Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee-Chapter 65: Dead Weight

The commotion wakes the girls.

I glance back at the heavy roots where I left them.

Lola sits up and rubs her eyes, looking profoundly bored. To her, the rebellion isn’t a betrayal. It’s just an annoying noise that interrupted a perfectly good nap.

Rhayne is a completely different story.

She knows human cruelty intimately.

I watch as she stands up in silence. Without a single word, she reaches down and pulls off one of her heavy, industrial leather gloves. She falls into step right behind me, a walking void capacitor ready to detonate.

If anyone tries to make a move, she will drain them dry before they can draw a blade. I don’t need to ask. The look in her eyes says everything.

I give her a single, approving nod.

I bypass the cadet with the shattered jaw. He can’t talk, and the agony in his eyes tells me everything I need—he didn’t choose to stay. He physically couldn’t leave, but he knew it.

I stop squarely in front of the second "generic" cadet.

I unclip Eventide from my belt, but I don’t ignite it. I keep my arm half-cocked, my thumb resting heavily on the ring. A clear, undeniable promise.

"What do you know?" I ask, my voice like a whisper, cold and flat. "I won’t ask twice."

The kid is sweating ice. He doesn’t dare look me in the eye. He moves with agonizing, calculated slowness, terrified that a sudden twitch will cost him his head.

With a trembling hand, he points toward a thin, filthy blanket left behind by the rogue cadet who fled with Danton.

My veteran paranoia flares. A trap? A contact poison? A rigged explosive?

"Show it to me," I order.

The boy hesitates, staring at the fabric as if it might bite him.

I don’t repeat myself. I press my thumb against the ring.

VMMMM-SHK.

Eventide hisses to life. The violet-black shadow blade violently displaces the humid air around us, howling with pure killer intent.

The sound of the blade is all the motivation he needs. He flinches and frantically yanks the blanket back.

Underneath rests a torn piece of parchment. Smeared across the paper in a harsh, dark crust is burnt blood. It’s drawn in a very specific, geometric pattern.

I recognize the strokes instantly. It’s the exact same pattern I watched him tracing on the inside of his coat during the first watch.

A communication rune.

I step closer, the dark light of the blade casting long shadows across his terrified face.

"What else do you know?"

"They... they tried to recruit me for the plan," the cadet stammers, his eyes locked onto the humming sword. "But I wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds. You’re the one who saved us in the ruins. I told them no."

"When did this happen?"

"While you were passed out at the Gatekeeper," he answers quickly, the words spilling out of him. "Danton orchestrated the whole thing. He said he was tired of relying on a ticking time bomb. He said that the second we got out of the dungeon, he was going to take the supplies and act on his own. He said it was safer."

I thumb the ignition off. The blade vanishes, plunging us back into the dim bioluminescent light of the clearing.

[OXI: 1,371/1,600]

"There is no sun in this biome," I say coldly, looking down at him. "But you have until the ambient light shifts to morning to get as far away from me as possible."

The cadet’s eyes widen in sheer, unadulterated panic.

"Why?!" he pleads, his voice cracking. "We didn’t betray you, Master Dryden! I stayed!"

"Yes, you did," I correct him, my tone devoid of a single ounce of pity. "You stayed, but you had the opportunity to warn me, and you kept your mouth shut. Consider leaving this camp with your life as my ’thank you’ for not following Danton into the dark."

Desperation takes over. He drops to his knees, lunging forward to grab my boots in a pathetic display of begging.

I don’t let him touch me. I plant my heel squarely into his chest, kicking him backward into the dirt.

Rhayne watches the scene without flinching. Three weeks ago, she would have looked away. Now she just stands there, glove off, palm open, waiting.

Lola yawns.

"Can we eat before we do the scary stuff?" she asks no one in particular. "My tummy is making the angry sounds."

I don’t have space to process it now.

I turn my back on him and walk straight toward Oliver’s last remaining thug.

When I reach the man, I pause. He is still fast asleep on the damp earth, completely oblivious to the fractured reality of our camp.

I look over at Oliver. The older man can’t even meet my gaze. He stares down at his muddy boots, crushed by the weight of his own men betraying us.

"How far can I trust you, Oliver?" I ask the silence.

I already know the answer. It’s rhetorical. I don’t trust anyone who breathes here.

Without waiting for him to stammer out an excuse, I draw my leg back and kick the sleeping thug hard in the shins.

"Hey. Wake up... if you want to stay alive."

The thug gasps, his eyes flying open.

He struggles to push himself up into a seated position, wincing heavily. His body is clearly still wrecked from the collateral damage he took from Lola’s blast in the subway.

He looks around with absolute, bewildered surprise, stuttering as he asks what the hell is going on.

I turn my back on him.

"This one is safe," I tell Oliver, waving a hand lazily over my head as I distance myself from them.

I don’t bother explaining the brutal math to the older man.

The logic is simple: this is the thug who was knocked out and crippled during the boss fight. Danton is a pragmatic, calculating scavenger. He wouldn’t risk an escape by dragging along a piece of dead weight.

The man is innocent purely by virtue of his own uselessness.

I stop near the edge of our makeshift perimeter, staring out into the glitching, magenta-stained jungle.

"We march in two hours," I announce to the camp, my voice carrying no room for debate.

"Rested or not, we are going to hunt."