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CAIN
I LEAVE MEREDITH the second she stops crying. Walking around the burned remains of Vic's home feels like I'm a ghost phasing through the history of someone else's life. Someone who fought in some great war. Someone who lived in a time when smoke and fire and death were just another day at the office. The neighborhood's been destroyed, flattened and burned like a fire tornado swept through. Other than the select few, like Vic, who managed to survive up until this point, against all odds, there aren't any dead bodies. There wasn't any people left to kill.
It's like I'm the last person left alive.
I left my dad and Rachel in the middle of the street a couple feet from Vic. Rachel'd been knocked unconscious, my dad's face badly burned. He'd just been sitting there, her head resting in his lap, the most haunted look on his face. I find them there again, Bianca and Avani having had joined them in my absence. Rachel's just starting to wake up.
I'm keeping a bullet-point list in my head of all my friends and what state they seem to be in.
â© Vic - dead
â© Meredith - no visible injuries, possibly in shock
â© Rachel - unconscious but waking up, probably from the gaping wound on her forehead
â© Avani - coughing/wheezing, no visible injuries
â© Dad - a second degree burn (?) on the left side of his face, stretching from his eyebrow down to the center of his neck
â© Bianca - limping badly on her left food, no other visible injuries
â© Atlas - MIA
â© Silas - MIA
â© Maya - MIA
â© Callie - MIA
I'm trying very hard to not worry about the last four, distracting myself with the people around me. Avani's attached herself to my dad's side, probably because he's the next best thing to Rachel. Speak of the devil. She's sitting up now, her eyes cloudy, absently rubbing at her forehead. The wound inches up to her hairline, blood rolling like sweat down the side of her face and plastering her babyhairs to her skin.
"Sweetie, don't do that," Bianca orders, casually pulling her gray sweater over her head. She's got a bright yellow sports bra on underneath it. She has my dad help her tear two long ribbons of fabric off her sweater, wrapping the thinner piece around Rachel's forehead, a makeshift tourniquet. The thicker piece she ties around Avani's mouth and nose to keep the smoke out.
"All of our supplies were burnt," Dad realizes. "Jesus, Bee, what are we gonna do?"
"Right now? Survive." Bianca answers like the absolute badass she is. "Luca, take Avani to find water. Have her drink as much of it as she can. Then wet the fabric with it, and tie it back on her, okay? We've gotta try to keep the smoke out of her lungs." She pauses, hastily pulling her hair back into a short ponytail, getting it out of the way. "We need to get out of here. Find everyone and get these girls to a hospital."
"You mean out of this dimension?" Dad asks.
"And try to explain to them what happened?" Bianca shakes her head. "They need a hospital in this dimension. And then we can go home."
Dad nods and helps Avani to her feet. The two of them head off.
"Rachel," Bianca orders, "I'm gonna need you to lay down, okay, baby? Use your brother as a footrest. You need to keep your legs elevated."
Ah, yeah. This is the moment I've been waiting for. I've always wanted to become the Ultimate Footrest. Rachel does as she was told, folding her legs on top of mine.
"Am I going to be okay?" Rachel asks.
Bianca pushes herself to her feet. "I'm going to go look for . . . for survivors. You two stay here." Which isn't exactly answering her question.
I salute her. "Okie-dokie-artichokey."
"Do you understand me, Cain?" She keels back down, getting eye-level with me. It's unnerving. "I'm being serious. You can't go wandering off. You're safe right here, and she needs to stay here. Yell for me if she passes out again, and if she starts vomiting, lay her on her side."
"You got it, boss."
She heads off in the opposite direction of my dad, shooting one last worried glance backat me.
Rachel's head tilts, her mind finally coming to. "Oh, my God, what happened? I don't remember . . . " She looks down at her fingers stained in blood. "I'm bleeding . . . ?"
"Rachel." I grab her shoulders. Give her a duh face. "You fingered a vampire."
"I don't think that's how that works, Cain."
"How would you know? Have you ever met a vampire?"
"Obviously."
I look over at Bianca. She's officially out of ear- and eye-shot. It's time.
"Rachel, sit up. We've gotta move."
She arches an eyebrow at me. "But she told us to stay here." There she is. My goodie-two-shoes sister. Would it kill her to live a little?
"Vic's dying wish was for us to save her dogs. You're the only person that can lift the wall they're trapped under. Do you really want to be the reason innocent puppies die?"
Rachel just stares blankly at me.
"Do you not feel up to it?"
"I feel like I could crush an entire avocado with my mind."
"That's the Millennial mood, Rachey." I don't know what I'm saying. We're both Gen Z'ers. "Come on, we've gotta hurry before Bianca comes back."
Off in the distance, sirens blare. My entire body tenses in instinct. Run? Hide? Fight? My choices lay themselves out for me. Then I remember that it's probably just the fire department because, hello, the entire world is on fire. Besides, I'm not being actively pursued by law enforcement.
I help Rachel to her feet, and she walks with her arm wrapped around my shoulder. I lead her to where Meredith is still a mess.
"They're under there."
Shakily, Rachel sits, her legs crossed. She stares at the wall, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Her hands hover a few inches off the ground, pulsing slightly. Meredith's blubbering away.
Thirty seconds in and the wall topples like a Jenga tower.
A steady stream of dark blood is pouring out of Rachel's nose. She looks on the verge of unconsciousness. Meredith kneels beside her, wiping the blood off with the sleeves of her sweatshirt. I brief Mer on what Bianca told me about Rachel, and she has my sister lay down, using Meredith's legs as a footrest.
I see Vic's body through a haze of smoke, both literal and metaphorical. It feels like my body isn't real, like I'm watching myself through a glass-ceiling. A large piece of brown wood sticks out of the body like a javelin, dry, clumpy brown blood gluing it to her shirt. It's right in the middle of her chest like someone was trying to divide her evenly in two. Vic Daugherty suffered a long, painful, and, most likely, lonely death. Me and Meredith were the only ones she had for company. She hardly knew the first thing about us. I wonder if it would have been better if we hadn't been there at all.
Her dogs lay dead beside her.
They look as peaceful as if they simply fell asleep by their owner's side, and that's what makes it so much worse. Neither of the dogs look injured. What killed them? Suffocation? Internal bleeding? Smoke inhalation? Was something important crushed in the explosion? Did their hearts melt in the heat, their brains frying like an egg on hot cement?
None of that matters. They're dead and that's all that matters.
The sirens are closer, now, so close I hear them pounding like a heartbeat in my veins. I can see their lights flashing, now, washing the world in surreal blue-and-red. They pull down the street, bright red fire trucks and sleek black police cars, a swarm of fire ants and stink bugs. No ambulances.
"Flag them down," Meredith tells me. "They can get Rachel and Avani to the hospital quicker than we could."
Me and her help Rachel to her feet, and the three of us head towards the road. We call for Bianca, my dad, and Avani; for Silas and Atlas and Maya and Callie and anyone who's left alive in this godforsaken fiery hell. Someone starts screaming back at us. Atlas! All of a sudden, my heartbeat turns a little less panick-y.
"CAIN!" he's screaming. "MEREDITH! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?"
We yell at him to meet us in the road. By the time we reach it, he's already there, waiting for us. When he sees us, he full-out runs to us, nearly knocking me off my feet in a hug. Other than a couple tiny scrapes and purple-brown burns, he seems fine.
The first thing he says to me is this: "Jesus, Cain, what the fuck have you done?" Which, ouch. But I suppose it's justified. I am the one with pyrokinetic powers. I am the one who burned down the Mendoza Institute. And our school. And that poor man's house. But I had nothing to do with this. Even when I'm busting my ass trying to get my power to work, I can hardly manage a single spark. Unless I had a nightmare. Unless this entire fucking city was, for some reason, coated in gasoline.
"I didn't do anything!" That I know of.
"For some reason I find that hard to believe."
"Don't you trust me?"
Meredith looks between us, looking pretty pissed. "Now is not the time for a fucking lovers' quarrel, you two."
I look impatiently at Atlas.
He sighs. "You're right." Cups a hand around my neck. "I'm sorry for blaming you. It was just . . . " Searching for the right words. "Scary. I thought I woke up in hell." Laughs a little, nervous.
I wrap my hand around his. He's actually shaking like, really bad. It's like he's a chihuahua and we're in Beverly Hills. "It's okay."
Meredith and Rachel then take their turns hugging him and proclaiming their gratitude that he Isn't Dead. A couple minutes later, the first emergency vehicle pulls up in front of us. A cop car. We jump around, waving our arms and screaming, trying to flag it down. Out hops a young white cop with Danielle Bregoli red hair and tattoos peeking out of the collar of her shirt.
She doesn't give us a chance to explain ourselves or ask for her help or anything. Just looks us up and down and orders us to get into her car.
"Why?" Meredith looks incredulous. "We aren't doing anything wrong."
"Meredith," Atlas warns.
Danielle Bregoli crosses her arms over her chest. "So I can get y'all outta this place. Would you prefer to stay here and burn to death?"
"No, ma'am," mumbles Atlas.
So here's the thing: I wouldn't exactly call myself "fond" of authority. Especially not authority that looks like Bhad Bhabie and treats me like I'm stupid. It's not that I'm just automatically disrespectful to all authority simply because they have authority. I only respect people in authority if they respect me back.
And this Danielle Bregoli bitch? It's obvious that she doesn't respect me.
"I don't get in cars with strangers," I say, looking her up-and-down. "Unless they're cute."
Atlas elbows me in the side.
Danielle Bregoli's face turns as red as her hair. "You're under arrest. All of you."
Atlas has started giving me death glares. "He didn't mean it like that."
"Why?" Meredith asks, her voice small. "We didn't do anything wrong."
"Trespassing inside of a government-owned facility. Get in the fucking car before I make you.
How does she know that we're trespassing? For all she knows, we could have been in here from the beginning. Does she think that everyone inside the wall died? Does she somehow know that we aren't supposed to be in here?
There weren't any ambulances, I remind myself.
They think that everyone inside of the wall is dead.
They aren't here to save the survivors.
They probably aren't even here to try to save the city.
The fire trucks are probably just trying to make sure the fire doesn't spread to Berlin.
And the cops? Well, a fire this big, explosions so loud . . .
It couldn't have been an accident.
They're trying to find who started it. And who better to blame than the only group of people left alive in this destroyed city?
I can't let Danielle Bregoli arrest my friends for something they didn't do.
Now, this is when a reasonable person would calmly get in the backseat of a car, demand a lawyer, make sure they know their Miranda Rights, explain that this was all a misunderstanding. But here's the other thing: I am not a reasonable person.
I might not have any weapons on me, and I might not have a power that actually fucking works. And Danielle Bregoli might be, like, seven weight classes higher than me and a combat-trained policewoman. But you know what I have that she doesn't? LOVE. The power of love makes me stronger than she could ever hope to be. Also, I might be on bath salts. Also also, cops are notoriously stupid.
I point behind her and dramatically gasp. What do white people like these days? "LOOK, free kale!"
As to be expected, she looks where I'm pointing. Taking her temporary distraction to my advantage, I grab a burning piece of wood from the ground behind me and slam it so hard into her skull she crumples to the ground. Her eyes roll back in her head. I hit her a couple more times for good measure. Bhad Bhabie will be cashing us outside no longer.
"YOU KILLED BHAD BHABIE!" Meredith screams, which is shocking. I'd thought I was the only one calling her that.
"QUICK!" I yell. "TO THE CORNFIELD!"
"WHAT?" Rachel asks.
"THE CORNFIELD!" I repeat. "WE NEED TO HIDE IN IT."
Atlas shakes his head. "You dumb slut."
"That is harassment!"
"That's literally the easiest fucking way to die," he explains. "The city's on fire and you want to hide in a fucking cornfield? This isn't some fucking white-person horror movie. We go into that field, and we'll literally fucking die."
"Where else are we supposed to go?" I ask. "Nothing else around here's still standing! Everything else burned down!"
"We don't have time to argue," Rachel points out. "We need to get a move on before another cop gets and sees what you've done."
"And we need to separate," Meredith mumbles, hesitant as if she doesn't want to admit that I'm right and our best chance of avoiding arrest is hiding in the cornfield. "So if one of us is caught we won't all be caught."
"Y'all've lost your damn minds," Atlas criticizes. "I'm mixed. I'll be the first to die and it'll be all your motherfucking fault."
"I'm literally the only white person here," Meredith points out. "If you die, it won't be because you're mixed. It'll be because you're a dumbass. And let's be real here. Cain's the biggest dumbass of us all. He'd be the first to die."
"Hey!"
"But what about everyone else?" Atlas asks, worrying at his lip. "Bianca and Silas and everyone. What happens to them?"
"They'll either handle themselves or they'll die," Rachel replies, her voice devoid of emotion.
"Just shut the fuck up and hide in the goddamn cornfield!" I hiss. Because if we don't we'll probably get arrested and have to wash our faces with hand soap.
So we shut the fuck up and hide in the goddamn cornfield, each of us heading in separate directions like the dumbasses that we are. It's a thirty second walk from the road. It's field corn, the dark rusty yellow kind they use to feed livestock that grows to be like fifteen feet tall, but it's early in the growing season. The stalks barely reach my chest.
Because of how early it is, it isn't the brittle brown plants they have in corn mazes. It's not tea-colored weathered parchment; it's printer paper, so fresh with ink it's still warm. They're firm, bright green, and dripping in dew, and they've got this ice-cold slimy feeling like tiny little flower stems. They're alive, and I can feel it. I can smell it. Pushing through them feels like I'm pushing through a field of giant-sized flower pistols and stamens, or like I'm an ant crawling through short grass, or maybe like I'm walking through a forest of life-sized frozen Grinch dicks.
I don't want to go that far in. They're going to be looking for us, and they're going to look in the fields. Hopefully they'll find me first. Hopefully they'll think I'm some lone wolf and drag me in by the back of my neck, kicking and screaming. Hopefully they'll leave my friends to escape.
So I walk in just far enough that I lose sight of the road, just far enough that I start to feel a bit panicked and lost, just far enough that I can't tell which direction I came from and which direction will only lead me deeper into the belly of the beast. I plop down, criss-cross applesauce. I can hear the screech of sirens growing closer.
"Wee-woo wee-woo wee-woo," I sing.
It's so silent out here, I swear I can hear the corn breathing in and out with the wind. It rustles my hair, fills my lungs. I can hear my own hearbeat, my own breath rising and falling. I can hear crickets. I hear nothing else. I tilt my head back, and I can see the stars burning above me, smoke rising in a plume of thick ash to choke them out. The earth's cold and damp, prickling my skin through the fabric of my shorts. The corn smells wet and whole, and the dirt smells like fertilizer.
The sirens are so loud, now, that the corn's holding its breath. I can see the red and blue flashing lights through the stalks like an American-themed strobe light. Slowly, the lights stop moving. Doors push open and slam shut, and then another set of doors push open and slam shut. Four blue flashlights click on, shining into the fields. I shut my eyes, worried that they might be able to see the whites of my eyes reflecting their light back at them.
(I'm dumb as shit. I don't know how science works.)
Now, with my eyes shut, I feel so vulnerable. I can feel the earth moving beneath me. I can feel the blood pounding in my head. I can feel the corn breathing.
I listen as a dog barks, and I listen as a person harshly tells it to QUIET. I listen in as the four people begin to talk.
"Wanna send 'er out, Fiala?" asks a man that sounds like he smokes a pack of cigarettes an hour.
"You think they're out there?" a womanâFialaâasks in response.
"Where else would they be?" another woman replies.
"You might wanna send her, just in case," suggests the fourth cop, a man with a voice that sounds more like a laugh. "The corn monsters might be out there waiting for our flessssssssssh."
"I've gotta do it," says Fiala. "Orders, you know."
"Goody-two-shoes," the fourth man teases her.
"Okay, girl, you ready?" asks Fiala. At least, I think it's Fiala. Her voice sounds completely different, happier and yet more commanding. There's the CLANK of a metal leash being retracted from a dog's caller, and Fiala instructs her dog to "Find, Roxie, Find!"
I hear the dog take off, the pads of her paws digging into the dirt road, her vicious bark demanding space in the quiet night. Sitting there, surrounded by all of my corn friends like a safety net, it doesn't seem like their conversation actually just happened. It doesn't seem like there are four cops standing out there and it doesn't seem like there's a dog with a metal leash trying to find us. It doesn't seem real. Nothing does anymore.
I hear rustling in the corn to the right of me, and then the corn trembles, and then it parts. A dog walks right there beside me, so close I can smell her, a large, muscled German shepherd with her nose to the ground, sniffing up dirt, slobber dripping from her white teeth. I hold my breath.
For some reason, she doesn't see me. She keeps walking. I watch as she disappears into the corn.
Why didn't she see me? Why didn't she smell meâsmell my blood, my fear, my sweat, something? Why didn't she hear me, what with my heart pounding so loudly in my chest? What path is she so caught up in that she missed a perfect shot at a perfectly defenseless boy? Why did sheâ?
There's a noise, and it's definitely not the corn being a fuckass. It's the dog. She's picked up on her trail. She howls, barking up a storm. I can hear her claws digging into the wet dirt as she picks up speed. Her master, Fiala, and all of the other cops shine their bright blue lights straight into the corn. They start to speak to each other, excited, their words jumbling together.
There's a scream, a horrible, guttural, bloodcurdling scream that shatters the world like glass. I jump to my feet, spinning in frantic circles, trying to see something, anything. The corn howls. The dog howls. A person is screaming. One of my friends is screaming. And then I hear a noise that makes vomit rise in the back of my throat: teeth slamming into flesh slamming into veins slamming into bone.
Even being at least two heads taler than the corn, I can't see anything that's going on inside of it. I don't know who's being attacked or where they are. I don't know where I am. I don't know where I need to go. It's so dark, I can hardly see a foot in front of my face. I can't even see the road: it's all just one endless sea of corn. I can't tell where anything is, and it's fucking me up. Right now, I'd probably lose my own dick if it wasn't attached to me.
Still, I have to do something. I can't just let this happen. I blindly push through the corn, following my ears, following the sound of screaming and biting and ripping and growling. The corn's slapping me in the face, and I want to punch back. If this goddamn piece of corn is tryna start shit, I'm gonna start some fucking shit!
And thenâthere, right there in front of me, the dog has Atlas's arm in a chokehold. He's screaming, his face red-hot, tears burning down the sides of his cheeks.
I scream at the dog and do something potentially very stupid: I lunge right on into her, tackling her the fuck off Atlas, slamming the fleabag into the ground. Now, I've never been exactly strong, but seeing her attacking Atlas like that . . . suddenly, I felt like Gay Superman. She writhes around in a panic, her body warm and covered in hair, scratching at me, snarling, snapping at every bare inch of skin she sees. She gets in one real good bite to my cheek, sending hot blood pouring down my skin. I shove her head into the ground, trying to keep her teeth off me.
Atlas crawls backwards away from us, his injured arm laying limply at his side. His glasses are covered in blood.
"Roxie!" Fiala's screaming for her dog. "Off, Roxie, off! Come!"
The corn rustles and howls and parts and vomits up four cops, their flashlights aimed right on me.
A blue beam shines directly into my face. I squint, burying my chin into my chest to shield my eyes from it. It's so dark out here, even the weak battery-powered lights has me blind with sun spots. Beneath me, the dog's whining and howling. I dig my feet into her back paws, trying to keep her from scratching me. I can't focus on anything other than keeping her rooted to the ground and away from Atlas.
"Get off my dog!" Fiala screams at me. Funny that this white cop seems to care more about her stupid dog than the two bloody MOCs said mutt just attacked.
I do, rolling to the side and calmly sitting up. Fiala tells the dog to come one more time, and she obediently trots to her master's side. The officer hooks her leash back around her collar and tells her to sit. The dog sits right there at her feet, this smug look on her face like she's been waiting for this moment all her life. Blood and spit drip from her maw.
There are four police officers: two women and two men, all of them white. Fiala's around forty-something and blonde, and the other woman's graying with a nasty scowl. One of the men's got this ugly handlebar moustache, and the other's tall and thin with a mullet.
I don't like my chances against the four of them.
"Johansen, Haverford, you two stay here with Roxie and look for the others," the graying woman instructs; she's obviously the one in charge "Don't let them get away. Fiala and I will take these two in and get them some medical attention."
"No," I say. "No, there were only two of us." But of course they don't listen to me.
"What?" asks Atlas. "Medical attention? It doesn't even hurt. The nice doggy was just playing with me."
Atlas has an entire chunk of skin torn off on his arm, stretching from a little past his elbow all the way to the inside of his wrist. In some places, the cut's so deep i can see little tooth-marks digging into his bone.
Handlebar looks to his superior. "Is this dude on drugs?"
Gray shakes her head. "Victims don't feel pain from life-threatening injuries. The body's focused so deeply on keeping itself alive that it doesn't even bother giving you any pain."
"Look down, dude," Mullet instructs.
Atlas does and all the color drains from his face.
"Boys, get a move on!" Gray snaps.
Fiala leans down to her dog, unhooks her leash, and gives her a good scratch. "Roxie, find!"
The dog takes off, nose to the dirt, tail parallel to her body. The two men follow her, chatting about the weather.