Growling with fury, I swing my knees up and wrap one leg around the dart rifle, which hangs from a strap at its side. When I almost pull it away, it lets go of one wrist, yanking the gun away from my legs, but the effort makes it lose its grip on my other wrist, and I crash to the floor, my head hitting the toilet behind me. I roll forward and gather my knives where they dropped. I crash and slash into its armored legs, setting it off balance and staggering back into the kitchen. Dishes clatter to the ground. When I manage to get onto my knees, it has the rifle trained on me again. I have one knife raised above my head and one pointed forward. I haven’t got a chance. The best I can hope for is that I slice it before it kills me. I open my mouth to hurl more obscenities, but something else comes out.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say through chattering teeth. “You don’t have to kill me. We don’t have to be enemies.” The words are pointless. I’m sure it doesn’t understand. Maybe the tone of my voice will do something, make it feel something for me. Isn’t that what you are supposed to do with attackers or if you get abducted? That’s what they taught us in self-defense. “I’m no threat to you. Walk away. Just walk away.”
The Nahx reacts with a barely noticeable twitch of its head. It doesn’t lower its rifle though, or move.
We remain there, poised to kill each other for what seems like an hour, until I notice the Nahx’s shoulders and chest rising and falling in time with the pulsating buzz from the armor. It is breathing. The second I take to register my surprise is all it needs. With blinding speed it lunges forward, gun arm knocking one knife away, hot armored fingers closing on the other. I take a breath to cry for help. The last thing I see is the butt of the rifle flying toward my head.
EIGHTH
Ah no. What have I done?
Wake up.
The girl human lies unmoving on the floor at my feet, blood blossoming from a gash in her forehead. Her cheeks are wet with tears, her mouth slightly open. That last little cry never quite escaped.
Breathe.
Her chest rises and falls once. My own breath catches somewhere near the back of my mouth.
Breathe again, please.
I press my fist into my chest. Sixth used this sign with me. It’s an imperative. You must. Right now. Obey. It feels different when I do it. More polite.
Breathe, human. Obey. Please.
Her chest rises and falls again and begins a slow rhythm.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. That was so stupid. She’s tiny compared to me, like a bird that has fallen from its nest. She couldn’t hurt me with those pathetic knives. Think. Not anger. Not fear. Think.
I hate humans.
I don’t hate humans. Not this one, anyway.
I have directives.
I know the directives. I can’t . . . I can’t do it . . . not this one. This one is so . . . brave, so wild, the way she snarled at me, like a wolf mother. She’s so part of this chaotic world. So unlike me. My head spins. I was frightened, I think, truly frightened of her. That’s ridiculous.
You don’t have to do this, she said.
Her friends are gone. They ran down the hill. Will they come back for her? Humans do that. They come back for lost ones.
I look at her crumpled on the floor, her arms splayed at awkward angles, knees falling to either side. It seems, vaguely . . . improper to look at her. I look at the door instead, tempted to walk away, as she suggested.
If she woke up now, she would scream and scream. I could not make her believe I wouldn’t hurt her again. No one could blame her for putting one of those knives in my throat.
But if she doesn’t wake up . . .
She’s still breathing. Keep breathing. Obey.
Her hair is so beautiful. Like a spiderweb or a dandelion halo around her face. Why do I even think about dandelions? That seems like the kind of thing that might be a waste of my diminished brain power. Dandelions, spiderwebs, setting suns. Why do I even notice such things?
Defective.
Would it be wrong to smell her hair? She would never know.
Ah. Her hair smells like the rushing river and pine needles, as though she grew from the earth like a tree. A pang of guilt quickly turns to fear, then anger. I hate these vulgar . . .
Stepping back, my rifle aims at her almost of its own accord. It would be so easy. The rush of fluid makes me dizzy. The humming directives in my head seem to pulse. Dart the vermin. . . . Leave them . . . leave them . . .
Pine needles. Think. I need to think.
I can’t leave her here. What if her friends don’t come back? It’s getting cold. She could freeze if she doesn’t wake up. Humans can freeze. And what if my people come back? They would dart her.
She breathes. Her eyes move behind her eyelids. Her thick black eyelashes are like a caterpillar’s feet, though . . . I’m not sure that caterpillars have feet.
Slinging my rifle over my back, I slide my hands under her legs and shoulders and lift her up. She sags, limp in my arms, but I hold her tightly, like . . . like . . . something I can’t quite remember, something behind the door. She is as light as a dandelion, or a spiderweb, or a snowflake, or a wisp of cloud. I can smell the tears on her face.
There is no sadder smell in this world than human tears.
Stupid defective Eighth, what have I done?
RAVEN
I dream, so I must not be dead. I dream I float through falling snowflakes. The dream changes. A bright star presses down on my forehead. It’s so cold and white it hurts, the pain shooting down all the way to my ears, my jaw, my neck, down my spine, making me shiver.
Then I dream silence and darkness, but in the darkness, something moves. I dream of charcoal and waves of buzzing bees floating back and forth. The dream changes again. Suddenly, it’s all flames and heat. My body stops shaking. I see a shadow move in the flames, then nothing.
I awake with my bare hand wrapped around someone’s throat.
“Raven,” a voice gasps. “It’s me.”
I let my hand fall, straining in the dark to see who’s there.
“Topher?”
He sits back, rubbing his neck. My vision begins to clear. I’m lying on a ridge. I can see the valley floor spreading beneath us, the remnants of a fire glowing next to me, and the stars above. Topher is gathering some snow into a ball, which he carefully presses onto my forehead. I begin to notice the throbbing pain. The cold numbs it somewhat.
“I dreamed this,” I say. He doesn’t reply. He pulls off his gloves and slides them onto my hands.
“I don’t think you have frostbite,” he says. “How did you manage to build a fire?”
“I didn’t,” I say. “I dreamed it.”
“You’re delirious,” he says. “You’ve been out here for hours.”
I try to sit up. The pain in my head is like a hot coal. Topher presses the snowball on my forehead again.
“Felix,” I say.
Topher’s face confirms what I already know. “He’s dead. So is Lochie. We took their bodies up into the village. I came back to look for yours . . . you. . . .” His voice breaks here. I realize he thought I was dead. He takes a moment to compose himself, a marvel of restraint and dignity. So very Topher. “We’re nearly a mile from the trailer park. I came when I saw the fire. How did you get here?”
“I dreamed . . .” No, that’s not right, I think. The pain in my head is making it hard to talk, hard to make sense of what I remember. The smoke of the campfire infuses my next breath, and a memory floats to the surface. “A Nahx brought me here.”
Topher frowns. “You’re delirious, Raven. You must have wandered off after the Nahx left. Were you hiding?”
“Felix told me to hide,” I say dumbly.