chest, and for the first time, I feel a sense of relief. Kiran and Daphne emerge a moment later behind me. They’ve doubled back after clearing the way and now are leading onward, over the wooden bridge crossing a deep ditch, and into the mountains.