It was like we’d never been in a battle before. Cat was the smoothest of all, of course, nocking an arrow before the rest of us were even standing.
In no time, bullets were whistling past our ears, the headlamps poking through the woods. Headed straight in our direction.
A flare rocketed skyward, bathing the night in eerie luminescence, and I got my first glimpse of the attackers. There had to have been at least fifty of them. Two bullets bit the earth at my feet. I did a little dance and stumbled to the ground.
I was just pulling myself up when I heard a sharp whistling sound, growing steadily louder. A moment later there was a huge explosion. Dirt and rocks and shrapnel sailed through air, throwing everyone off their feet. Whoever was standing next to me went flying, as if some giant hand had swatted him aside.
More mortars followed, but even scarier than that was the sight of Brown Shirts, surging toward us like a tidal wave. The flare’s green light made their silhouettes flicker like monsters’.
“Douse the fire!” I yelled. As long as there were even smoldering coals, the soldiers would have no trouble picking us off. Someone threw the contents of their canteen on the embers, and white smoke billowed up.
I scrambled to find the person who’d been hit. His moans led me to him, and even by weak moonlight it was clear who I was looking at.
Cat.
His left arm was like spaghetti, an explosion of red sinews and dangling muscles. He’d already lost a ton of blood and was barely conscious. At the sight of it—his limp arm and ashen face—I grew suddenly clammy. The horizon tilted. It was all I could do to keep from passing out.
I felt a pull and realized Flush was tugging at my shirt. “What do we do?!” he shouted.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to calm myself. Steady breaths. Steady. And suddenly it wasn’t Cat I saw, but the woman from my dreams—the one with the long black hair. She was kneeling on prairie grass, hands atop my shoulders, her eyes locked with mine.
“Book!” Flush screamed, and my eyes popped open. “What do we do?”
Flares exploded in the sky and mortars exploded on the ground. These Brown Shirts meant to kill us then and there.
Meanwhile, the Less Thans stood in a half circle staring down at Cat, their expressions vacant and disbelieving. The sight of him gasping for breath stopped us in our tracks. It was as if we’d lost the power to act. Lost even the ability to think straight.
Without knowing what I was saying or why I was saying it, I began barking out commands. “Twitch and Dozer, lay cover with your arrows. Hope, spread out your best shooters and hammer the Brown Shirts from the sides. Red and Flush, pound them with rocks. The rest of you, get back up that ridge ASAP.”
Everyone went into motion.
“Who’s got Cat?” Twitch asked, nocking his first arrow.
“Me,” I said, and before anyone could object, I grabbed Cat’s good arm, hoisted him over my shoulder, and began carrying him up the hill.
It made no sense, of course. I was the weakest of the bunch with a permanent limp, but at that particular moment I could’ve lifted all the LTs. After all, it was Cat—my friend Cat. Sure, I didn’t know what he was doing with Hope behind my back, but I knew it was up to me to save his life.
It was a mad scramble up the steep slope, everyone making for the woods at the crest. Bullets zinged around us, digging up the earth and embedding themselves into trees. Adding to the chaos were the flares washing the night in shades of eerie green, turning the world into a lurid nightmare—as vivid and terrifying as hell itself.
“Twitch, get out of there!” I yelled.
He nodded but didn’t stop firing, pulling one arrow from his quiver after another. It was like he was a man possessed, and I saw at least three Brown Shirts lying on the ground, arrows protruding from their bellies like flags. Twitch had done his job, and then some. Frank would’ve been proud.
“Twitch!” I yelled again.
But too late. A mortar screamed from the heavens, landing not far from where he knelt. The explosion catapulted him into the air. Red and Flush raced to his side and grabbed ahold of his hands. They began dragging him up the hill.
The only thing that saved us was the dark. Each time the flares faded, the soldiers were shooting at shadows.
“Drop me,” Cat moaned.
“Like hell,” I said.
By the time we made it into the trees, I was breathing so hard I thought my lungs might explode. I lowered Cat to the ground and examined his wound. It was bad. His left forearm was a shredded mess of tissue and muscle, skin hanging like a loose flap. I ripped off my belt and tied a tourniquet above his elbow. Then I tore off his shirt and pressed it on the wound, trying to stanch the flow of blood. I hated that I was getting good at this.
I noticed everyone had made it to the trees, including the two guys with Twitch. They hovered over him frantically.
“They’re a hundred yards away!” Dozer cried.
A flare hissed and sizzled, illuminating Brown Shirts tromping on our campsite.
I looked down at Cat’s face; it was growing paler by the minute. He was mumbling incoherently.
Red appeared by my side. “T-T-Twitch can’t see,” he said.
I looked over and saw Flush crouched by Twitch’s side. He was wrapping a strip of fabric around his good friend’s face. Four Fingers hugged himself and rocked back and forth, keening wildly, a string of drool rubber-banding from his mouth.
“Twitch!” he cried to the stars. “Twiiiiiiiitch!”
Everything was happening too fast—it was all out of control. Bullets whistling, mortars screaming, flares hissing. And now the Brown Shirts were making their way up the hill, their shadows dancing like ghosts in the green light of the flares.
“Spread out!” I yelled, but even as I said it, I knew it was useless. Though the Sisters were bringing down their share of Brown Shirts with crossbows, we didn’t stand a chance. Not with so few of us. Not without Cat. Not against fifty.
My hands were a sticky mess. The balled-up shirt was a sopping, bloody sponge. Cat’s face was ashen.
“Come on,” I begged him. “Stay with me!” Both a prayer and a command.
I jammed the soggy shirt into the wound. But even if I managed to stop the flow, what then? Without any medical supplies, the situation was hopeless.
I cursed the woman with the long black hair. She’d led us here. If I hadn’t listened to those damn dreams, we’d all be safe and sound in the other territory. But it was too late. We were about to be captured … or shot dead on the spot.
“They’re getting closer!” Dozer shouted.
The soldiers kept advancing. There was nothing stopping them. A hail of bullets snapped small saplings in two.
Hope whistled sharply and the Sisters regrouped, dropping to one knee. With an icy calmness, they readied their crossbows and released their bolts. A half dozen Brown Shirts crumpled to the ground.
But still the soldiers came, marching up the hill, now joined by other soldiers who’d been trailing them all along. It was no longer fifty Brown Shirts, more like a hundred. Maybe more.
I looked down at Cat. His chest was unnaturally still, his face clammy.
“What do we do?” Flush cried out in a panic. Even the Sisters, so calm at first, showed signs of alarm. Their eyes were wide with terror as they reloaded their crossbows.
The Brown Shirts strode effortlessly up the hill, their M16s strobing the black, peppering tree trunks until it rained pine bark. The smell of gunpowder mixed with vanilla