Page 27 of Fable for the End of the World

The Angel’s face flashes through my mind. Those black, black eyes. “I thought it was a pretty good shot.”

“That’s why Dad never trusted you with a gun.”

There’s just a fleck of humor in his voice, and it defuses the seriousness of the moment. I huff out a laugh. “At least we know he’s right about one thing, then. That’s a good omen, right?”

“I’ll take it.” Luka brushes the last bit of glass off his seat. “Come on.”

We climb back into the car. Even the air feels colder now, sharper. Hostile. Whenever I blink, I see the Angel, her pale hair rippling. Sometimes she even appears in the path of the headlights—but that, at least, I know is a mirage, a trick of my exhausted and panic-stricken mind.

Sometimes it’s Mom who darts across the road, blanket trailing behind her, feet bare. I resist the urge to slam on the brakes. I press down steadily on the gas and keep driving, as the vision dissipates like smoke.

It’s less than an hour before the car starts making troubling noises. I pull over and Luka opens the hood. There’s blue-white smoke wafting from the engine. Not that either of us has a single clue what that means. We both stare down, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed in bewilderment. Luka dares to reach down and touch the bizarre metal tubing, but he jerks his hand back almost instantly, fingertips singed bright red.

“Fuck,” he says.

I squint at the engine, then poke one of the tubes gingerly. Nothing happens, except that the smoke grows thicker and more acrid. Luka pulls down his sleeves to cover his palms and fiddles with some of the knobs. They make a sinister grinding sound.

My brain has literally never felt smaller. It doesn’t help that I’ve gone almost twenty hours without sleep. Luka takes out his tablet and tries to give himself a crash course on repairing an engine, but it’s hard when all we can search is “what does that nozzle thing do” or “why is there black stuff dripping from the undercarriage.”

“Even if we figure out what’s wrong,” I say, “we probably don’t have the tools or the parts to fix it.”

Luka scrolls through a page of dense, incomprehensible automobile repair tips. “And I doubt there’s anyone nearby who knows how to fix a gas-powered car.”

“Probably not.”

Silence covers us, unpunctuated by bird trills or cricket warbles. I shiver at the eerie quiet.

“As long as we’re just waiting here, we’re sitting ducks.” Luka turns off his tablet with a furious exhale. “Damn it.”

I didn’t expect to hear the pitch of frustration in Luka’s voice. Usually he’s the epitome of the strong, silent type. Strangely, though, his anxiety makes me calmer. “It’s all right. We’ll just—we’ll have to continue on foot.”

Luka gives me a scornful look. “You saw how quickly she caught up to us when we were driving. We don’t stand a chance on foot. Even if we run. And no offense, but I don’t think you have the stamina for that.”

The back of my neck prickles. “I’m sorry I’m such a liability.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“That’s what it feels like.”

A part of me knows I’m not being fair. But Mom has poisoned my brain, and that poison is spreading, seeping into everything.Weak. Stupid.

Luka stares at me, unflinching.

“Just leave me, then,” I say. I draw in a breath that puffs up my chest, feigning strength where I don’t feel it. “Go back to Esopus. You and Mom will manage fine without me.”

“Fucking stop it, Inesa. Don’t do this right now.”

“Do what?” The tip of my nose is growing hot. “This was never going to work. I’m not... Mom was right. I can’t do this, I can’t—”

A short, rough sob wrenches itself from my throat, and my eyes water. A thousand emotions flit across Luka’s face, because this is part of our silent agreement: not to make each other cry, not to burden the other person with your fears, to pretend you don’thaveany fears. I reach up to brush away the tears before they can fall.

As Luka opens his mouth to reply, there’s a strange, gutturalnoise from the bushes beside us.

I watch the color drain from Luka’s face. Every drop of blood in my body turns to ice.

Another sound, like twigs snapping under a boot. The bushes rustle.

Very, very quietly, Luka says, “Let’s go, Inesa.”

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