“They know her.” Driscoll winced. “They’re—uh...” He scratched his head.
“She’s in trouble,” Leoni said, exasperated. “That’s the only reason they’d be acting like this, that they’d be here. I think they’re trying to tell us something, to get someone to help her.”
I stiffened.
“We all are seeing birds, right?” Jerome asked. “We’re talking about birds.”
“I don’t think they’re just birds,” Goji said, stroking her chin.
“Where did she go?” I turned to Driscoll and Leoni, fear prickling along my spine. I hadn’t felt scared of anything, not in thousands of years. “If she’s in trouble, I’m her best chance, so tell me and let me go to her.”
Driscoll shot Leoni a look. “She went to find more nettle weed. The garden ran out, so she needed to get outside these walls, to the jungle, to find more.”
Ice filled my veins.
“Oh no,” Goji said.
“What?” Leoni asked. “The jungle isn’t unsafe unless you try to leave.”
“She has to leave in order to get the nettle weed. There’s another place it grows on the island. Just outside the jungle.”
If I knew Bellamy, she would go after it, and my shadows would attack.
Driscoll whimpered.
“So what are you going to do?” Leoni asked, voice shaking.
“Find her,” I said, then rose into the air and took off.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
BELLAMY
Ileaned against the tree, knowing that I had to get myself to move at some point. I couldn’t just sit here forever, wasting away, letting predators come upon me. I hadn’t actually seen any predators or signs of life. I wondered if there were even many animals in this jungle. But there had to be. Those boys had been roasting meat at their camp.
Every time I tried to move, my ankle screamed in pain, and my hands throbbed. I’d scratched them badly during my fall, reopening wounds that had been healing, and now they once again looked angry and red. Chills wracked my body, and my head felt like it was on fire.
I needed to focus. I needed to move. I could do this. Maybe I was close to that camp. If I could find it, I’d at least have a safe place to sleep for the night, some food. My stomach grumbled on cue. I tried to stand, and the world tilted, making me slump against the tree, my ankle pulsing, purple and black bruises mottling the skin around it. I clutched my ribs, a sharp slice of pain puncturing them each time I took a breath.
My vision blurred but snapped back to focus, and just beyond the tree line, I saw bushes of nettle weeds.
I gasped. They were right there. I’d literally fallen upon them.
I limped to the edge of the jungle, the black-sand beaches stretching out as waves crashed against them. The nettle weeds sat in clusters against a tall cliff that rose up at the curve of the island. I could do that. I could make it there and then I’d rest and then I’d find that camp.
My ankle throbbed, but I forced myself forward, trying to push through the trees.
A chill skittered over my spine as shadows dove down in front of me. They hissed, closing in on me and pushing me backward. Of course. I wasn’t sure how I’d forgotten, but I couldn’t just leave the jungle. That was the entire point. I was trapped here. They wouldn’t let me leave.
“Okay,”I signed.“I’m not leaving. Just—” I held out a hand to signal to stay there.
But they didn’t understand, floating closer, arms outstretched, mouths gaping open. I couldn’t outrun them, and the clouds still covered the stars tonight, giving me no access to them. I was well and truly stuck. I glanced over the shadows at the nettle weeds. They were right there. So close. I surged forward again, but the shadows shoved me back.
I gasped out and picked up a stick, holding it in front of me and waving it at the wispy forms, trying to scatter them. Every time the stick hit one of them, they’d break apart into what seemed like a million little pieces, only to come back together. I tripped over my feet, stumbling forward and straight into the ground.
I whirled around right as a shadow dove toward me. It hit the ground and dissipated, then put itself back together.
Another shadow surged forward, gripping my hurt ankle. I had to bite my tongue to hold back my cry, black spots dottingmy vision at the way it felt like my ankle was ripping in two. The shadow was flying me straight toward a tree trunk, and I didn’t know what was happening until it began swinging me backward. It was going to throw me into that tree. Bash me against it like a rag doll. My stomach clenched tight.
