Vanish f-2 Read online

  Mr. Rutledge stretches out a hand and flicks his fingers, apparently reaching a decision. Instantly, a weapon appears, placed in his hand. A gun of some kind. I know nothing about them except that they hurt. They destroy.

  He aims.

  Miram thrashes wildly, watching in horror as I do.

  Only I cannot simply watch. Not when the core of me is a weapon.

  Hot purpose rolls over me. “Stop,” I snarl, for all they can’t understand me, shoving Miram away from me so that I can do what needs to be done. What I’m born to do. But we’re tangled in the net, and she won’t stop clinging to me, pleading in low rumbling draki-speech.

  Shaking hair from my face, I part my lips and blow.

  Fire fights its way up my throat. My windpipe shudders with raging heat. The steam releases from my nostrils an instant before flames burst from my lips. With a roar the blast of heat arcs across the air. The hunters cry out, dance back from the far-reaching flames.

  The net falls from us, incinerated to tufts of ash. The taste of char and cinder coats my mouth. I grab Miram’s arm and haul her up off the ground. She’s uncooperative, dead weight in her fear.

  My face tilts to the sky, eager for escape, freedom, hungry for wind, but not without her. “Get up!” I cry. “C’mon! Fly!”

  She starts to rise, her movements sluggish. With all my strength, I lift her up, ready to ascend even if it means carrying her.

  My feet leave the ground just as I’m hit. Pain erupts in my wing, misery that lances through the membrane. They’re deceptive; draki wings look gossamer soft, but are really quite strong, laced with countless nerves that make them all the more sensitive. I’m in agony.

  Twisting my body up into the air, I tear the small harpoon from my wing, fling it until it impales in the soft ground.

  I collapse back down, head bowed in pain.

  Miram breaks from my side, stumbles, lost from me in our fall.

  Will’s dad steps closer, his weapon aimed at me. His eyes are cold. He feels nothing.

  There’s a whistle as I’m hit again. In the thigh. This time the pain is less, not another harpoon. My gaze jerks down, rests on the dart protruding from my red-gold flesh. I yank it free and glare at it, see that it contains a vial. A now-empty vial.

  A second whistle cuts the air. My gaze swerves, watches as the dart hits with a solid thunk into Miram’s body. She screams. The sound is bewildered, stunned only as one who’s never endured physical pain before can feel.

  And yet I know it’s more than the pain. It’s the fear, this horror of being treated like an animal without worth. Something to be hunted, caught, and ultimately destroyed.

  I drag myself to her side. She slumps against me, her tears moist on my shoulder, a chilling hiss on my scalding flesh.

  I shout at the hunters even though I know that I probably appear more animal to them with my strange, growling sounds. More the beast that needs exterminating. I cringe, wither inside at the sensation of their cold, apathetic eyes on me.

  In moments, my vision grows fuzzy. My head feels warm, insulated. And somehow I don’t care anymore. I feel good all over, tingly.

  The hunters descend, smudges of dancing black. A roaring fills my ears, but not loud enough to cover Miram’s gasping sobs. Those I hear. Those I will always hear.

  I squeeze her hand, or at least I try to. My muscles are so tired, feeble and sluggish. I’m not sure I do anything more than cover her fingers with mine. Then, she’s no longer with me. They take her, drag her from my side. I stretch for her, but I’m too slow. Her talons claw through the earth, leave deep gouges in the soil. Her screams don’t sound so close anymore, but they’re still there, fading in the distance like a dying wind.

  “Where are you taking her?” I shout in my guttural tongue. “Miram! Miram!”

  Then they come at me with their groping hands.

  “Careful that one doesn’t burn you,” one of the hunters advises.

  Blurry figures surround me. I fight the drugging sensation that makes me want to curl into a small ball with a smile on my face and sleep.

  I rise up to my knees in a final attempt to escape… to get away, flutter my wings and take to the skies. I cry out and fall back down, face-first in the loamy earth. Useless. Raw pain fires through the membrane of my wing, deep into my muscles.

  Warm blood flows, gliding down my back, and pooling at the base of my spine. I feel its trickle. Smell the richness.

  I drop my head. My hair falls in a fiery curtain around me. And I see it. See the telltale shimmer of my blood, a lustrous purple dripping like spilled ink to the ground.

  Still, I fight the numbing lethargy threatening to swallow me. My arms shake trying to lift myself back up. My body is so heavy. Lead.

  What was in that vial?

  Desperate fury pounds through me, blistering along my veins. I want to unleash myself, burn them all, punish them for what they’re doing to me — and all they plan to do. Things so terrible we’ve never been directly told. No one sits us down in primary school and explains what really happens once a hunter captures us and turns us over to the enkros, but I know. I saw Will’s father’s study — the furniture covered in draki skin.

  I open my mouth and release another gust of fire — my last hope. A thin thread of flame spills past my lips. This time the fiery breath withers almost the moment it’s released, dies in a trail of steam.

  “Will,” I croak, my eyelids heavy, impossible to hold up anymore.

  Hard hands grip me on all sides, lifting me up. I turn my face and try to blow flame on the arms, but only choke out a weak rivulet of steam.

  What did they do to me?

  They bind my hands, my wrists squeezed so tightly blood ceases to flow. Even groggy, I feel this new pain. I’m flipped on my stomach, straddled. Again, I’m just an animal, a beast. A scream rises in my throat as my wings are bound tight to each other, preventing them from moving, preventing me from flight.

  I’m tossed through the air, striking hard, smooth ground. The surface is cold and frigid against my hot flesh. Not dirt then.

  Doors slam. I’m in the back of a vehicle. A van. It begins moving, bumping over the ground, weaving through trees and clawing foliage. Taking me farther from the pride. Farther from home.

  I can’t fight anymore. My lids sink over tired eyes. Even with my body’s discomfort, with the sting pulsing in my wing, vibrating deep into my shoulder blades, I can’t resist the drug’s soporific effect. My cheek presses down on the cold metal floor and I slip into sleep.

  Chapter 18

  Pain greets me when I wake.

  I take several slow blinks before I manage to fully open my eyes. The torment in my head rivals the intense throbbing everywhere else in my beaten and broken body and I have to close my eyes again for several moments before opening them again.

  My wings throb. I try to move the gossamer sheets, and the pain jolts deep, radiating along my entire length. I’d forgotten they were strapped together. I curl up into a small ball and moan my misery.

  After a while and several deep breaths later, I lift my head, peel my cheek from the cold metal floor of the van. I shake my head, wondering if I’m even awake, wondering if this is all a nightmare.

  I catch the sound of a whimper nearby. I turn, spot Miram pressed along a far wall of the van. With great effort I lift up, so glad to see her that for a moment the pain doesn’t matter. At least we’re together in this metal box.

  “Miram,” I whisper, dragging myself closer to her, relieved that she’s here.

  She’s visible, of course. Her eyes lock on mine.

  I wet my dry lips. “What…”

  “What happened?” Miram finishes my question. “You,” she says. “You always happen. I suppose it’s not such a surprise this would be your fate, but I can’t believe I’m here, too. That you’ve dragged me into this…”

  “We’re going to get out of this,” I promise. It’s all I can say, all I can believe.

  “Y
eah,” she snarls. The ridges of her nose flex with hot emotion. “And how are you going to manage that?”

  “I’ve escaped them before.”

  “Okay.” She nods her head savagely, sandy brown hair tossing wildly around the tan, neutral tone of her draki flesh. “How? How are we going to do that? How’d you do it last time?”

  Will. Will is how I escaped. Except he isn’t here. I have to figure a way out of this for myself. For both of us.

  Miram fills the silence, her voice eerily flat. “They’re taking us to the enkros. We’re as good as dead.”

  “You don’t know that,” I whisper, testing the plastic ties at my wrists with my teeth. Useless.

  “Oh, face it, Jacinda. Where else could we be going? Alive? They haven’t killed us. Clearly there’s a reason for that. They’re saving us for something. For… them.” Them. The monsters of our childhood nightmares. Heat feathers along my flesh.

  She’s right. I know it of course. That’s how hunters live. They flourish through selling my kind. I can’t deny this.

  “How long was I out?” I ask, turning my attention to our surroundings and focusing on something I can control. Assessing the situation we’re in so that I can come up with a plan.

  Except there isn’t much to see. Only one small window positioned high in the van’s back door. Impossibly small. It only lets light in. Nothing out.

  “I don’t know. I woke up hours ago.”

  “They have to stop eventually,” I say, more to myself than her.

  “Yeah, so they stop. Then what? Those doors aren’t going to open until we reach wherever it is they’re taking us. And at that point…” Her voice fades.

  I grimace, release a slow breath against the unremitting agony of my bound wings. “I’m not giving up. I’ve got fire, and you can make yourself invisible.” If she could focus her talent and not cave in to her fear. “There’s no reason anyone should be able to take us down.”

  “And yet they did.” Miram arches a fine eyebrow, as tan and nondescript as the rest of her. The ridges of her nose shiver with angry breath as she glares at me. “So, genius, how are we getting out of this?”

  Will. The thought of him is there again, but I don’t say it. Don’t dare. Why would I want to plant that hope? Even in myself. I have no idea where he is, why he didn’t meet me. For now, I need to rely on me.

  I shake my head. Still, I can’t stop the longing from creeping in. He has to know. By now — he has to have heard of the fire-breather his father captured.

  It’s this that keeps me calm as we hurl headlong into the hazy realm of my nightmares, the wind buffeting the van and sending shudders up my body.

  They don’t stop for us. Not to feed us or offer us a chance to relieve ourselves. But then why would they afford us such a simple courtesy? We’re just animals to them.

  The van is hot and suffocating, an airless metal box rumbling along dispassionately.

  Miram and I lie on our sides, roasting on the hot metal floor like two parched fish tossed from the sea, desperate to return to water. We’ve long since stopped speaking to each other, too miserable with our bound hands and hobbled wings.

  I can’t move without spiking pain through my body. I continually lick my cracked lips, swallow against the misery of my dry mouth. Breathing fire seriously depleted me. My insides are shriveling up, desperate for water.

  But I haven’t quit. I’m reserving my strength, waiting for the van doors to open so that I might burst free in a blaze of fire.

  I tell myself this. Believing I can summon enough fire is harder to do.

  I no longer feel my wings. I try not to think about that, about what that might mean. It can’t be good. Lying on my side, my arms pressed close to my chest, they burn, tingle with pinpricks of pain.

  The van slows. I slide a bit as the vehicle turns.

  We stop. I can’t even summon much excitement. We’ve already stopped before. No one opened the door to check on us. They just gassed up, did whatever they had to do for themselves, and left us roasting in the back.

  It doesn’t mean the doors will open now. Still…

  I lift my head and whisper Miram’s name, just to make sure she’s awake. The sound comes out a croak. She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t move. I drag myself closer and nudge one of her sleek legs with my foot. “Miram!”

  She moans and cracks her eyes open. “What?”

  “We’ve stopped.”

  “So?” she rasps.

  I cock my head, listening as the driver and passenger doors slam open and shut. Voices. The words are indecipherable.

  She struggles to a sitting position, pushing up, using her bound arms for leverage. “Think we’re here?” She asks this so listlessly that I’m not sure she would even care if that were the case.

  I shake my head, my every agonized muscle braced, pulled tight, thrumming in readiness. My ears strain, following the sound of their tread, the crunch of gravel beneath their feet as they circle the van. One laughs, the sound fading as they walk away, leave the van. Leave us.

  After a moment I release my breath, unaware that I had been holding it. “They’re gone,” I whisper, then, realizing there’s no need, I repeat louder, “They’re gone.”

  “Probably to feed their fat faces,” she mutters. “I would kill for something to eat.”

  With a sigh, she settles back down on the van floor. I look at her. Really look at her. Always small, she appears emaciated, her face gaunt, her breath raspy. Her chest lifts high, laboring for each breath. Maybe my time in the desert prepared me for this. Arid heat. Discomfort. Misery. Because Miram isn’t holding up well, and she didn’t even take a harpoon to the wing.

  I have to get her out of here. Soon. Or these hunters will be arriving at their destination with one dead draki.

  Suddenly there’s a sharp sound at the door. I spring to a crouch, a surge of adrenaline staving off the pain. Something scrapes against the metal door. The scratch of metal raises the tiny hairs on my nape. My gaze drills into the doors. I inhale, readying myself, letting heat build and gather at my core.

  Weak and parched as I am, the effort nauseates me, leaves me shaking and wasted. I’m not at full strength, but it has to be enough. I’ll get only one chance. I have to be ready for whoever opens that door.

  “Miram,” I say, wishing she could get it together and make herself invisible — and hold it. “Get ready.”

  She gives a small nod.

  Curling steam wafts from my nose.

  I part my lips, staring so hard at the door my eyes start to ache. There’s a thud followed by a sucking sound as the door pulls open. My heart clenches in my smoldering chest. Midday light pours inside the van in liquid-hot rays, momentarily blinding me. I don’t care though — can’t hesitate and lose my chance.

  I reach deep, find smoldering heat where I feared none was left. Fire heats my windpipe, bursts free in a gust of flame. It’s enough.

  The figure outlined in the afternoon light dives to the ground with a cry.

  I jump from the van and manage to keep my balance on unsteady legs — especially hard to do with my hands and wings bound.

  I bend down to search the hunter’s pockets for a weapon, something to cut into the binding on my wrists. And I freeze.

  It’s not one of the several hard-eyed, black-clad hunters who trussed me up like a holiday goose and tossed me into the back of a van. It’s Will.

  A sharp, strangled sound rises from the back of my throat. I choke his name, a sound he can’t possibly comprehend.

  But he doesn’t need to understand. He knows. He’s here for me. That’s all that matters. And that I didn’t incinerate him.

  He’s on his feet, sliding his hands up my trembling arms as if verifying that I’m real, that I’m before him. “Jacinda!”

  Relief rushes over me. My adrenaline takes a dive, and the pain and weariness flood back, closing me in a clenching, unrelenting fist. I give in, collapse in his arms — let him rescue me, save me from
his kind, from the agony that screams through every particle of my being.

  Will carefully wraps an arm around me, looking over my shoulder at my strapped wings. I feel his wince as he takes measure.

  Anxiety radiates from him, underlies his movements as he handles me, trying to guide me away from the van. His changeable eyes dart, scan the mostly vacant truck-stop parking lot.

  I hold back, peer inside the van. “Miram,” I say, the urgency sharp in my voice. “Let’s go.”

  She hovers in the far shadows, where the sunlight doesn’t reach, fiercely shaking her head side to side.

  “Miram!” I repeat her name, sounding like a parent addressing a child that refuses to obey.

  She shakes her head harder, her eyes fixed on Will. “I won’t go with him.”

  “Don’t be stupid. He’s here to help us—”

  “What if it’s a trap? What if he’s just tricking you into going along meekly, like a lamb to the slaughter?”

  “Do you even know how ridiculous you sound? Why would they do that? We’re already their prisoners.” I move between the van’s open doors, beseeching her with my eyes. Still, she shakes her head, shrinks back against the far wall as if I were the threat. “You’ll risk remaining in this van rather than going with us?”

  Will tugs on my arm. “Jacinda! They’ll be back any second. This is our only chance!”

  “Miram, please,” I beg. “Trust me.”

  She jerks her chin once at Will. “I don’t trust him.” Then her eyes fix steadily on me. “Or you.”

  Anger sparks my blood. She doesn’t trust me. She’s the one who’s been spying on me!

  Will’s voice falls hard near my ear. His fingers flex on my arm, no longer so gentle. “Jacinda, they’re coming!”

  I go. Tearing myself away, I leave her.

  But not without her wide, haunted eyes imprinted on my soul.

  Chapter 19

  Will drags me across the parking lot. It’s an odd sensation. Running in broad daylight in full manifest in the human world. Such a strange, forbidden thing. Anyone could see me.

  Not that I have a choice.