Horde

The rest of us complied, then he demonstrated some of the moves. In his hands, the branch became beautiful and dangerous, whirling in defense, striking hard, blocking phantom blows. When he finished his demonstration, even Stalker looked impressed.

“Could I really learn to fight like that?” Tegan asked.

“Not exactly,” Morrow told her frankly. “But I can adapt the style for you and the staff is long enough that you can plant it if you stumble and then adjust your footing. It’s the best weapon for you.”

Stalker added, “Plus you can keep it with you. It may not even occur to your enemies that you can smash their skulls with it … until it’s too late.”

That sounded like exactly what Tegan needed. I didn’t want the Freaks making right for her because she was dropping them too fast with a rifle. This was a quiet competence, exactly suited to her personality, a subtle threat right out in the open. For her part, she seemed pleased when she took the branch from Morrow.

He turned to me. “Unless you have something else for us to do, I’d like to start now.”

“Go on,” I said.

Afterward, I decided it seemed strange—him asking me for permission. But there was no question I’d started this endeavor, so that made me in charge by default, no matter whether I was doing a good job. I wondered if Silk felt this way when she first took command of the Hunters, as if it were wrong for all of them to look to her for orders. At that moment, I realized it had been a long time since I heard her voice in my head; I wasn’t sure what that meant, precisely, but I suspected I had changed until my mind no longer worked in the same way. And that meant my memory of Silk had no insight to offer, no oft-repeated homilies.

In other words, I was on my own.

I moved off to give them space to train. Stalker followed me, likely with the same goal. But he looked troubled, and I was determined to be a friend, even if he didn’t want me to be.

So I asked, “What’s wrong? It can’t be the lack of action.”

He smiled wryly at that, the movement pulling at his scars. We’d just burned twenty-nine more Freaks. For a band of twelve souls poorly armed and living in trees, our body count was impressive. As long as the hunting was good, the snows held off, and the horde stayed out of our territory, we could continue like this indefinitely.

“No. I was just wondering … do you think I could ever make things up to Tegan? I know I apologized and she said she forgave me because I didn’t know any better but … I feel like I need to do something more. It’s eating at me.”

“That sounds like a guilty conscience.” Momma Oaks had explained the idea to me a while back, and once she did, I understood the bad feelings I had regarding the blind brat and certain things I’d done to earn my rank as a Huntress down below.

“Maybe,” he said, sounding unsure.

So I ran through the explanation I’d received from my mother, and he nodded. “It wasn’t just her, either. We stole a few other girls, but none of them were treated so bad … because they came from other gangs, and they understood our way of life.”

“So they didn’t fight.”

I hurt for my friend, thinking about how she must feel. Maybe she hadn’t wanted the two brats they’d forced on her, but she couldn’t feel good about losing them, either. While I’d pondered, Morrow had gotten his own staff and was demonstrating the forms. Patient and skilled, he’d teach her without making her feel like she wasn’t good enough. Part of me wished I’d known an instructor like him instead of the Hunters who screamed at us down below, telling us we’d never be fast enough or strong enough—that our best would always be pathetic. It made you strong, I told myself, but all the same, I wasn’t sad that Silk’s voice had gone quiet.

“No,” he said, still standing expectant.

Belatedly, I went back to Stalker’s original question. “No. There’s nothing you can do. She has to live with it and so do you. Some things can’t be made right … but it’s good that you want to.”

“I might be a better person now,” he said with a sigh, “but I’m not happier.”

If his feelings hadn’t lain between us like a spike-filled trap, I would’ve hugged him. But things could never be so simple between us. Now that I understood what he wanted of me and I knew I’d never offer it, I couldn’t cuddle him like he was a brat in need of solace. He’d take it as encouragement and the cycle would start all over again. Maybe someday, like he’d said, we could be friends without all the complications. I’d hated the savage I met in the ruins but Stalker wasn’t that boy anymore, just as I wasn’t a pure Huntress. The world was a big place, full of wonders, and it had taught us both so many things. For his sake, I wished so many lessons hadn’t been hard, sad ones.

“I am. Mostly.” I was also panicked and exhilarated by turns.

“One thing I’ve wondered…”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Why does it have to be you?”

I wasn’t sure what he meant … and I said so.

“You’re out here when you could be safe in Soldier’s Pond or Gaspard, even, if you hadn’t nearly started a riot. At any point, you could lay your weapons down. Nobody’s ordering you to fight anymore. So why? You seem so committed to making things better. And I don’t understand it.”

The answer seemed obvious. “People go about their lives, trying to be small, hoping the Freaks will kill someone else, attack another town. How long does avoidance work until the whole world is drowning in blood? Somebody has to draw the line. And if not me, who?”

It was a compulsion, I supposed. The idea of sitting idle while everything burned? I just couldn’t do it. It would end me to do nothing when I could fight. Maybe I wasn’t meant for a peaceful life, and I could accept that. My only regret would be if I didn’t manage to improve the world a little before I went.

Stalker studied me with a mixture of emotions I couldn’t interpret. “We would’ve owned the ruins, you and me.”

I didn’t dispute his assessment. In another life, I might’ve been queen of the gangs, as he’d envisioned, but never in one where I knew Fade. That, too, was an immutable truth.

It was my turn to ask, “Why do you think there were no Freaks in your part of Gotham?”

“I wondered that. You said they were down below with you, as long as you can remember. Maybe they started there. People died of sickness Topside in our territory, but we never ran across any Muties, not like we saw in other ruins on the way north.”

“So you think the mutations happened belowground, and they were too dumb and weak to find their way out, at first?”

He nodded. “Maybe. As they got smarter, they located the exits.”

A sudden, chilling thought occurred to me. “Then that means the Freaks now swarming Gotham came from the enclaves, however long ago.”

Stalker looked thoughtful. “You told us Wilson said the monsters were born of weapons they created in the old world. It was a disease first, and the … vaccine made it worse?”

I nodded.

“Well, we don’t know how sickness spreads. So maybe people went underground to hide, not knowing they already had it.”

“It makes sense,” I admitted.

That was scary and awful. I hated the idea that diseases could hide in your body and you’d seem perfectly healthy while giving the illness to friends and family. I preferred enemies you could fight. At least the old world, with its hidden perils, was long lost.

And these days, the monsters came with claws and fangs, not in tins and bottles.

Triumph

Eventually the Freaks grew more cunning about their attacks. They came while we slept and in great