My head is fuzzy when I wake up, five days isn't long enough for the withdrawal symptoms to be completely gone. At least I'm not puking. There are prickles all down my side from the pine needles, and if I'm blunt, that's as painless as it gets right now.

The sun rises to a fog-filled morning, casting a dim sheen of light for me to see Elle is not next to me anymore. But before I can panic too badly, she reappears. If I had paid attention, I might have noticed the slight indent on the boughs where she lies. I deflate with a slow breath of relief and smile at her. She smiles back. The skin of her arm still blends with the flattened pine needles.

"Hendrix?"

"Yeah?"

"Who were those people?"

Good question, Elle. If only I had a cut-and-dry answer.

"Bad guys," I decide, Anushka's profile wavers in my mind. "Mostly. They were soldiers."

"Oh." She tilts her head. "They liked my horns."

"Did they?" I prop myself up on one elbow, careful not to jostle the top branch too much. Elle nods.

"They touched my horns a lot. One of the nurses even cut holes in the shirt they gave me, so it fit better, see?" She rolls onto her stomach to show me. Sure enough, two ragged slits have been cut into the thick green fabric of her shirt. A dark brown horn pokes out of either opening, the blunt tips curve up. I tweak the tip of one of the horns, and she rolls back over, then rolls again so her nose skims the front of my shirt. I feel the heat coming off her from here. She must be running a fever.

"Tell me a story," she says, tilting her head to look up at me. In the dim light she almost looks like she could be healthy. Except for the fever heat rolling off her in waves.

"Okay, let's go out there so we don't wake Delilah." I lift the top boughs, and she squirms out to sit beside the pile. It takes me a little longer to escape the pine bed, one of my sneakers tangled in the branches during the night. Eventually I escape and find Elle wandering around the small clearing. She stops when she sees me and lifts her arms.

"It feels nice," she says, either fog or sweat glistening on her bare arms. The morning is cool, borderline cold, but she doesn't seem to mind.

Skyelar is pacing the perimeter, arms crossed. His eyes are rimmed in red and glassy. He pulls his goggles down and keeps pacing. I leave him be.

Elle gags suddenly. Her hands fly to her mouth, and she stumbles to the side where a tree is the only thing to keep her from collapsing.

I squeeze my eyes shut for a second before hurrying over to her, biting back against the twisting of my own stomach. I've been off the Savella for a week now, the withdrawal pains have peaked, but they aren't gone yet.

"Sit down, put your head between your knees," I say, rubbing her back. "It helps."

She sinks to the ground, her hands still pressed flat against her mouth. I notice, not for the first time, how knobby her fingers are. Her joints look swollen and the spaces in between are nothing but skin stretched tight across the bones. I could count all the thin ligaments that run down the back of her hand and bulge when she flexes her fingers. I only hope that she doesn't throw up, she can't afford to lose whatever tiny bit of food or drink she might have in her, and I have nothing to replace it with if she does.

"Un cuento," she whispers, asking for a story with her head resting on the top of her knee.

"Which story?" I ask, sitting down next to her. Cold dew soaks through my clothes wherever they touch the ground. Is this better or worse for her fever?

"The one about how I got my horns," she says, lifting her head to lean it on my shoulder. Her eyelids are half-closed. Permanent purple shadowing and webbed veins make her eyes look more sunken than they are.

"Alright. Once upon a time, when you were una poco nina, you found a fairy circle and you knew that if you waited long enough inside the fairy circle, a fairy would come and grant you a wish."

"And I told you," she interrupts.

"You told me," I say.

"And you didn't believe me." She gives me a reproachful stare. I flick her ear playfully. "Hey!" She swats my hand away.

"Do you want me to tell the story or not?"

She makes a noise in the back of her throat and takes her head off my shoulder. There's a brief gap of chilly air before she curls into my lap, slouching to snuggle up closer. Her horns dig into my diaphragm, forcing me to shift away. "Ow, kiddo, watch those pointy horns."

"Lo siento. Keep telling the story," she says.

"Okay, well, you waited in the fairy circle for days and days, and eventually a fairy did come along. The fairy saw how patient you had been and decided to give you a reward. She granted you one wish. You were very careful with your wish, you saved it until you knew for sure what you wanted, and one day you were sitting in the fairy circle again, and you saw a flock of migrating birds, and you knew what you wanted—."

"To fly!" she says, smiling from ear to ear. I can't help but grin at her excitement. This is one of her favorite stories to hear, and my favorite to tell. Maverick and I came up with it to cover up the real history of her horns. A tattoo over a bulging scar.

"That's right, and the fairy granted your wish. You don't remember them, but you had very pretty wings." And she did—have pretty wings I mean. They were sleek and white and downy, like the birds that fly overhead when the seasons change from warm and cold. "But one day a bad fairy came along and saw your wings and became jealous, so he stole them. The fairy who gave you your wings found out and felt sad because you had waited so nicely for your wings and they had been stolen. She wanted to give you another pair, but she didn't have enough magic left, so instead she planted two baby horns where the wings used to be, and one day, when you're big and strong, she'll come back and turn those horns into wings again."

Elle's breathing has become slow and even. She's asleep again.

The true story about her horns is a lot less magical. In reality, some starry-eyed idiot Whitecoat tried grafting wings onto her. Where they got wings that huge, I'll never know, but I guess she was much smaller then, so maybe the wings only seemed freakishly large. At any rate, it nearly killed her, and in the end the Whitecoats cut off her wings and cauterized away the infection.

She doesn't remember any of those long weeks. She spent most of them delirious with a raging fever. A year later, about a month after they started irradiating her skin, nubs sprouted from the scars where the wings had been attached.

"Hendrix..." Elle shifts, her voice thick with sleep.

"Hm?" I watch her skin swirl in patterns of brown and green.

"I don't think I'll ever be big or strong."

I push my glasses up my face, then tuck a loose strand of hair behind her elfish ears. "Don't be silly. Of course you will."

All of a sudden she lurches, her hands fly to her mouth and her back curls. "I don't feel so good," she groans. She twists out of my grip onto her hands and knees and vomits dark brown chunks. Damn it. I hold her hair back with one hand, and steady her with the other while she heaves again, and again, and again, until there's nothing left coming up except mucus and bile.

The racket wakes Delilah. She crawls free of the pine boughs, muttering something about building a fire. The thick morning fog will cloak the smoke nicely. We share concerned looks across the clearing as I rub Elle's quaking back. She gags and retches more, and nothing comes up. Spent, she collapses against me, still dry-heaving and making weak choking noises. Her body doesn't seem to realize that it's empty. I wrap my arms around her frail, shivering form, ignoring her horns jabbing my stomach. It takes too long for her gagging to diminish. By the time Delilah has cleared a small part of the forest floor, she's still lurching. Though it could be hiccups now. Could be.

Skyelar joins us with an armful of small rocks. He drops it by Delilah. The clatter makes me flinch, though I can't place why.

"Good morning, citizens of the fog. Today's forecast is cold fog, more cold fog, and"— he rubs both his cheeks— "the start of a patchy beard. Man, the Whitecoats could have at least given me the ability to grow a good beard."

"Because that would solve so many of your problems?" Delilah says.

"Of course."

Elle squeaks, when I glance at her, green unnaturally bright spreads across her cheek like a cartoon. She's shivering and sweating all at the same time. I hug her closer, willing my warmth and the heat from the fire to chase away her chills.

"Wanna see something cool?" Sky asks, holding up a flat river stone. Elle nods, eyes glued to the stone.

"Okay, ready?" He smashes the rock between his hands, then holds up empty palms.

"It disappeared." She smiles weakly.

"It's magic," he says, wiggling his fingers.

She holds up her own hand and displays the stone etched into her palm. "Magic," she repeats.

Sky shows her a few more magic tricks, each one fascinates her. I try to focus on it, too, and find it increasingly difficult. Brain fog and tight, prickling skin distract me. Delilah snapping twigs nearby sounds louder than it should. I catch myself twitching at the pops of the breaking sticks, and lace my fingers together to keep from accidently grabbing Elle too hard. A twig snaps, a bird takes off in a flurry of wings, and suddenly I can't be here anymore.

I lean down and place Elle gently on the damp ground. She stares up at me with a question in her eyes.

"I'll be back in a minute, I'm getting some firewood," I explain. I smooth her hair back from her forehead, my hand comes away slick with sweat that isn't mine. I stand, turn to where the pine I stripped down last night once was, and walk away.

Behind me I hear Delilah say, "let him go, Sky."

Stab. Stab. Stab.

There goes my knee again. At least the hot iron is generously absent. After the last few days, the universe damn well owes me a good pain day. Except it's not really a good pain day, because there are iron bands crushing my ribs.

The stream burbles cheerily. The path of some wild animal is worn into the earth beside it. That direction looks promising, easy to follow back, few tripping hazards despite the saplings choking the bank and the sharp curve away from the stream the path takes. I follow it for a little way, scanning either side for a break in the tangled foliage, but the soil by the stream is rich and soft and thick with plant life. Fresh air is abundant here, it's just not making it to my lungs. I reach the curve in the path to discover that it's not actually a curve. A particularly thick grove of poplar saplings has sprouted, cutting off the trail.

Beyond the small grove is a shallow, thicket-less cove. It's a small gap in the underbrush, surrounded on three sides by towering trees and bushes approaching full bloom. A few saplings sprout from the leaves and needles littering the ground. The north side opens to the stream. Sunlight dapples the forest floor, and there are even little clusters of flowers here and there. A cool breeze rustles the branches of the saplings and shakes a few fragile leaves from their places. I watch a pastel green leaf fall. It comes to rest on the ground.

There, finally, I crack. I don't mean to, I don't want to. It blindsides me, stealing my mind, my body, my control, like a wraith. My legs give out, I land on my hands and knees. A rough slab greets my palms, and I have a moment to register that it is a large, flat rock before the visions start.

Sergeant Tatyanin crumpling forward, a hole in her head, blood in her hair.

I strike the rock, pummel it with both hands fisted.

Maverick, falling, bullets in his chest, red rivers pouring out his neck.

The skin on each knuckle splits open, but the rock slab holds steady, refusing to give. I punch it harder. Get them out! Get them out of my head!

Piper. Bakari. Dieter. Five people are dead. Five. I didn't even know four of them. They all had families, friends, they could have had kids for all I know. They weren't rubber dolls, they were real, and now they are stone-cold dead.

Maverick's last words echo in my head.

Bullshit, Maverick, I call bullshit. You're not allowed to be dead. You're not allowed to be sorry. You're my best friend, you bastard, come back.

I pound the slab one last time with my balled, bloody fists, and finally, it breaks. Spiderweb cracks radiate from ground zero. Sharp edges shred my hands as they burrow in the rock, and shards break off to imbed themselves in the back of my knuckles. My glasses, all black plastic and too-heavy lenses, fall from their perch on the end of my nose. That's when I notice that my face is wet with tears.

Ripping my hands open on the rock seems to have knocked me back into myself. I tell myself that the bright, stinging pain is the reason behind the salt on my cheeks. Logically, I know that's not the reason, but I'm afraid that acknowledging it will bring back whatever the hell just assaulted me.

I wipe under my eyes with the heel of my palm, then search the broken ground for my glasses. They land face down on a cushion of wet leaves. I hope they aren't broken. As I reach for them my fingertips brush a leaf, and the glint of something metal catches my eye. I pick up my glasses and squint at them.

They're dirty and scratched, but thankfully not broken. I wipe the lenses with the hem of my tank top, place them back on my face, then skim the ground for whatever it was that caught my attention a moment earlier. Nothing is there. I rake my fingers through the leaves and... there. My fingers meet with a thin metal chain. I pinch the links and hold it up to get a better look. Clinging precariously to the end of the short string of tiny silver beads are a pair of dog tags. I slide the tags back up the chain and fasten the simple clasp to keep them from escaping.

There are letters engraved on both of the oval tags. One has the words Марся Татьянин etched in flowery Cyrillic cursive that plays tricks on my eyes. Below that is a string of numbers; 12.23.81. A birthdate maybe, or an anniversary. The second tag is stamped with ВС РОССИИ 22-428686.

I wish I knew what they said, I wish I knew what these were for. Tears blur out the letters. They won't stop even though the stinging has settled to a mild prickle. Shaking grabs ahold of me and an awful ache pulsates in my chest like some important part is missing and there's nothing there to replace it.

My mind flashes back to the cave under the ledge, with Anushka curled up and repeating the same three sentences over and over and over again. I think I've figured out what she was doing.

I clutch the dog tags, careful not to crush them, and suck in a lungful of spring air.

"My name is Trick." It comes out as the barest of whispers, only there to prove that my lips are giving shape to these words, making them real, tangible and true.

"I'm nineteen, I am a lab experiment." The pulsing ebbs, the shaking subsides. "I have a little sister. I will protect her."

The symptoms aren't completely gone, but they're better. I don't feel like I'm packed too tight inside my skin, at least. I give my eyes one last swipe with the heel of my palm and stand. Headrush makes me dizzy for a moment, but when that passes, everything is fine. Well, mostly everything. The backs of my hands are gouged with ragged, shallow cuts, seven out of ten fingers are bruised and torn, and dirt is caked under my nails and in every cut. I kneel beside the stream and rinse off in the frigid water. None of the damage is too extensive, which is extremely lucky. You don't normally come away from a fight with a rock without a broken bone or two.

After cleaning up, I lumber to my feet and return to my search for firewood. Sky appears at the edge of the grove, a small furry thing dangling in his hand. I ignore him as I walk past. He decides to follow me.

"You're limping," he says.

"Go figure," I mutter. We reach a stump, and I hobble down the length of the fallen tree until I reach a section near the top that looks like a good place to start.

"Are you hurt?" There is an apprehensive undertone to his question. I resist the urge to roll my eyes and settle for giving him a dead look instead. He ignores it, reaching down to strip the branches off a section of the tree.

"I'm fine." I lift the tree and crack it down over my bad knee. Sun and stars. I end up on the ground, clutching my knee as searing pain lances through the bone. By the stars, that was a bad idea. My breath hisses through gritted teeth.

"You right, mate?" Sky crouches beside me.

"Yes." I answer past a clenched jaw. I ease my aching leg straight and pull up my pant leg. A huge blue-purple bruise stains the knee, it radiates from the soft point right below the patella, the perfect spot to wreak havoc on the bundle of nerves tucked in there.

"You're definitely fine," he comments with more than a little sarcasm.

"It's just a bruise." I press gingerly on the edges of the bruise. It feels a little swollen, but considering I dropped a tree on it, the swelling probably isn't something to worry about. I get to my feet, balancing all my weight on my good leg, and bend to pry the tree from its place on the ground again. I notice with a measure of satisfaction that the top of the tree is broken off. I shift my weight to my bruised leg and crack the next section of the tree across my other knee. That hurts a hell of a lot less.

Skyelar purses his lips. I can practically see the wheels turning in his mind. He takes the first chunk of tree I break off.

"No sign of King," he mentions out of the blue. I grimace, cracking off another section of tree.

"Yeah."

"He should have been here by now. I don't think he made it out of the camp." His nimble fingers tear vigorously at the small twigs. His eyes dart as rapidly as his hands, always a step ahead of where he wants them to be. As the browning pine needles flutter to the ground, I find myself reminded of Maverick falling. Again. My heart clenches.

Snap goes the next chunk of tree. Snap, snap, snap, until the entire trunk is a pile of sizable logs. More than we need. More than enough to put a matching bruise on my other knee. Not enough to drown out the ache in my chest. Sky stops to pick at his palms, but soon gives up on his effort to dig all the splinters out of his calloused skin.

"We need to hold a funeral," he says as he hefts a log in each arm. I scoop up the remaining five, and we head back to the camp.

"Yeah," I agree. We may be freaks but our dead deserve respect. I tilt my head back to stare up at the mosaic of leaves against the steely sky. Black smoke stains the sky above the camp, remnants of the massacre last night. They deserved better than that.