Liam is calm when I arrive though. He invites me to sit at one of the long tables and sits across from me. We’ve sat across this table many times, me advocating bugging out and following a route Xander has mapped out that will bring us out of the occupied high ground in as little as a week, Liam dismissing my argument. He recruits from the civilians every day, so that only a few elderly or very young are left unarmed. Raiding parties bring as many weapons as food and medicines back from raids on nearby cabins and farms. The raiding parties that come back, that is. Some come back in pieces, like Britney and Kim’s party. Some don’t come back at all. I quietly hope that they turned back into the mountains and followed Xander’s map, that they are on their way to freedom. But that’s probably a forlorn dream. The Nahx could dispense with a six-person raiding party in seconds, quietly, barely blowing up dust.
“Who was the suicide?” I ask as I sit. I’ve never made any new friends here. The ones I arrived with are down to Topher, Xander, and Emily, but whatever friendship I had with her is long gone. A coldness settled on her during my absence. There are rumors of a miscarriage, but I’ve never asked for details. In a way, I admire the ice in her. It is hard, impenetrable. Like armor.
As for Liam, he and I discuss strategy, argue mostly, and occasionally he sits with me at meals, trying to make small talk about the old days, books I read or music that I like. It’s awkward, but I tolerate it. As much as I hate to admit it, I need Liam as an ally. But everyone else is a stranger to me.
“Jill. That girl whose boyfriend never came back from patrol. You know her?”
I shake my head, though her face swims in front of my eyes. We never spoke, but I recognized her pain well enough. I know what it’s like when someone you care about disappears from your life. I don’t bother asking how she did it. Some details don’t really matter.
“It’s time to consider retreat,” I say, because I know I’m expected to. “I mean really consider it. We could reach the coast by summer. Even if there’s nothing there, that would give us time to establish some sort of settlement before winter sets in.”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
“Liam, we have a chance. A real chance. Xander’s map is rock solid. The route is well below two thousand feet for nearly ninety percent of the way. One of the videos even suggested there might be human patrols as close as Prince George. That’s not even two hundred miles from here. Two weeks at most and we could be rescued.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Liam says, and something about his tone makes me tense in my seat, as though I might need to make a quick exit. But then I think he’s probably mad about me and Topher. Mad that we have something together. Mad that Topher hasn’t surrendered the last vestiges of his humanity the way Liam wants us all to. I don’t really have the heart for Liam’s anger today. I stand up to leave.
Liam slams both hands down on the table before I’ve even straightened my back.
“Sit the fuck down!”
I sit. This is more than Liam’s ordinary bad mood. I start searching my recent behaviors, trying to find something that might earn this kind of confrontation. But Liam’s demeanor calms. He rests his hands palm down on the table for a few seconds, breathing in and out, before reaching over to a large folder at the edge of the table. Extracting a slim book, he tosses it faceup in front of me.
It’s “The Raven,” by Edgar Allan Poe. And I’ve seen this particular book before. I stare at it until my vision blurs, afraid to look back into Liam’s face. Afraid to show him mine.
“Well?” he says.
“Well what?”
As Liam reaches for the book, I resist the urge to snatch it away and run. To where I don’t know. Nor why. If August gave up this treasure, he’s either lost any interest or memory of me, or he’s dead. Or worse, I suppose. There is a third option. I find I can’t stand dragging it out. But before I open my mouth, Liam has opened the book. He reads my inscription.
“?‘   To August, Take care, from Raven.’ Simple, really. Concise. Were you in a hurry when you wrote this? I don’t know who August is, but I’m sorry to tell you he’s probably dead. We found this on a Nahx.”
“Dead?” I manage. I’m trying to piece it together in my head from Liam’s point of view. Of course he wouldn’t assume that August was the one I gave the book to. That August is the Nahx. But now I’m not sure what he’s so angry about.
“Your friend August led a Nahx scout here somehow. I’m sure he’s dead out in the slush now, and he goddamn deserves it too, for being so stupid.”
Right. A human boy. Who Liam thinks is August. Somehow followed by a Nahx. Who I think actually is August.
August. Is. Here.
“Is he . . . ? I mean is it . . . ? Did you kill the Nahx?”
Liam sits back, a little smile on his face. “Raven. That’s cold. You’re not worried about whoever this August is? Some hapless yokel who escorted you at least part of the way here, I imagine. Did you make it worth his while? Is that why he came after you? So he could have another serving of what Topher’s enjoying so much?”
He wants me to go for him. I know this. Liam goads me whenever he gets the chance, because what he wants more than anything is a reason to beat the living shit out of me in a knock-down, drag-out brawl. I’d love to give him the satisfaction, but there are more important things right now.
“Is the Nahx dead?” I ask. “I mean, if he . . . if it got away, then we definitely need to bug out. It’ll bring a legion of them. We’ll be finished.” If only Liam knew how untrue this is. If only he knew how my heart is pounding in my chest, hanging on the faint hope that August, the real August, my Nahx, is alive.
“We didn’t kill the Nahx,” Liam says with a smug grin. “We did one better. We took it prisoner.”
AUGUST
I reach for my knee. But my hand is tangled in something, some chain. I try the other hand, but that is tangled too. I pull on the chain to break it. I am good at breaking things.
There’s a swish of movement and something thunks behind me. A wall? Am I inside?
“Stop doing that,” a voice says. “I don’t want to keep hurting you.”
“Don’t waste arrows. If it does it again, put one in the other shoulder.”
I don’t think it’s nighttime, but I’m having trouble seeing. And though I should be fully recharged after the days I spent in the rocks and snow, pulling hibernating creatures out of dens and swallowing them practically whole, I feel weak. And the pain is disorienting. Blinding. Maybe that’s why I can’t see.
“Take the hood off it, for God’s sake. At least let it see.”
A black shadow slips off my head, like a cloud in the wind. And I smell blood. My blood. Lots of it. The bright light blinds me, but as my vision clears I look down. I’m kneeling in it. Blood. There’s an arrow in my knee, another in my shoulder, another through my wrist. Blood pools beneath me. At the sight of it the tube in my throat constricts, and I gag until it relaxes back, unwinding down into my stomach, pulsing. The fluid of my armor torrents through me. I can feel it trying to close the wounds, trying to block the pain sensors sufficiently for me to move, to escape. But in the swirling maelstrom it’s hard to think. My thoughts keep getting sucked away before I can complete them.
I’m inside. In a . . . something. There are humans with me.
And injured. Badly. I need to rest, away from here. Away from these humans and their arrows.
“Is that blood, do you think?” one of the humans says. “It looks like motor oil.”
“Why don’t we take its armor off?”