I watched the shadows of the trees swirl over the wooden walls. The moonlight gently rocked the leaves, casting dark shapes that lazily swam around the room. My breath steadily slipped out of my lips, silently pushed by my sinking chest.
Cal was fast asleep. Air silently filtered through his half-open mouth, while his body lay limply on the old mattress he was slumbering on. His limbs occasionally twitched in response to a dream, like a resting dog.
Icarus was awake like me. He lay with his back on the bed and his front open to the air. I could see the ghostly light pour in between the mountains of his face, flowing around his open eyes and his closed mouth.
We'd found this place a few hours ago. An abandoned or maybe just disused campground with cabins replaced by huge elevated structures, doubling as a room and a cover for the area below. The wooden rails and steps looked fairly decayed, but we'd deemed the place habitable, at least for tonight. The three of us had nestled into the same room; an upright wooden hexagon, with the two large faces made from sheets of netting. The slanted walls were lined with bunk beds, not particularly clean, yet acceptable.
We'd planned to just hole up there and plan, yet as soon as we lay down, the mood shifted. It was getting late, and all three of us were mentally exhausted from the day's fight. Cal was the first to submit to his fatigue, informing Icarus and I that it would be useless to talk until morning. At first I'd been slightly irritated at his laziness, but when I saw his form relax I suddenly began craving the same.
Our supplies were in the corner. Both of Cal and I's lethal guns, a small mound of food, a few empty cans, and my bullet making kit. The empty shells and containers of homemade tranquilizer were littered around the pile, with a stack of completed rounds leaning against a packet of chips. I'd been restocking our ammunition supply since we arrived here, using shoplifted chemicals, equipment, and bullet casings. I could still remember the shocked faces of each of the store owners when I casually announced my intention not to pay, showed them my gun, and walked out with the merchandise under my arm, alarms blaring in my ears.
I flicked my gaze toward Icarus again, and realized that he had turned to face me, his body relaxed but eyes bright.
"I want to talk to you about your visions." He wasn't exactly whispering, but his voice was soft and quiet. The words seemed to take a long time to reach my ears, tiptoeing across the silence.
"Okay."
"I'm not saying I don't believe you have them. You've made too many assumptions and guesses to be faking." I couldn't see his lips, and it seemed as if his voice was emanating straight from his eyes. "But what are they?"
"I don't know. I've never known."
"But aren't you curious? They could be hallucinations. You could have some sort of schizophrenia."
"I don't think I do."
"Then what are they? Magic isn't real, so there must be some legitimate explanation."
My mind chewed on his words. What were they? Was I sane? Why hadn't I tried to figure it out? They couldn't really be something harmful. I'd made it this far without any defects. I'd never had any significant mental health problems. If anything, the ability had been a huge asset. A miracle, defying science or reason. But those didn't exist.
I found an answer. "I don't really care right now. I can't really care right now. I'm a serial killer, a fugitive from the law, and a target of a huge criminal organization. I can't just walk into a hospital and ask for meds. I doubt they could ever diagnose it."
Icarus remained perfectly still, yet his voice became more urging. "Lena, you think you can see the future. You think you can read minds. You think you can watch people in different rooms do things while they're doing them. I'm not saying you can't, but that's a pretty huge thing. You didn't start it when you started all this, so why didn't you do anything about it when you were in college, or a kid?"
"I-I guess because I used it to cheat on shit. If I didn't think it would destroy my genius status, I probably would have gotten some psychiatrist."
"What about your parents?"
For the first time in years, I cast my thoughts back to the calm, average couple living back in Michigan. I loved them, of course, but I'd been separated from them when I went to college, and then again when I became a serial killer.
"They...accepted it. They called it an overactive imagination, then me making guesses and telling stories as I got older. When I started acing the tests and qualified as a genius, they were so relieved. They thought that I'd been making deductions and passing it off as magic to try and impress them. I don't think they wanted to consider what it might really be."
"Have you contacted them?"
"No. Of fucking course not. I've got people out for my blood, I can't risk wrapping them up into it. They've probably already had to move, or at least change their numbers." I felt my tear tracts bulge as I imagined what they thought of me. At the very least, they'd hate me for disappearing for years, at the worst they'd hold me accountable for what I'd done.
Why the hell shouldn't they? I'd killed dozens of people. Why shouldn't I be held accountable for that? I was infamous. People would know them as the parents of Lena ______, nothing else.
Sometimes when nothing was happening, the world seemed to slow down. And the past started to catch up. This was one of those times.
The faces of my victims flashed behind my eyeballs. Then they turned into the faces of my parents, proud of their only daughter. I thought of what my parents must have thought when I killed Anderson, when I threw away my entire life, everything they'd given me. What they'd thought when I broke Cal out of prison. What they thought when they understood I was never coming home again.
Icarus was silent, sensing my mood. He must have realized that he'd hit a nerve. His face was frozen now, the white light congealing in pools on his skin.
"I'm going to try and sleep." I told him, my head still whirring with thoughts. I rolled over, my eyes still staring into the darkness. I tried to relax my body, but every muscle was drawn tight. I lay, trying to lose my mind into my subconscious. But instead of sleep, a vision emerged and swallowed me whole.
Dirt. A flat plain of earth. Wet. Grass poking out of the ground like green fangs. A liquid, thin and ghostly, slipping between the blades. The hundreds of dark snakes moving forward. The cold air lifting the odor into the sky.
Echo standing behind the flood. Men creeping around her, silently pouring out more fuel. The fluid serpents merging into a single stream, flowing in one unanimous direction. The sniper's eyes tracing their path, winding away into the night.
The men stopping. The empty tanks, gently placed into the volatile flood. The group watching as the river stagnates into a swamp, drowning the grass under it's dark water.
A girl walking up next to Echo. Darkness parting around blonde hair. Young eyes washing over the chemical marsh, inspecting it with a professional's gaze.
"You sure this is worth it?" Sound pouring out from quiet lips.
Dark eyes watching her.
"It would be easier to just put a bullet in their heads while they sleep. You could even tie them up and burn them later. This is too risky."
A wave of silence washing over the spark of noise. The air, stifled and still.
"Oh fuck. You're scared of her."
I burst out of my mind. My body was suddenly caught up in a storm of panic. The bed creaked as I hurriedly got up, my limbs falling over each other in a frenzy. Icarus sat up, watching me with a puzzled expression. Cal remained laying down, but his eyes snapped open.
"She's there!" I managed to form words with my tired lips and whirling mind. Another vision was seeping in under my skull, but I fought it off.
"Oh, damn." Icarus leapt off his bunk and crouched as he hit the wooden floor, while Cal rolled out of his bed and lunged for the pile of weapons. I moved to join their scramble to action, but the vision I was holding back slipped past my fingers.
Noise flowing out of the elevated wooden shelter, skimming across the kerosene pond, and crawling into the ears of the hunters. Echo nodding at her accomplice. Red chemicals twisting together and igniting. Wood smoldering. A single match drifting through the cool air, hungrily charging at the stagnant fuel.
Fire. Heat blasting into the sky. Wet grass suddenly drying. Red, yellow, and blue. Ground consumed by a ravenous inferno. The world, stirred into a swirling mass of rage and pain. Every insect disintegrating, their lives snuffed out by the beast.
I clawed my way back to reality, in time to see the wall of flames burst to life in front of the mosquito netting. The heat poured in through the millions of holes, filling the room like water.
All three of us staggered backwards, our hands thrown up to try and shield our eyes from the burning air. Smoke was already congealing on the ceiling. Cal grabbed his guns and threw me mine. Icarus stared in horror at the embers climbing like ants up the netting.
It was all around us. The kerosene had pooled completely around the supports, and the flames were twisting up them, trapping us on a collapsing island in the middle of a sea of fire.
We had to escape, or we'd be dead within minutes. If the smoke and heat didn't kill us, dropping into the inferno would.
The screen walls became solid sheets of flames. Melting air built up around me, forcing itself into my nostrils and eyes. My skin writhed in pain and released gallons of sweat, desperately hoping the salty rivulets could wash away the heat.
"Icarus!" I yelled through the chaos, "Cut the screen!"
His wings slid off his shoulders and blurred into action. The burning grid collapsed like a dead animal, leaving a square of blackness; a single window to freedom. I thought I could feel a slight drop in temperature as the heat was sucked out into the night.
I saw a ring of men standing around the outside of the flaming pool. The firelight bounced off their rigid forms, illuminating their expressionless faces. As I watched, one raised a gun. For a second, I saw a tiny red bead focusing, then a gunshot blasted through the air.
"Fuck!"
Icarus stumbled with the impact, then collapsed. Blood burst free from his skin and splashed to the floor. I ran towards him, but Cal was there faster. Two hands pressed down over a crimson tear the size of a quarter in Icarus's shoulder. More blood squeezed between Cal's hands and flowed away, bubbling in the heat.
"He's fine!" Cal kept his hands on the wound, but used his legs to start to push Icarus away from the opening. I helped, and together we dragged him to the center of our burning prison.
"I am not fine!" Icarus tried to sit up and was met by Cal pushing him back down. His eyes found the blood welling up from the gunshot. "I've been shot!"
"She didn't go for an organ." Cal informed me as he eyeballed the situation. "She went straight for muscle."
"Oh, fucking great! Who needs muscle?" Icarus stopped struggling and lay back, his face full of pain and irritation.
The walls were beginning to crumble. I could see the light of flames on the roof. They must have crawled up the carpet of moss and vines growing on the side of the treehouse. The floor tilted slightly as one of the supports half-crumpled.
"Why didn't she just kill him?" I wondered.
"Why didn't she just kill us?" Cal shot back. "This is inefficient as hell. Why would she bother burning us alive when she could just blow us up in our sleep? Or shoot us?"
"I bet she's pissed." Icarus theorized, still watching his blood creep between Cal's fingers. "We humiliated her. We broke a shit ton of her stuff, and knocked out a bunch of her guys. We've made a mess of this, so she's using it as a chance to make an example. It's going to be publicized anyway."
"Burning us alive is a pretty long way from sniping." Cal pointed out. He ripped one of this sleeves off and looped it under Icarus's shoulder. As soon as his hand left the wound, the blood sprang forth in a huge pulse.
"There's someone else there." I told them. "A girl, younger. She lit the fire."
"Well we can kill her later." Icarus said, "What's the plan now?"
"Lena do something." Cal tied the first makeshift bandage and then tore off his other sleeve. The fabric was quickly saturated, but it slowed the blood's escape.
I tried to think. Getting out of the structure would be easy enough, just cut a hole or wait for an opening, but the problem was the fire at the bottom. If we landed in it, we'd collapse and die. If we tried to jump over it, we'd either fail or break out ankles.
"Take as much time as you want." Icarus mumbled from the floor. Cal finished the second bandage and stood, trying to pick Icarus up with him.
"Okay, I've got it." I was only half confident, but it was the best shot we had. I opened my mouth to explain my plan, but then the first support fully snapped.
The wooden building tipped. The wood warped, snapped, and popped. The beams broke like toothpicks and melted like ice. We staggered as the air was filled with a swarm of flying embers, knocked loose by the impact. They floated like stars, paired with huge snowflakes of ash.
"Shit! Just go!" I pushed past Cal and Icarus and lunged for the solid wall against which the pair had been sleeping. I climbed over the top bunk and slammed my shoulder against the largest sheet of flat wood. More sparks took flight, drowning me in heat and light.
Cal followed, crashing into the wall after me. The place I'd chosen was the biggest stretch of unburnt wood left, a five foot square island. With our combined impacts, the charcoal at the edges broke, letting the entire wall collapse outwards.
Miraculously, it stayed in one piece. The wall fell like a drawbridge, with Cal, Icarus, and I clinging to it like a life raft. The force rippled through the entire structure, crunching the remaining supports and toppling the building behind us. The walls and floor ground together in midair, before being completely swallowed by the blaze. Our wall slammed into the flaming ground.
The fire was flattened beneath us, but quickly began to crawl back at the edges of the wood. I looked up and saw our attackers watching us in disbelief. I could discern the forms as human, but couldn't pick out Echo or her accomplice.
Cal was the first to move. He lashed out with his pistol, firing rounds into two of the figures. Bullets came in reply, but they spun over his head as he leapt off the raft and landed among the safe ground. The nearest mercenary was shot point blank in the gut, poison exploding under his skin.
Icarus's wings spread once again, the little jets igniting and flinging him forward. His golden form disappeared into the darkness, blood still trailing from his wound.
I jumped off the platform as the fire fully enveloped it. My gun blazed into action, blasting down whichever figures were closer. I landed and immediately began sprinting. I didn't want to spend the time surveying the scene. Echo could take aim and fire in the time it took for my bullet to reach her head.
The shadowy trees at the edge of the clearing enveloped me. The firelight disappeared behind me and left me with the moonlight. Cal and Icarus had vanished. I could feel the familiar feeling of my heart trying to throw itself out of my mouth in panic. My lungs screamed with it, begging my legs to stop, but they kept running.
I could hear gunshots behind me. The bullets poured through the trees, twisting through gaps or thudding into wood. Splinters, dirt, and metal filled the air around me. But I couldn't hear the distinctive crash of Echo's rifle. She was waiting patiently, trying to get a good angle. If she fired, it would be a killshot.
The thought spurred me on like a cattle prod. I zigzagged through the woods, trying to throw off the imaginary laser sight burning into my back. My instincts took over, and I watched myself leap over roots and rocks, slip between bushes, and duck branches. Palmetto fronds lunged at me with their flat green fingers. The dark network of the treetops looked like a flock of birds racing overhead. The bullet hail stopped, leaving me to listen to the sound of my own thundering heartbeat and haggard breathing.
The forest was cut off abruptly by a dilapidated fence, sagging with moss. Beyond it lay a field full of waist high grass. The blades stretched toward the sky like bayonets.
I hurdled the fence in one move, then dove into the field. The dark green and yellow mess swallowed me, weaving a thick blanket that blocked out the sun. I was left sprawled on my stomach with my skin pressing into the cold dirt. I held my breath and listened to the still air. The grass rustled gently in the light breeze, but I couldn't hear anything else.
I closed my eyes and waited for a vision to come.
Sounds of running and panting swarming through the woods. Footfalls echoing everywhere, pattering like raindrops. I see men prowling through the trees, their thoughts and feelings illuminating their forms like signal flares. I zero in on one, scanning through his mind. Excitement, power, and thirst. Purpose and eagerness in his movements. It's not Cal or Icarus.
A rush of blood spilling from split skin. The vision shifts, and I see Icarus. Weak legs stumbling through underbrush, his wings igniting every few steps to hurl him farther onward. His nerves sparking with pain. The trees behind him, cold and empty. His movements and breathing, an island of noise in a sea of quiet.
More blood, but this time from a body slammed with lead and tainted with poison. The crash of a falling man, punctuated by single pistol shots. Cal, standing still, his gun drawn. Another man raising his weapon, but being cut down before he could fire. Minds snuffed out like candles.
Footsteps. Body heat. Legs halting. Eyes straining to pick out a form tucked away in a nest of grass.
The vision shattered. I opened my eyes, trying to keep my body perfectly still. I could hear movement behind me, from the way I'd come. They'd found me.
Voices washed through the grass and found my ears. I couldn't discern words, but understood the tone. They knew I was in here. I twisted slightly, making the nearest grass blades quiver. I found a tiny gap in the grass, and stared through it. Several sets of feet were planted at the edge of my hiding place, waiting while their owners talked.
Then they started moving again. I heard the footsteps pour around the field, spreading out. They were encircling me. I could imagine them, standing with their guns pointed into the grass, vigilantly searching for movement. If I stood up, or even moved, I'd be spotted. I was trapped.
Echo was definitely there. I couldn't tell her feet apart from her mercenaries', but there was nobody else they'd turn to for orders. Her infrared scope was panning over the field. Unless the grass was good enough insulation, I'd be spotted. Any second now, a bullet could come blasting into my head.
But it didn't. I stayed still, my breath bulging in my lungs. I could still hear slight movement, but was sure they weren't leaving. Cal and Icarus were scattered into the woods, Cal fighting and Icarus running for his life. They could already be dead. I had to get out of this on my own.
Then the silence exploded. The darkness was blasted away and replaced by a scarlet and orange glare. The sound of crackling and burning swarmed through the air. Heat poured through the field like a flood. Grass screamed and died, consumed by the flames. Smoke began to billow into the sky.
Shit.
I was positioned in more or less the center of the field, which looked to be around a hundred square feet. The fire had began on one edge, but was quickly spreading. I had minutes left before I either was forced to run or burned alive. The moment I moved, I'd be shot dead.
I watched the fire crawl closer and closer, the air rippling as though it was trying to flee. I wondered what it would feel like to die like this. It would take a while. I should probably call it at some point and go out via bullet.
Cal running. His mind, saturated with adrenaline. Images of panic, floating out of him as he sprints through the trees. The night slowly thinning as the glow of a hazy light appears in the distance.
My terrified brain shredded the visions as they came, forcing me to stay in the present. The fire had jumped several feet in the time my eyes had been closed, and the grass around me began waving in the hot air currents. The crackling roared in my ears, and the heat scalded my skin. I couldn't keep hiding any longer.
I used the noise and movement as a cover to begin crawling away. Using my elbows and knees, I moved as quickly as I could through the grass, but I quickly reached the edge of a cooler patch, where no grass was shifting. If I kept going, I'd be seen. I had to stay close to the flames.
I was completely used to panicking. I lived most of my life like it, and even though the feeling never became numb, it didn't feel as unpleasant as it would to a normal person. Right then, I was just pissed that I'd have to drag this out. Echo must have really held a grudge from our highway skirmish to want to burn me this badly. Or maybe it was the other girl, the one who lit the match.
A streetlight looming over a road. The orange light pooling in between the grains of the asphalt. Eight wheels, weighed down by hundreds of pounds of black metal. The engines of the two vehicles still humming, with two men sitting in each, listening to gunshots echo from the woods.
A man staring down his sights, aiming at a figure dashing through the underbrush. A burst of fire. The metal slicing through the air, but zipping past their target. The casings landing in the dirt. Cal still running.
I pulled myself out voluntarily, and as soon as I returned to my body, my skin began screaming. The heat was swirling all around me, turning the air itself into flames. I frantically hurled myself away from the inferno. My limbs were beginning to ache, but I kept thinking, trying to find a solution.
The blaze had eaten away half of the grass, and more fire had been spawned on the far edge. I could see the legs of my hunters slowly moving closer as my cover shrank. Soon, they'd spot me. Or they'd be able to just open fire.
Cal leaping out of the green and black and into the orange and gray. A pair of new guns tilting towards him. Two shots. A bullet clanging off of metal and ricocheting into a seat. Another shot finding its mark and bursting into its victim's blood. The remaining weapon firing. Cal's feet leaving the ground as he dives behind the now vacant suv. The glass in the windows shattering as the lone guard tries desperately to hit him.