We look at the chip in the moonlight. It is an old-fashioned silicone chip, a thinking rock, with red pulses running through it as the battery powers it. It looks brutal and rough, just like the Vikar themselves.
“What are we going to attach it to?” he asks.
“We could tie it to a rock and throw it off a cliff. They might think I died and got eaten by animals.”
“They might,” he says. “That’s simpler than trying to wrestle some of the wildlife into submission.”
“I think we should just smash it,” I say. “We’re literally leading them right to us.”
Thor snorts, then agrees. The most satisfying moment is the one where we place that chip on a rock on the ground and then I pound it into fucking dust with another one. It’s the only sound we’ve allowed ourselves to make this whole time, and it is worth it. With every blow, I grit my teeth and think of the arrogance that has to exist to think such a thing would ever be effective on me.
With the chip destroyed, we get moving again. It’s important to put as much distance between ourselves and the Vikar. From time to time, it sounds like loud shrieks and wails are coming from their direction. The sounds are made thin by the miles though, so we can’t be sure if they are giving chase or just having a good time.
Eventually though, we have to stop.
“We’ll make camp,” Thor says. “A small one. You sleep. I will watch.”
“I have to do something first,” I say. “I need a knife. A real one.”
He fishes one out of his bag and hands it to me. I set to work.
“What are you doing?”
Thor asks the question as I bend green branches into shape and tie them with vines and bits of string and wire from the wreckage.
“It’s a trap,” I explain to him. “I learned how to make them when I was tending the herd. We can maybe try to catch something to eat.”
He nods and lets me finish what I started.
When I am satisfied with my work, we sit in the darkness at a distance from the trap. We cannot risk even trying to light a fire. We have to be still as the rocks around us, and just as silent. We are being hunted.
I grip the knife Thor recovered from the wreckage. He cradles a rifle in his arms. Neither one of us know if it will actually work, so it will be best if he does not have to use it.
We look at each other from time to time. It’s the only kind of conversation we can risk. I want to apologize to him for some reason. I am not sure why. For being here at all? For ever having gotten on the ship? That would not have changed anything. He would be sitting in a forest alone right now if I had not. I would be on a grassy plain watching goat kids play.
I owe myself an apology for being so impulsive, for letting my ego get the better of me when they told me I wasn’t suitable for the mission. They were right. I wasn’t suitable for being shot out of the sky.
There’s a sudden snap and a grunt in the forest.
I stop looking at Thor and I rush for the trap. We’ve caught something. Knife in hand, I prepare to dispatch whatever unfortunate animal has snared itself. I move quickly because I do not want it to suffer. I want to end the fear as quickly as possible, and I want to give it peace.
I come to a halt next to the trap.
I don’t want to give this prey peace. I don’t want to give this asshole the time of fucking day.
It’s Drako.
He’s walked right into my snare and now he’s hanging in the tree, wriggling about like a worm on a hook. I don’t know what he’s been through since the party, but his black and red leather attire, and a good part of his exposed skin, are covered in what looks like blood. He might be injured. Hard to say.
What I do know is that the satisfaction I get from seeing him in this state is incredible.
I laugh for the first time in what feels like forever. Maybe since before the house burned down and my sisters betrayed our family’s legacy because their husbands steer them like mindless puppets, but let’s not be bitter about that right now.
Thor comes through the undergrowth at that moment, and stares at what we’ve caught.
“Cut him down,” he says. “I’ve got rope.”
Drako is already well trussed by the snare, but by the time Thor and I are done with him, he’s an immobile worm on the ground.
