Page 31 of Fable for the End of the World

The Lamb’s gaze flickers upward, and I seize the moment. I launch myself at her, knocking her over and pinning her to the ground. My rifle slips from her grasp.

She chokes out a wordless protest as I straddle her hips, one hand pressing down on her throat.

Thunder crashes. Tears squeeze from her eyes.

I press down harder.

It takes five minutes to strangle someone. So it won’t be my quickest kill, but it will be bloodless. The Lamb reaches up and claws weakly at my face.

“Please,” she croaks.

I can hear the low hum of the cameras flitting around our heads, capturing every twitch, every breath. The Lamb’s eyes are shining, the color of damp leaves, of moss soaked with morningdew, deep green with flecks of brown. I feel her start to go limp.

And then I feel a droplet on my back. The coldness seeps through my hunting suit. At first I think it’s sweat, or moisture from the trees. The wind comes howling into the clearing, whipping my hair around my face, nearly tearing it loose from its sleek ponytail.

The downpour comes with another strike of lightning.

I flinch as the rain gushes over me. It’s only a matter of seconds before I’m soaked to the skin. The Lamb’s hair is plastered to her face, her eyelids fluttering. Her lips move vaguely, but I can’t hear her desperate, feeble pleas over the deafening rush of rainwater.

My vision ripples. Steadies, then ripples again. There’s a fizzing, staticky sound—water leaking into my prosthetic?

When I blink through the rainwater, the Lamb is gone.

There’s a body beneath me, but it’s not hers. It’s a small body, delicate, frail-limbed. Blond hair spreads out around the girl’s head. Her face is bloodless, blue eyes wide and fixed on nothing. Blood stains the front of her dress, spouting from a bullet hole in her chest.

Frommybullet. The water washing over me, weighing my limbs down. Every other sound fades into the periphery. There’s only the pounding rain, my heart skipping beats as I stare at the girl who is not the girl, at the blood that trickles from the corner of her mouth.

No.

No.

It’s not real. I’m not here again.I raise a hand to wipe the waterfrom my face, but I can’t even feel it. My fingers are numb and so are my cheeks. The scene in front of me flickers, like a tablet screen trying to load, and then I see the Lamb again. She’s moving groggily but determinedly, trying to wriggle out from underneath me. In lifting my hand from her throat, I’ve given her just enough slack to get loose.

“Don’t,” I pant, but the word is swallowed by the roar of the rain.

Her throat is red, red, red where my hands have pressed down on it. I reach for her again.

And then I feel a sudden, breathtaking pain as something is thrust hard against my temple. Static crackles agonizingly in my ear, driving needles into my brain. I sway for a moment, my body going limp.

I fall. Blackness swallows my vision and pulls me under before I even hit the ground.

Eleven

Inesa

The Angel topples over and I shove her limp body off of me, gaspingfor air. My throat is burning, and my breaths come in uneven, choking spurts. I push myself to my knees, palms sinking into the newly wet earth. Mud seeps from between my splayed fingers and water falls in freezing rivulets down my face.

I feel pressure on my back. Luka. He grabs me by the elbow and hauls me to my feet. My arms and legs are pricking with a thousand pins and needles and they feel as heavy as lead.

“Inesa,” he pants.

I blink droplets from my lashes and look around the clearing. It’s hard to see anything through the torrent of rainwater: tree branches sagging and swaying in the storm, the grass pressed flat to the muddy ground. And there’s the Angel’s body. She’s on her stomach, limbs starfished out around her. Her head is turned to the side, so I can only see her profile, so impossibly pale against the dark, damp earth.

I see the beginnings of a bruise on her temple, pale purple,where the butt of Luka’s rifle landed. A single brusque, brutal blow.

“Is she—” I try hoarsely, then clear my throat and try again. “Is she dead?”

“Who fucking cares?”

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