--XLI--
"He said," Connor hesitated, before saying, "that they recognize you."
MONDAY
8:54 AM
Northwest of Windcreek
I pointed at my chest, a look of confusion on my face, and then pointed at Kaylee.
Connor gave me a look.
"You, you dummy!"
"Me?" I said.
"Yes, you!"
I felt Kaylee wrapping something rough but not unpleasant over and around the wound. Probably stielvine, also known as healervine or settlevine to us- which was the magical mutation of a plant we discovered she could create from our days back at the experiment together; slightly rough leaflike canvas that worked as bandages, and allowed cuts or bruises to heal faster than wounds usually do, if covered correctly under its chloroplasts.
And I remember thinking:
How many things were going to not make sense that day?
"Okay?" I said like a question- a question that probably wasn't going to have any answers to it, either- "What do we do about it?"
The Talon man, his eyes a shade of what looked like pink now, continued his little soliloquy- or should I say continued the dialogue- while I tested the weight on my leg, subtly shifting weight from one foot to the other, and back and forth, and back again.
"Chris."
"Yes, Meadows."
"He said you look like someone who tested on them, some years ago. He'll leave you alone, and the rest of his family will, too. But not the entire murder of crows."
"Talon," I corrected him. Because whatever they were, they weren't crows.
And... tested on them?
"Can you tell him that two of the three people in front of him are Nightingale survivors? Can you tell him that?" I said, a small degree of anger starting to flare up inside of me. "Because there's no need for any experiment survivors, to be warring with fellow survivors, in my opinion."
Kaylee snorted beside me.
"As if that wasn't obvious," she uttered.
"Do I look like the kind to run an experiment?" I hissed.
I was ready to puke- and then I actually did, whatever French toast was in my stomach spilling like projectile water fountain rays of bile and sugar and electrolytes onto the ground next to me, away from me and Kaylee and Connor.
"Ugh," I moaned. "Ugh. Ugh, so gross."
Small yellow flowers and weeds grew where I puked and absorbed the mess until it disappeared entirely.
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Anyway.
"Me?" I said. "Test on them, run an experiment."
To say I was indignant was probably an understatement.
The Talon man turned to leave, without taking the blade of his axe.
"Hey!" I yelled. "HEY!"
The Talon man turned to look, and I pointed at the axe.
He walked over, picked it up, made some kind of eye contact with me, and then flew away. About a dozen or so of the other Talon did the same.
The snow had lightened somewhat, the sky turning subtly from emerald and blue to something that resembled a light lilac. Cute. But I didn't know if the fighting was over.
Spoiler alert: It wasn't.
I watched the dark purple wings become smaller, and eventually fade into the dull lilac of the cloudy Overwoods sky. Some of the clouds were still green or turquoise. Overcast, barely a ray of sunlight.
"Connor," I said.
"What?"
"I know he told you more," I quipped. "Other things."
"Yeah," he said. "But we'll talk about that later."
Fair enough.
"Do you really want to know?" remarked Kaylee. "I wouldn't!"
Life in the Overwoods, at its finest. Experiment survivors' lives at their best.
"No," I responded. "I don't want to know. But the information might be useful."
"JOINING THE PARTY!" bellowed a loud and somewhat obnoxious Vicinity Four accented voice, a hundred yards to our right- Sam, vaulting over a broken drill rig and zooming past it and right to us, past the abandoned equipment and the blood and the trees and the wreckage. The minute she materialized in front of us, she offered me a set of small, black blades- my throwing knives.
"I'm not killing them," I said.
"Fine," she said with a shrug. "I will."
A caw- or a squawk, I didn't know which, louder than even Sam's voice- rang out from the middle of the not-exactly-depleted horde.
An unkindness of ravens- maddened, malevolent, and deranged ravens- the remaining Talon either charged at us or took to the air, wings and feathers of dark purple or black or occasionally red fluttering furiously in the air toward us.
"Tango Echo Delta," grumbled Kaylee, fitting five different arrowvines into the string of her ironwood bow.
"Uh huh," I agreed.
"No problem by me!" trilled Sam, putting my knives into a leather holder and then stuffing it into my back jeans pocket for me without my request.
Tango Echo Delta was one of many commands Kaylee made herself as she secretly worked in the Union of Stars, often with me.
As Connor disappeared in front of our eyes, and Sam popped a pill, swallowing it dry- something she did a lot; something I had learned to do back in Nightingale and therefore could never imagine myself doing again- and then zoomed ahead of us to throw her fists at the first Talon she could come into contact with, wet snow still on the bandages on her shoulder, and as Kaylee slowly adjusted herself on one knee, aiming up at the airborne; the Talon now swooping over us- movement caught my eye.
I felt some degree of alarm for only a few moments, because I understood immediately.
Several hundred feet to our left and behind us- coming in fast. Coming in hot.
Literally hot.
Seemingly at first a flash of white- and then, a blazing, burning flash of white. I smiled when I saw Happy just riding on top of him, mini-apples in his paws just waiting to be consumed. There, running through the trees, leaping through the foliage to get to me. Burning the empty air in front of him in apparent excitement. Jupiter Two.
"Thank God," I uttered, shaking my head, feeling both disbelief and recognition. And then, indebtedness; gratitude. "I was starving."
One of the Talon hit the ground hard right next to me and squawked- a female by the looks of her, I guessed- her face and arms and wings covered in tangleweed. Dark purple feathers drifted with the snow. I stepped back to politely allow her the space to thrash around.
As I flexed the fingers in both my hands- and adjusted the wet cotton bandages on the left one- I knew someone was going to be visiting the forests around V8 for miracle apples soon. I adjusted my dirty, bloody green jacket, pulling it up, tucked in my bloody red shirt, reached down to straighten by blood-soaked black jeans- and barely whispered the words; sent them to him from miles and miles away. "Thanks, Ember."
--