The Gender Secret Read online

  But running through the forest was hard—there are a thousand things that can slow a person down or trip them. I ducked branches and dodged trees that sprang up in my way. I spun and twisted, flying across the mossy ground, my feet and arms pumping, hair flying.

  It was difficult at first, learning how to breathe through the mask, but after a few minutes, I got the hang of it, taking care to exhale out of my mouth, and down away from my visor so as not to fog it.

  I could hear something chasing me. It crashed through the undergrowth behind me, but I felt confident that once I got up to speed, I could get away. When I ran full out, I felt like I could fly.

  Trees began to whiz by as I ramped up my speed. Trickles of sweat ran down my skin, but I kept my breathing even and measured.

  I came over a crest, taking measured steps as I plummeted down. I could still hear whatever it was chasing me, but I didn’t look back. I kept my gaze forward, hoping I was still heading in the correct direction. I was not taking any breaks to check. Once I lost this thing, I would have to focus on finding Viggo.

  The mist was growing thick, making it harder to see. I was forced to slow my speed to a trot in order to not plow headfirst into a tree. As I slowed, I became aware of the lack of sound coming from the forest. The hair on my neck stood on end, and I felt, rather than heard, something behind me, nearing me again.

  I bolted once more. I caught a glimpse of something coming over the opposite side of the ridge, and I cut toward it, hoping that whatever it was would either be helpful or keep whatever was chasing me distracted while I got away.

  Several things happened at once, but at the same time, everything seemed to slow to a stop.

  I was aware of something brushing past my hair, causing me to jerk my head to one side.

  Then my ankle folded under me as I took a misstep and tripped.

  As I began to tumble through the air, I heard the distinct sound of gunfire filling the clearing.

  Following that, a line of fire suddenly exploded on my ribcage, making breathing extremely difficult.

  Then time caught up with me. I had a glimpse of Viggo’s face as I fell, the ground rushing up to greet me. As I fell, I felt a brief moment of confusion at Viggo’s ability to defy gravity and be upside down, and then I hit the dirt, the pain in my chest intensifying unbearably as I skidded across the mossy ground.

  17

  Viggo

  Violet’s name was on my lips as I squeezed the trigger. Red blood erupted from the woman, arcing in the air and splattering on the ground, but I was already racing to Violet’s still form.

  My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. Samuel reached her long before I did, his tail wagging, his tongue licking her fingers. I skidded to a stop, dropping to my knees next to her.

  She was lying on her stomach, her face toward me. Her limbs were askew, one leg straight down, the other tucked up, both arms over her head. Her eyes were closed, and I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

  I studied her back, and didn’t see any blood. My mind raced, recounting my training. If she was hit from the front, and there was no blood coming from her back, that meant that the bullet was still lodged inside her. I would have to be very careful in turning her over—I didn’t want to accidentally move the bullet and do more damage.

  I reached for a shoulder, and then let go in surprise as Violet’s eyes popped open. “Viggo?” she mumbled, her gaze confused.

  “Don’t move,” I said. “You’ve been shot.”

  She frowned at me. “No I haven’t,” she said, starting to push herself up.

  I placed a hand on her upper shoulders, pushing her gently down, cursing the interaction for fear of the bullet still lodged inside her. “Violet!”

  Giving a sharp huff, she craned her neck around. “Viggo, I’m fine,” she insisted, pushing against me.

  “Stay down!”

  She pushed harder, and then managed to turn on her hip, slipping out from under my hand. She pushed me with both her hands, offsetting my balance. I landed hard on my side, staring at Violet as she stood up, dusting off her pants and her shirt. As she did, I saw that there was no bullet hole. I exhaled in relief.

  Violet squinted behind her mask, her gaze darting around, and I stood up. She seemed on guard, her eyes searching the mist. It took me a second, but I picked up on the fact that the forest had fallen deathly still. I quickly undid her cuffs and placed her gun in her hands. “I’m sorry for leaving you unarmed,” I said as her hand closed over the butt of the gun.

  She gave me a side glance, but didn’t respond, her gray eyes darting all around.

  “It was right behind me,” she said after a moment. We had pressed our backs together, and were moving in a slow circle. I nodded, keeping my focus alert. Samuel had seemed to pick up what was going on, and was circling our legs, keeping close to us.

  The silence stretched on and on, both of us very aware of the impending danger. I kept my hands loose, my breathing even as we moved. I could hear Violet still panting behind me, her breathing loud and sharp in my ears.

  “You okay?”

  I felt her nod. “Yeah. I just got a sharp cramp in my side.”

  “Not enough potassium,” I replied, and she gave a little tsk.

  “I know that. Luckily, I’ve got a great excuse.”

  “Oh yeah,” I replied, turning my gaze to the canopy. “What’s that?”

  “This jerk of a warden wasn’t feeding me properly.”

  I chuckled. “This jerk of a warden just saved your life again.”

  Violet scoffed. “I don’t need you to save my life, Viggo. Besides, I was doing just fine by myself.”

  “Sure you were,” I drawled sarcastically. “I’m pretty sure that I’ve saved your life four times now.”

  “No you haven’t.”

  “Shall I count?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Because you know I’m right?”

  “No,” she denied.

  I suppressed a smile. The banter was helping keep us calm. Getting under Violet’s skin was just a perk.

  “First, the Porteque gang,” I said. “Second, the centipedes, which I think I should count twice, once for the venom, and the second for the eggs they laid in there.”

  “They laid eggs in me?” Violet gasped. I could feel her shuddering behind me, and immediately regretted making her aware of that.

  “You know what… never mind. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve saved your life. All that matters is…”

  I trailed off, realizing that Violet’s back was no longer pressed against mine. I whirled, and found her a few feet of way, squatting down and staring at a spot on the ground.

  Cautiously keeping my eyes on the trees, I peered over her shoulder. There was some sort of blackish liquid soaking into the ground.

  “I think you hit it,” Violet whispered, staring at the spot.

  “Not me, I shot…”

  I trailed off. In my haste to get to Violet, I had paid little attention to the woman I had shot. I moved back toward the spot she had collapsed.

  Just then, a bird’s cry filled the forest, and just as quickly as the silence had started, it disappeared under a cacophony of noise. I felt the tension leaving me. Whatever had been chasing Violet was clearly gone.

  I hurried over to the massive tree, my eyes searching the ground for her. The woman was still lying face down on the ground. Blood was seeping from the wound in her shoulder. I turned her over, to find her still breathing, with an exit wound on the other side.

  The woman was older, with fine lines around her eyes and mouth. She was probably around forty, with short brown hair. It was clear she kept in impeccable shape—her body was fit and muscular.

  Violet pushed in behind me. “Oh my God! That’s Ms. Dale,” she exclaimed, immediately dropping to her knees next to the woman.

  I frowned. “Who is Ms. Dale?”

  Violet had begun applying pressure to her wound. “G
ive me something to stop the bleeding,” she said, tilting her face up at me.

  I hesitated. Whoever this woman was, she was dangerous. It was very possible that she had been sent into The Green to retrieve Violet and the egg.

  “Violet, you realize this woman—”

  Violet nodded. “Yes, I realize that she is probably here to do what you were going to do, only for the Matrians instead of the Patrians. It doesn’t matter—Ms. Dale was kind to me once. I am not going to let her bleed out and die here. Besides… this seems to be the week that everyone wants a piece of me.”

  She said that last bit with such depreciating bleak humor, that I resisted the urge to pull her into a hug. I wanted to promise her that everything was going to be all right, when I knew perfectly well that I couldn’t guarantee that.

  I sighed and set my bag down, before going through it for supplies. I didn’t have much left. There were no more instant bandages, and only one blood patch. I had plenty of anti-toxin and anti-venom pills, but beyond that, not much.

  “Vi—” I said.

  “What?” she snapped. “You shot her, and all she was doing was trying to save my life.”

  I sighed. “We have no idea what she was trying to—”

  Violet arched an eyebrow at me, her mouth flattening into a thin line. “This is the woman who taught me to shoot, Viggo. She taught me how to defend myself. They picked her to train me for that stupid mission. She is an expert markswoman. She didn’t miss me. She was aiming for the thing chasing me.”

  The conviction pouring off Violet’s voice gave me pause, but her drive was one based on emotion, which had no place in the setting we found ourselves in.

  “Giving up our limited supplies to help her is risky. We need them so we can guarantee our own survival—”

  “Viggo Croft,” she hissed, lifting her hands so I could see the blood covering them. “You shot this woman who was only trying to help me. You and I are both aware of the reason she is here, and you need to get this survival mindset out of your head, and return to the land of being a decent human being.”

  Her words hit me like a sledgehammer. I was behaving coldly, prioritizing our lives as more important than hers. I had decided that she was the “them” in “us versus them”, and that her life was expendable.

  In that moment, I was suddenly grateful to Violet. Compassion burned in her like a beacon, and I couldn’t help but be attracted to it like a moth to a flame. Since my wife had died, I had cut off almost everyone I had known. It was easier that way—easier not to feel. How misguided I was: The feelings didn’t go away. I had just buried them under a veneer of calm. I had become so distanced from humanity, so apart from it, that I had forgotten that life was precious.

  It didn’t mean I was going to trust the older brunette lying on the ground. It just meant that I was going to do my best to help her.

  I nodded to Violet and began passing her what she needed. She applied the cotton bandage, but blood was quickly seeping through it. I wrapped a piece of blue fabric around the cotton, and then applied the patch to help her replenish blood.

  Afterward, I took a moment to inspect Violet’s hands. They were scraped up. I made her open and close them a few times. They weren’t broken. I also took a moment to inspect her thigh.

  “We’ll probably be able to take the bandage off in another day or two,” I said, as she pulled her pants back over her hip. She nodded. She’d been pretty quiet throughout the entire ordeal. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head, her gaze on Ms. Dale’s unconscious form. She looked pensive, like she was thinking about something.

  “What is it?”

  “Why her?” she asked, nodding her head to indicate Ms. Dale.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She’s not a warden. She’s just a self-defense teacher. So why did they send her to find me?” She reached down, gripping the egg with both hands and pulling it out of my bag. “Viggo… we need to figure out what this thing is, and why everyone wants it.”

  I hesitated, my mind racing. That was a tall order, considering that we had no idea where to begin. Not to mention, it would likely require us to go to Matrus, a place that wasn’t exactly welcoming to people like me.

  Violet turned to look up at me, her gray eyes searching mine for an answer. Before I could respond to her, Samuel gave a warning bark.

  I looked at him, and his body was tense, his ears up. He gave another bark, looking at us, practically vibrating with energy. I could tell that he was on the verge of bolting, but resisting that urge so he could warn us. Violet and I started to pull out our weapons, when I heard something else...

  A high pitched sound was permeating through the trees and into the clearing. It was so faint at first that it was hard to hear, but it grew, until the buzzing was a roar in our ears.

  Violet and I exchanged glances, and looked down at ourselves. We were covered in blood, and Ms. Dale was still bleeding. There was no way we had escaped the incoming predators’ notice.

  Without uttering a word, we began gathering our things, urgency lending speed to us. I hauled Ms. Dale over one shoulder, while Violet shouldered my bag. She pressed one aerosol can in my hand, and pulled the two remaining ones out of her pocket.

  “Run,” she whispered urgently, and together, we started running, knowing that the red flies were not far behind.

  18

  Violet

  As we fled, I couldn’t help but think about Viggo’s assumption regarding Ms. Dale. There was no other explanation for it. She was there for me, to collect me and bring me back to Matrus. I knew what would happen from there: I’d be convicted of regicide. It didn’t matter how much evidence I provided to prove that Lee was the killer. He was dead, which meant no one could exact revenge upon him.

  Yet, as far as I knew, Ms. Dale was just a defense teacher. Every year, she would recommend her best students for training with the wardens, some would be accepted, some wouldn’t. That was it. She’d lived in the same neighborhood as I did, went to the same stores, did the same chores. She didn’t have kids, which was not uncommon for some women—they chose their careers over children—and I had never seen her in any type of relationship with anyone outside the parents and students.

  So why would they send her? Was it because she knew me? Or was she more deeply involved than I had thought? I contemplated all of these questions as I watched her bouncing on Viggo’s shoulder. I knew it was unlikely that I would ever get all the answers I craved, but I couldn’t help but ask them.

  I felt like a fly trapped in a massive web, but I could only see a few of the strands that had trapped me. I kept trying to escape so I could see more, but I was caught too tightly, and the spider was settling in over me, about to devour me. Everything that kept happening to me reminded me that a noose was waiting for me, and it seemed like I would never escape.

  Although, being in The Green also reminded me that sometimes things just happen. There were things that I could control, and things that I couldn’t. It was a waste of energy to worry about the questions, especially with death constantly waiting.

  I knew that this was one of those things that we couldn’t survive. The swarm of flies were drawn to blood, like bees to pollen. Viggo and I were covered in it, thanks to my insistence on helping Ms. Dale. In spite of our help, her wound was still seeping blood—I could see it dripping on the ground behind us.

  As long as she bled, the red flies would find us. No amount of spray in the container would keep us safe and I was exhausted—I felt a bone-deep weariness that made everything around me seem slower. The past four days were all starting to add up and tax my system. Running on fear and adrenaline could only sustain me for so long. After a while, my body would be unable to produce more, and I would crash hard, my body shutting down against my will.

  I couldn’t think about that, no matter how inevitable it seemed. I had to focus on the task at hand—finding a way to shelter us from the threat of the red flies. I looked up and
realized I was falling behind, so I fixed my eyes on Viggo, trying to find the energy to keep up.

  My body, however, had other ideas. The stitch in my side from earlier flared up, and as I tried to run faster, it pulled tighter, knocking the air out of my lungs. I had to stop.

  “Viggo,” I gasped, staggering to a halt.

  He paused, and turned. Sweat was pouring from his forehead, making his hair stick to the sides of his face and his mask. His shirt was drenched, his chest heaving as he gasped for air.

  We were silent for a second—the buzzing had faded slightly, but we knew that wouldn’t be for long.

  “I’m not sure we can do this,” Viggo breathed, shifting Ms. Dale’s unconscious form to his other shoulder.

  I nodded in agreement. “We need to hide.”

  He shook his head. “We can’t. Once the red flies sense blood, they hunt out their victim with unerring accuracy. It doesn’t take them long to find their prey once they have that taste.”

  “But if we find a log…”

  “A friend of mine is an expert at this. He’s tested their response time. It took them three hours to hunt down prey that was over ten kilometers away.”

  I absorbed the information, my stomach shrinking. “So what can we do?”

  Viggo handed me a canteen, and I drank a few sips, not wanting water sloshing around in my belly as we ran. He did the same, and closed the lid.

  “I’m not sure,” he finally said, but I could see the answer in his eyes.

  Abandon Ms. Dale, and run for it.

  I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t considered the possibility. Once they had her, the swarm would likely ignore us for long enough to escape. We could flee while they drank her dry.

  My stomach turned at the thought. No matter what happened, I wasn’t leaving anyone behind.