Every Dark Little Thing

by T. S. Ward

  “Already forgetting,” I murmur. “We don’t need that many logs if we aren’t going to be here for a while.”

  He squints one eye, a laugh rumbling in his chest. “But we can start a small fire. Just a quick one.”

  I nod and start walking back to the house, looking back at him as I open the door. He’s grabbing a few split logs and following me, whistling as he does, a grin on his face when he looks up at me.

  I walk inside and nearly trip on the rug as I do, but it doesn’t bother me like it normally would. Nothing does right now, really. I’ve got butterflies, so to speak, and just a general elation, and fuck if there’s any fire burning anywhere.

  The woodsmoke is already in our clothes and flavouring our skin.

  Even though there’s a wildfire on the horizon and that smoke is black and thick, what is here, now, is a comfort that drowns it out.

  I light a match and hold it to some kindling in the fireplace, gently blowing some oxygen into a half-burned log. Soldier sets the logs down and double checks that all the doors are shut and locked, and then he closes all the curtains.

  It gives the room an orange glow.

  When he comes back, he brings a blanket, and lays it down in front of the fireplace.

  “Oh, I see,” I say, letting him take my hand to guide me over.

  He laughs lightly. “Do you?”

  He doesn’t sit down with me. He leaves the room for a minute or two, and I hear him digging around for something in the kitchen. When he comes back, he’s got a bottle of champagne and a couple glasses. Not champagne glasses, but I’ve never been a fancy prick to care about that.

  “What the hell is this?” I say, suddenly suspicious.

  He frowns. “What do you mean? Champagne.”

  “Clearly, but… why? What for?”

  He shrugs, but he still has a sly smile. “Just because.”

  I watch as he pops it open and pours it into each glass, taking one cautiously when he offers it. “You sure you aren’t up to something?”

  “Hmm, probably not. Toast?” He holds his glass out to mine. “To skipping out on absurd medical bills and abandoning post.”

  I laugh at that, clink my glass against his, and drink. “And chamomile tea with honey.”

  “Also coffee,” he says, and I throw him a look that says don’t get me started. I haven’t had coffee in ages. Years. Even though they had some at the farmhouse. “And also champagne and chocolate.”

  I look at him and lean back a little. “You sure you aren’t up to something?”

  “I’m up to something,” he admits. He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles. “I have something for you.”

  “Did Lou tell you it’s my birthday?” I ask nervously, downing the champagne in my glass at the sudden reminder that today is the one hundred and tenth day of the year—April twentieth.

  He pauses as he reaches up to the mantle of the fireplace. “Today?”

  “I mean, what? No. I don’t have a birthday. I’m ageless.”

  He smiles and pulls down a wooden box. He sets it on the floor in front of him and takes the lid off. There’s a jar of coffee in it, sealed and full, beautiful as hell. I laugh and pull it out of the box, holding it before me.

  It seems almost foreign, now. Something I wasn’t really sure I’d see again. Kind of like a cable television show or a hot dog stand in a busy city.

  “You think it’s wise to give me caffeine?” I joke, looking back at him.

  The box is gone. Cast aside. He’s sitting there, eyes squinted with a small smile at the corner of his mouth. He holds his hand out to me, with this little ring held between his fingers.

  “Ben.”

  “I wanted to make it official,” he whispers.

  There is so much in me that’s screaming that this isn’t actually real, it isn’t actually what I think it is, that I’m just hallucinating all of this. There is a small part of me that is certain I’m still in a coma and that I never woke up, that this is just one big fever dream and that’s why I’m immune—because I’m dreaming, and the dream goes on.

  There is a large part of me that is convinced that I don’t deserve this at all. A tiny part of me that believes he’s working for Lana.

  But I can feel tears fighting to spill. Tears, because my whole life I’ve never been so damn lucky.

  I put the coffee down, crawl over to him, onto his lap, legs wrapped around him. I take the ring and slip it onto my finger without a word, and then I kiss him hard. Like it’s the last time I’ll ever get the chance to. I don’t ever want to lose this.

  “Keely,” he murmurs.

  “Shut up,” I tell him, “Just shut up and let me kiss you.”

  —

  The fire at the farmhouse glows bright. It lights up the tops of the trees, with sparks rising high above. It seems strange, after so long digging pits for small fires and minimal smoke. I’m sure the smoke won’t matter that much in the dark on a cloudy night, but the glow worries me.

  We might attract a few moths.

  Soldier and I come up along the path, and I curse at the amount of people gathered. Fifty-six, including us.

  “We don’t have to stay,” he says.

  “Free food,” I mutter.

  It doesn’t take long for Vanessa to show up, excited, doing a little dance. “Guess who’s cooking!”

  We settle in along with her, Fox, the rest of their family, and Viking and his husband. They saved some seats for us, although everyone is mostly either standing around the fire or playing games or whatever the hell they’re doing.

  This whole thing feels like a big family gathering. People are drinking, laughing, having fun. I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s endearing, really, that this little slice of humanity has come together for this, but I’m nervous as all hell. Uncomfortable.

  I feel like someone’s going to look at me and decide I’m the one to blame for the whole of Lakeside being wiped out the way it was. Burn the witch, so to speak.

  I’m squirming. Uneasy.

  Even so, I say hi to Fox and Viking, say hi to Charlotte. They properly introduce me to their families. Vanessa is the oldest of Fox and Charlotte’s kids, and then Olivia, Edith, Alecia, and Danny, in order.

  Viking’s husband is Thomas.

  I’m sure I’ll struggle to remember any of their names for a while, but something feels a little more solid under my feet now. Like there’s something certain in knowing names. Like they expect me to be around, here, to know.

  Lou comes and steals me away from them, to cart me around to his friends. He tells me their names, too.

  Carter is young. He sits with Jenny, and Macon’s oldest kid Jessie. Radha and Tasha are adopted siblings. Noor is around Dad’s age and hugs me rather than shaking my hand. Macon’s other kids are Dean and James. And then there’s the old man, missing his right hand, who offers his left.

  “Dashner,” he tells me before Lou can say it, and then turns my hand over. “Who’s the lucky man?”

  I pull my hand back, trying to shove them in the pockets of my coat before my dad sees. It’s not that big of a deal, really, and life is too different now for it to matter that much, but I’m still burning in the cheeks at the thought of him finding out.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Lou says, grabbing my wrist and pulling my hand out to the fire light to see. I stare at the ground when he’s fully gathered the attention of all his friends. “I thought that boy was joking. When did you get this?”

  “That’s what you interrupted earlier, apparently,” I say quietly.

  He laughs and shouts over to Ben. “Hey, Soldier! I’m gonna kick your ass! Ain’t you supposed to ask permission first or something?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Lou!” He calls back.

  I don’t know why, or maybe I do, who knows, but—it makes me happy. The way that they talk to each other, like friends or family or something. That’s what this is. My own little family. And it makes me so damn happy. It make
s me feel safe, protected, loved, all that dumb shit.

  There’s just one problem with that.

  There’s one thing eating away at me the entire rest of the night. It’s something to lose. Something that can be taken, severed, and broken. A target on the chest, right over the heart. It’s a fear that burns bright right under the nose, all that smoke filling my lungs directly.

  I am still uneasy. I am still wary. Even with Fox and Viking hugging me, congratulating us. Even though the food is good, and the jokes are better, and the laughs real and full-bellied.

  I can feel it all slipping away.

  I sit next to Soldier, head on his shoulder, listening to Lou and Noor and Margot tell a story about how they got trapped in a shoe store because a ghoul nabbed one of his boots right off his foot. I sit next to Soldier, hand twined with his, listening to my dad tell a spirited story, and I see Macon.

  He's standing by the lantern at the door of the farmhouse. His arms are crossed with a set of keys dangling between two fingers that he quickly hides when Ben looks over.

  “Think he wants to talk,” I whisper.

  He grabs my hand as I stand up. “Tell him no. Please.”

  I lean down and kiss him hard. “I’ll tell him I’ve got family to protect here.”

  He lets me go reluctantly.

  I knew this was coming. I knew that’s why he wanted to talk, and what he wanted to talk about. The whole reason I’m here tonight—so he can hand me the keys to slip away right when I’m the most comfortable I’ve been this whole time, so I can fuck it all up.

  He turns as I come up to him and starts walking down the driveway, away from the crowd, into the dark and the chill of night.

  “There’s enough gas in the tank to get you there and back,” he says.

  I look down at my hand and touch the ring, and there’s this sudden, terrible desire to not fuck up for once. There’s this incredible need to keep what is good and lovely safe and close to me.

  “He doesn’t come this far,” I say.

  Macon tilts his head, frowning, confusion in his voice. “You said get a truck and enough fuel to get you there. He doesn’t need to come this far.”

  “I mean, it’s unlikely they’ll find us. We can live. We can scout out a more permanent place to stay. We—” I cut myself off, staring into the trees. “Get everyone inside.”

  There was a green flash. A quick line of brilliant green glowing through the trees.

  “What’s that?”

  Everything in me is on edge, on high alert, searching for movement between each trunk. I grab his arm and start backing up, turning to the bonfire. My heart is pounding in my chest.

  The field is alive with dark shadows beyond the fence and the fire.

  “Shit,” I hiss. “Macon, get everyone in the damn house!”

  I leave him standing there and start running. I rush back to Ben, fall to my knees in front of him, breathing hard. Hardly breathing.

  It’s that wildfire creeping up to surround us. The smoke choking me.

  “Lana,” I gasp out.

  And then the lasers light up green. The guns start firing into the crowd. Everyone starts screaming and shouting, finding their own weapons and firing blindly into the dark, aiming for lasers. Fox flips the picnic table and gathers all his kids behind it, his granddaughter, his wife.

  Lou crouches down with me and Ben. “What the fuck is this?”

  A bullet hits a log in the fire, and sparks and embers burst over us. I shake them off, brush one off Ben’s shoulder. He puts a hand on the back of my head.

  “Together.”

  I nod, but I swear I can taste my heart in my throat.

  There are all these kids being ushered into the house. Fox and Viking clear the way for them, using their bodies as shields. The beetles don’t shoot at them. They can’t see their faces the way they’re ducking and running, and I know damn well they won’t risk shooting me.

  They won’t risk shooting me.

  I stand up. Ben reaches for me, Lou reaches for me, but they both miss. I stand up, throw my hands up in the air, and start shouting.

  “Hey! Assholes! It’s November, fuckers!”

  They stop shooting.

  “Keely,” Ben hisses, eyes shiny with the reflection of the fire. “Why did you do that? Why did you have to do that?”

  I drop to the ground again, looking around. There’s a small group of us huddled behind tipped over tables, weapons held tight in hands, with the fire in the middle. There are buckets of water nearby meant to douse the embers at the end of the night, and I think it’s safe to say it’s the end of the night now.

  I crawl over to one, grab it, and toss it over the fire.

  Others do the same, until it’s just smoke—smoke. Thick, dense cover. I reach into the fire and grab smoking logs, hissing at the heat that meets my hands, and start whipping them over the tables.

  It starts to fill the air. Not perfectly, but it works.

  “Take them out quietly. Take their helmets.”

  Lou grabs me as I pull my knife. “Keely. What the hell is going on?”

  I shake my head. “I’ll explain after we get out of this. Just don’t let them catch you, alright? Meet you at Crystal’s if we get separated.”

  “Keely.”

  I run through the smoke toward the trees, ducking when the beetles start shooting again—toward the house. Toward all the people rushing to get inside. All the innocent people. I can barely breathe, but I can’t stop.

  There’s a green laser scanning the smoke from the trees.

  I sneak up behind them and wrap an arm around their helmet, sink the knife into the thin black material over their throat.

  The helmet fits a little big, but it works. I can see the yard of the farmhouse clearly. I can see all the white laser beams. I pick up the gun at my feet and start picking out the other points of light, shooting in short bursts.

  The beetles are armoured, but not completely.

  I nearly shoot the one that comes up beside me along the side of the barn, but it’s Ben. Ben, in a beetle helmet, and the sight nearly crushes me.

  He gives me a thumbs up and I nod.

  “Bravo team, hit the gas,” a voice says in my ear. I look at Ben and he nods. He hears it, too.

  Lou and Macon, Dashner, Noor, Fox and Viking—they’re guiding the last stragglers into the house. They’re starting to follow. Lou holds the door for Dashner and Noor, Macon pushing him inside. He fights him. He’s looking for me.

  I start forward, shooting at another beetle, and then a white streak catches my eye.

  Small canisters are being thrown at the house. The windows shatter under the impact. A bright gas fills the building, thicker than smoke, and I choke.

  It would have been better to run into the trees blind.

  How can you be so stupid?

  I shoot again, catching two beetles in the helmets, but there’s a third one. Soldier is making sure the others are down. He doesn’t see them. I don’t see them. What I see makes me scream into the helmet and rush forward.

  Fox and Viking collapse on the steps.

  I try to get to them, make sure they’re okay, panic clutching my chest as the others start spilling out of the house. They’re all coughing and falling to the grass.

  Soldier grabs me around the waist and pulls me back into the trees.

  I’m screaming, fighting against him, lunging forward against his arms. There are beetles swarming the house and surrounding everyone. There are bodies littering the grass.

  “Take the rest alive,” I hear Lana say. “Find her.”

  Soldier pulls the helmet off my head and tosses it to the side. He holds onto me so damn tight that it hurts. Even distracted, panicked, ignoring him, it hurts. His helmet is gone, too.

  “We’ll get them back,” he tells me.

  He presses a hand over my mouth when the panic won’t stop, pulls me backward deeper into the trees. My fingernails dig into his arm.

  “Yo
u can’t get caught,” he hisses. “You can’t get caught, Keely. You can’t.”

  I twist, pull my mouth away from his hand. My boot heels are digging into the dirt. “I don’t care about me! My dad. Ben.”

  He keeps dragging me back, until we trip, until my struggling knocks us both to the ground. He holds me down. Presses me to the dirt. “We will get them back. We will. I swear, we will, but there are too many of them for us. They have all the advantages. We won’t win like this. We won’t win. Keely. We won’t.”

  I fight him for what feels like forever, until I can’t anymore. Until I’m crying silently in the dirt. I give up. I give up, and when I see all the bodies left lying in the grass, all the beetles starting to search the woods, my body gives up too.

  Ben pulls me back to the honey house.

  When we get there, it sits empty.

  I feel empty.

  I climb into his truck, collapse on the passenger seat, and wait for him to grab our bags. Always packed and ready, just in case this happened. He gets in. When I look at him, he nods, agreeing with my silent plea immediately.

  He starts the truck and drives away without headlights.

  We sit together, hand in hand, my head on his shoulder.

  Ezra is small compared to this. A passing storm.

  This—this is a hurricane.