“Ha. I wasn’t. Almost all of my teachers told me that. Even my mom told me that. And my dad…” Grace watched her eyes slide out of focus. There was a long silence, until Imogen shook her head as if to clear it and smiled. “Anyway. Only my music teacher ever talked to me about my future. I think everyone else had given up. I guess it doesn’t matter now, anyway.”
Grace wasn’t surprised to feel the soft forehead against her collarbone, or the shuddering breaths. She only raised a hand to stroke the other girl’s hair.
“It’s not fair,” Imogen hiccupped into Grace’s throat, voice muffled. “You could have been a doctor, or a famous politician, or a professor, anything you wanted. And now it doesn’t even matter. All the people that were gonna make a difference in the world… It’s not fair. I was never gonna matter anyway, so what’s the difference, right? But you spent your whole life thinking you were going to be successful, and now the only success that matters is making it one more day hiding from those things…”
Imogen was, in a way, a self-centered girl, Grace thought. Not selfish, but often lost in self-pity. She didn’t begrudge her companion for this, really. The world was too harsh, and it wasn’t as if Imogen hadn’t suffered. And she was always thoughtful of Grace in her own way. Extra blankets found their way to her cot on cold nights, extra food would “mysteriously” appear on her plate when it was Imogen’s turn to cook (for which she had a surprising amount of talent), and one morning Grace had even discovered a clumsily restored teddy bear lying on her cot. So Grace allowed her “fits” to pass without comment.
But she’d never heard Imogen cry for anyone else before.
“H-hey, it’s alright, don’t cry,” Grace tried to soothe her. “Not over that. No one could have known. And I-I don’t regret it. I don’t regret skipping dances or parties or concerts to study. Because now I can tell you about all of these things you’re curious about, right?”
Imogen lifted her head to face Grace directly. She was so close Grace could count each individual freckle along her nose. A teardrop was gathered at the corner of her mouth, and her eyes were tinged red, but she was no longer crying. Her eyes were terribly bright, Grace thought, and too wide. The air was still.
“The birds,” Imogen whispered. Grace could feel the other girl’s breath against her lips. “They stopped singing.”
The twilight sky erupted.
Its large, mechanical body seemed impossibly fast to Grace as it ripped through the flames to stand before them. She could see her face reflected in its metal chest even as smoke stung her eyes and filled her nostrils. It was a rogue; that was the only explanation. Any hound with a master would never be desperate enough to even approach a river.
Its leg clicked and whirred as it took a lazy step forward, and Grace snapped out of her daze at the sound. “Run,” she shrieked. “Run!”
The two girls clasped hands and fled. The river wasn’t far, Grace thought frantically. She knew the way even through the smoke. The trees would slow the beast down, if only a little. And they were running downhill. That canine-like machine, with all the bulk and power of a pick-up truck, had only so much control. She’d planned ahead. They would be fine.
Too far to the left. She’d whipped her head around to check the progress of the monstrous machine, relieved to find it slightly impeded by the wall of trees. Just as planned. Then her foot landed too far to the left. The tree root caught the front of her shoe, and she only had enough time to pull her hand from Imogen’s grasp before she hit the ground.
She knew immediately; her ankle was hurt. She wouldn’t be able to keep pace like this. And Imogen had stopped, damn her, had turned around to help her. “Keep going!” Grace ordered hysterically as she struggled to push herself to her feet. A sharp pain shot through her leg as she stood, and she nearly crumpled. She felt arms wrap around her back and legs, felt someone attempting to hoist her into the air. “You know you can’t lift me, you damned…”
She didn’t know where Imogen found her strength. She would never know. But it was too late. Imogen had taken only a single step, Grace clutched miraculously in her too-thin arms, when the swipe knocked her down and Grace tumbled out of her grasp. She sat up just in time to see the clawed arm reaching for her.
About Megan Sierra Smith
