She swings her arm up toward the regulator’s neck; metal flashes in her fist. After she stabs him, he jerks, a huge convulsion. His face registers surprise. He totters forward onto his knees, and then onto his face. Dani kneels next to him, wedges a boot under his body, and uses the purchase to bring her knife out of his neck.
Somewhere, beyond the wall of smoke, a woman screams. I track my rifle helplessly from one side of the burning camp to the other, but everything is confusion and blur. I have to get closer. I can help no one where I am.
I break into the open, staying as low as possible, and move toward the fire and the chaos of bodies, past Alex, who is tracking the action from behind a sycamore.
“Lena!” he shouts as I dart by him. I don’t respond. I need to focus. The air is hot and thick. The fire is leaping from tree branches now, a deadly canopy above us; flames braid themselves around the trunks, turning them a chalky white. The sky is obscured behind all the smoke. This is all that is left of our camp, of the supplies we gathered so carefully—the clothing we hunted for, scrubbed in the river, wore to tatters; and the tents we mended so painstakingly, until they were crisscrossed with stitches: this hungry, all-consuming heat.
Fifteen feet from me, a man the size of a boulder has brought Coral to the ground. I start toward her when someone tackles me from behind. As I’m falling, I jab hard behind me with the butt of my rifle. The man spits out a curse and pulls back several inches, giving me time and space to roll onto my back. I use my gun like a baseball bat, swinging it toward his jaw. It connects with a sickening crack, and he slumps sideways.
Tack was right about one thing: The regulators aren’t trained for combat like this. Almost all their fighting has been done from the air, from the cockpit of a bomber, from a distance.
I scramble to my feet and sprint toward Coral, who is still on the ground. I don’t know what happened to the regulator’s gun. But he has his hands coiled around her neck.
I raise the butt of my rifle high above my head. Coral’s eyes flick to mine. As I’m bringing the rifle down on the regulator’s head, he whips around toward me. I manage to graze the side of his shoulder, but I’m carried off balance by the force of my swing. I stumble, and he sweeps an arm at my shins and sends me sprawling flat. I bite down on my lip and taste blood. I want to turn onto my back, but suddenly there’s a weight on top of me, knocking me flat, crushing the air from my lungs. The gun is ripped from my hand.
I can’t breathe. My face is pressed to the dirt. Something—a knee? an elbow?—is digging into my neck. Bursts of light explode behind my eyelids.
Then there’s a thwack, and a grunt, and the weight is released. I twist around, sucking in air, kicking away from the regulator. He is still straddling me, but he is now slumped sideways, eyes closed, a small bit of blood trickling from his forehead, where he was hit. Alex is standing above me, gripping his rifle.
He leans down and grabs my elbow, hauls me to my feet. Then he picks up my rifle and passes it to me. Behind him, the fire is still spreading. The swaying dancers have dispersed. Now I can’t see anything but a huge wall of flame and several forms huddled on the ground. My stomach lurches. I can’t tell who has fallen, whether they are our people.
Next to us, Gordo lifts Coral and slings her over his back. She moans, eyelids fluttering, but doesn’t wake up.
“Come on,” Alex shouts. The noise of the fire is tremendous: a cacophony of cracking and popping, like a slurping, sucking monster.
Alex leads us away from the fire, using the butt of his rifle to swipe a clear path through the woods. I recognize that we’re heading in the direction of a small stream we located yesterday. Gordo pants loudly behind me, and I’m still dizzy, and not very steady on my feet. I keep my eyes locked on the back of Alex’s jacket, and I think of nothing but moving, one foot in front of the other, getting as far from the fire as possible.
“Coo-ee!”
As we draw close to the stream, Raven’s call echoes to us through the woods. To our right, a flashlight cuts through the darkness. We shoulder through a thick tangle of dead growth and emerge onto a gentle slope of stony land, through which a shallow stream is pushing resolutely. The break in the canopy above us allows moonlight to penetrate. It streaks the surface of the stream with silver, makes the pale pebbles lining the banks glow slightly.
Our group is crouching, huddled together, a hundred feet away on the other side of the stream. Relief breaks in my chest. We’re intact; we survived. And Raven will know what to do about Julian and Tack. She will know how to find them.
“Coo-ee!” Raven calls again, angling a flashlight in our direction.
“We see you,” Gordo grunts. He pushes ahead of me, his breathing now a hoarse rasp, and sloshes across the stream to the other side.
Before we can cross, Alex whirls around and takes two steps back to me. I’m startled to see that his face is twisted in anger.