Emmy's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

By afternoon the road bent into a town that pretended to be older than it was. Emmy knew the trick. Her dad had taken her to a place like this when she was little, with painted saloons and hitching posts and a candy store that sold rock sugar. This one had been chewed up. Windows blown. Porches sagging. A hotel sign leaned over the street on one hinge. She kept to the shade under the boardwalks and walked with her back close to the wood. She stopped when she heard the clicking. It came from around the next building, low and steady, the sound their tails made on hard ground. She dropped to her knees behind a broken brick wall and looked through a gap. Across the dust street sat an old ice cream shop with a painted cone sign mounted on a rock out front. The word Scoops was still readable. The windows on the shop were smashed out. On the flat roof above the balcony, two people crouched behind the sign. One was a bald man in a black vest, tattoos down both arms. He held something that looked like a small satellite dish, blue lights running along its rim. The other was a woman in a red bandana, and Emmy's breath caught. Bethany. From the camp. Alive. Emmy pressed her hand flat to the brick to stop it shaking. Bethany had braided her hair one night by the fire. Bethany had made it out. Below the roof, six Vael stood in the street. Purple. Tails twitching. Close enough to climb the porch posts in one jump. But they weren't climbing. They stood in a loose ring around the shop, heads tilting, antennas bending toward the roof like they couldn't quite find it. One took a step forward, then back, confused. Emmy stared at the device in the man's hands. The blue lights pulsed slow. Every time they pulsed, the nearest Vael flinched. It was hiding them. Not their bodies, but their heat, or whatever the Vael used to see. She had to reach that roof. If she ran the open street the Vael would have her before she made the porch. She looked along the brick wall. It ran almost to the side of the shop. If she crawled it, she could get to the alley and climb the back. She moved. Elbows, knees, low as the bricks. Halfway along, her shoe scraped a loose piece and it clicked against stone. One Vael's head snapped toward the sound. Emmy froze. The blue lights on the roof pulsed harder. The Vael shuddered and turned back to the shop, drawn to the stronger signal. Emmy let out her breath and kept crawling. She reached the alley. She was going to get to Bethany. She was going to find out what happened to the rest.