Chapter 28 - Where do I even start…

  I looked around, noticing for the first time that Tim was standing by his mom. The boy was stuck, frozen, eyes red and large. He didn't even try to wipe the tears streaming down his face.

  And there were goblin bodies everywhere…

  "We need to go," I said out loud, just to break the moment. Clearly, two children were in no condition to hear me.

  Deep breath. One more push through the numbness in my body. I could fall apart later, after I got Tim and Liv to camp, to the others who didn't think about giving up just yet.

  Liv's pulse under my fingertips was weak but steady.

  My eyes settled on Amanda's body. She deserved to be buried. The thought of scavengers finding her... I couldn't leave her to that.

  But I couldn't dig either. Not with my injuries. Not with two kids who needed me now.

  I knelt and draped my rain jacket over her face. When I took Tim's hand, his fingers were cold, and he suddenly came alive.

  "No!" He wrenched away from me, scrambling toward Amanda. "Mommy! Mommy!"

  I caught his arm. He twisted, fighting me with surprising strength for such a small kid. "Tim, stop—"

  "Let go! Mommy!" His voice cracked. He wasn't seeing me; wasn't seeing anything but her.

  I wrapped both arms around him, pinning his flailing limbs against my chest. His heel connected with my injured leg, and I gasped, nearly dropping him.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but we have to leave." My voice came out strangled. "Your sister…"

  "I want my mom!" His scream echoed through the trees.

  Shit. If anything in these woods hadn't heard us before, it did now.

  I thought of the ziplock with sedative flowers tucked in my pack. I could calm him down. I could just tie him to the bike and be out of here. It would be so much easier. Convenient. Efficient.

  And cowardly.

  Was I really going to drug a traumatized kid with an unknown alien sedative because I didn't have the capacity to deal with the emotional breakdown right now?

  I clamped my hand gently over his mouth. He bit down. Not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough. I didn't let go.

  "Tim." I kept my voice low, steady, even as he thrashed. "I know. I know you want her. But she's gone, and Liv is still here. Your dad is still here."

  He went suddenly limp in my arms, sobbing so hard he was choking on it. Gasping. Hiccupping.

  I loosened my grip and pulled my hand away from his mouth. "That's it. Let it out, but quieter, okay? Quieter."

  He buried his face in my shoulder, his whole body shaking.

  I had maybe a few minutes before he spiralled again. Maybe less.

  I carried him to the bike and tried to leave him by the tree there. He clung to me, fingers digging into my jacket.

  "I have to put you down, Tim. Just for a second."

  "No, no, no. Don't leave me, don't—"

  "I'm not leaving. I'm right here. But I need my hands free to help Liv. Just give me a moment to—" My throat constricted, and I had to swallow before continuing. "To hide your mom, so we can come back for her later." I pried his fingers loose. He whimpered but didn't fight anymore. Just curled in on himself, making himself as small as possible.

  I pulled the sleeping bag and tent from the spare luggage.

  Tim sat against a tree, weeping silently. I tried talking to him while I worked. Nothing. No response at all.

  I tied a makeshift harness around him and secured it to the trunk. It felt wrong. Treating a grieving child like a dog. But I couldn't split my attention, couldn't risk him running away the moment I turned around.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  My only hope was that his mind would bury this deep enough that he would never have to compartmentalize this trauma.

  Amanda's body went into the sleeping bag. I wrapped the tent around her, bound it with rope, then propped the bundle on the outskirts of the blood-soaked clearing.

  My thigh throbbed with every step. Fresh blood seeped through my pants. I'd forgotten that I had to repurpose the bandage.

  I leaned the good bike against a tree and strapped Liv into the seat with the backrest. The safety belt wasn't enough. I reinforced it with the last of the rope to keep her from sliding out.

  I reattached the second child seat from the busted bike to Amanda's old one. It made it imposible to use the main rider's seat, but I wasn't going to ride it either way. I wedged a backpack in front of Liv to support her head. Put another in the front carrier. Slung the third over my shoulders. One bag had to go, and I left it by the tree.

  Tim was still unresponsive, so I lifted and strapped him in quickly, checking the buckles twice. His eyes were closed now, tears still leaking out.

  "Hold on if you can," I said quietly. "If you can't, that's okay too. I've got you."

  He didn't respond.

  I grabbed the handles and started moving. We had to get out of here before he started screaming again, or before whatever heard him came to investigate.

  I tried to avoid the worst of the roots and holes, but the bike still bucked and jolted over the uneven ground.

  Once we hit the road, I leaned heavily on the handlebars and started up the hill. The bike was my crutch, taking weight off my injured leg. At least my leg had stopped bleeding.

  I found myself whispering prayers I hadn't spoken since childhood, to a God I'd stopped believing in years ago: that the camp was still there, that someone was alive to help us, that we weren't limping toward another massacre.

  The timer on my [Torch] expired first, and I was relieved to have a long-range weapon in addition to my axe. Despite the afternoon sun, my skin felt cold and clammy without a jacket. Sweat dripped down my face. I suspected I'd lost a lot of blood from the wounds on my neck and leg.

  The forest felt alive around us. I kept glancing over my shoulder, unable to get rid of the feeling that someone was watching us. That we will get ambushed any second now.

  But as we walked, exhaustion crept in. Tim was quiet as a ghost, and I couldn't help zoning out every now and then. A few times, I caught shadows of birds in the sky, and it pulled me out of my stupor. Thankfully, none looked like seagulls, but I switched to moving along the treeline anyway, despite the rougher terrain.

  I tried to keep myself engaged by thinking about the lizards' poison and how to best help Liv. What did the bite do to the body? From what I remembered, there was some paralyzing effect. It was hard to move and breathe. So it affected the nerves, right? It must also impact the liver, since the liver breaks down poisons. And there was tissue damage. My hand at the bite site had looked almost black when I woke up. My card was called [Heal Wound]; not heal body organ, or heal nerves. It would make sense to combat the tissue death at the site of the bite and hope the body would fight the rest with help from [Poison Tolerance]. Maybe I could give Liv [Rapid Recovery] when she regained consciousness.

  Finally, the cooldown on my [Tissue Splice] expired. I used it to close the stab wound on my leg. I suspected it was deeper than an inch, and there must have been bacteria inside because the skin around it was red and swollen. Still, closing it made walking easier. The inflammation was a problem for tomorrow's Chloe.

  Ten minutes later, the cooldown on [Heal Wound] expired, and I used it on Liv's leg. The bite wounds healed, but the black bruise did not subside.

  Tim was no longer crying. He was probably dehydrated at this point, and I should have given him water, but I was afraid that if I stopped, we'd be attacked again. I knew it was irrational; we might just as likely be attacked while walking, but I couldn't help it.

  I had no idea how much longer we walked. I'd lost the plot and didn't even have the patience to follow the cooldown timers anymore.

  "Stop!" The shout snapped me back to reality.

  My feet stopped before my brain caught up. Monsters didn't talk. The figure stepping out from between the trees was human: male, bow raised, arrow nocked and ready.

  "Where are you going?" He asked before looking over the kids. "And what's up with them?"

  I inhaled deeply, as if waking up from a long slumber. Where do I even start… Tim looked up, blinking owlishly around.

  "We were attacked in the forest," I replied, after clearing my throat. "The girl needs immediate medical attention; she was bitten by a yellow lizard."

  The man nodded, easing up the string on his bow. "What's your destination?"

  "We've heard there is an evacuation camp in the woods?"

  "Something like that, yeah…"

  Movement at the treeline caught my eye. A woman stepped forward, her gaze dropping to my leg. "I can help them get to the camp. You're injured too, judging by that limp?"

  "Yes, but—" I shifted Liv's weight. "If you have a medic in camp, maybe you can just drive the girl there on the bike? I'll walk on my own."

  The woman glanced at the man. He nodded. They waved us through.

  She moved to help me with the heavy bike, and I lifted Tim out of his seat. "You said yellow lizard bite? How long ago?"

  I glanced at my healing card timer; there was just over half an hour left on a cooldown. "About an hour and a half."

  "And she's still alive?"

  I pressed two fingers to Liv's neck, felt the flutter of her pulse. "I gave her my poison tolerance card before she passed out. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything else I could do."

  The woman nodded and made a quick work of dismantling the child's seat, blocking the rider's spot. Then she swung her leg over the bike, getting ready to ride it.

  "No!" Tim's voice cracked. "Where are you taking her?"

  He dissolved into coughing; his throat must have been raw. He grabbed at the bike frame, looking between the woman and me.

  I crouched down to his level. "Tim, Liv really needs to see a doctor as soon as possible."

  "Then you go." His chin jutted out stubbornly. "She is a stranger."

  "For pit's sake!" Someone deeper in the trees swore, then emerged carrying another bicycle. "Just take this and get going before you bring every monster onto us."

  The rear rack had a large cargo basket—meant for supplies, but it would work. I secured Tim inside with the rope and squeezed his hand. "Hold on tight."

  My thigh screamed as I pushed down on the first pedal, but I gritted my teeth and followed the woman toward the camp.