Page 13 of The Infinite Glade (The Maze Cutter #3)

“You guys sound crazy,” Isaac said.

“I told you. The Godhead’s a joke.” Ximena shook her head and looked at Isaac. “Believe me, now?” The moonlight above was just enough to see Ximena’s utter lack of faith. In anything.

“Say what you’re trying to say already,” Jackie said to Cian as she twisted the palm bracelet around her wrist—the one Trish made her before the rest of the group went to Alaska.

Old Man Frypan stood up with his walking stick. “Let it out, we deserve to know.”

Erros nodded, and the fire crackled. “WICKED convinced people it was good, and the deaths of a few were needed to save the entire human race, and all that baloney.” He tore tiny leaves from a branch and put one of them in his mouth.

“The same way the Godhead convinced its people that the Cure is needed for Evolution . . .” He chewed like a cow.

Cian leaned forward onto his knees and put his head in his hands.

“Look, wanting to find a Cure . . . and the trials were all true, Kletter showing up on your island for you to help is true. But who the Cure is for . . .” Cian paused.

“Just leave it at that. It doesn’t matter, Kletter’s dead, it’s done. ”

“Exactly!” Erros shot up to his feet and little leaves of something fell from his lap. “It doesn’t matter anymore! We can tell whoever we want because we’re not bound by the Villa or the Sequencers . . . we’ll never get back to them!”

Sequencers? Whatever that meant.

“Snap out of it!” Jackie yelled at Ximena, her eyes still fixated on the bushes.

“Ximena . . . ?” Isaac asked

“There’s someone over there . . .” Ximena replied in almost a whisper. “Someone’s coming.” She spoke louder and this got Cian’s attention.

“Crap.” Cian lifted his bow and motioned to Erros to stay put. “I got it.”

Isaac sat quietly wondering if WICKED was good or bad and what either of those really meant. Frypan just shook his head. “We ought to?—”

Cian’s bow discharged with a loud SMACK. Everyone quieted. It was too dark for Isaac to see, but the lack of any sound from the victim—whatever it was—made Isaac think the shot must have been a clean one.

Erros pulled more tiny leaves from a branch. “The people at WICKED—or above them-–however you want to say it . . . those people were selfish narcissists. There’s no other word for it.” The fire sputtered; the wind blew through the branches above them.

“No other word,” Cian agreed as he stepped back into the light of the fire, dragging a small animal by its foot. He tossed it to Ximena’s feet. “You have good instincts.”

“What is that?” Jackie leaned in closer to the dead animal, a single arrow through its neck.

“Coyote?” Erros asked his brother. Cian nodded.

They didn’t have anything close to a coyote on the island back home. Most everything from this crazy trip didn’t exist back home.

“The trickster spirit . . .” Ximena stood up and backed away from the dead animal.

But Isaac realized too late that it wasn’t the animal at all.

Ximena was backing up from Cian himself and the shadowed half-Crank behind him.

A man, wild eyes, shaggy hair, wearing some kind of robe, though mostly hidden by darkness.

Isaac tripped over his own two feet shuffling away as he reached for his knife.

He fell with all the weight of his whole body on to the knife, stabbing himself in the calf.

“Look out!” Isaac yelled to Cian. Jackie screamed.

“Hollower!” Cian dodged the figure but only for a moment, when the Hollower pulled out a long serrated knife and sliced through Cian’s clothing as if it were paper.

Isaac could only imagine the time that would go into making that sort of blade on the forge.

He gripped the handle of the knife Minho had given him, square in his palm, ready to fight.

“Stains of shitstorms!” Erros had jumped to his feet and grabbed a chunk of wood sticking half out of the fire with his bare hands. He swung it like a crazed lunatic, smashing the fiery part of the wood against the cloaked shadow’s head. “Hollowers will get hollowed! You hear me?”

The cloak’s top half caught fire, flashing with bright yellow light, and the man screamed a sound, shrill and high-pitched, then ran away, crashing through the woods. Isaac wondered if it had been a half-Crank, after all.

“Don’t let me catch you again, you Hollowing heathen!” Erros threw a piece of wood at the bushes where the figure had disappeared.

“What the hell just happened here?” Old Man Frypan asked.

“Hollowers. That one was solo, but some travel in groups.” Cian wiped the sweat off his forehead with his red scarf. “We should have killed that one and sent a message, you know.” He directed that at his brother.

Erros shrugged. “Eh, I don’t kill people on the full moon. It’s bad luck.”

Jackie and Ximena looked up at the moon. It was pretty full. Isaac took the opportunity to hand Frypan Minho’s knife on which he’d fallen.

“Here. Just in case there’s another one.” He acted like he merely wanted Frypan to be able to protect himself, too. But really, Isaac was frustrated that he’d stabbed himself, and was scared he’d just do it again. A soldier he was not. He felt like a worthless idiot.

“No, you hold on to it.” Frypan handed it back to him but Isaac insisted. Cian and Erros were still trying to catch their breath and Ximena looked just as stunned as Jackie about the weird, cloaked figure.

“No, you’ll take better care of it.” Isaac lifted his pant leg and showed Frypan the gash that the Orphan’s knife left him.

“Isaac, you gotta be more careful,” Jackie said, just like Sadina would have if she were there.

“I’m fine,” he said, but noticed that even Ximena looked worried. “Seriously, I’m fine.”

As if realizing she’d shown weakness, Ximena waved him off like she didn’t care.

“Foolishness. This is all foolishness.” She walked right up to Cian with her hand on her knife.

“You’re the trickster, and your lies end here.

” She was practically stepping on the man’s boots but Isaac doubted Cian felt threatened by her—Ximena only came up to his shoulders.

“Look, believe it or don’t. Those Hollowers are everywhere . . .” Cian walked around Ximena as if she were a statue and set his bow down by the fire.

“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.” Her voice grew louder. “We’ve seen enough Cranks, half-Cranks, and other crazies to last ten lifetimes. The Cure is the real issue. Who is it really for?”

Isaac’s heart fell into his gut like a kayak dropping down a waterfall. He didn’t like this notion of the Godhead not being real or the Cure not being a cure. For one thing it meant that Sadina could be in real danger. He needed Sadina to be okay.

“What are you saying . . . the Cure’s for everyone?” he asked. “Right?” He was embarrassed by his effort to show hope. Looking at Jackie and Old Man Frypan, he added, “We came here to save everyone . . .”

Cian shook his head at Erros. “You realize what telling them will do . . .” He sat back down and looked at Old Man Frypan. “Look . . .” he started, but then silence floated between the space around the fire for two whole breaths.

In and out. Like the tide moving in and out at Stone Point back home.

The caves would fill up, more water in which to swim, depending on the time of day.

He used to be afraid to jump off the cliffs back home, always shrinking down to be something less because he felt like less.

But right then he’d do anything in the world to make it back there and dive head first into the ocean.

Cian nodded slowly and Erros rubbed his forehead while his brother spoke. “WICKED was good . . . good at thinking of everything.” He let out a sigh and walked away from the fire. “You want to tell them, fine. I’m not going to be responsible for it.”

Erros followed him into the shadows of the trees.

Isaac could barely hear their argument until Cian shouted something about Frypan’s mind getting wiped clean. “But WICKED . . . WICKED did good things in the long run . . .” He stood up, a little wobbly. “Right?” he asked Frypan.

“WICKED is good enough . . .” the Glader of old muttered, and hearing Frypan say it comforted Isaac.

Like a piece of home was with him. “And if they did in fact destroy it, whatever that means, then I don’t really know what that means, either.

” He spat next to his seat with disgust, something Isaac had never really seen him do before.

Erros came back and tossed more wood into the flames. “Okay, here’s the deal. The formation of people from the Post Flare Coalition who?—”

Cian cut his little brother off. “He won’t get it.”

“I know who created WICKED.” Old Man Frypan’s jaw tightened as he spoke. “We know about the Post Flare Coalition! What right did you have to destroy anything?”

Isaac had only seen Frypan upset one time, back on the island when a tribute to the Gladers of Old got interrupted by some younger kids goofing off during the ceremony.

“WICKED was good enough,” Frypan said again with a stronger voice. “The Island of Immunes. Ava Paige did that . . . she saved everyone she could so that we all could be here now.”

“Yeah,” Jackie said.

Isaac didn’t know what to add. The pain of his calf muscle hurt like hell and made all the voices around him . . . wonky-bonky, as Trish would say.

Erros tried again. “The remnants. The forgotten . . . call them whatever you want, but there are people who were?—”

Cian cut him off again. “They don’t need to know all that, Erros.”

“Yes, they do. Everyone deserves to know the truth, and it feels good to get it all out.” Erros spit a fish bone into the fire. The man seemed to have a bottomless stomach. “I don’t know. What does it matter?” He held his hands up to his older brother. “Nothing matters anymore.”

“Just tell us why you destroyed WICKED,” Jackie demanded. “What that even means.”

Isaac posed a question. “I thought the Villa was part of WICKED? The Villa wants to find a Cure, right?” He felt stupid asking about the Villa, but if Cian and Erros thought they destroyed WICKED in order to destroy the Cure, then they were plain wrong.

Who knew how many Villas were out there, little variations of WICKED, all trying to find a Cure.

Ximena shot Isaac a look as she hugged the backpack that held the supposed Cure in her lap. Crap . Maybe he’d said too much.

“The Villa is to WICKED now as WICKED was to the Post Flare Coalition back then,” Cian said, but Isaac didn’t really understand what that meant so he looked to Old Man Frypan to elaborate.

“Do you understand what they’re saying?” Jackie whispered to Isaac.

“A little?” Isaac whispered back.

Frypan tossed his own fish bones into the fire; the fat left on the bones sizzled in the night. Frypan usually saved bones—any kind of bones—for a broth.

“Frypan, you alright?” Isaac asked.

“The Post Flare Coalition did their best. They could have done better , but it’s not like they caused the sun flares themselves.” Frypan’s eyes seemed to stare into the very past. “The worst thing man ever created was the Flare virus and?—”

“And the second worst thing man ever created was WICKED.” Cian actually laughed, making Isaac cringe.

“No. You’re wrong there,” Frypan argued.

“WICKED had good intentions, no matter the terrible things they did to us.” He gripped his walking stick and stood up as fast as any old man could stand.

“Look, we thank you for the meal, it’s much appreciated, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to these lies. ”

He walked past Isaac, Jackie, and Ximena.

Damn. Sitting around the fire had kept Isaac’s mind from racing with questions about Sadina and the others not being safe with the Godhead.

He didn’t want to leave, and not just because his leg hurt and he didn’t want to walk yet.

And he wanted to hear whatever Cian and Erros had to say.

Even if they were spewing lies, he wanted to know what they thought they’d destroyed and what Kletter’s real mission had been.

Even if it all was based on false hopes or information, it was the reason Kletter took everyone off the island.

“Wait . . .” Isaac called after Frypan but the old man had already left the light of the fire. Isaac looked at Jackie, but she quickly shrugged and turned away in a rush to join him.

Isaac begrudgingly limped in the direction they headed, into the dark where the Hollower came from. “C’mon, Ximena . . .” He tried to put as little weight as possible on his right leg, but it hurt like hell.

Cian waved a hand at Isaac. “Fine. Believe whatever you want to believe.”

“Wiping your memories and torturing you in that Maze was good ?” Erros shouted loudly after Frypan. “Separating you from your family was good ?”

Jackie turned around and shouted back, “They sacrificed a few to save the many. At the heart of their mission—they were good!”

Questioning WICKED meant questioning Isaac’s entire life, especially the entire reason for his existence, his parents and grandparents. Of course it was extremely complicated, but the islanders had been taught from the time they could run in the sand a certain phrase.

WICKED is good . WICKED is good. WICKED is good.

“STOP!” Ximena screamed as if she knew what Isaac was thinking. But her voice came from way back by the fire.

“Ximena?” Isaac turned back around to the flickers of Cian’s fire, and Ximena’s shadow stood the same height as a sitting Erros, the outline of a crossbow at her shoulders.

The crossbow itself was practically half the size of Ximena but she held it up high.

“We know you’re hiding something. Tell us the truth, now.

” The point of the arrow was only inches from the man’s head.

“Or I’ll shoot your little brother right in the neck.

The same artery where you shot that no-good coyote. ”

“Cian . . .” Erros said in a surprising panicky voice.

“Frypan!” Isaac called ahead. “We need to go back!”

Like it or not, they needed to go back.