Once more she faced him, teeth bared like an animal, fists balled, eyes burning like molten silver. “What have you done?”
The movement was so powerful, so threatening, that Milo stumbled backward and tore the slingshot from his belt.
“I told you,” he yelled. “I didn’t do—”
“Oakenayl!” she said sharply. “Bind him.”
That fast Milo was grabbed from behind.
Powerful hands clamped around his ankles and knees, wrists and elbows, and a thick, bony arm wrapped around his throat and squeezed. The speed and force of the attack was terrifying. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He tried to scream, but the arm around his throat squeezed tighter and cut off all breath, all sound.
He felt someone lean close, felt lips as hard and rough as tree bark brush against his ear as a voice spoke in a dangerous whisper. “Try anything, boy, and I’ll crush you like a bug.”
The voice sounded like a boy’s, but the strength of that grip was greater than anything Milo had ever experienced. Even the biggest soldiers in the camp could not be this strong. The breath on his cheek was as cold as dirt and smelled of soil and moss.
The girl hurried over to Milo, eyes blazing, her teeth still bared. She knotted her fingers in his hair and gave his head a violent shake.
“Where is it?” she snarled in a voice that was no longer that of a little girl. This was a guttural voice that was like the growl of a hungry animal.
Milo’s mouth worked, but he could not force a single word out.
“Tell me!” she demanded.
Milo squirmed and tried to kick and elbow whoever was holding him. There had to be more than one person because there was an arm around his throat and hands were pinning his arms and legs. He couldn’t punch or kick or use any of the survival skills he’d been taught.
He was totally helpless.
The girl cupped his chin in her other hand, thumbnail pressing into one cheek, fingernails digging into the other so hard his gums hurt. She stood on her toes and bent close so that their faces were less than an inch apart.
“I will eat your heart and leave your bones for the crows,” she said.
In a world of horror and monsters, this was the most frightening thing anyone had ever said to him. It was like something out of nightmares. It was the kind of thing a monster would say.
Milo tried to speak. He really tried. But he could not. He couldn’t even breathe. The world began to smear and blur around him. Black flowers of pain seemed to blossom in his eyes as he drifted on the edges of consciousness.
The girl stared into his eyes.
Deep.
So deep.
Into the very center of him.
“Why did you take the Heart of Darkness?” she asked again and again, hammering him with questions and accusations. “Where is it? How did you break the enchantments? What did you do with it?”
Then it seemed to occur to her that he was trying to answer but couldn’t.
Annoyance flickered on her face. “Oakenayl, let him speak.”
The stricture around his throat eased, though only slightly. Milo spat out the stale breath in his lungs and gulped in fresh air.
“Let . . . me . . . go . . . ,” he gasped weakly.
“Tell me,” repeated the girl. “What did you do to the Heart of Darkness?”
“It wasn’t me,” insisted Milo. “I didn’t take anything.”
“I can make him talk,” whispered Oakenayl. “Let me pull off an arm or two. He’ll tell us.”
The girl chewed her lip like she was considering it.
Actually considering it.
Milo’s knees began to tremble, and if he hadn’t been held so firmly he would have collapsed.
“I didn’t do it!” he cried. “Whatever it was, I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.”
“This boy is lying,” said Oakenayl. “His kind always lie. It’s all they ever do.”
“I’m not lying—and stop calling me boy! I don’t even know what you’re talking about. What’s this Heart thing? I didn’t touch it. I just got here. . . .”
The girl studied his eyes. Her gaze flicked back and forth to the unseen face of Oakenayl.
“He’s lying,” insisted the brute who held Milo. “Don’t let him cast a spell of doubt on you.”
“I’m not lying,” Milo seethed. “If you don’t believe me, check my pockets. I don’t have anything of yours. Go on—check.”
The girl did check. First she upended his pouch and let all the stones drop to the damp ground. She gasped when his lucky black stone fell out, but after picking it up and peering at it, she growled in annoyance and let it fall. Then she removed everything from Milo’s pockets, glanced briefly at them, and dropped each one on the ground. His slingshot, his knife—a Swiss Army knife that had everything from a spork to a pair of wire cutters—his compass, and a first-aid kit. The girl looked at it without interest and let it fall. She dug deeper into his pockets and found various bits of tech; a few pieces of beef jerky; a signal flare; his microtool kit, which he used to dismantle scavenged tech; a plastic photo holder with a picture of his parents and a five-year-old Milo taken a month before the Swarm arrived; and a spool of string.
As she searched, Oakenayl continually and quietly began tightening his hold again. The girl apparently did not notice this, which was clearly what Oakenayl intended. He was slowly choking Milo again, shutting off the air once more.
The girl removed the last item from Milo’s pockets—a tiny metal tube in which was a coiled fishing line and hook—tossed it away, and flicked her eyes back to lock on Milo’s. He saw expressions come and go on her face. First hatred and intense anger, then growing uncertainty as each item she found proved to be something other than what she expected to find. Then doubt. Finally, the lights in her eyes faded into the dullness of confusion and despair. That was an emotion Milo knew very well. One that he saw in the eyes of refugees when they first came to the EA camp. One that he saw in the eyes of soldiers who came back from patrol with too many of their comrades missing.
She staggered backward from him as if pushed. Her heel caught on a broken rock and the girl fell. Tears sprang into her eyes and rolled down her flushed cheeks.
“It’s not here,” she gasped. “Not here . . .”
Her voice trailed off as she dropped the last item.
“Then he’s hidden it,” said Oakenayl.
“No. There was no time for that. Whoever he is, he did not do this.”
“Then he knows who did,” insisted her companion. “I will make him tell us.”
The powerful arm around Milo’s throat tightened even more. The world began turning dark. He managed to force out one strangled wordless croak before Oakenayl cut off the last of his air.
That croak, though, was enough.
The girl suddenly looked at him as if she’d never seen him before. It took several seconds for the blunt shock in her eyes to come into focus with what was happening.
“Oakenayl,” she said, waving her hand. “Let the boy go.”
“I’ll let him go when he tells us where it is.”
“It wasn’t him. He is not the one we need to kill. Let him go.” She was sobbing as she said it.
For a moment the hands and arms restraining Milo tightened, and Milo thought he was really going to die. Right there and then.
“You live this time, boy,” whispered Oakenayl. “What a shame.”
Then suddenly he was free.
Staggering forward. Unbound and unfettered.
Falling to hands and knees.
Hanging his head like a dog.
Coughing, choking, gagging.
Gulping and gasping in air. Filling his lungs with life. Feeling the blackness recede, seeing the dark flowers fade like sparks.
He was free, but far from safe.
The girl sniffed back her tears and straightened, regaining some of her composure—or at least pretending to. She wiped her cheeks and took a deep breath, held
it, and sighed it out. Milo could see this from where he lay, but he was too hurt and dazed to even look over his shoulder at the people who’d grabbed him.
“Oakenayl,” said the girl, “find Mook and Halflight and tell them what’s happened. Tell the other orphans, too. Tell them the witch was right.”
The witch.
Witch?
The word “witch” seemed to ignite inside Milo’s head.
How many times had he dreamed of a witch? The Witch of the World. She’d spoken to him so often in his dreams, and he’d written down every word in his dream diary. Now, hearing this mysterious girl mention a witch made a freak moment even freakier.
The girl looked like she was going to faint. “Tell . . . tell the others that the prophecy was right. The shadows are falling. Go now.”
“I can’t leave you alone with this boy,” insisted Oakenayl.
“Why? You think I can’t handle one human boy?” said the girl, a new sharpness in her voice.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Please, go tell the others to search the forest and all up and down the bayou. We need to find who really did this. Maybe there’s still time.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Please . . . go!”
She spoke like a grown-up, but the panic in her voice made her suddenly sound very young. Like a little kid. There was so much fear there that Milo could taste it. Bitter and wrong.
“Go,” she said one last time.
There was no answer except a rustling of leaves. This time Milo looked over his shoulder to see who had been holding him. Hating whoever Oakenayl was and whoever was helping him—all those crushing hands and arms.
He stared.
And saw no one. There was nothing there except an oak tree wrapped in vines. No people. No brutes with powerful arms.
His panting mouth formed a soundless “Oh” of surprise.
They were gone.
Gone so fast.
Gone without sound.
He turned back to the girl, who was getting to her feet. Tears still ran from her eyes, and her lips trembled with fear and shock.
“Who—what . . . ?” He wheezed as he sat back on his heels. “What was that . . . all about . . . ? Who are you? Who are the orphans? What’s going on?”
She angrily wiped at the tears. “The shrine is defiled. The Heart of Darkness has been stolen.”
“What the heck is a Heart of Darkness?”
She glared at him with eyes that looked both frightened and a little crazy. It was so intense that it scared Milo. He’d heard lots of stories about crazy people out in the wilderness of what was once America. People driven insane by loss of family or loss of world. Was that what he was seeing? Milo wished Barnaby, the pod-leader, was here. Even though Barnaby was only a few years older, he knew a lot about the world. Especially about refugees and rogues.
“I thought you were a sorcerer,” she said in a soft and distant voice, “but you’re only a boy. You’re only one of them.”
“Them?” he asked, rubbing his bruised throat. “Them who?”
“You’re probably happy the Heart is missing, aren’t you?” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Now your kind can finish what you started.”
“Finish what?”
Her lip curled into a sneer. “Without the Heart, you can finish killing us all.”
“Whoa! Wait. What are you talking about? I’m not a Bug. I—”
She cut him off. “Your kind was killing us long before the Bugs got here, boy.”
“Stop calling me ‘boy.’”
“It was you who drove us into the shadows. It was you who pushed us to the edge of nothingness. It’s because of you that there aren’t many of us left.”
She spat on the ground between them.
“That’s total garbage,” Milo fired back. Despite his fear, he was getting tired of this crazy girl and her wild accusations. “I never killed anyone. Never. And the people in my camp? All we’re doing is fighting the Bugs to try to save this planet.”
“You want to save it for you,” she countered. “Not for us.”
“Who’s ‘us’? Can you even try to make sense?”
She came over to where he knelt and stood looking down at him. “If you could,” she said, “you’d kill me right here and now.”
“That,” said Milo, “is the stupidest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“It’s true.”
“No, it’s not. Why would I want to kill you?”
“Because that’s what your kind do.”
“What’s with the ‘your kind’ stuff? Am I supposed to know what that means?”
Something flickered in her eyes. Maybe it was doubt. Milo didn’t know her well enough to tell.
When she didn’t answer, Milo got slowly to his feet. The girl backed up a few steps, and he didn’t try to close the distance.
“Look,” he said with as much patience as he could manage, “I don’t know who you are or who you think I am. But I’m just a boy—as you keep pointing out. Milo Silk. That’s all I am. I don’t kill people, and I don’t want to kill people. I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t hate anything that much. Except for the Bugs. Not too crazy about them.”
She sniffed. “And why do you hate them? Because they’re monsters?”
“Aside from the fact they destroyed a lot of the world? Gee, let me think,” said Milo sourly. “How about I hate them because they took my dad? He was a good guy. He was a teacher. Before the invasion, he taught music. Even after the invasion, he taught people how to play music and sing so we wouldn’t all go crazy. The Bugs took him, and now he’s gone. So, yeah, I freaking hate them for that. Does that work for you?”
The girl’s expression changed again. After a pause she said, “I never knew my father. The Bugs took my mother and grandmother and all of my aunts. Everyone I love.”
“That’s what I mean,” said Milo. “I may not be an orphan—and I’m sorry you are—but everyone’s fighting the Bugs. If you think someone’s stolen something, I kind of think that’s where you should start looking.”
“How would they even know what it is?” she asked. “They have insect minds.”
“How would I know? Maybe if you told me what this Heart of Darkness thing is, I could help you figure it out.”
Hostility seemed to drain slowly from her expression. It left her looking tired and, for the first time, like a kid, rather than a kid trying to pretend to be an adult.
“It’s not safe here,” she said quietly.
He snorted. “Well, yeah, nowhere’s safe. That whole alien invasion thing.”
“No,” she insisted. “This place isn’t safe, boy. You need to leave.”
“Why?”
There was a sound far off on his right, and they both turned in that direction. It was impossible to tell if it was a falling branch, a running deer, his pod-mates, or trouble. The girl raised her head and sniffed the air like a bloodhound taking a scent. Then she immediately began backing toward the wall of burned shrubs, putting distance between herself and Milo as well as from the broken pyramid. There was sudden panic in her stiff posture and in each word she spoke. “You need to leave now.”
There was another sound, and Milo turned to see a rabbit cut through the grass. When Milo turned back to the girl, she was gone.
Absolutely and completely gone.
Like she’d never been there at all.
Milo looked for footprints and found none. He sighed in frustration and confusion, and quickly bent to retrieve his items, muttering to himself about crazy girls, homicidal rogues, and the general craziness of the world. The last thing he picked up was his slingshot. As he straightened, he wondered if the dog whose eyes he’d glimpsed earlier belonged to the girl.
As if in answer to his thought, he heard a soft sound behind him, and once more he turned, ready to fight or run.
And once more he froze in place.
Standing on the other side of the clearing,
right where he’d stood a moment before, was an animal. Big and gray, with eyes the color of a winter moon.
It was not a stray dog.
It wasn’t a Stinger or a gator or a bear.
And it wasn’t a little girl.
The thing that stared at him with those cold eyes was a wolf.
Milo’s mouth went dry and his heart nearly froze in his chest.
The wolf was only twenty feet away.
He could get a stone out of his pouch, load it into the slingshot, aim, and fire. But could he do it fast enough or hard enough to stun the wolf before it could close the twenty-foot gap between them?
Not one chance in ten billion.
Milo was absolutely certain that if he tried, the wolf would kill him. No question about it. This wasn’t a contest he could ever hope to win.
The wolf, seeming to sense his thoughts, wrinkled its muzzle to show him all of its razor-sharp teeth. There were a lot of teeth in that savage mouth.
The wolf took a single step toward him. Slow and careful.
“No!” said Milo.
The animal paused, and those pale eyes narrowed for a moment as it cocked its head to listen to what the wind had to say. Milo turned too, hearing it now. Off to the northeast of where they stood, there was the sudden sound of voices and footfalls. No rabbits or falling branches this time. It was the unmistakable sound of people moving through the forest. Milo had no idea if that was the girl returning, or that brute Oakenayl, or if it was his friends—Shark, Lizabeth, Barnaby, and the rest of the pod.
He turned back to the wolf.
But it was gone.
The woods were empty, and there was no trace at all that it had ever been there. Not a print, not a bent strand of grass.
Beyond that spot, the burned clearing waited to be explored, the wreckage waited to be examined, which was why Milo and his pod were here.
However, all he could do was stand in the place where the girl had been and stare at the spot where the wolf had stood, trying to understand what had just happened.
He was not, however, able to understand a single thing.
FROM MILO’S DREAM DIARY
I had the dream about the party again.
The Orphan Army Page 3
