by S T Branton
I smelled smoke now. It was coming from close by. It wasn’t the kind we dealt with in the town, the smoke of burning buildings, and fabrics and insulation. This was something more earthy, almost comforting.
Like a campfire.
I pushed myself harder to run faster and leveled with Akker. I knew I should say something before he rushed in and started swinging at the first human he saw. But how do you calm down a seven-foot child?
“Akker, listen, we don’t know what we’re running into. They have guns and stuff. It could get dangerous, really fast. Maybe you should find your family and get out of here before…”
“No,” he cut me off, his voice almost emotionless. “If they found my people and they hurt anyone, then it’s not me who’s in danger.”
Chapter Thirty-One
As we cleared the last of the area before the town, the smoke grew thicker, and I felt the heat in the air. Something was burning, and my stomach turned at the thought of what it could be. Images of what I threatened to do, what I had prepared to do when I thought they kidnapped and hurt Ally followed those images, and I steeled myself. I knew how angry and irrational I was then, and I thought I was right. I would have burned them down, every last one of them if I thought they had harmed Ally. I was quick to judge them, and indeed even set one of them on fire, because I let my assumptions push me to a place where violence was my first recourse. Many of these people felt the same. I had to convince them the way Ally convinced me.
We arrived in the town, and smoke filled the air. Men ran toward beautifully sculpted dryad houses, axes in their hands, and smashed them apart. The store I ran behind when I first arrived was in flames but thankfully seemed like the only one so far. It was as if we got there right after they did, and they had yet to cause the worst of the destruction they planned.
“What the hell?” I heard shouted from across the open area of the town. There were a few statues of Vrya there, probably elders of the past or family members. The voice was instantly recognizable, though, even through the smoke. Cale stood in front of them, ax in hand. “What kind of devil-worshiping stuff is this?” he yelled, getting the attention of another man who had a rifle in his hands.
Suddenly, the gun-wielding man kicked the statue, and when it didn’t move, he pulled his gun up to his shoulder and shot the head of the Vrya figure. It exploded into dust, and the man cheered. Cale cheered with him, then slammed his ax into another one. They were destroying the memories of the Vrya without knowing what they were destroying.
Out of fear. Remember that, Slick. Fear.
Another man ran to join the fun, heading for the third statue. His ax was high above his head, and he was grinning like a loon. Without thinking about it, I rushed forward, cut him off at the pass, and yanked the ax from his hand. He spun around to me and tried to grab me, not bothering to register if I was a friend or foe, only upset that his violent thought wasn’t a reality.
So, I gave him a new violent thought. My fist in his mouth. His teeth—brittle and yellowed by years of chain-smoking and sugar drinking—shattered on my fist and the man collapsed to the ground, a screaming pile of pain. Cale saw this exchange and advanced on me, peering through the smoke to make sure he saw me correctly. I turned to face him head-on.
“What the hell?” he screamed at me as if I’d called his kid out at first when he was safe. “He’s one of us, you idiot!”
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Cale. This has to stop, all of it. Now.”
“The fuck it will.” Cale squared his shoulders and did the narcissistic misogynist thing men had done so many times when I’ve told them I would kick their ass, directly before I wiped their smile off their face with my boots. “These Freak-ahs will get what’s coming to them. We’re going to burn this place to the ground like they burned down our town. Ain’t that right?” he yelled to the now-gathering mob.
“They didn’t burn down the town, Cale. We don’t know who burned what, but even then, it was only one bar and a couple of apartments. No one was hurt.” Ally tried to smooth things over. But not even Ally’s usual charm worked this time. This time, the person she tried it on wasn’t swayed by cuteness, only by fear.
“You don’t know anything. You’re an outsider, too. Maybe we should burn you with them,” Cale spat.
Akker took a step forward. The stoop he always seemed to stand in to make himself look shorter disappeared, and he stood at his full height. His broad shoulders squared, he made eye contact with Cale, and his hood fell to the side and off his head, exposing the bark growing in the back and the markings dryads have. Cale’s jaw dropped.
“What the fuck are you?” He pulled a gun from behind his back and aimed it at Akker. “It’s one of them Freak-ahs!”
I moved to get between them, but before I could get there, someone attacked Cale, knocking him over and sending the gun to the ground, where it lamely fired into the dirt. It was a Vrya boy. The dryad mounted him and threw a punch, nearly taking his head off. More came from the woods surrounding us, and fights broke out everywhere. Off in the distance, I saw a man with a rifle, the same one who had shot the statue, have it ripped from his hands and snapped in half before being tossed away like a toy. The man was then also tossed and landed hard on the ground near Cale.
Qulma’s voice came from behind me, and I turned to her. Her eyes were pleading, and her hands were outstretched, trying to stop her fellow dryads.
“Please, no more violence,” she yelled at them, “it’s not our way!”
But many dryads pushed past her and joined the fray, now forming a circle around us. On the inside were humans from Hunt, huddling together and on the outside were pissed off Vrya, prepared to fight for their lives. Qulma joined me in the center of the ring, her hands raised. Near me, a dryad reached out and grabbed a semi-conscious human, and I rushed to him. I yanked the man out of dryad’s hands, who turned toward me and swung.
I let instinct take over and dodged the punch, then rapidly trapped it in my arm and spun not only to the side but to the ground. His surprise at my technique was enough to make him lose his footing, and he landed hard on his stomach. I wrapped my hands around his head, tucked his arm in my legs, and used my thighs to pull his arm one way and my hands to yank his neck another. There was a small snapping sound, and I knew I broke whatever counts for a shoulder in a dryad. The creature cried out in pain.
I stood and pushed several Vrya to the side to create a path.
“We have to let them go. They need to go home alive. We will all talk about this later. Move, move!” I screamed, trying to get the humans to see the chance they had. “Get out now, and don’t come back. We will talk soon, but for now, take this shot and go! Now!”
It seemed to work. The humans of Hunt weren’t prepared for the Vrya to be as huge and strong as they were, and although they were mostly non-violent, the younger ones weren’t so calm. Most of those in the inner circle left, and it was down to me, Ally, Akker, Qulma, and Cale. Cale surveyed the group of dryads, then turned his back to the way he came and backed away from us.
When he’d finally gained some distance, he turned and ran out of the town, and disappeared down the trail.
Chapter Thirty-Two
For several long seconds after the humans ran off, there was no sound but gasping for breath. It was almost too still. It took a young dryad, his face touched by even fewer years than Akker's, to finally break the silence and bring everyone's awareness back to the moment around us.
"What now? What do we do?"
It was such a simple question, but there was nothing straightforward or easy about it. Everyone looked around, hoping to find an answer in someone else's eyes. Finally, Qulma pushed through the row of Vrya closest to me and faced off against her people. Her eyes glowed with anger, and her face looked tight.
"What have you done?" she demanded. "With everything we're facing, you're acting like children. Fighting them like that? You only fanned the flames.”
Akker looked at
the other dryads around him, then back at his mother. "They were defending me."
The explanation did nothing to calm the older woman. If anything, it pushed her further into her fury against her people, especially the son she wanted so badly to protect.
"And you. You, Akker. What were you doing revealing yourself to those humans? You know what they think of us. They already had so many suspicions and such distrust for us, and now you've revealed the truth about what we really are. You have to know how dangerous that is. How could you do that?"
Akker's face hardened, his body visibly stiffening at the scolding words from his mother. He did what he thought was right. I knew that. I saw it on his face the same as I saw it in every one of his actions during the standoff with the mob. It was the same type of intense determination and blinding drive that led me into many fights in The Deep.
It wasn't always the best type of motivator and frequently resulted in incredibly unpleasant situations for me, but I understood it. Akker faced the same kind of feeling now. Everything in him pushed him to defend his family and his people. It wasn't only for him. He was fighting in the name of his father now, stepping into the role for him. That type of fuel couldn't be contained, even when it led to actions that might not be the best and could have serious consequences.
"They were going to destroy our town," he pushed back.
The other Vrya around him shouted their agreement. They were still worked up, and their frenzy whipped back up with the reminder of why they joined the fray to begin with. Some of them looked ready to chase after the humans and finish the job. The taut energy and froggy expressions put me on guard. This couldn't continue. Not now. If one of them took off in the direction the humans went, I would have to be prepared to leap on them and pancake their ass to the ground to stop them.
I'd do it, too. I wasn’t above tackling a tree person to stop another fight from breaking out.
Qulma shook her head. She wasn't impressed by her son's reasoning or the fervor of the people around them. Much of the anger had drained from her face, replaced by something softer. It was a difficult emotion to describe, somewhere between sadness and love. It was the look parents get when they’re so angry at their children for something they did, and yet so overwhelmed by love and pride in them for the compulsion that went into it, mixed with the pain that came from knowing consequences are coming.
"Akker, the town isn't important enough for you to put yourself and everyone else in so much danger. The Vrya people are far more important than the Vrya town. Can't you see that? This place only has one purpose, and that is to keep our community safe and hidden. These aren't ancestral lands. They have no meaning to us except that they have been home, our haven," she explained.
"That's over now," Ally said. We turned to look at her, and I saw tears in my best friend's eyes. Despite the sticky warmth in the air, her arms were wrapped around her tightly like a chill had settled in and wasn't letting go. "There's no way Cale will keep quiet about what he and the rest of the mob saw. He wanted to wipe out the Vrya when he only thought there might be something slightly different about you. Now he knows for sure you aren't human, and he’ll crow about it to anyone who will listen. It's not safe here anymore."
Qulma sighed. It was like watching her heart break right in front of me. Suddenly, the dignified leader looked smaller, like part of what held her up and gave her the strength she showed was gone.
"Then it's time for us to move on. Our kind settled here years ago because it was a place where we could feel safe and not worry about threats against us. If that's not the case anymore, it's time to do as our ancestors have done for generations and move along. We'll find somewhere else where we can start our lives again."
I took a step toward her, feeling compelled to stop her. "Maybe it isn't."
"What do you mean?" Qulma asked.
"You heard what Ally said." Akker sighed. "And she's right. Cale won’t back down. Now that he has proof of what we are, he won’t exist in harmony with us."
There was guilt in his voice. I shook my head, wanting to keep him calm. "That might be true—about Cale. But not everyone in Hunt is like him. I've spent time with these people. They aren't all bad. Maybe there's still time to make things right."
There wasn't the immediate sense of hope I was looking for. If I were sketching out the made-for-TV movie of my life, this would have been the moment when the dramatic music rose and everyone started smiling, and things fell together. Not so much in the made-for-actuality, real-life version I was still living. The people around me didn't look convinced. They didn't even look confident that there was something to be convinced about. Qulma stared at me through slightly narrowed eyes.
"How?" she asked.
"We'll figure it out."
She shook her head. "I won't condone violence."
"I didn't say anything about violence," I protested.
"No offense, but you got your title for a reason. Heinous isn't something they call people known for their loving disposition and ability to bring people together. You aren't exactly known as a peacemaker."
I opened my mouth to argue again, but that was pointless. I didn't live up to my heinous title, but at the same time, I didn't have a track record of handling situations in a calm and non-confrontational manner. It wasn't how I rolled. At least, up until that point. I remembered what Ally said about me still being me, the me before I discovered anything about The Far and was molded into the image of the heinous Sara Slick. I shrugged.
"There's a first time for everything."
Chapter Thirty-Three
The woods were dark. Ally had gone ahead, trying to make inroads with the townspeople of Hunt while I finished settling the Vrya. Qulma was still suspicious of my ability to bring about a reconciliation, and I didn’t blame her. It wouldn’t be easy, especially with a loudmouth like Cale stirring the pot.
Ally was the most convincing person in the entire world, though, and having her go work on some of the more influential townspeople might be enough to turn them against Cale and be willing to make this work. Either way, there was no putting the genie back in the bottle. They knew now, and either I would broker peace, or the Vrya would have to leave their home, again.
This had to work, though. It had to. I knew what it was like to be taken from your home, to have to find a way to survive somewhere new, not knowing the dangers, or knowing the hazards and it being life or death constantly. I knew that life quite well, and if I could help it, I didn’t want it for the Vrya. At any rate, it could take days for them to pack and leave, and if we didn’t calm the townspeople down, they might not have that much time.
These thoughts swirled and pressurized in the center of my head and gave me a mild headache to go along with the stress. Then I heard a branch snap behind me. I had no flashlight and no way of seeing other than the starlight above me and the faint glow of my cheap-ass cellphone.
It was enough to make sure I could see a foot or so in front of me, but it was pretty useless at seeing further than that. So far, that hadn’t mattered much since I remembered the trail and the method of getting in and out and was confident I could do it without a light, but I wasn’t prepared for random creatures of the darkness sneaking up on me.
I stopped cold, instinctively holding my breath and reaching for my switchblade. It was possible one or more of the townsfolk hadn’t left and were waiting to go back in. Or for me to come out. The Vrya had tried quite vociferously to get me to take one of their men with me to the town for protection, but I refused. If I gave the impression that I sided with the Vrya before we could talk, there would be no talking. I needed them to see me as neutral. At the moment, however, I wished I said yes.
Another branch snapped, this one much closer, and I grasped my switchblade. The math in my head blew trajectories and likelihoods and angles at me in instantaneous speed, and I spun, blade in the air, prepared to make a downward strike and roll. But I stopped myself. There in the dark, now only feet from me, was Jo
nas, his face a mask of surprise and confusion.
“Don’t kill me.” He crouched backward, hands over his face. I sighed heavily and lowered the blade. Why was he out here in the dark like that?
“Jonas, what’s going on? Where did you go? Why are you out here?” I peppered him with questions, and he stood on shaky legs to answer them.
“I came to get you. Ally sent me, and since I’ve been out in the woods to hunt a lot, and it was dark, I figured it was safer for me to come out here than her. I’ve been with some of the townspeople, having a meeting. I didn’t know you guys were out here until they started filtering back and Ally found me.”
“What did they say?” I asked eagerly. Jonas’ mouth thinned, and he seemed apprehensive.
“Well,” he held his hands out by his sides, “they agreed to meet, but I don’t think it will work out too well. They refused to go unarmed. Chances are, there will be some bloodshed before it’s all said and done.”
I figured. As much as I wanted to patch things up and create peace between the two sides, I had no illusions that it would be rainbows and butterflies. They were highly worked up when they left, and the Vrya weren’t much better. I would have to work on them, and it might take time to get them to be reasonable, but I had to try. For the sake of the Vrya, for Akker.
“I know, Jonas. But we have to try to stop a war from breaking out. We are the only thing standing between peace and violence.”
Jonas stared at me for a long time. It seemed like he was internalizing what I said, but there was something off about it. Like he didn’t believe me or felt defeated already.
