Emmy's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Emmy crouched in the alley behind the ice cream shop and looked up. The roof was too high to reach from here without noise. The porch posts creaked when the wind touched them. If she climbed, the Vael would hear. If she waited, Bethany and the bald man with the blue device would run out of luck. The device could hide their heat, but it couldn't hide forever. She had to move the Vael away from the shop. She looked back down the alley. Across a stretch of open dust sat a collapsed building, a pile of split beams and warped planks leaning on itself. Dry as bone. She checked her pocket. The plastic lighter she had taken from the camp was still there. She had almost thrown it out twice. She crawled the long way, keeping low behind a broken wall. The Vael stayed grouped around the shop, tails clicking, heads tilting at the roof. None turned. She reached the wood pile and pressed herself against the back of it, out of their line of sight. Her hands shook. She thumbed the lighter. Once. Twice. It caught. She held the flame under a curl of dry plank until the wood took. The fire ran up fast, faster than she expected. Smoke climbed. She scrambled back along the wall before the flames showed above the pile. The first Vael in the street snapped its head around. Its antenna bent toward the smoke. It chittered, sharp, and the other five turned as one. Then they ran. Not toward her, toward the fire, tails whipping the dust behind them. All six. Emmy waited until the last purple back disappeared behind the ruined building. She stepped into the open and waved her arms above her head, small and quick, at the roof. Bethany saw her first. Her mouth opened. She grabbed the bald man's shoulder and pointed. He looked down, saw Emmy, and gave one hard nod. They came off the roof by a back ladder Emmy hadn't seen from the street. Bethany dropped the last four feet and ran straight to her. She caught Emmy in both arms and held her hard against the red bandana. "You're alive," Bethany said. "Baby, you're alive." The bald man kept the blue device in front of him. "Julius," he said, not looking at her. "We go now. That fire buys us minutes, not more." Emmy pulled back from Bethany. "The others. From camp." "Later," Julius said. "Move." They ran together down the alley, away from the smoke and the clicking, out past the last leaning porch and into the open scrub beyond the town. Emmy looked back once. Black smoke climbed above the roofs. No Vael followed. She had Bethany. She had someone who had been there. Whatever Bethany knew, Emmy was going to hear it as soon as they stopped running.