Waybound by Cam Baity

beating, steady. His breath like a warm blanket. I float on the calm he brings.
    My eyes are zoomed in like binoculars. Struggle to blink my vision back to normal to read his words.
    â€œBECAUSE OF YOU, WE FOUND THE COVENANT.”
    I try to answer. He does not understand my gurgle.
    â€œBUT THE CHILDREN LIVE. THEY HELP THE ENEMY.”
    I moan. Sides of my mouth tear. Skin and lips shearing, peeling, curling away from the black hole of my mouth. He tries not to react, but I feel the flutter of his pulse.
    â€œWE WILL FIND THEM. YOU AND I.”
    I strain, shake. Furious. My blood bakes me from the inside.
    â€œTHE BOARD IS TRYING TO STOP ME,”
he writes
.
    I rasp an answer. He nods as if he understands.
    â€œTHEY KEEP ME FROM SEARCHING FOR THE CHILDREN.”
    I growl. Their hateful names burn holes into my thoughts.
    â€œYOU MUST BE IN SUCH AGONY. I AM SO SORRY.”
    His words wrap the wound that is my body like bandages. The sensation is electric. A cough in the next room distracts me, feel it through the wall. The Greencoats.
    They hate me. Not half as much as I hate them. Give me the chance and I will shatter them, offer their pieces to Mr. Goodwin.
    Mr. Goodwin, who is so kind.
    â€œBUT THE BOARD WILL NOT LET ME HELP YOU.”
    Cannot control myself. I snap, spray spittle at Mr. Goodwin. He shields himself with his clipboard. My spit froths. Dark ulcers bubble up on the metal tablet. Mr. Goodwin stares at it curiously.
    I feel ashamed. Edge away from him. He reaches out and touches my hand with his rubber-gloved one.
    Emotion chokes me with joy. And pain.
    â€œI WILL HAVE YOU BY MY SIDE. WE WILL MAKE IT RIGHT.”
    My face stretches, muscles twisting, skin peeling. But Goodwin is not afraid of my grisly display. He understands.
    And he smiles back.

    The toxin wore off soon after Phoebe and Micah escaped the grotto, and exhaustion overcame them. She led him to a clearing away from those pinwheel flowers and let him rest.
    It was getting late, and she was worried about being in this jungle after dark, but it couldn’t be helped. He needed sleep.
    She wet a corner of her skirt with a squirt of water and wiped away the glitter clinging to his face—the face she had so stupidly kissed earlier that morning. Micah looked so different now. Without that smug grin, he was just an innocent ten-year-old kid. All that cockiness and bluster, those obnoxious things that made him who he was, all of it was gone as he slept.
    Phoebe settled back against a tahnik to relax, but it was impossible. Too many worries pressed in. Would they find a Hearth in that nearby city? If so, they could contact the Ona and get the Aegis to take them to wherever they were supposed to go. If only Orei were here, at least Phoebe would feel safe. And Dollop too—she missed him terribly.
    Dollop. What a sad, hard place this world would be without him. But what could she have done?
    Phoebe couldn’t even save her own father.
    The thought of him tightened the screws of her heart.
    She pulled the whist over her head and retreated into its comforting silence. Phoebe attempted to purge her mind of doubt, to quiet the chattering voices inside—
to feel fiercely the love of her father
.
    All around her, the colors of the jungle were a dazzling, noiseless dream. Her muscles relaxed. She felt herself sink deeper. Her heartbeat was a soothing drone.
    Inhale. Exhale. In. Out…

    Time evaporated.
    Had she fallen asleep?
    It was a strange, numbing sensation, like being preserved in amber. In the dark, she saw a vague point of dancing light. It slipped away each time she noticed it, so she allowed her mind to drift, to let the shape form and dissolve.
    She felt a presence.
    Phoebe turned her mind to focus on it, to try and grasp it.
    It vanished. In a snap, she was back in her body, aware of the hardness of the ore beneath her. She sat up abruptly and pulled off the whist, welcoming back the sounds of the