Pajari says nothing. Bureau shakes his head.
“Then we need to search for Wasp weapons,” Marija says.
Bureau laughs, a sound of desperation and dark humor.
“And the Wasps that are holding them? Give it up, Marija… we’re dead.”
“Then lay down and die for all I care,” she says. “I’m going to live.” She’s trying to sound angry, but she sounds scared, just like everyone else.
Bureau gestures to the jungle that burns around them. The light of the flames plays off tears on his face, tears that cut lines through the dirt and grime clinging to his skin.
“And go where?” He snarls, frustration welling up, overtaking him. “Em abandoned us! We’re going to die here. The Wasps are going to kill us!”
Marija slings her Wasp rifle. Two short steps take her to Bureau. He’s taller than she is, but she’s thicker, stronger. She grabs the shoulders of his black coveralls, clutches the fabric, gives the boy a solid shake.
“Shut up,” she says. “Just shut up.”
Bureau doesn’t try to push her away; instead he puts his arms around her. The move surprises Marija—Bureau holds her tight, his body shaking with sobs.
Vanev doesn’t know what Marija will do. The girl has killed so many Wasps in the last few hours that he’s lost count. She killed some with her rifle, some with the folding scythe she carries in a hip holster. One she killed with her bare hands, strangling the alien’s thin neck until it stopped kicking, stopped struggling, stopped moving.
Without Marija, Vanev and the others wouldn’t have survived this long.
“Em didn’t wait for us,” Pajari says, as if the horrible truth is finally hitting home. She has barely enough strength to form words. “She… she left us.”
Vanev coughs again, winces at the pain. The smoke grows thicker, the heat more intense. The entire jungle is ablaze, a chasm of fire separating the Birthday Children from their home.
But Uchmal isn’t their home anymore.
Now it belongs to the Wasps.
The last of Pajari’s energy drains away. She sags to her back, stares up at the darkening sky, her bloody hand still covering her ugly wound.
“They’re gone,” she says. “Why did they leave us? We fought. We fought hard.”
Vanev stares at her, unable to hold back his disgust. Why did they leave us? Just as valid a question as Why didn’t we leave you?
At the time, no one had thought to do so. Pajari was one of them. Birthday Children didn’t leave their own behind. They’d scooped her up and continued on, continued fighting.
If Pajari hadn’t been wounded, though, if they hadn’t carried her, they would have moved much faster, maybe missed the Wasp stragglers, maybe gotten past the city walls before the fire spread.
Maybe they would have reached the shuttle in time.
Trying to save Pajari had condemned three others to death.
“They had to leave us,” Marija says. “The city has fallen. They had to leave or they all would have died.”
She still holds Bureau in her arms, perhaps not knowing what else to do with him. His sobs grow louder. Loud enough to draw in the Wasps that must still be out there, searching?
Still out there, hunting.
“Vanev,” Pajari says, her words a whisper. “Can you signal Em? Tell her where we are so they can come back for us?”
Bureau’s cries lower to a sniffle; he looks at Vanev, as does Marija. The three of them want an answer. They want hope.
Vanev has none to give.
“There is no way to contact the shuttle,” he says, hearing a hollowness in his own voice.
Marija gently pushes Bureau away. She unslings her captured enemy rifle, holds the big weapon in her hands, stares at Vanev.
“Unacceptable,” she says. “Think of something. Fast.”
Vanev feels lost.
They don’t understand—Em will not come back for them. Em can’t come back for them.
For a time, before they detected the incoming alien ships, Vanev studied science with the Gears. Just as Circle-Stars were engineered for war, Gears were engineered to know science. Vanev, an Empty, had studied with them, trying to be something he was not, something other than a servant. He had learned about stars, orbits, spaceships… so many things. Not that any of his knowledge mattered now—he would die here, dirty and bloody and sweaty and scared.
The only devices that might be able to contact the shuttle were inside Uchmal’s walls, inside a city now controlled by thousands of Wasp soldiers.
Vanev can no longer hear the rockets. The last echoes have died away, drowned out by the roar of the orange demon that is devouring the jungle.
Pajari coughs, groans in pain. Bureau stands there, shaking. Marija glares, still waiting for an answer.
“You don’t understand,” Vanev says. “I’m trying to tell you—”
The crack of gunfire, the sound tiny against the fire’s constant bellow. Tree trunks splinter, kicking out showers of shredded bark.
Marija turns and fires into the burning jungle, the big alien weapon kicking hard against her shoulder.
“Get Pajari, run,” she screams, taking cover behind a thick tree trunk that is already smoldering, already crawling with small flames. She leans around the trunk, firing at an enemy only she has seen.
Vanev rushes to Pajari—but why? She has already cost them their lives. He knows he should run, he should leave her… but he cannot. Pajari is one of them.
She struggles to get to her feet, reaching one arm and pleading eyes toward him. There is no time to be gentle. Vanev throws Pajari over his shoulders, the way Marija taught him to do. Pajari screams in pain. Bullets smack into trees. Vanev can’t tell where the enemy is, so he runs opposite the way Marija is shooting. He runs into the burning jungle, feeling the flames reach out to his hands, his face.
Pajari begs him to stop.
Vanev ignores her.
He has lived only one year. One single year. He does not want to die.
Over the flames, Vanev hears Bureau scream—with rage or fear, he does not know. Vanev focuses on moving forward, running through the flames as fast as he can while carrying Pajari’s weight, searching for a path through the fire, for anywhere the orange monster has yet to touch.
Pajari stops screaming.
She goes limp.
Vanev runs.
His flesh begins to bubble. His flesh begins to burn.
To his left… the flames seem lower there. He runs that way, the pain starting to set in, to reach deep into his body.
He realizes he left his rifle. A distant part of him knows Marija will be angry with him.
He breaks into the clearing, only it’s not a clearing—it’s a crater. He falls forward. Pajari tumbles away. Vanev rolls once, dirt filling his mouth. He hits hard against the crater’s bottom, broken tree roots jamming into his back.
Ash, mud, but no fire.
A Wasp artillery round must have hit here, kicking up a wave of dirt and rock.
His hands are on fire. He screams, expecting to see them ablaze. They are not. Red blisters dot his skin, growing larger even in the brief instant he looks at them. His face feels the same way—it, too, is surely blistering.
It burns. It burns so bad.
Pajari.
Vanev tries to push away the pain as he moves to his friend. She is the smallest of them. She is face-down in the mud. He flips her over—she is limp.
Her eyes stare out at nothing.
He presses his burned fingers against her neck.
There is no pulse.