Before my eyes, the girl looks below her waist and sees her
legs remade. She takes on the embarrassed look of a young child who reaches the
end of sobbing. She sniffs and smiles at me.
‘Where do
you live?’ I ask.
‘I lived in
a house with my mum,’ she replies. ‘In the desert. We died in a car crash.’
‘Can you
see her?’
She looks
around, worried for a second. I pray to myself that her mum made it through
too.
Suddenly
the girl’s face lights up. She jumps to feet on her new legs and sprints off.
Her mother sees her and throws her arms open. A family reunited. I can’t
believe that a child didn’t know that she could heal herself. She was dead, she
had no reason to stay injured, even if her human instinct told her she was.
I get to my
feet and re-enter the fray enclosed by the fire. It seems to be dwindling. I
remember the scorch Teague made on Graham’s basement floor. I expect that the
energy dispels and burns out quickly. I wonder if it’s even fire as the living
understand it.
I can’t
help but notice that the crowd of people in the circle, running and screaming
and helping, has somehow shrunk. Does that mean that some people were left
behind. It seems like the entire complement of children have made it through.
They’re the epicentre of the screams. I almost trample a couple of them as they
wheel in front of me.
Where’s
Elle, where’s Yates? And Teague. The culprit of this disaster.
Isn’t that you? The accusing voice rises
from the murk in my mind and I’m forced to squash it down.
This is Teague’s fault not mine.
‘Easton!’
Elle comes running towards me. ‘There’s someone trapped.’
‘How?’ I
ask. ‘Can’t they jump away? Travel somewhere?’
‘They’re
alive,’ she replies. ‘And no one can reach her.’
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