The cold, hard droplet spattered on Barb’s feverish brow with enough force to make her stop, her body leaning sideways to press against Jenny’s supporting shoulder.
“What is it?” the girl asked, her voice sounding tired and breathless.
Barb tilted her head toward the sky. It was morning. Maybe? The canopy of tree branches overhead were too think to see much of the sky, but vague bits of weak sunlight stabbed through the leaves and limbs.
“I think a bird pooped on me.”
Jenny stood on her tiptoes. “Not that I can see.”
“Then a tree dribbled on me.”
“That’s possible. There are a lot of trees, and they probably don’t like you.” Jenny shifted her surprisingly strong arm around Barb’s lower back and nudged them forward a step.
“Who doesn’t like me? The trees?”
Barb winced at the pain in the wound on her side. Hot and burning and throbbing with every breath, the infected gash screamed for attention. And throwing more moss on it certainly wasn’t going to help at this point.
“Well, you don’t talk to them.” Jenny flashed her a teasing smile.
“I’m not talking to a tree.”
“Exactly my point. You should. They’re very good company.”
“You worry me, kid.”
Jenny chuckled and tightened her grip around Barb’s back. Barb swallowed hard and forced herself to take a step alongside the much shorter girl.
Bless her. How the girl kept going was impressive. Jenny was five feet tall, maybe fifty pounds soaking wet. The fact that they’d climbed out of a volcano together was one thing. That they’d marched through a forest side-by-side with Jenny doing the majority of the lifting and pulling was something else.
She was a lot stronger than she looked.
“The trees are very complimentary,” Jenny said. “They’re polite too.”
“So they’re British.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Jenny blinked.
“You know. British. From England.” Barb ground her teeth and took another step.
“Wouldn’t they be Englandish then?”
“Englandish?” Barb snorted. “That’s not how it works.”
“Terran is weird.”
“You’re weird.”
Jenny beamed like Barb had told her she’d hung the moon. Maybe weird meant something else in this crazy world. Lord knew, there was more than enough bizarreness to go around.
Talking fox people. Dragon-riding Centaurs. Wearing white to funerals.
I just want to stop. She let her eyes drift shut. Everything hurts.
She was burned. Bleeding. Broken ribs ached in her chest. She had no skin left on the soles of her feet. And she hadn’t had a meal in nearly two days.
But they couldn’t stop. Who knew if another one of those awful wolf things would be right behind them? Jenny had another makeshift arrow that she could apparently shoot from her murderous arts-and-crafts-time bow, but that was a chance Barb would rather not take.
Every step was agony, like breathing knives.
Jenny hadn’t said it, but Barb knew enough about medicine to recognize the symptoms. This wasn’t just an infection. The stick that had tried to impale her had probably been covered in the gaja’s venom, which was just a wonderful thought. But staying in one place in this forest certainly wasn’t an option. Not if demonic snarling wolf creatures were going to come and try to bite her face off.
Stopping now wouldn’t miraculously make the venom stop spreading. So the best they could do was press on. Even though ever step felt like it was ripping tendons apart.
Another cold droplet splattered on her face, and Barb looked up again. “You sure it’s not a bird?”
“It could be. Since the trees don’t like you, I’m sure the birds don’t like you either.”
“You’re wonderful for my self-esteem, Jenny.”
“Birds aren’t as polite as the trees.”
“So birds are Scottish.”
Jenny shook her head. “I don’t know what that means either.”
Barb huffed and forced herself forward, leaning heavily on Jenny. “It’s a culture in Terran.”
“British and Scottish are people?”
“Yeah.”
“What are they like?”
“Trees and birds, apparently.”
Jenny led them along a path that cut through the trees, and Barb clenched the charred fabric of her tunic dress, fisting it between her fingers as a particularly sharp jolt of pain rattled her. She caught her breath and choked off a sob.
“Tell me,” Jenny said, her voice wavering. “Keep talking.”
“Why?”
“Because it helps.”
“Me or you?”
“Both.”
Barb swallowed a cry of pain as Jenny kept pulling them down the path.
It hurt so much.
Talk, huh? Sure. Fine. Maybe it did help. “Can I ask you something?”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Jenny laughed. “Let’s talk. Let’s talk about all sorts of things.”
Barb rolled her eyes. “Why do you keep asking me about boys?”
Jenny shrugged, the motion awkward as she supported Barb’s weight. “I just want to know, and Meg doesn’t know any boys, or I’d ask her.”
“She knows Danny.”
“Danny’s not a boy.” Jenny giggled and dashed the tears away. “Danny’s a shukah.”
Barb clutched her throbbing side. “What’s a shukah?”
“A fuzzy cow.”
Barb snorted with a laugh that ached in her lungs, but the laugh turned to a gasp of pain as the trees began to whirl around her.
“Come on, Barb. Keep talking.” Jenny shook her gently. “Tell me—tell me about Britland.”
Barb had to laugh again. “Britland?”
“What did you say it was called?”
“England, Jenny. England.”
“Have you been there?”
“Not in a while.” Barb swallowed hard, blinked the tears out of her eyes and tried not to think about the ripping agony in her side. “It’s a nice place. Lots of—sheep.”
“Sheep.” Jenny smiled. “Sheep are good.”
“And tea.”
“I like tea.”
Barb rolled her eyes. “Of course you do. You’re basically British.”
“Is that a good thing?”
A pulse of pain pounded through her chest. “My dad’s British,” Barb choked out.
For an instant, the pain faded in the shock of what she’d just said out loud. Why had she said that? Where had that come from? Jenny didn’t need to know about her dad. Nobody needed to know about him. Barb didn’t even want to talk about him, and now Jenny was going to ask her a million questions that Barb didn’t want to answer.
As the panic receded, the pain rushed back over her in a tidal wave of distracting agony.
Maybe Jenny wouldn’t notice. Maybe they’d go on with their torturous nature hike through hell’s Christmas tree farm and Jenny wouldn’t say anything—
“So… your dad is polite?”
So much for that.
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“But you—”
“It slipped out,” Barb snapped. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
Hurting like she was, who knew what she’d say? Her brain was foggy, obviously, or she wouldn’t have said anything about him to begin with. The man didn’t deserve a second thought, let alone space in her brain in what could be her last hours living. It was a much better idea to think about more pleasant things. Like wolves that were trying to kill them or Centaurs that were trying to kill them or birds that were apparently trying to poop on her, because something wet kept splattering on her head.
“Barb?”
Barb went rigid as stabbing pain punched through her. Like her lungs had caught fire. Her throat constricted. Jenny blurred beside her as the forest spun, and the girl’s cold hands became knives of ice piercing her arms.
Focus.
It hurt so much.
Focus. Find your center. Focus.
Nothing had ever hurt this much. Not even the sensation of being flayed alive by that horrible shadow weapon could compare to the internal wildfire trying to turn her insides to ash.
Was she crying? Well, that was lame. So much for being the strong one. But she couldn’t contain the sobbing as the gleaming invisible knife that had taken up residence inside her kept cutting her internal organs to pieces.
Her molars ached as the world stopped spinning. She was on her back against a large tree root, and Jenny hovered over her with tears spilling out of her midnight-colored eyes. Her mouth tasted coppery. Blood?
As she cried quietly, Jenny dabbed her tunic fabric against the side of Barb’s mouth. Had she bit her tongue?
“Jenny?”
Jenny didn’t answer. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, her shoulders shivering with suppressed sobs.
Another wet splash. Barb winced.
“It’s not birds after all,” Jenny said, peeling off the tunic length she’d used to carry moss and laying it over Barb’s head. “It’s raining.”
“Great.” Barb shut her eyes.
“You had a seizure.”
Through the haze of pain, Barb felt along the twigs and leaves on the forest floor until her fingers found Jenny’s hand. “Okay, Jenny.”
“Okay what?”
“You have to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Jenny.” Barb swallowed the blood in her mouth. “I’m slowing you down.”
“We’re having a nice chat.”
“You can make much better time without me.”
Jenny pulled out of her hold. “I’m not leaving you, Barb.”
A crack of thunder rolled overhead, and the treetops shuddered as the clouds above them burst, dumping rainfall in a torrent out of the sky and pelting the earth like it had a personal vendetta. In moments, they were both soaked.
Jenny sat back on her heels and slipped away into the gathering darkness. Barb blinked the rainwater out of her eyes.
She couldn’t continue. They couldn’t go on like this. She had to make Jenny understand. The best option was for them to split, for Jenny to leave her behind and continue on to Atama Village alone.
The pattering raindrops on the crown of her head felt like someone was playing the bongo drums on her skull.
It made for a funny mental image, but in reality it wasn’t funny at all. Life was just like that, generally speaking.
The pattering quieted, the finger-sized impacts lessening. Was the rain stopping? No, the sound of it was as loud and deafening as it had been, and the petrichor scent of wet dirt and forest loam remained.
Barb tilted her head up as a branch locked into place over her.
Jenny grunted with the effort of securing the large branch around the tree trunk where Barb leaned, tying it down with the strip of fabric she’d been carrying.
Barb scoffed.
Of course. The girl could craft a bow and arrow out of a sapling. It made sense should could make a rain shelter. Why not? The girl was basically a cute, blond baby version of MacGuyver. Barb wished for a paper clip and a stick of gum so they could shut down a nuclear reactor while they were at it.
The branch didn’t stop the rain completely, but it helped. Barb leaned her head back down and fixed her gaze on Jenny as the girl sank to her knees, breath hitching.
“You have to go,” Barb said.
“I know.”
Barb smiled. Well, that was easier than she’d expected.
Jenny shivered, tears pouring down her face. She began stacking a pile of mushrooms and moss in a dryish space near to where Barb lay. She pulled the bow and arrow out and set them on the ground where Barb could reach them, and Barb nodded.
“You can eat those,” Jenny said, nodding to the pile of foraged roughage.
“I’m not that desperate.”
“You will be.” Jenny rolled her eyes. “They’re all wet too, and they retain moisture. So they’ll have water in them. And you can drink rainwater here. There’s also a little brook through the trees.” Jenny pointed. “You can get water there.”
“I’ll be fine,” Barb said. “You just go.”
“I’ll be back.” Jenny leaned forward and took her hand. “I promise, okay?”
Barb patted the girl’s cheek. “I’ll just hang here with your friends, the Trees. We’ll get to know each other a little better.”
Jenny laughed. “Good. You could learn a thing or two from them.”
Thunder roared above them again, rolling through the heavens like some distant angel scored a strike at a celestial bowling alley.
Jenny pulled back. “Don’t move, okay? If you move, I don’t know if I can get back to you.”
“Get back?” Barb snorted. “How do you even know where here is? It all looks the same.”
Jenny grinned and pointed to the far end of the clearing. “That boulder over there.”
Barb bent her head to look where Jenny was pointing. Indeed. There was a large misshapen rock leaning against a tree trunk.
“It’s a rock.”
“It looks like a chicken.”
Barb wrinkled her lip and squinted. “No, it doesn’t.”
“What do you think it looks like?”
“A rock, Jenny. It looks like a rock.”
“You have no imagination.”
“And you have a thing for chickens.” Barb groaned and leaned her head back. “Don’t deny it.”
Jenny laughed again, though this time it sounded more like a sob. “I like chickens.” Jenny nodded, tears mingling with the rain dripping down her face. “I’ll come back. I’ll find you again, Barb, I promise.”
Barb pointed to the woods. “Go, already. Even the trees are tired of you being here. They’re just too polite to say anything about it.”
Jenny choked on a laugh and stood. She turned away and started off into the shadows of the forest. The darkness of the distance closed around her as she plunged into the thick trunks of the forest.
Barb stared at where she had gone long after she’d passed out of sight. Thunder snarled in the sky. Rain pommeled the branch that arched over Barb’s head.
Barb folded her arms across her chest and rested her head against the tree root.
Of all the ways she’d expected to go out, this hadn’t even made her top fifty. She lived a dangerous life. There was always the chance that she’d die on a case. Going undercover on FBI investigations or working alongside Homeland Security or the NSA or even the CIA was dangerous. Chasing Phoenix Munroe always had the opportunity to lead to death. She’d even resigned herself to being injured so badly she couldn’t function, though when it came to that she’d decided long ago that death sounded better.
Better to be dead than rendered helpless, like some burden other people had to carry around. No thanks.
But even that had been a more likely possibility than being poisoned by a Centaur and left to slowly perish of hypothermia in an alien forest in another dimension.
Yeah, that one hadn’t been on her list.
At least she’d gotten Jenny to leave.
Jenny could take care of herself. Barb had known the girl was capable the moment she’d met her. Unflappable and confident, Jenny Mitchell could take care of herself, no matter what her big sister thought.
However far away Atama Village was, Jenny would make it there.
Barb smiled.
Yes, Jenny would make it.