Page 59 of The Teras Trials

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

“He’s dead,” Victoria says. She moves to squat beside the weeping girl. “You have to get up. Don’t you want to live? You have to get up.”

“No, no, no,” the girl screams. Suddenly it isn’t silent sobbing. Her body heaves with grief; her body can’t contain it, and it spews out of her in a pitchy scream.

We back away and tense, waiting for the teras that did this to emerge. It doesn’t.

“This is ridiculous,” Bellamy croaks. He lets the metal pole fall to his side. “Where is the damn thing? Aren’t we meant to kill it? Hey,” he drops down beside Victoria, tries to get the sobbing girl’s attention by snapping his fingers in her face, “Hey, did you kill it? Did your group kill it?”

“Stop it,” Victoria mutters. Her own voice starts to rise into a sob. “For God’s sake, Bellamy, stop it.”

Bellamy mutters something in his flat voice—all the vulnerability from the morning has been swallowed, apparently—and he pushes away from Victoria. I know he’s on edge, but he’s letting it leak out of him.

Fred gestures her head towards the hemlock. “Alright just to grab it?” she whispers to Silas.

“It’s only poisonous if you ingest it,” he informs her, without looking away from the sobbing girl. Fred moves and squats to wrench it free, and Silas says, “But I suppose there’s no harm in—”

Two screams sound. One is a great, triumphant cry that curdles, croaking and clicking undercutting the tone. The other is human—I spin in time to see massive destructive claws tear into the girl’s face. In the same instant, the teras is gone. Victoria screams and staggers back. Blood gushes as half the girl’s cheek sloughs off. Her hands hover in front of her torn face, screaming, screaming, and all of us are caught by shock. For too long, we simply don’t move.

The next swooping attack goes for Fred.

I watch as the teras emerges from the trees. It is huge, coming up to one’s navel, its wingspan the size of a tall human. Its body is muscular and feathered, a malformed buzzard, overly large. The talons are deadly, just great, hooked toes that dive at Fred’s face. And the head—God—I jolt away and raise the flintlock gun, but the thing is too fast.

Harpy.

It has the head of a shrieking woman, hair whipping around its pale face; its mouth is open wide and when it screeches, a thin, flat tongue emerges. Fred rolls out of the way, torn out hemlock in her grip. The harpy dives again. Talons flex over Fred’s head. This time I’m forced to fire. Either my shot goes wide or the harpy dodges, too quick for me to see. It shrieks and shreds up Fred’s arm. Silas wrenches the pipe from Bellamy’s motionless hands and screams, charging for his sister. The harpy masterfully darts and weaves, and it’s clear to me Silas is still affected by his wound. Three great overhead swings later—enough to deter the harpy for a moment—and he clutches at his side. The grey vest grows sticky with blood.

“Get to cover!” I hiss.

I run to the left and hunker low against a tree. Thin scratching branches snap against my neck as I push close, catching my breath. The others move similarly, except Victoria, who weakly pulls at the wounded girl’s arm. She is sobbing, gripping tight to the dead boy.

“Leave her,” I hear Bellamy hiss, and my stomach twists—not at the decision, but at its necessity. What kind of man am I becoming if ensuring that girl’s death doesn’t make me flinch? It’s barely been three days.

Leo rushes in beside me, panting. He fixes me a look, then his eyes wander to the girl.

“She wouldn’t survive,” he says. I hate that he says it. “Out of the wards, I mean.” He swallows and I think he’s done, until he says, “You have to be willing to walk away. To protect yourself. Like you did with Thaddeus.”

It’s a gut punch. I’m not sure he meant it how I’m taking it—how soulless I am becoming, how cruel and hardened—and I try to look at him with a stony, accepting expression. But I can’t hold it. Something flickers in my eye and Leo touches my shoulder and squeezes.

“Live, Cassius Jones. Don’t sacrifice yourself for a girl who will not appreciate it.”

I look back at her. She’s mourning, I want to say. She’s in shock. Someone she loves is dead.

But even now, with her face wounded, she won’t leave the body. I don’t know how I can help her.

There is nothing, in the end, that I can do. The harpy swoops out for an easy meal. I quake and spin against Leo’s side. I think he keeps watching. There’s one final scream, and then the wet sounds of raw stringy flesh tearing from the bone. Leo barely makes a sound, like he’s used to this.

God, I hate that. I hate that more than anything.

“Have you faced one before?” I whisper to him.

“No. Not exactly. There was a summer where they lurked around Southend. But they really were just after food. Anything that was left out. Animals. Bread. Fruit. They’d swoop in and take it. Lived most of that summer inside.”

“How did you get them to go away?”

Leo grunts, face creasing in apology. “We didn’t. They left of their own accord. Got bored, I guess.”

“Okay,” I say calmly. I feel anything but. “Any suggestions?”

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