He groans, energized by his frustration, pulsating with rage. “Nowhere’s safe from them, I told you. They’ve been following you this whole time,” he shouts, rising in one manic split second, standing before us, arms outstretched, pain forgotten. “And when I could find you alone, you wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t fucking list—”

A crash in the bushes interrupts him. “You motherfucker, don’t touch them,” Teddy says, running out and launching himself at Brando, who roars and scrabbles with him.

And we run.

TAI

One moment I have Noni’s hand in mine, and we are running, and then I look back at the burning cabin, at Mama, at Cousin Brando, at Uncle Teddy, and I am tumbling on a root, still coughing because my throat feels ablaze. I lose her hand, and I slide against a mossy growth and lose my balance and even though I pinwheel to stop myself, the whole world is spinning and I fall, hard, on my side, the pain ripping through me as I slide down a slope. My hands are raw and matted with dirt. My eyes flutter closed, and I’m seeing stars. When I open them the world is blacker.

“Noni?” I call into the black that doesn’t end.

I couldn’t tell you where I came from. I couldn’t tell you where I’m going. I try to bring myself to my feet, and I feel another splitting pain by my ribs. I try to get my bearings: I’ve landed myself in the center of a tangle of roots. It feels spongy beneath me; like something could break at any moment. There’s a powerful smell of rot.

“No, no, no,” I whisper, before listening for footsteps, for cracking branches.

“Tai?” Noni screams, from somewhere above me—the top of the ravine. “Are you hurt? Stay there!”

I want to scream at her to be quiet, to look out for Brando, to look out for Teddy, to be careful in the surreal hellscape these woods have become.

But then I see him. I see him before I hear him; his eyes gleam in the dark just across from me in this hideous nest of roots, two chips of glass in the midnight wood. The shadow of his bulk, next, and though it must be impossible, though this could only be a vision: as I press myself further into the sponginess, I see his eyes lock on to mine.

Teddy smells of blood, and all I can think of is Mama and Nons.