Page 73 of The Quiet
Baker’s bloodied hands gripped the bear’s head with futile resistance as with massive strength the teeth cracked her ribs and she screamed again, like an animal.
Where was Peter?
Amiel was torn off of her and cast back against the opposite trees.
Baker’s hands hovered over the wound, body propped up against the tree, blood pouring through her fingers. A figure walked past her, another bear of equal size and Amiel roared. The lighter bear roared back and they fought furiously, before Amiel’s animal burst into bees and scattered back into the air.
Baker stared into space as the scene began to feel fake and distant. The light bear morphed into the shape of a man she barely recognized. He walked up to her, knelt in front of her, and ran his fingers across her face, combing her hair back.
“Ella,” he whispered, “can you find your way out?”
She stared at his face as her mind tried to reach back for some recognition of where she was. The man was gone in a blink as a wave of pain swallowed her.
Somehow, she knew that no one had actually saved her. Amiel had eventually left her there to bleed a slow death.
Peter. She had to find Peter. He would help her. He could save her life.
Baker hoisted her body up, urgency surging through her and guiding her back to the path.
She leaned from tree to tree. Her body was soaked in blood by the time she reached the ledge, hoisting herself up against a pine and looking over the city. She could hear the chaos in the city,smoke rising up around the edges of the gates. Despite it being late afternoon, the gates were already closed.
Something was wrong. She had to find Peter.
She stumbled down the ledge back to the city. She knew a secret entrance. She could get inside.
She had to find Peter.
She was suddenly divorced from this frantic moment again. She knew she’d made it back to the city. She remembered walls of fire and panic.
The Bleeding Grin was rife with discord. She’d followed the yellow gates to Peter’s study, to the white table. But had she found him?
Ella.The man’s voice from before echoed again.
She was sitting in front of the tree again with her wounds, staring at the peculiar man with coal black hair and dark eyes. Rings of amber, like hot coals and honey, circled his irises as he watched her. Her memories rewound despite her trying to play them forward to the end.
His name surfaced on her lips. “Jackson.”
“Come out,” he replied.
She blinked and she was healed.
She blinked again and she was at the foot of a scorched, oil soaked Bleeding Grin.
Gasping for new breath in lungs free of pain, she searched the dark mire around them and remembered what had happened to her.
Lambspeak was kneeling beside her, his hand on her face again.
“You’re back, but you relived the worst of it, I’m afraid,” he said, searching her eyes. “It only took me a few seconds to find you, but the trappings of the mind are timeless, and you’ve been somewhere else for a while, replaying moments of your life at Amiel’s mercy. How is your head?”
She pieced her memories together, everything in her past so vivid it were as if it had never been forgotten. It seemed like she’d lived two separate lives, side by side, and they connected now like a disjointed puzzle. She was in pieces still, but now much less was missing.
“Ella was Marnie’s sister,” she choked. Perhaps she’d remembered it out of some fondness for the woman she’d left behind.
Before Lambspeak could answer, the earth caved in behind the Grin, forming a massive pit that spread as the surface imploded into the tunnels and caves below. A monster of great stature crawled from the earth. Like a thousand times before, she felt it was her time to face it, until Lambspeak rose beside her and placed himself between them. He moved several paces ahead as the beast rose above them. Its wings again spanned across the sky. In broad daylight this monster, feeding in the earth, rose and cast a black fog over the horizon.
“The past was your battleground, and you faced Amiel bravely, again and again. Now, think of nothing but the future, Ella. Thatbattleground is mine,” Lambspeak spoke ahead of her as she saw the image of him flicker. “Hold fast to it, and I’ll tether Amiel to her death there,” Lamsbpeak said before the monster’s great body lifted to the sky, and struck, jaws wide to eat them in a single bite.
Lambspeak’s form broke into mist, and before Amiel crashed after them, another beast materialized from Lambspeak’s mist. It caught Amiel by the jaws and ripped them apart before Amiel’s form exploded into fog and both beasts evaporated into a violent, sweeping darkness that cast across the sky in a wave that swallowed the valley.
