Elina Cross's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Elina left the fortress at first gray. She climbed hard until the wall below shrank to a square of shadow, then leveled off and turned east along the track Mendez and Riley had taken. The cold air pushed against the stained glass and threw thin color across her arms. She watched the ground. No smoke. No moving heat. Only the road bending between rock and scrub. She found the jeep in a low wash, tipped half onto one wheel. She circled once. No bodies. No Emmy. She dropped lower and saw the hood: black scorch marks in a line, and a cluster of clean punched holes across the grille. Vael fire. She banked and flew back to the fortress without landing. Harlen was at the gate when she came down. He wore the red rig over his mouth and a bandage on his forearm from the last run. She told him what she'd seen. He listened, then nodded once. "How far," he said. "Twenty minutes on foot from the wash. I'll carry you in." "Do it." She took him under the arms and lifted. He was heavier than he looked. She set him down behind a rock ridge above the wash and folded her wings tight. They went the rest on foot. The jeep sat where she'd left it in the air. Up close the damage was worse. One tire melted flat. Blood on the driver's seat, dry, not much. No shell casings from their side. They had been hit and hadn't fired back. "Ran," Harlen said. "Or were taken." The first vine came out of the sand behind him. Elina saw the petals open before she heard the hiss — a bright pink and orange bloom the size of a dog, teeth ringing a wet mouth. Two more pushed up from the bank of the wash. Thorned limbs braced against the ground. One lashed at Harlen's leg and he stepped back into the shadow of the jeep. "Maws," she said. "Up." She jumped and beat her wings hard. Sand blew off the hood. Harlen didn't run. He turned toward the nearest bloom and the rig on his face lit brighter red. He breathed out. Fire went with the breath — a short, wide cone that caught the flower full in the mouth. The petals curled and blackened. The vine limbs went rigid, then loose. He turned and hit the second one the same way. It shrieked and fell in on itself. The third came at his back. Elina dropped. She brought the left wing down across its stem in one hard sweep. The edge cut clean. The head rolled off into the sand and the mouth kept snapping at nothing. Harlen stood in the smoke, breathing hard through the rig. Elina landed beside the jeep and touched the dry blood on the seat. "They walked out of here," she said. "We follow."