As we fled, I couldn’t help but think about Viggo’s assumption regarding Ms. Dale. There was no other explanation for it. She was there for me, to collect me and bring me back to Matrus. I knew what would happen from there: I’d be convicted of regicide. It didn’t matter how much evidence I provided to prove that Lee was the killer. He was dead, which meant no one could exact revenge upon him.

Yet, as far as I knew, Ms. Dale was just a defense teacher. Every year, she would recommend her best students for training with the wardens, some would be accepted, some wouldn’t. That was it. She’d lived in the same neighborhood as I did, went to the same stores, did the same chores. She didn’t have kids, which was not uncommon for some women—they chose their careers over children—and I had never seen her in any type of relationship with anyone outside the parents and students.

So why would they send her? Was it because she knew me? Or was she more deeply involved than I had thought? I contemplated all of these questions as I watched her bouncing on Viggo’s shoulder. I knew it was unlikely that I would ever get all the answers I craved, but I couldn’t help but ask them.

I felt like a fly trapped in a massive web, but I could only see a few of the strands that had trapped me. I kept trying to escape so I could see more, but I was caught too tightly, and the spider was settling in over me, about to devour me. Everything that kept happening to me reminded me that a noose was waiting for me, and it seemed like I would never escape.

Although, being in The Green also reminded me that sometimes things just happen. There were things that I could control, and things that I couldn’t. It was a waste of energy to worry about the questions, especially with death constantly waiting.

I knew that this was one of those things that we couldn’t survive. The swarm of flies were drawn to blood, like bees to pollen. Viggo and I were covered in it, thanks to my insistence on helping Ms. Dale. In spite of our help, her wound was still seeping blood—I could see it dripping on the ground behind us.

As long as she bled, the red flies would find us. No amount of spray in the container would keep us safe and I was exhausted—I felt a bone-deep weariness that made everything around me seem slower. The past four days were all starting to add up and tax my system. Running on fear and adrenaline could only sustain me for so long. After a while, my body would be unable to produce more, and I would crash hard, my body shutting down against my will.

I couldn’t think about that, no matter how inevitable it seemed. I had to focus on the task at hand—finding a way to shelter us from the threat of the red flies. I looked up and realized I was falling behind, so I fixed my eyes on Viggo, trying to find the energy to keep up.

My body, however, had other ideas. The stitch in my side from earlier flared up, and as I tried to run faster, it pulled tighter, knocking the air out of my lungs. I had to stop.

“Viggo,” I gasped, staggering to a halt.

He paused, and turned. Sweat was pouring from his forehead, making his hair stick to the sides of his face and his mask. His shirt was drenched, his chest heaving as he gasped for air.

We were silent for a second—the buzzing had faded slightly, but we knew that wouldn’t be for long.

“I’m not sure we can do this,” Viggo breathed, shifting Ms. Dale’s unconscious form to his other shoulder.

I nodded in agreement. “We need to hide.”

He shook his head. “We can’t. Once the red flies sense blood, they hunt out their victim with unerring accuracy. It doesn’t take them long to find their prey once they have that taste.”

“But if we find a log…”

“A friend of mine is an expert at this. He’s tested their response time. It took them three hours to hunt down prey that was over ten kilometers away.”

I absorbed the information, my stomach shrinking. “So what can we do?”

Viggo handed me a canteen, and I drank a few sips, not wanting water sloshing around in my belly as we ran. He did the same, and closed the lid.

“I’m not sure,” he finally said, but I could see the answer in his eyes.

Abandon Ms. Dale, and run for it.

I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t considered the possibility. Once they had her, the swarm would likely ignore us for long enough to escape. We could flee while they drank her dry.

My stomach turned at the thought. No matter what happened, I wasn’t leaving anyone behind.

Viggo seemed to notice the determination stamped on my face, because he sighed. “We’ll keep an eye out. If we see something we can seal up with the blanket in my bag, we’ll try, all right?”

I nodded. Viggo whistled to Samuel, who had been standing next to him, panting the entire time. I watched as both of them started to move again, heading up the hill.

I took a moment to collect myself, and then followed behind them at a light jog.

The sun was setting, creating long dark shadows on the ground. I put one of the aerosol containers in my pocket and pulled out my flashlight, shining it. It did little to illuminate our paths as we ran, but it was better than nothing.

The forest flew by me, and I tried to keep my breathing even. My ears were trying to pick up the high-pitched keening of the flies over the sounds of our footsteps and panting, but since we fled the glen where we had found her, there was nothing. It was almost eerie, like the forest was holding its breath to see what would happen.

I kept trying to find places for us to hide, but it was hard. In the several times I had needed to hide in a log or a hollow, they had seemed plentiful. But this part of the forest was denying us any spark of hope.

I cut over to the first log I spotted, using the flashlight to illuminate the area. I inspected it quickly, but my heart sank. It had multiple holes along its length, likely left behind by some wood boring insect. Viggo’s blanket was too small for it to cover everything.

We started running again, and I kept my eyes peeled. I eventually saw a tree with a hollow spot in the center. The top half of the tree had collapsed, leaving the top part of the trunk a jagged ruin, with wooden slivers jutting up. I dashed over it, ahead of Viggo, and shined my flashlight inside. The hollow was a little more than a crack—there would be room for one of us to hide, but no more. I sighed, and resumed running.

The third place was one of those trees where the roots erupted from the ground like walls. I thought we could string the blanket up between two of them, and seal it off from detection, but the roots were spread too far apart, even at the base. There was no way it would work.

I felt my final sliver of hope diminish as the last trickle of light disappeared from the canopy.

Viggo had stopped to drink more water, and I jogged up next to him before stopping. Fire was raging under my skin as the muscles in my legs burned. I placed my hands on my knees to keep from collapsing, sucking in air through the mask.

“Vi—” Viggo said, his voice soft.

I shook my head. “No,” I insisted, knowing what he was going to say.

He sighed and placed a hand on my shoulder. “You are my priority,” he said, simply.

I gazed into his green eyes for a long moment. I was on the verge of saying okay, of agreeing to leave Ms. Dale there, when Samuel barked.

Turning the light on him, I saw him facing the way we’d come, his ears up and his body low. He was quivering in fear.

I heard it seconds later. The buzzing from the swarms I had heard before were nothing compared to this. It was the sound of a massive body of water crashing on the earth—angry and loud. I turned my flashlight, and saw flashes of red making a beeline for us. We had paused for too long.

“Run,” I shouted, turning on my heel. Viggo had already started running with me. I was relieved to see that he was carrying Ms. Dale, but in a few minutes, it might not matter.

Once again, I was going to be responsible for the deaths of the people I cared about. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet.

I ran behind Viggo, keeping up with him as fear fueled our legs to move fast. I kept a canister of aerosol ready, just in case.

The buzzing drew nearer, and as the light from my flashlight bounced over the ground, I saw a flash of crimson. It hit me in the chest.

I looked down in time to see it shoving its needle nose into the flesh of my skin. I slapped it, feeling its body crunch under my hand, its crushed body spurting the blood it had just absorbed all over my shirt and chest. I noticed more coalescing, and could see that one was on the back of Viggo’s neck. I quickly used the aerosol container, and sprayed it.

It fell off, but more were coming.

The insidious thing about red flies, I realized, was that you could hardly feel their bite. Another one landed on me, using its six long legs to clamp down on my skin. For all I knew, there were already a hundred on my back, draining me dry.

I smashed that one, and began spraying the aerosol can behind me, trying to ward them away. It helped, a little. I raced up so that I was running alongside Viggo, spraying us both with the can.

“Here,” I shouted over the cacophony of noise. I thrust the flashlight into his hand and pulled out the other aerosol.

I began spraying both of us in a frenzy. Wave after wave of red flies swooped in to bite us, but they veered off whenever I was spraying the mist. I was keeping them away by doing it, but it was only a temporary measure—I would run out of spray long before they lost interest in us.

Viggo was faltering under Ms. Dale’s weight. I could tell from how he was running. He was winded, and constantly trying to shift her weight around so that they wouldn’t trip, but he couldn’t keep it up for much longer.

Then the flashlight beam cut across some trees, and I saw a blinding flash of white peeking through the green and brown fronds. It was hard to see, like the trees and leaves were there intentionally, keeping it hidden.

As my mind raced, the light again cut across it, stunning my eyes with its brightness. I remembered the flash of white that I had seen from the canopy, before I had crashed. And now again here.

From the air, I hadn’t really been able to make it out. Down here… it seemed uniform. Consistently the same. The white was unnatural and foreign, way out of place for The Green. My mind was scrambling to try and identify it.

Whatever it was, it was worth checking out. I grabbed Viggo’s arm, shouting for him to follow, and then cut toward it. I pushed through the dense undergrowth and when I emerged on the other side, I almost stopped moving when I realized what it was. Excitement coursed through me, and I yelled for Viggo again.

It was a building.