He’ll be punished? She’s going to kill Lucas. The certainty of it rocks me.
Ms. Brighton stalks forward with that knife, and I feel like there should be thunder, but there isn’t. No wind. No lightning. Just the steady patter of early autumn rain and her eyes, wide and pale and brimming with conviction.
We’re moving again, but Lucas is going slowly, groaning with every step. We hit a clump of trees, branches shaking more water onto our heads as we squeeze past. There is no break in the thorns on the other side. We are still pinned between underbrush and the mountainside. And the woman who will kill us both.
My throat tightens and my chest throbs. We’re in serious trouble. The cliff is closer now, and Ms. Brighton is almost in striking distance. We have to go faster.
Lucas trips, goes down on one knee with a grunt. Ms. Brighton takes her chance, lunging through a sheet of hard rain. He kicks out, screaming in pain, but his foot connects with something. Her knee? Her stomach? I don’t know, but she slams into the ground back first, feet rolling up. I see her filthy hiking boots in the air, and I’m pulling Lucas to his feet. It’s so hard. So hard.
“It’s OK, Hannah,” she says, hearing my cry. “It’s almost over, and you’ll be free.”
“I am free! Lucas didn’t hurt me!”
She lunges again, and I kick this time, catching her injured hand. She yowls, and the knife skitters. We have to move. Move!
We run. Lucas is too slow, but we try. We pull-scramble-rush along the rain-soaked stone, looking for a way out. A way through. Please, please, let there be a way because I know we are close to the edge of this mountain, and it might as well be the edge of the world.
“Hannah.” Ms. Brighton’s close again. I hear the drag of her blade against the face of the mountain. “Your spirit will be free like your ancestors when I end this. Let him go.”
“You’ve got to run,” Lucas tells me. He sounds like he’s in agony. He is in agony.
It’s not even worth a response, so I dig my fingers into his good shoulder and steer him on. My feet slip sideways, and I look down in horror. The rain is turning the soil to wet clay. It’s slipping under my soles worse here, sending every step in the wrong direction.
“Sera?”
Lucas’s voice sends chills through my spine. I look up, and dread turns my limbs to ice. End of the road. Fifteen feet ahead, the stone drops off, and the trees thin. There is gray sky and the promise of a fall we will not walk away from. We take our chances climbing down a cliff in the rain, or we face the tangle of thorns, hoping to get to the forest on the other side. Or Ms. Brighton.
Ms. Brighton slips too, crying out. She’s already too close again. We have to choose.
The thorns it is. I reach ruthlessly, pushing some of the briar away. Thorns puncture my good palm like needles, and when I tug it loose, three more limbs snake over my back, tangling in my shirt, my hair. I rip myself free with a cry.
Ms. Brighton goes down, but she’ll get back up. She’ll be here in seconds.
“We’re trapped,” Lucas says.
“I know.”
We inch back closer to the cliff. I eye the cliff, the thorns, and then the woman with the braids who wants to end a boy who never hurt me. Ms. Brighton barrels toward us, and I pick up the heavy stick Lucas is kicking my way.
Ms. Brighton raises the knife, and I brace myself. This is how it ends.
“I’ll make this right, Hannah,” she says to me.
She lunges but not at me. It’s at Lucas. I slam the stick at her arm. She dodges until it is only a graze. The momentum spins me around and sends her staggering back. But she’ll come again.
Lucas tries to strike, but he topples sideways. He’s going to fall, and she’s going to kill him. And then I see a plan so bad it is almost no plan. It is the only thing.
Ms. Brighton moves in, and Lucas kicks again, groaning, because it must hurt. Everything must be hurting him now. His balance is off, and he sways heavily to the left. Toward the thorns.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. And then I shove him with everything I’ve got.
It doesn’t take as much force as it should. He crashes into the thorns, and I choke on my sob. Lucas the tall. Lucas the mighty. But the bigger you are, the harder you fall, and Lucas goes down like a small building, crashing through the thorns with a symphony of screams that cuts my soul to pieces.
Chapter 33
“No,” Ms. Brighton says, the word choked and almost lost on Lucas’s groans. She says it again, louder, because my bet paid off. It worked. He’s buried in those thorns. It’s like the worst cocoon and the best.
Because she can’t get to him without me getting to her.