Creatures of the Night

by Grace Collins

  “I want you to leave my village alone,” Elias says. “No more murders, no more coming after my people.”

  “And in exchange?”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  A strangled sound escapes me, cut off by Eric’s hand slapping over my mouth. “Shhh.”

  “He can’t go with them.”

  “He won’t.” Eric’s voice is so low it makes my stomach drop.

  “He has to get them away from here so we can escape.”

  The prospect of Charles having Elias is terrifying but I have to trust Elias. Cynthia steps toward Elias with a chain in her hands but Elias puts his hand up to halt her. “I’ll come with you on my terms,” he says. “No chains.”

  Cynthia and Charles exchange glances. “How do we know we can trust you?”

  “You don’t.”

  Silence. When Charles finally looks up, his eyes are narrowed into thin slits. “Everybody, get back,” he calls behind without turning around. “Gather by the kitchen shack.”

  Seconds feel like hours as feet shuffle backward. Elias stays rigid in the entrance, his eyes never leaving Charles, who stands inches away. He nods at Charles. “Your turn.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “If you don’t move I’ll make sure you’re all burned to a crisp.”

  Charles pauses, his lips pursed before he takes a step back in defeat until he’s finally out of view. The second Elias steps forward, Eric nudges me. “Go.”

  Making sure my arm is hooked tightly around his waist, I stagger away from the shadow and into the entrance. The moon peeks through the clouds. Charles still stands facing us, his eyes trained on Elias. But when I move, he looks at me. I freeze.

  Charles doesn’t move, his mouth parts slightly as we stare at each other.

  “Milena!” Eric knocks my shoulder.

  At the sound of his voice, Cynthia turns to look over her shoulder. “There!” she shouts, bony fingers pointing at me. “Kill her!”

  Her voice breaks both me and Charles from our trance. I stumble backward, gripping Eric tighter as I start toward the forest. Some of the hollowers behind Cynthia follow us, but they’re too late. The second Eric and I are out of the tunnel entrance, the ground between the hollowers and us blazes in flames. “Go!” Beneath the sound of the roaring fire, Elias’s voice carries through the sky.

  Behind us, the fire gasps for oxygen. I hobble us into the trees, my arms aching from the weight of Eric. “Left,” Eric coughs.

  “What?”

  “Go left.”

  We weave through the trees and over fallen trunks and branches. But I’m not stealthy enough, my foot catches on a root and I fly forward; Eric tumbles from my arms to the ground.

  A branch jabs into my back where I land and the world spins above me as I try to gather my bearings. It wasn’t a root that I tripped on.

  A woman stands above me, a glinting machete in her right hand and a smile on her face, and my stomach drops. I scramble back on the ground until my back hits a tree, but she simply steps forward to block me. Flo’s mother. Does she know about Flo?

  “Where do you think you’re going, Milena?” Eric lies a few feet away, eyes burning into mine as he crawls closer across the ground. My hand slips into my boot, feeling for the dagger Elias handed me. “You’re nothing but a weak human. Now nothing is stopping any of us from hunting you.”

  When she reaches down to grab me by the collar of my shirt, I throw my arm out and swipe the dagger across her chest. She hisses, pulls me closer, and presses the machete against my throat. I twist in her hold so that my dagger is pressed just as tightly against hers. “You kill me and we both die. Is that what you want?”

  Her green eyes meet mine; they’re so similar to Flo’s. If I crack, she’ll see right through me. She’ll see that even if I could, I wouldn’t kill her, that her cries would haunt me for the rest of my life. She releases me and I stumble back, holding my dagger toward her as I walk sideways to Eric. “Don’t follow us,” I say.

  “Go back the way you came.” She says nothing, her eyes on me as I slowly reach down to help Eric to his feet, the dagger in my left hand trembling where it’s pointed at the center of her chest.

  “I’m serious. Don’t follow us.”

  I turn my body, trying to maneuver Eric beneath my arm. An arm knocks into my chest and I fly backward, pain flourishing in my back as I hit the tree. In front of me, Cassia stands, facing the hollower, with a knife in her hand. The hollower’s machete is now lodged in the trunk of the tree I’d been standing before.

  “Nice try, hollower,” Cassia hisses. The hollower’s eyes flicker with panic, mouth opening to shout for help, but she’s too late—

  Cassia’s knife plunges into her upper leg and she falls to the ground, a strangled cry escaping her throat. Cassia spins around to face us. “Eric?” She kneels next to him. “What happened?”

  “They took his blood for the ceremony,” I say. “Elias gave him something to fight infection, but I don’t know how well it worked.”

  She looks at me. My hands itch to slap her, to scream at her, to make her feel the pain she made me feel. But then I remember Flo, and I clench my fists and stare at the ground. “Milena, I—”

  “I have to get Eric out of here.” I push to my feet and step toward him. “I promised Elias.”

  “Elias is still back there?”

  “Yes, he—”

  But she’s already gone, weaving through the trees back to the burning village. I pick Eric up, my hands trembling and knees knocking together. Eric clears his throat, his breath ragged and sharp as the branches claw toward us. “Wait.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” I murmur. All I can think about is Elias.

  I don’t know enough about his powers to have confidence that my statement is true.

  “Milena,” Eric groans. The fire is far away now, the forest dark.

  I don’t know how far we’ve walked and I don’t know where we’re going. “Milena, stop.” If I stop, I don’t know if I can continue.

  “Milena!”

  “Elias said—”

  “We’re far enough!”

  “We have to get back to the village.”

  “Unless you want to be walking for three days, that’s not going to happen.”

  “Then what are we supposed to do?”

  He unwinds my arm from around him and stumbles backward, leaning against a tree to support his weight. “Leave me.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I’m fine here for a while. I’ll contact someone to come and get me.” He pauses, lip pulling into his mouth. “I know I shouldn’t ask you this, but—”

  “You want me to go back.”

  For the first time since I met him, vulnerability swims in his eyes. “They’re all I have.” I don’t have to ask to know who he’s talking about. “I know I can’t force you.”

  “I’ll go back. For Elias.” As we stare at each other, I feel a surge of affection. This is Eric—no masks, loyal to the grave Eric. I turn around and take a deep breath.

  A hand catches my wrist. “Milena?”

  I turn around to look at him. When I first met Eric, his red eyes scared me, but now, in the darkness of the night where it feels like there is no hope, they’re my only comfort. “Thank you.

  I’ll owe you forever.” I squeeze his hand, and then turn around and go back the way we came.

  ~

  Eric and I were running for longer than I thought, the forest a blur as we pushed through it in our desperation to get away.

  Now, I’m heading back with that same desperation. When I think of Eric, anxiety gnaws at my mind. I don’t know if leaving him alone was a good idea. What if a hollower finds him lying there, defenseless?

  Smoke swirls in the air when I finally burst into the clearing; a fist of ash wraps around my airway. I pull the collar of my shirt over my mouth and blink away the stinging sensation. The clearing is war torn. The gardens are blackened, littered with ch
arred wood lying in broken piles. A limp body lies in the center, their skin so burned I can’t even tell if I knew them. I hesitate. Even after everything that happened, a small part inside of me dies at seeing my childhood burn. The fun I had with Flo, the games I played with Darius—it all billows up in a cloud of smoke.

  Aside from the fire, the only light from the village comes from the kitchen shack. Guarded by the small stream, it appears mostly unscathed. I take a deep breath, wrap my hand around the hilt of my dagger, and leave the safety of the trees. Embers sizzle around me and ash covers the ground, but the only other person around is a dead body lying several feet away. Bile rises in my throat when I see their face—blistered and red. I creep to the kitchen shack, the light escaping through the cracks in the wood luring me closer.

  “Are they gone?” At the sound of Charles’s voice, I press myself farther against the wood.

  “Yes,” Cynthia responds. “They’re heading for the mountains.

  Alex set everything up for us, now all we need is the wisper.”

  Slowly inching forward, I peek through the window. Charles and Cynthia stand together at the counter over a collection of syringes; Elias lies on the table in the center, his limbs wrapped in silver and attached to the table legs. His eyes are shut, his chest rising and falling at inconsistent speeds. A needle in his arm transfers blood into a container on the ground.

  “When will he be ready to move?” Cynthia wonders.

  “We just have to get a little bit more.” Charles carefully inspects the needle. Elias flinches beneath his touch. “He’s only half creature so the chains don’t work as well on him as they do for the others. When he’s weak enough, we can move him.”

  “And what about the other creature?”

  Charles shrugs. “I don’t care what happens to her. Take her blood or finish her. We have a hybrid now, he’s all we need.”

  “I’ll leave her outside for now,” Cynthia says. “We can take her with us when we go to the mountains.”

  A chill crawls down my spine when Charles nods. “If anything happens on the way . . .”

  “I know what to do.” Cynthia steps over to the bench and picks up a syringe filled with a pastel-pink liquid. She taps her fingernail against it, a sly smile creeping onto her face. “Should I send someone after Milena?”

  “What?”

  “I thought they killed her but something must’ve happened because she got away.”

  Silence stretches between them. “No,” he says eventually. “We don’t need her anymore. We’re not wasting time and resources going after her when she’s no longer a threat.”

  “She killed Darius—”

  “I said no,” Charles snaps. Cynthia turns so I can’t see her face.

  I should move; Cassia’s outside, which means she’s close. But my eyes are glued to Charles’s face, committing his expression to memory, the line between his brows, the twist of his lips, and the way he glares at the floor—proof that maybe my affection for him wasn’t one-sided. A stick snaps under my foot. Charles’s head turns toward me but I drop to the ground, my body flat against the soil, pulse racing.

  Voices continue in the cabin. I drag myself across the ground until I reach the corner. The back door of the kitchen is slightly ajar, but resting against it, wrapped in chains, is Cassia. Against the area surrounding her, her hair looks like a halo. “Cassia!”

  She doesn’t look up, she doesn’t even flinch, so I pick up the pebble buried in dirt and throw it at her. She starts and looks at me.

  I scramble across the ground toward her. The chains are cold in my hands as I unwind them from her limbs. “What happened?” I whisper. One of the chains clanks to the ground, revealing burned flesh beneath.

  “There were too many of them. When I got here, they already had the chains on Elias. I was too late.”

  The second the rest of the chains fall to the ground, Cassia clutches her bleeding arms to her chest, the red staining her white collar. “Where’s Eric?”

  “He told me to leave him in the forest.”

  “He what?”

  “He said he’d contact someone to get help. He wanted me to help you and Elias.”

  She looks at the forest. “I managed to contact Bastian and Aliyah a few hours ago—they’re on their way with reinforcements.” I open my mouth to respond but Cassia grabs my shoulders, pushing my body to the ground and rolling us sideways until we tumble into a bush a few feet away. She presses her body into mine and slaps her hand over my mouth.

  Through the leaves, light floods onto the ground as the kitchen door opens and reveals Cynthia. She freezes the second her eyes scan the area, noticing the chains on the ground. “Charles!”

  He steps out a few seconds after her. “Where’s the creature?”

  “She was right here.”

  “And now she’s not. Dammit, Cynthia!”

  Cassia’s breath is hot against my neck, the cuts on her arms seeping blood onto my skin.

  “Find her!” Charles demands. “She can’t have gotten far.”

  Cynthia steps back into the shack before returning with a machete, her eyes scanning the area. I hold my breath as she steps past us. Back by the cabin, Charles curses and then marches in the direction of the tunnel. Cassia rolls off me, grabs my shoulders, and shakes me. “I’m going inside.”

  “What?”

  “They’re both gone,” she says, wincing as she shifts her body sideways and tries to push herself to her feet. “I have to take advantage of it.”

  “No. You can barely move. Besides, even if you go in there, the chains are silver, you can’t get them off. I’ll go. Keep watch, okay?”

  She looks like she wants to say something but I pry my wrist from her grip and sprint toward the shack. I advance along the wall, crawling across the ground as I pass the window. The door creaks when I open it. I have to be quick—if Cynthia or Charles sees me here, I don’t know what they’ll do. The small lantern casts sinister shadows against the wall. Elias lies still on the table, the tube still in his arm and draining into the bucket. I shudder as I step toward him, then place my hand on his shoulder and shake him. His skin burns. “Elias?”

  At the sound of my voice, his eyes open. They’re unfocused and clouded. “Milena?”

  “I’m here.” I squeeze his shoulder. “I’m going to get you out of here.” A deep groan rumbles from his chest when he struggles against the chains, his skin searing beneath. “Don’t move.”

  “Go. Get out of here, you can’t be here.”

  “Stop moving.” I tug at the chains, but Elias doesn’t listen to me, the smell of burning flesh filling my nostrils as he struggles on the table. I put both of my hands on his shoulders and push him down. He’s so weak he can barely fight back. “I can’t help you if you keep straining on these chains!”

  “Please.” His eyes fall shut. “Get out of here before it’s too late.”

  I put my hand on his sweat-drenched forehead. “Not without you.”

  Ducking beneath the table, I attempt to unwind the chains.

  They’re woven throughout the structure beneath, metal loudly clanking as I pull them apart. Despite the chill in the air, sweat beads at the back of my neck. The dirt embedded in my dark skin rubs off onto the wooden floor. The chains fall away. I jump up and wrap my hand around his arm. The skin where the chains were pressed seeps with blood.

  “Can you move?”

  His eyes flutter open, but he struggles to keep focused on me. “Milena?” The tube in his arm is considerable in size—I don’t want to just pull it out but he’s delirious and only growing weaker. In a split-second decision, I tear the bottom section of my shirt, slide the needle from his arm, and wrap the shirt in a tight knot around the small hole that seeps with blood.

  I turn to face him and put my hands on the sides of his face.

  “Elias? Elias, I need you to wake up.”

  “Milena?”

  “It’s me, I’m here. I need you to move.”


  His eyes flutter open, gold flecks shimmering in the shadowed room. “I found you.”

  “Elias—”

  “I said I can always find you.”

  I shake my head and lean over him to put my hands under his arms, trying to tug him upward. Seeing Elias this way makes the world shift. Even the strongest of us can be reduced to deliriousness. His limp body is heavy when he slumps forward, head falling against my neck. Once I’ve got him in a sitting position, I put my hands on his shoulders. “I’m going to put you on the ground, okay?” I say. “We’re getting out of here.”

  For a split second, his eyes focus on me. “Ana.”

  “Ana’s not here. It’s me. Milena.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  I pull him closer. “You’re not hurting me.”

  “If I hurt you . . .” His body sways. “You told me to never talk about it, but she was just a baby, Ana.”

  “Elias, we have to go—”

  “She was just a baby and I killed her.” He nearly falls backward but I catch him, wrapping my arm around his waist. “I can still hear her screams. I can see the body burning when I close my eyes. I can smell the flesh.” His voice is low with pain, his words chopped up and muffled. Wherever he is, he’s somewhere far away from here, trapped somewhere in his past, ghosts in his eyes and memories haunting his mind. We have to get out of here.

  I step backward, put his arm over my shoulder, and wrap my arm around his waist, stumbling back from the table and taking him with me. But I don’t get very far. My entire body goes rigid when I face the shadow looming in the doorway. I take a wary step back, Elias slipping from my grip and crumbling back onto the table. My hand slips behind me to clutch my dagger.

  “You shouldn’t have come back.” Charles’s eyes are dark, the color of moss in the shadows.

  “What have you done to him, Charles?”

  He steps closer. Instinctively, I sidestep so that Elias is behind me and concealed from Charles’s view. “You’re too late, Milena.”

  “Please, let him go.”

  He shakes his head, the candlelight casting shadows behind him. The walls of the room suffocate me. There’s something about his presence that makes me feel like a child. “You know I won’t do that.”