Claire Summers's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The voice above broke off. Before Claire could call back, the river behind her surged. A wall of water rose where the current had been calm, swirling into a tight, glowing ring — a nest of liquid coils that hissed against the stone. Something huge uncoiled from inside it. Green scales. Yellow eyes. A claw closed around her ankle and yanked her off her feet. She hit the water hard. The creature dragged her down the shallow channel, past the unconscious tracker, into a wider pool ringed by weathered rocks and old rusted gear. Its claws hooked her shirt and tore. Her shorts went next, ribbons spinning away on the current. What was left of her clothing drifted to the bank in red-streaked, clawed scraps. The monster pinned her to the cave floor. Cold stone bit her back. A long forked tongue dragged up her stomach, slow and curious, then across her collarbone. Claire choked on a sob and a laugh at once. Forty days of berries and bad luck, and this was the part that broke her. Not yet, she thought. Not like this. Her hand scraped sideways and closed on something metal — a rusted spike half-buried in the grit. She drove it up into the soft place under the creature's jaw. It reared back, shrieking, green blood spattering the stone. Claire rolled, scrambled, and kicked at its snout with her boot. The thing thrashed once, slid backward into its glowing ring of water, and the whole nest collapsed in a hiss of foam. She lay shaking on the cracked floor, naked except for her boots and the wet rope of her hair. The tracker hadn't moved. But the voice from above was closer now, calling down again — clearer, a man's voice, urgent. Someone was coming down the rope. Claire crawled to the tracker and pressed her body against his side, sharing what little warmth she had. She pulled the clawed scraps of her shirt over them both. "Hold on," she whispered, to him, to herself, to whoever was climbing down. "I'm still here. Don't stop."