“So who took them?” I said. “Who would want to take the king and queen?”
“Maybe the same people that took Ruby,” August said. “Maybe someone else. But not Molotov. So who?”
“The who doesn’t matter,” I said. “Not now, anyway. Only the how. And the where.” I finally made it over to the bed and stood over August. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“I tried,” he said, gesturing to the room around him. “There’s nothing here.”
“Get up,” I said. “I’ll help you.”
“There’s nothing here,” he repeated, holding his head in his hands.
“There’s something,” I said. “There must be.” He looked up, finally, and his eyes met mine. Then he stood.
“There must be,” he said.
DISASTER FLUX, NEON FARMER “Run,” I said to Whisper. “Back to camp.”
“But, Dad—” she said.
“Now,” I said. “Go back to camp, and if I’m not there in five minutes, go to the main road. Go to Coeur. Your aunt is there. She’ll take care of you.” The corrupt lowrunner looking at me the entire time, making a clicking sound in its throat that didn’t sound like any growl.
“Don’t say that—” Whisper said.
“Don’t go to Aorta,” I said. “Not by yourself.”
“I’m not leaving you, Dad,” she whispered. I could see the fear in her eyes even in my peripheral vision. I didn’t dare look away from the lowrunner, even to quell her fear.
“Run,” I said. “Don’t look back. This isn’t a request, Whisper.” I tried to sound stern, I tried to sound certain, but even I could hear the quiver in my voice.
“Okay,” she said, slowly backing up. “But you’re more important than the satchel. You got that?” I nodded. She was behind me now and I couldn’t tell if she saw me nod. I heard her quicken her pace and start to run. The lowrunner looked away from me for the first time, toward her, toward the sound of her footsteps.
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t look at her. Look at me.” The lowrunner turned its head back to me when it heard my voice. Still stationary, still standing right next to the place where we hid the satchel of neon. My main priority was staying in between the lowrunner and Whisper as she got away. Her safety meant more to me than the satchel. But I knew that giving up on retrieving the satchel was equally a death sentence. We had been gathering that neon for the last few weeks. Coin from it would feed us for the next few. We were already run out of supplies. My stomach growled as if to punctuate the thought. Without the neon, we didn’t stand a chance.
“You gonna make this easy for me?” I said, slowly reaching down to my scabbard. More clicking noises from the lowrunner’s throat. Its head twitched side to side erratically. Almost mechanically. The clicking noises grew louder. “I didn’t think so.” I drew my sword slowly, inch by inch. It was smithed with neon. My only possession worth anything of substance. It had taken years of saving up neon, setting aside a piece here and there when we could afford it. I had never needed it before now. My sword was drawn. I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t know how to use it. But I knew it was probably my only chance. A last resort, surely, but one I would most likely have to use.
I bent down, keeping my eyes on the lowrunner, running my left hand across the ground looking for a rock. I found one and picked it up. I stood up, just as slowly as all my other movements. I threw the rock at the lowrunner, hoping to scare it away. I meant to throw it near the lowrunner but my aim was off and I hit it square in its face. It didn’t move. The clicking sounds grew even louder. Louder than any sound I would have said an animal could make.
“Fuck,” I said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I took a step forward and to the right, thinking maybe I could make my way behind the beast and reach the satchel without confrontation. But the second I moved, so did the beast. It lowered its head and charged.
As it approached me, I waited for it to close the distance and then I threw myself to the side, taking my eyes off of it for the first time as I looked to where I would land. The lowrunner’s charge missed me, but barely. I scrambled to my feet and looked for its current position. It was to my left and it quickly turned around. Now I was in between it and the satchel. I waited for a second to see where it would move next. It stood its ground, waiting for me to make the next move. After a moment I started to back up, step by step, toward the hiding place. It lowered its head and charged once again.
Its movement startled me and I fell backwards. It was fast and was on me in a second. I swung my neon blade as hard as I could at its head. And missed. It wasn’t even close. Then the beast was on me. It lowered its head and dug its luminescent antlers deep in my guts. I tried not to scream. I didn’t want Whisper to hear my screams, to come running. I gritted my teeth and tried my hardest not to scream. But the lowrunner twisted its head, digging its antlers deeper into my stomach, and that’s when the screams escaped me.
MALEVOLENT CASH, RESCUE PARTY We ran through the glow wood trees toward the source of the screams, weapons drawn. The prospect of using a sword again for any reason worried me. I steeled myself, told myself that someone was in need and, if necessary, I would have to help them. But the volume and the intensity of the screaming indicated that we were most likely already too late.
“Behind us!” Stoic screamed at Nano, who was at that moment keeping pace. He was quicker than he looked. The adrenaline must have clouded the pain in his knees. “We’re armed and you’re not!” Nano looked at him and nodded. He was too out of breath to respond but he slowed down a bit until he was behind us.
“What do you think it is?” I said to Stoic. We still couldn’t see anything through the trees. “Bandits maybe?”
“I don’t know,” Stoic said, “but you better be ready to use that sword again. Against my better judgment, I’m counting on you to have my back.”
“Got it,” I said. Still running. Still not close enough to the screams to do anything about them. I hoped we could still help whoever was screaming.
Finally, we came across the source of the screams. A man on the forest floor, getting attacked by… I don’t even know what to call it. It looked like a lowrunner. But it definitely wasn’t.
“What the fuck is that thing?” I said. All three of us had stopped in our tracks, staring at the unimaginable beast in front of us.
“It’s corrupted,” I heard Nano say from behind me. “I didn’t… I never… I didn’t think they were real.”
“The fuck?” Stoic whispered. I looked over at him. His face plastered in shock, his mouth actually agape with surprise, he looked afraid. I had never seen him in such a state. The man stopped screaming. He was looking sideways over to us.
“Help me,” he said, his voice hoarse and his eyes wide and circular. “Help.”
I looked over at Stoic again, hoping against hope that he would step up, that he would rush in and attack the beast so I wouldn’t have to. But he was frozen in place. As we all were.
“It’s blood is poison,” Nano said, looking at me. He wasn’t talking to Stoic. He was talking to me. Why? “Be careful.” Realizing that Stoic wasn’t going to rush in—realizing that somehow this had fallen to me, a tavern keeper’s son, and not the well-trained and physically capable prince in our company—I looked back to the man. His wounds looked extensive, but he was still alive. The not-lowrunner had gored his stomach, but the man had pushed it off and was currently stopping it from widening the wounds already there. But not for long.