Those Who Fall

by Rachael Arsenault

  “Did you see the phone screen at any point?” Emily asked.

  “Yeah — she pulled it away from her ear. It looked like she was checking a map.”

  “For where?” I asked.

  “I dunno. I was out of the scry before I got a good look.”

  “Well, go back in, then, genius,” Emily said.

  Tara scowled at her, crossing her arms as she said (a bit petulantly), “You know, scrying isn’t as easy as it looks.”

  “That’s a shame,” Emily said in an overly sweet voice dripping in sarcasm, “because it’s the only halfway useful thing you can do.”

  Tara bristled. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I dunno. You sure turned tail and fled fast yesterday, even though you had your big bad snake woman to protect you.”

  “At least I have magic!”

  I soon had to pull the two apart for what felt like the millionth time, scolding Emily for continuing to be awful to Tara and reminding Tara not to take her bait so easily. Finally, Tara herself did as she was asked and tried scrying again.

  This was getting exhausting. I hoped that, along with healing Emily, Farida could maybe help ease the tensions in the group and add a much-needed voice of reason to keep everyone from fighting all the time. Or, at the very least, give me some help in stopping them when they got at each other’s throats.

  But I was getting ahead of myself. We needed to find Farida first. And we needed to get her back under control, back into her good senses, before she accidentally killed herself by using too many stones and pursuing… whatever it was she was doing.

  The trees around us rustled in the wind, a sound that had become deeply foreboding since our last encounter. We weren’t safe on the road, we weren’t safe in the woods — in New Brunswick, we didn’t have many more options when it came to travelling. And flying wasn’t practical or discrete, plus we had the new threat of Imani’s dragon to worry about.

  At least we had survived the night without incident. I had even (reluctantly) gotten some sleep when Emily had woken up a second time and insisted that I rest. She and Tara had kept watch together, with Tara as the actual protection from magic and animals and Emily as her watcher. Miraculously, they didn’t tear each other apart, though they were definitely more heated than usual this morning.

  I hoped we could have more nights like this, though. Nights where I actually got to sleep. I was tired. Much as my magic and my control over it were improving, every use of it was extremely draining. I knew summoning Ddraig even once for a quick flight would tap me out again. Plus, walking for hours every day was exhausting enough on its own. Our food supply was rapidly depleting, even with us rationing ourselves, and the hollow ache of my stomach was a constant reminder that I wasn’t getting enough fuel for how active I was being.

  I missed having a car. I missed Farida. I missed Masika. I missed having someone around who actually knew what to do, or at least knew better than I did. For the first time, thinking of Masika didn’t bring with it a tang of bitterness at how she had treated me, or relief at not being subject to her judgement or treated like a burden. I just felt heavy and sad and empty as I realized all over again that she would never speak to me again. Could never speak to me again.

  Those first days looked almost idyllic now, part of a rose-coloured past long, long ago instead of a few hectic days not even two weeks ago. Had it really been that recent? And had it really been that great? Maybe it just seemed so much better because of how awful things were right now. Then again, hadn’t I thought something similar about my crappy apartment when I first got wrapped up in this whole mess? Now, when I tried to picture myself making spaghetti in my cramped kitchen or doing coursework on my bed, it felt like I was imagining someone else’s life. Impossible. Wild. Foreign. I didn’t get to live a life that had room for that kind of simplicity anymore, and I didn’t know if I ever would again.

  My head hurt. I was mentally exhausted, too, from worry and longing and regret and grief. I just wanted Farida back — and it was more than just wanting her there to help with hard decisions, or to supervise Tara and Emily, or even for her healing magic. I needed to see that she was whole and safe. I needed to know that someone was there for her in her grief. Her tears and rage as she lashed out at me in our last conversation haunted my memory, always ready to resurface at the slightest reminder.

  How much longer would we spend chasing her shadow? And when we found her, what would I even say? Would she listen?

  “I think I’ve got it,” Tara said, interrupting my thoughts. She was sitting on the ground against a tree, blinking rapidly as she lifted a hand to wipe sweat from her forehead. I’d watched her scry often enough now to know that, for her to be so strained, she must have gone in multiple times before she got something useable. My heart swelled with gratitude and concern. “She looking up some place called the Owl’s Nest.”

  “Where is that?” I asked. I moved closer, unshouldering my backpack so I could dig out one of our remaining water bottles. Not for the first time, a pang of dread and panic hit me as I scanned over our dwindling supplies. We would have to brave another trip to a rest stop to stock up again.

  Tara accepted the water graciously, chugging down a few long gulps before she shrugged and said, “It’s hard to tell when you’re looking at a map on a phone through someone else’s eyes.”

  “Good thing we have our own phones,” Emily said. She was already in the process of looking up the business in question. A moment later, she turned the phone toward me, saying, “It’s in Fredericton, but it’s really close to the cop shop. Kind of a stupid place to go if you’re a wanted criminal.”

  “I dunno. I think it should probably be fine.” When both Emily and I sent her bewildered looks, Tara shrugged again, though this time it was a much more flustered gesture. “Fredericton doesn’t exactly have a huge police force and they aren’t experienced with suspected terrorists. I don’t think it’s even crossed their mind that you might be walking around downtown.”

  “Well, you haven’t been the one dealing with them,” I muttered.

  “How many times have they managed to find you in how many days?”

  “Twice. Both times I was in the city.”

  “Right. The first time you were in a motel.” I raised my eyebrows at that, to which she elaborated, “Arman had me watch through all kinds of news clips related to you so I could find information on your parents to help when I scryed out their location. Anyway, you were in a motel and they caught you because of your credit card activity. The clerk didn’t even recognize you.”

  “They said all that on the news?” I asked dubiously.

  “They did,” Emily said in a tight voice. Between her tone and the narrow-eyed look she was staring down at Tara with, I knew she wasn’t happy to be supporting this claim.

  “And the second time, you drove into the city in a super beat up car matching the description of a suspect’s vehicle. They’re not gonna have anything like that on you this time. You’ll just be some chick walking through the city. Same goes for Farida.”

  “I dunno…” My dad watched a lot of crime shows, so all I could think of was a myriad of scenes where detectives tracked down their target or pinpointed a culprit with the most minute of details, like the colour of their nail polish or preferred brand of toothpaste. Our faces had been plastered all over the news and social media. Fredericton wasn’t a very big city. What were the odds that no one would recognize me or Farida?

  “Trust me,” Tara said. “You, specifically, don’t have to worry. You’re white, so you’re practically invisible to cops.”

  My instinct was to bristle and get defensive, but I knew she was probably right. I hadn’t taken any race studies courses, but we had touched on issues of systemic inequality in a lot of my classes. My whiteness was a shield I never felt the weight of carrying.

  When I continued hesitating, Tara rolled her eyes. “Okay, seriously. What other options do we have? This is the fi
rst time we have a specific, named location Farida is going to — before she actually gets there.”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” I said, sighing, “I guess we have to at least check it out.”

  ~

  I was glad I had gotten some sleep once I realized how far we were from Fredericton. If we’d had to walk there instead of cutting travel time with Ddraig, Farida could have been at the Owl’s Nest and gone before we even reached the city limits. As it was, our plan was to land a few kilometers outside the city and rest up in the woods there. Farida had a good day’s walk before she would reach Fredericton again, so we would wait until she was close before we started making our way into the city on foot. We didn’t know who or what would bring her to the Owl’s Nest, so we didn’t want to be lingering there too long before she showed up. Especially since the police were on the same block.

  In the interest of trying to look a little less suspicious, we had found a stream and attempted to clean ourselves up. The water was bitter cold. None of us knew much of anything about wildlife survival but, after some debate (and failing to get a signal so we could check Google to be sure), we decided it was probably best to keep our clothing dry. We stripped down and rinsed some of the blood and grime and, in my case, vomit off our skin. It was far from a thorough clean, but it helped us look a slight bit more presentable.

  It was still early morning when we took off on my dragon; fog clung to the landscape like soft, ethereal fingers. Watching it drift lazily across the ground from where I sat up high on Ddraig’s back, I couldn’t decide if it looked like something out of a horror movie or a fantasy novel. It was beautiful and eerie and my head hurt too much to properly appreciate it.

  We landed a considerable distance from the city. The plan was to walk for a few hours, then stop and make camp when we were about an hour’s distance on foot away from the city. Farida was a lot slower at traveling than our dragon, so we knew we had a healthy lead on her. Once we made camp, Tara was going to check in on Farida regularly with scrying. When she was about an hour away from us, we would head into the city.

  I was glad our plan worked out with us getting some rest — I wanted to be in good shape for when I saw Farida again, so I needed to sleep a bit to recover from summoning Ddraig. I didn’t know what to expect — I didn’t want to imagine that I had to be ready for something, because that something was bound to be bad — but still. I wasn’t an idiot. I was going to be prepared for anything.

  The sun was setting earlier each day. Once it started painting the horizon with gold, we stopped walking and got set up for the night. We had already decided to take turns keeping watch — I would stay up by myself, and Tara and Emily would stay up together. We would rotate every two hours. I knew just a couple weeks ago I would have thought that sounded exhausting, but after the last couple nights of little to no sleep, it sounded like heaven.

  “You sure you don’t want us to take the first watch?” Emily asked. I was sitting up, my back leaned against the sturdy trunk of a massive oak tree. Tara had already crawled into the lean-to we had build, but Emily lingered outside, studying me thoughtfully. “You’ve done more work than either of us today.”

  I waved her off. “You’ve still got healing to do, and Tara’s been burning herself out with scrying. I’ll be fine.”

  Emily hesitated a moment longer before finally tucking in for an early night’s sleep.

  I knew it was a long while before they actually went to sleep — I could hear them arguing in hushed voices (most likely instigated by Emily). Eventually, however, they quieted down and fell asleep, leaving me alone with the sounds of the woods: the chorusing crickets and distant croaks of frogs, the occasional whisper of leaves and underbrush as small animals or soft breezes moved through them. People say some cities never sleep. I wasn’t sure how true that was — I’d never been to a proper big city before — but I’d come to learn that the woods definitely never slept. Less than two weeks ago, that terrified me. Now, it was strangely comforting to know that I wasn’t alone in the darkness amongst the trees. Especially now that I knew how to defend myself.

  I didn’t think much of it when there was rustling in the distance long after the sun had set.

  It wasn’t until I heard the snarl that I got my guard up. It was probably a coyote — nothing I couldn’t handle. We’d had a run in with a coyote pack the day after our visit to the truck stop, so I knew they didn’t travel in especially large groups and ran off pretty quick once I let off a little burst of poison.

  ‘No one had been asleep then, though,’ I thought. What if it went after Tara and Emily in the lean-to? I didn’t want to blast them with poison by accident.

  I was just getting to my feet when a massive blur shot from the underbrush nearby, pouncing on me. I screamed, hands flying up to protect my face, black mist already gathering in my palms. Hot breath and sharp teeth grazed my wrists, then there was coughing and whimpering; the immense weight of the creature was shifting off of me as it staggered back.

  This wasn’t a coyote. It was way too huge — bigger than a wolf, even.

  My blood ran cold. No… Tara had said Patrick was dead!

  “What’s going on?” Emily yelled. I knew the second she was out of the lean-to because I heard her gasp and swear. “What is that?!”

  “What—” Tara broke off in a startled choke.

  The creature had moved enough of its weight off me for me to shove it aside and scramble to my feet. Now that I wasn’t crushed under its massive weight and could get a proper look at it, there was no mistaking it: This was Patrick’s creature.

  I was still struggling to wrap my head around this fact when there was movement in the shadows to my left. I whirled around, but Emily was faster; she dove at the figure (Destiny, I realized belatedly) and took her out at the knees. The pair landed in a heap on the ground, shrieking and cursing.

  “Emily!” I cried. Her arm was still healing — she wasn’t in any shape to fight. Especially not against someone who wielded magic.

  “I’m fi—” She broke off in a scream as Destiny grabbed her by her slinged arm. I watched, helpless, as Destiny rapidly gained the upper hand in their haphazard wrestling match. If I turned my poison on them, I would hurt Emily just as much as I hurt Destiny. Plus, I was still focused on keeping the wolf-thing at bay.

  Destiny tossed Emily aside and got to her feet. A nasty bruise was colouring her jaw where Emily had punched her during our last encounter, which gave me a sick jolt of satisfaction. Her hair was a tangled mess and her cheeks had turned a livid shade of red. “I am so done dealing with you bitches!”

  She took a step toward me — but Emily grabbed onto her ankle.

  Looking down at my best friend with a curled lip, Destiny scoffed and said, “Seriously?” Then she stomped on Emily’s bad arm.

  “Destiny, stop!”

  Her foot was still pressed down against Emily’s arm when she turned to look at Tara, expression a mixture of confusion and annoyance. Emily was squirming on the ground, swearing profusely and ineffectually punching at Destiny’s leg with her good hand. Then Destiny shook her head. “You’re shit at your job, Terra.”

  It was hard to make out Tara’s expression; she was still crouched at the opening of the lean-to. I stared desperately at where she was partially hidden by shadows, wondering why Patrick’s creature hadn’t dissolved into light under the spray of my poison yet, wondering where he was hiding, wondering if Tara really had set us up.

  And then Tara was running and slamming into Destiny.

  The other girl cried out in shock as she stumbled back from Tara’s impact. There was a moment where it looked like they were about to have a slap fight, each grabbing for the other’s wrists, narrowly avoiding stepping on Emily (who was finally starting to retreat, hugging her injured arm against her side). Tara grabbed desperately at Destiny, seemingly trying to drag her off of Emily, but could never get a grip on her long enough or pull her hard enough to make much of a difference. Then, roaring a
string of cuss words, Destiny managed to shove Tara off of her.

  “You bitch!” Destiny screamed. Her expression was twisted in anger, teeth bared and grinding together.

  Emily staggered to her feet. She looked angrier than I had ever seen her. With a roar, she charged — at Tara. Rather than cowering or hiding like I would have expected her to, Tara responded in kind.

  Shit. Shit! Shit! Destiny was messing with their minds again. I needed to separate them — no, I needed to hit Destiny to break her control. But I was still trying to keep Patrick’s damned dog at bay!

  Before I could even figure out what I should do, Tara and Emily stopped fighting each other and suddenly turned to me. They charged at me. Emily grabbed me by the hair with her good hand, hauling hard; I screamed, vision flashing white as she all but tore my hair from my scalp. I was so blinded by the pain that I didn’t even register Tara had grabbed me until her fingernails were biting into my forearm. Something sharp and burning shot through me, too intense to just be from a scratch.

  I’d lost focus on my magic and my poison had dispersed. That wolf-like creature was bound to join in on the fun soon, and I couldn’t bring myself to call up more poison again for fear of hurting Tara and Emily.

  “There’s a really easy way out of this,” Destiny sing-songed from where she had retreated a safe distance behind my mind-controlled friends. “Just come along with me, do exactly what I say, and I’ll leave them both alone.”

  Gritting my teeth, I glared out between Tara and Emily at the giant wolf-thing, which was still hacking and coughing and seizing under the affects of my poison but somehow not disappearing. “Will you call off the dog, too?”

  “Uh, sure. I think.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

  “Just give me a yes or no!” she snapped.

  I growled in the back of my throat, head throbbing, arm burning as hot blood spilled rapidly from the too-deep cut Tara had left there. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be. I just needed to break Destiny’s concentration…