“It always is.” Eli adjusts himself, as if to add to his point.
“I had to hold everyone back while waiting to make sure you were done,” Milo says. “You’re not the only ones out here, you know. Most of Sonnet is determined to find the Centress and track us down. They’re loyal to her.”
Eli glances at me. “I doubt they’ll find her.”
I shrug. Who knows where my mother’s body ended up after the flood.
“You guys can come over now,” Milo calls over his shoulder, and Kaleida, Sypher and Maverick J. appear. “He put his dick away.”
“The kid,” Kaleida hisses as Atom steps out from behind Maverick J.’s orange vest.
“He’s got one too,” Milo counters with a smile.
“Yeah, but I don’t piss in front of people,” Atom says, wrinkling his nose at Eli. “And I don’t need a helper either.”
Milo erupts with uncontained laughter.
“Who raised this kid?” I ask.
“Nobody raises kids in Sonnet. They go to school and learn how to deal with pain. And inflict it.” Milo’s own words kill his laughter.
“Oh my gods. We are the worst people to be watching a child,” Kaleida says.
“What happened to the tree?” Sypher asks, studying the destruction.
“I took her so hard she split a tree in half when she came,” Eli says simply. “Want me to see if she can do it again? Plenty of trees around here.”
“Enough,” Kaleida scolds as she releases Atom’s ears after clapping her hands over them only a couple of seconds too late.
Faint thuds sound in the distance. I try to place which direction they come from, but they’re all around us. “What is that?”
“Footsteps,” Eli says. “All the Vaile from the village are coming, and there’s a lot of them and a few of us.” He turns to me. “And that burst of light from you will lead them straight here.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” I ask. “With your hearing, you would have heard them coming from miles away. Same with Milo’s footsteps.” I gesture to the group. “All of their footsteps.”
He lifts a resigned shoulder and drops it loosely. “I did. The Vaile already surrounded us completely long ago. I heard them coming from every side, a full circle. There was no point in running. Any direction we go means facing them.”
“That’s a problem!” Kaleida trills. “The entire village is about to surround us, we have nowhere to go, you knew it andthatis what you were doing?” She waves her hand at Eli and me.
Eli stares at her. “Yes.”
She returns a frigid glare. “What’s the plan for not dying?”
Eli catches my gaze and holds it, eyes blazing. “Never will stop them.”
My jaw hangs loose before I gather my wits. “I may be a serious threat to the trees whenever you’re around, but do you actually expect me to split people in half too? I don’t even have shoes on.” As if shoes would make a difference.
“Shit,” Sypher says, tugging on his jumpsuit collar as if it were suddenly hard to breathe. “I’m climbing a tree.”
“I’m not waiting down here.” Maverick J. follows Sypher in search of a climbable tree.
“Take him with you,” Milo instructs, pushing Atom in their direction. Atom whips around and shoots him the kind of glare I try so hard to pull off and never quite manage to. Milo approaches Eli and me, his brow creased slightly in thought, his boyish face hardened with worry. “Ever.”
I go for the last ring on my pointer, wheeling it around my antsy finger. “What?”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Of course she does,” Eli says.
