I was in the field again, surrounded by hills of dead kids. A foul odor had poisoned the air. My stare latched on to Emma's lifeless, hollow eyes. A sea of motionless arms and legs entwined with her own. Her mouth hung open in a silent scream, a muted hint of the painful death she'd met.

I stirred awake. My body was sore from napping on this crammed plastic chair.

Various machines beeped on either side of the desert hall. The sun hadn't risen yet, rendering the white walls a pale shade of grey. I searched for Ben and Ethan, alas no sign of them.

Blinking away the weariness, I went to check on Emma. I'd never set foot in a hospital except that one time some buffoon ran into Mom at a red light. Dad never got seriously injured, and he often did his appointments alone at a base.

I never got sick, but worries had cropped up when all my surfing peers had boobs and a period and I, at the tardy age of fifteen, only grew into a luckless beanpole.

Various doctors from Dad's base couldn't offer my parents any satisfying answer. When I finally joined the big girls' club later that year and began to fill in, they figured it was a rare glitch. It happens in some girls, so it seems.

I passed by open rooms, catching glimpses of patients asleep or staring at the ceiling. Water droplets raced down the windows.

I approached the stretcher to find that my friend didn't look all that different than in my dream. The nurse had changed her into a hospital gown and tied her hair. Her lips were almost as white as her face. Dark veins trailed over her skin like a distorted spiderweb.

Her chest rose weakly, lids twitching but never lifting. Deep teeth marks protruded on her shoulder. They were clean, so the nurse must have disinfected them in my absence.

I left to make another call but spotted Luc around the corner, phone to his ear, massaging the back of his neck.

Since Moss Grove, he'd changed the dirty jacket for a clean shirt. His hair was shaped back into something decent. I couldn't see a single bruise or cut.

After we left him in the woods, there had been no news. I almost ran to him.

He hung up abruptly and peered at me through faded green eyes. "Well, look who's awake."

"You've been here a while?"

"We chased until the cops clocked in, then we got here. Everyone went home. We should leave, too." He anticipated what I'd say next. "Emma is in good hands, there's not much else we can do tonight."

I wanted to cling, but I wasn't going to make Dad stay awake all night for me and keep Luc on his feet any longer.

We quietly exited the floor through the elevator and passed through the main double doors.

In the parking lot, he peeked inside his car and winced. I had to inform him of Emma's foaming and the heap of twigs and grass on the mats. But when I noticed bloody smears on the leather, I asked if we had anything to clean now.

"Out here, just like that?" he questioned, leaning an elbow on the door.

"It's a hospital. Who's gonna get ideas?"

"Right." He rubbed an eye, stretching out the shadow underneath. "I have stuff in the trunk to take care of this mess."

I stole the march to the trunk, keen on helping out in any manner I could. He was driving me home, as if I wasn't knee deep in his debt before this.

In the back, he carried a spare tire and more car supplies, but also blankets, large Z-ploc bags, duct tape, blue dish gloves, a sponge and rags... It went on and on.

Most of the space was decked to the gills. A GPS device, a compass.... a bolt cutter, a transparent, unlabeled spray bottle and a garbage bag dispenser. Our stares locked.

"Oh, I get why you ran from the cops."

He leaned in, grabbing the spray bottle and gloves combo. "I'm fresh out of zip ties."

Nice.

"What's in there?" I pointed at the unlabeled container.

"Ben does these concoctions for everyone to wash blood stains out of upholstery, but I don't really know what. You scrub with this first, then use the store-bought wipes."

I kept staring at him while he peeled his jacket off. For a brief moment, I thought he was screwing with me, but we did have blood stains to remove. "This is not beating the serial killer rumors."

For an answer, he passed me a pair of gloves and a couple of rags, winking.

I slid them on. I hunched in the backseat while he was spraying the stains under the dome lights.

"But seriously... does this happen often?" I attacked the first stain.

"Often enough to need refills."

My rag deepened to a rust color the harder I scrubbed. The smell of burnt flesh and earth still lingered in my nostrils. If I closed my eyes, I'd teleport in the middle of woods, surrounded.

Shit really happens, huh...

Luc's arm flexed, and he gave me a bitter look. "My bad. You had a lot in one night."

"We had the same night," I reminded him, offering a weak smile. I couldn't believe I could dare one so soon. "You and Devin were so coordinated, you got us out alive. Your parents must be doing something right."

"They didn't teach me these. They died before I was old enough to learn."

That hit me like a brick. I had no idea, but the empty cabin made sense now. My mind spun with scenarios on how they could have passed away—not that I would have had the nerve to poke the subject.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I was raised by close friends of theirs. Same goes for Ben and Devin."

I watched Luc intently as he channeled his energy on the backseat, scrubbing away. There had to be much more than he let on, and I wondered where his sister fell into the matter. She was his only blood relative left and yet nowhere to be seen.

"In fact, the reason why we own a part of the forest is so we can have a place to be ourselves," he continued. "We like to have a lot of private space. The conservation part's real."

That explained the home in the woods, and his initial reaction when I trespassed. "How does that work out?"

"Swimmingly. An older friend poses as the owner when rangers need to write follow-ups. They maintain the sparse trails and keep everything in order. You just missed them last week."

"Do you participate?"

He shrugged with his eyebrows. "Makes me feel like I'm doing something with my life."

My rag was saturated, so I dumped it in the garbage bag and pulled out a new one. I knew the mat had been tainted too, but Luc didn't touch it—maybe he saved it for the washing machine. I could lend him our mini vacuum from the basement. Or maybe he was switching them anyway.

Those were the things I conjured to distract myself from the looming aftermath, from Emma being in that building hooked up to machines. But for all that, I failed to keep it at bay.

"It's my fault, isn't it?"

"Thinking like this... it will eat you alive."

"It doesn't answer the question."

He halted his motions and leaned back. "It could have been the huge bonfire. The noise, the gathering... They usually snatched a victim, quickly and quietly, and it was over but this? Shit's going to get stir-crazy, the likes of which we've never handled before."

Their change in behavior was my fault, in that case. Emma's current state was my fault.

Oakwood was a tiny town, it didn't take much to startle the locals or make frontline news. This would be etched in the collective memory forever. I bit my cheek on the inside. Had I stayed with her in the clearing and prevented her from straying... Had I not gone to the bonfire at all...

The backseat didn't take as long as predicted. Luc was quiet when he keyed in the motor. I finished texting Dad, and we'd already jostled out of the parking lot. At the turn away from the hospital, I broke the silence.

"You didn't heal her. Why?"

"If the lab were to detect what's causing this and no clue on how it got there, it'd get too much attention. The parents, the specialists looking for a case study... Maybe media. It would be a disaster. I can't fix poisons, venoms or diseases, anyway."

"Will they find something in the tests?"

Luc tensed. "To test your tap water for lead, you need a specific test because you know what to look for. Medicine's often the same, so no."

I recalled the snake analogy. I wasn't much taller than Emma. Heavier, yes, but did it change the whole equation? I doubted it.

"Why didn't you tell me before about what the bite does? You knew I could have died."

I could read it on his expression that he'd been expecting this coming down the pike. I hadn't been warned about incomprehensible pain. Did he ever plan to update me on what I'd narrowly missed?

"You would have reacted before we came to my place."

That didn't help me feel better. "I could have collapsed. Why didn't I react—" I shifted in my seat. "Why didn't you at least tell me I was supposed to react?"

"Figured it was a dry bite. You were fine," he said, cutting me a glare. "I would have stressed you out for nothing, and in turn, you would have been insufferable for me."

I didn't know how to respond. It had been worth mentioning, instead this was how I had to find out.

"Did anyone else get dry bites?"

He looked so annoyed that I wouldn't drop it. "It wouldn't be the first time."

✩