J. Mitchell - Midnight City

“I’m Zoey,” the little girl said to Mira, stepping into line beside her.

“I heard,” Mira replied.

“Why are you two tied together? Are you best friends?”

Mira chuckled at the question. “Yes. Yes, we are,” she said.

Holt shook his head, trying to ignore both of them. As much as he hated to admit it, things were getting complicated. He had to keep it all from falling apart. Somehow he had to find a way.

In the distance, he heard the rumbling of Assembly engines headed their way. Osprey dropships, no doubt. Carrying walkers, Spiders and Mantises. In ten minutes, this area would be crawling with them. But he planned to be long gone by then, melded into the forest. He’d gotten very good at hiding from Assembly these last eight years.

It wasn’t until hours later, when the sounds of engines and walker legs faded behind them, and the blaring alarm tone from the east finally silenced that he realized the little girl had used his name back at the crash site.

She used it… even though Holt had never said it.

THE NIGHT DRAPED AROUND MIRA as she made her way through the forest. The moon had long ago disappeared beyond the horizon, and the trees were even thicker now, which meant very little starlight got through.

They’d seen nothing of the Assembly since the crash, but they had heard them. Ships had roared by in the distance, which Mira guessed were dropships. The suspicion was confirmed when they heard the stomping of walker legs behind them. Deep, pointed thumps that shook the ground, even from far away. Only the big ones, the Spider walkers, could make those sounds from that far.

Holt wanted to be careful about attracting attention, so they weren’t using lights. It was a good call, but it wasn’t doing Mira’s shins any good with the constant scraping and bruising from rocks and thick brush. It was just one more reason why she disliked him.

Max was several yards ahead, tail wagging delightedly as he pushed through the brush with his nose, sniffing and panting, making more noise than any of them. Mira rolled her eyes at the dog’s exuberance.

Her rope stretched behind her, trailing all the way back to Holt. Every once in a while, when she got too far ahead, Holt would snap it back to keep her in place. She fumed at the situation she’d gotten herself into. Her, a captive. To him. But she still had the cylinder… and a plan. She clutched the Zippo lighter tightly, biding her time.

“Holt?” Zoey asked behind Mira. The little girl walked with the bounty hunter, one hand clutching the hem of his shirt. She wasn’t necessarily afraid of the dark, but she didn’t take to it easily either. Zoey looked at every shadow and dark spot with skepticism.

“What?” Holt said in annoyance. He snapped Mira’s rope again, and her eyes thinned to angry slits. She’d show him soon enough….

“We’re still going the wrong way,” Zoey said.

Mira heard Holt sigh in frustration. He was getting impatient with the kid, had clearly grown too used to being on his own. He didn’t like having to explain himself, Mira could tell. All she needed was for him to lose his cool with Zoey, lose it enough to take his eyes off her, just for a moment….

“Listen,” Holt said with forced patience. “We are one hundred percent headed the right direction. And that direction is north. You can trust me on this, I’m very good at what I do.”

“Not this time. We’re headed right for them.”

“For who?”

“The scary ones, the metal ones.”

Mira heard another sigh from Holt. “The Assembly’s gone, Zoey, I promise. We’ve left them behind, and pretty soon the sun will be up and you’ll see everything is fine, okay?”

“But everything isn’t fine, Holt,” Zoey insisted. With every step northward they took, she seemed to get more nervous. “When the sun comes up, it will get worse. Much worse.”

Like Holt, Mira didn’t really buy into Zoey’s concerns either. Why would the Assembly be all the way out here, when the crash site was back behind them? Still, Mira had no doubt the kid believed it. The little girl was a weird mix. Shy and scared and unassuming one moment, then certain and assertive the next. And there still remained the mystery of what exactly she was doing on that ship. But if things went according to plan, she’d be long gone and not in a position to find out.

They took a few more steps; then Zoey simply quit walking.

Mira flinched as Holt yanked her to a stop.

“Zoey, we have to keep moving. We’re almost ready to stop, I promise.” Holt’s voice was tight with frustration.

“I don’t want to stop, I want to go back the way we came.”

Mira turned around to look at the pair. Zoey was staring straight ahead, past Mira, past even Max, to the shadows of the trees beyond. Her eyes were wide with fear. At the front of the line, Max stopped moving and looked back at them all with a frustrated whine.

“Look, kiddo, I’m about done being nice,” Holt said, reaching for the little girl forcefully. “I got places to go and problems to solve, and you’re really putting a cramp on it.”

Zoey slipped away from him, stepped back a few paces. “They’re right ahead of us!” she said, clear notes of fear in her voice, staring past them all.

“Zoey…” Holt, exasperated, moved after the little girl… and turned his back on Mira.

It was what she’d been waiting for. It was now or never.

She popped open the Zippo, snapped it to life. A small flame jutted from the top, but it wasn’t orange like normal flame. It was purple.

Mira touched the purple flame to her bonds… and the entire line of rope, from her hands, to her waist, to the length stretching back to Holt, incinerated to smoke in the blink of an eye. The lighter was a major artifact from deep in the Strange Lands. The small flame it produced combusted any substance (as long as it was flammable) almost instantaneously.

Mira screamed as the incineration effect burned her wrists and waist; Holt yelled, too, as the rope on his end flared into ashes. But the pain was worth it. She was free.

Max barked in alarm and Holt ripped around. Mira hesitated long enough to see the look on his face… then broke into a run into the forest, quickly leaving the three behind.

She heard Max bark as she ran past, but he didn’t pursue. She listened to the sound fade away behind her. Holt had probably told the stupid mutt to stay behind and watch Zoey. Good. She knew she could outrun Holt if she had enough of a headstart.

Mira darted forward. The darkness made it tough, but the hours of walking through the forest at night had accustomed her to the shapes and shadows of the trees; she could almost tell how far they extended and to where.

She leapt over roots, dodged trunks and brush. Behind her, she could hear Holt’s footfalls, hot in pursuit. She kept running, breathing hard, trying to put distance between them.

She bolted left, leapt over a fallen log, hoping to lose him. If she could get far enough ahead, she might—

Mira skidded to a jarring stop, almost falling flat on her face in a desperate attempt to halt. She stared ahead at what was in front of her, felt the cold fingers of fear crawl up her spine at the sight.

Slowly, breathing hard, trembling, she started to back away…

…and Holt slammed into her from behind, drove her hard into the ground in front of another log. She groaned as the air gushed from her lungs.

Holt spun her around, opened his mouth to yell… then stopped when he saw her eyes. Mira knew he could see the terror in them.

Holt looked up and past her to where she had just been looking. She watched him react at the same thing she had just seen.