With one eye clamped shut, and the other dazzled by the flashlight, I charge at the shooter and swing.
Another body slams into my middle and knocks me to the ground. I hit the back of my head on a rock, and the ax slips from my fingers. My last thought as the butt of a gun presses into my eye socket is of Vitelotte. Despite everything she has said about owing my family, I can’t fault her for running.
The girl holding the gun slams her weight onto my ribs. I can’t breathe, I can’t shift her weight. My fingers grope around for the ax I dropped, but they close around a rock the size of my fist. I clench my teeth and aim for her face, but she jerks back.
She grins, her white teeth glowing in the light. “Thank you for making this so easy—”
Choking sounds cut off her words, and her weight rolls partway off my chest. Shoving her struggling body aside, I scramble to my feet and away from her and Vitelotte.
“Tulip,” screams the girl holding the computer tablet.
With one eye still watering from the pellet, I squint around the clearing in the direction of the other girl. She has stepped out of the light, and I can barely see her with the camouflage. She shoots blindly in the semi-darkness, and I stay low and out of the range of her pellets. A light flashes from her tablet computer, and I reach for my belt and unhook the gas-lighter.
Sending Vitelotte a silent word of thanks, I sneak through the cover of darkness and stand at the computer girl’s side. Each shot of her gun lights the dark with tiny sparks of light, telling me exactly where to aim the gas-lighter. That’s when I remember her name… Minnie.
A second later, the sleeve of her jumpsuit catches fire. Minnie screams and thrashes and drops her gun. I dive to the ground, retrieve the weapon, and point it at the struggling girl. Two shots later, she trips over something on the ground and falls onto her back. I leave her whimpering and rolling in the dirt.
“Zea-Mays?” Vitelotte shines the flashlight around the clearing and stops when it illuminates my face. “Are you hurt?”
The light stings my good eye, and I squint. “I’ll live.”
She dips the beam. “What did you do to her?”
Shame ripples through my insides at having set a girl alight. Again. “The gas-lighter.”
“Oh.”
By now, Minnie’s screams turn to whimpers, and I chew my bottom lip. Vitelotte probably thinks I went too far with the fire. It was a similar action that turned the girls against me on the armored vehicle, and the more I think about it, the more I wonder if she wasn’t so scared last night but disgusted.
With the threat of death no longer hanging over me, I could have found a less violent way to disable the other attacker, but I let rage cloud my senses, and now she’s burned.
Vitelotte points the flashlight in Minnie’s face. “Where are your teammates?”
The girl curls into a ball and cries.
“She’s never going to answer,” says Vitelotte. “We may have to carry out the threat you made with the ax.”
My gaze drops to the metal glinting on the ground inches away from Vitelotte’s feet. This is a great bluff.
Minnie raises her head. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Vitelotte walks a wide perimeter around the girl and presses the flashlight into my hands. “Hold this.”
I shine it into Minnie’s eyes, expecting Vitelotte to menace the girl with the ax. Instead, she places the ax on her belt and walks to the other Guardian girl who lies unconscious by a log. I side-step, twist the flashlight’s lens so it can cast a wider beam, and it illuminates the entire clearing.
Minnie sits up looking like she wants to bolt. I point the gas-lighter at her face and growl at her to stay down. She flinches and scoots back toward the trees.
Vitelotte drags the unconscious girl to Minnie and unzips the girl’s jumpsuit.
“Tulip,” Minnie claps both hands to her cheeks and screams.
I walk to the side to see what’s so shocking about the unconscious girl. I can’t see her features, except to know that they’re slack, but the light reflects the liquid pouring from a gash across her neck.
A cold fist of shock hits me in the gut. The lighter slips from my fingers and clatters onto a rock.
Vitelotte cut the girl’s neck with the chainsaw. She used it as a garrote to pull her off my chest and then twisted it to rupture her veins. What else can explain all that blood?
My breath comes in shallow pants, and the sensation of crawling centipedes covers my skin. There’s no way this girl—I’m sure Minnie shouted out the name Tulip—there’s no way Tulip could survive a wound like this so far from civilization.
Bile rises to the back of my throat, choking off my words. I sway on my feet and fight off the urge to scream. I’ve seen a border guard pummel a man’s head with a rifle until it split, a girl executed with an ear cuff, and another girl blown into pieces, but those were atrocities executed by other Echelons.
This is the first time I’ve seen a Harvester act so ruthlessly.
“Now.” Vitelotte points the ax at Minnie’s throat. “Who sent you to attack my friend?”
The girl spews out a stream of pleas and jumbled sentences. Somewhere within the incoherent mess, she says she’s working with Ingrid Strab.
My lips press together in a firm line, and I exhale a frustrated breath. The revelation is no surprise, but with the queen’s threats, one more person wanting me dead is exhausting.
The worst part is that when Minnie returns to the palace, she’ll probably tell everyone that I murdered Tulip just so I can get executed to fulfill her bargain with Ingrid. I’m also sure Queen Damascena will then
