Page 9 of The Last One
Once they quit whispering and take a breath, once they let me explain, they’ll understand. They’ll say, “Oh, well, that’s reasonable,” and then they’ll turn to Olivia and say, “Stop being an ass. Return her things at once.” And then Olivia will give me every item that she stole. Then I’ll leave their grubby little village, fully dressed, and I’ll never come back.
Johny shakes me by the arm. “You wanna act tough in my town? We’ll see how tough you are.”
I desperately lock eyes with Nightstar Sparkle, the only person in this village who might be on my side. But she merely tilts her head and watches.“They do not understand, child. They are dying and desperate. They will see you dead, too, if you continue this path.”Her thoughts stand as bright and apart from the others as the daystar.
“That’s why they’re glowing amber, isn’t it?”I ask, directing my thought to her.
The woman gives a small nod.
“Come on, stop dawdling.” Johny yanks me away from the market and pulls me down a dirt path that becomes rockier with each step. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Copperhair using the tail of a cloak,mycloak, to dry tears from the bandit’s pink cheeks.
Obviously, I didn’t choke Olivia enough—she’s still standing here, breathing.
Why isn’t Nightstar Sparkle speaking up for me? She knows that I’ve done nothing wrong. Why was she kind only to abandon me now? I’d rather have her speak on my behalf than give me the “gift” of hearing the thoughts of dunderheads.
With some of the villagers following us, Johny pulls me to a squalid bungalow that thrums with death glow. A bronze oared circle is nailed above the door of this windowless hut, and the soil around it is thick with brown and putrid green clots. Fat, happy flies bumble around the iron door. By the smell of it, there’s plenty here forthemto eat.
Many people have died in this rancid shack. Many people arestilldying in this rancid shack, and though I can’t see them through the open doorway, I see their amber silhouettes crammed together like this guard’s teeth. I can’t hear their thoughts, though. Perhaps that’s because the people jailed within these rotting timber walls are barely alive.
“This one’s well-fed,” a villager remarks. “She’ll last a nice long time in the clink.” Then she spits at me and thrusts a totem of that symbolic circle in front of my face.
“No sores on her skin, either,” Dirty Bonnet adds, clutching a smaller totem but reluctant to hold it out. Amber glows brightest around this woman. The sore on her top lip weeps with pus and feeds the other poisons streaming in her blood. Sheneedsto worry about her failing heart instead of tormenting me.
“That’ll change in the clink,” Spitter says.
They laugh.
Where is Nightstar Sparkle? I search for her in the crowd. She’s gone.
Panic rises in my chest. This is worse than cold-emptiness. Iknowcold-emptiness. But this feeling is terrifying. I know of panic, but I’ve never panicked. Until now. Between the ire of these villagers and my inability to remember one damned thing, I’m…overwhelmed.
“Is it safe to keep this one locked up with the other prisoners?” an older man with rotten teeth asks. “If she’s a wraith, she might suck the life out of them in there.”
“But wraiths don’t look like that,” Spitter says. “Wraiths got that crinkly skin and them pointy fingers. They don’t touch the ground, neither. This one, though. Look at her. Stompin’ around on them big feet she got.”
“So, whatisshe?” the man asks.
I try to take deep breaths, but no deep breaths come. I want to scream, “I’m no one, I’m nothing, just let me go,” but I need to breathe to scream. I can’t breathe, I can’t scream, and I can’t think because I’m panicking because I can’t breathe.Overwhelmed.
“She’s Gorga,” Dirty Bonnet says.
Gorga?That verbal slap stops my mind’s spiraling.
“Gorga aren’t real no more.”
“Maybe she’s Jundum. They’ve cursed this town before. Brought in the Miasma.”
Jundum? Mias—what?What are these peopletalkingabout? This is outrageous. This is preposterous. But this detour into the absurd offers me something to grasp. What ridiculous notions of who and what I am will I hear now? I may not know much about myself, but I do know that I’m not a fucking troll or a Gorga.
Spitter says, “She’s one of the Vile.”
Dirty Bonnet sucks her teeth. “But aren’t the Vile the most beautiful of them all? She’s not beautiful.”
“Not at all,” Johny says.
I can’t believe these horrible people are saying such horrible things. I can’t believe these horrible people with their rotten teeth and dirty hair, their bleeding sores and warty noses are callingmevile. A small part of me wants to laugh, but most of me wants to weep.
Their noise and their smell make my knees weak, and not one person in the crowd says, “Maybe we’re being too hasty,” or “I think we should hear her out,” or any word that would make them stand apart from their hive.
