hello, clancy

"I'm gonna make it."

Josh had believed him. "See you when this is all over."

Clancy nodded and turned away, vanishing into the mess of neon and fire and banditos and the glorious gone. Josh had kept on fighting, holding the flaming torch high to light the battlefield.

"He'll be fine," Jenna said. Josh turned to face her; he hadn't noticed she'd been standing there. It made sense, she'd want to say goodbye to him too.

"Yeah. Yeah, of course." Josh forced his mouth into a smile. 

Jenna grinned back at him. "He's escaped from Dema twice already, he can get through anything."

Not trusting himself to speak, Josh just nodded and turned his eyes back to the battle. A black-clad figure was climbing the wall surrounding Dema, and if Josh squinted, he could make out red shoulders.

Is that him? Josh's stomach flipped; he'd always hated heights and he hated to see Clancy climbing, with only his hands to keep him from slipping and falling and breaking his neck--

No.

That wasn't going to happen. Clancy was smart, he wouldn't do something like that. He'd be okay, and he'd come back and fight right next to Josh.

Just like when he'd escaped from Dema the first time, and when he'd washed up on the shores of Voldsøy. It had been scary then, too, but it had turned out all right in the end.

Josh took a shaky breath, using the torch to fend off a neon-carrying corpse, the flesh rotting away from the face and the eyes as yellow as the tape across his chest. The stink of death rolled across the battlefield, and Josh hoped it was only from the seized warriors.

But he knew it wasn't.

We'll win but not everyone will get out.

That's what Clancy had said the first time he'd escaped, in one of the songs that he'd put together in his short time at the bandito camp.

Something cold shattered on the back of Josh's neck and he spun around, hitting another one of the glorious gone in the face with the torch, which was beginning to sputter out with all the times he'd used it as a weapon. The shattered glass fell onto the ground, the neon gone from it. Josh couldn't waste his focus on Clancy. After all, there was nothing he could do now.

I'm past the point of no return.

Another song Clancy had written, right before the battle. "If I die out there," Clancy had asked Josh, "play this at my funeral."

But Josh wasn't going to play it at Clancy's funeral, because Clancy wasn't going to be dead.

As long as he kept fighting, everything would be okay. He couldn't help but glance once more at the silhouette of Dema, where he could only assume Clancy was already climbing--or about to climb--the looming stone towers.

Everything was going to be okay, Josh reassured himself as he felt cold, rotting hands gripping his wrists with superhuman force.

Everything was going to be fine.