The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (The Tribe) (5 page)

Jaz had been chattering since we left the camp, flitting from one subject to another and then back again. I couldn’t keep up with what he was saying, but that was all right, because he never stopped talking long enough for me to respond anyway. So I let him run on, focusing on his behavior. He was fidgety, jumpy, brimming with energy. In anyone else, it might have meant they were nervous. Not Jaz, though. He was himself, which meant he’d believed me when I’d said that the thing with the saurs was all taken care of. He had no idea what was coming.

I examined the forest, making sure we were alone. We’d traveled some distance from the Tribe’s territory. The caves where we made winter camp, and the vegetable and fruit gardens that were lovingly tended by the Leafers, were far behind us now. I listened hard, but the only sounds were those of birds chirping, animals scurrying through the undergrowth, and the wind, blowing sorrowfully through the tapering, glossy green leaves of the tuarts. I really had expected someone to follow. Maybe Briony, who’d screamed at me that I didn’t have to do this. She thought everything would be okay if we apologized to the saurs on Jaz’s behalf. That was Bry all over, always thinking she could get out of a difficult situation with a few nice words and a pretty smile. Andreas, our only Scaly, had told her it wouldn’t work. The saurs were difficult to communicate with, even for a reptile speaker, but Andreas could talk to them well enough to know that they weren’t interested in an apology. They wanted something else entirely.

They wanted Jaz.

As he ran ahead of me, I tried to savor every last second with the brown-haired boy who’d always been my secret favorite among the youngsters. At first I’d loved him for being a Firestarter like Cassie, but I’d soon come to adore him for himself alone, unable to resist the irrepressible, brightly burning ball of energy that was Jaz. He’d come creeping into my heart, filling part of the void Cassie had left. Now he was in terrible trouble, because he’d broken the pact with the saurs. It was the thing that kept us all safe, and not just because it meant that the lizards let us live here. The saurs were our protection against the government. Their presence alone was a deterrent to enforcers ever seriously trying to cross the grasslands, even if anyone did figure out a way to find us in the vast forest that we knew better than anybody.

Unfortunately, the threat of being eaten by saurs hadn’t quite been enough to prevent two idiot enforcers from wandering onto the grasslands with those new energy weapons that everyone was calling streakers. They must’ve been crazy to take such a risk. But they’d gotten away with it, and Jaz was going to pay for their actions. Because he’d been the one who’d found the rabbit they killed, and he’d eaten it.
How could he have been so stupid?
Only I knew it wasn’t stupidity. It was sheer thoughtlessness, and a reckless disregard for consequences was so much a part of Jaz’s nature that it was hard to be mad at him for it. Anyway, I didn’t have time to be angry. There was no time left for anything anymore. Except for this journey that ended in death.

Jaz’s cheerful voice interrupted my grim thoughts. “Ash, how about here?” He’d stopped a few paces in front of me and was pointing to a small patch of ground that ran beside a stream. “I think this is an excellent place for me to practice. There’s water and everything!”

I considered it. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around, and we were near the fringes of the Firstwood, too, which was good. I could do what had to be done here and then go to the grasslands, where the saurs would be waiting.

“Okay, Jaz, let’s practice,” I said in a bright tone that I hoped didn’t sound too fake. “Remember the rules, though. You need to sit down and focus.”

He dropped to the ground next to the stream, and I sat opposite him. After a moment, a tiny flame flickered into being between us. Then another, and another. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t lose control as he had so often before.
Let him have a good day. Please, let him have a good day.

And he did. The flames continued to appear until they’d built themselves into a small fire that burned steady and perfect.

“Jaz!” I exclaimed. “You did it.”

He grinned in delight. “I didn’t set your boots on fire or anything!”

“Great job, Jaz.” I reached around the fire to ruffle his spiky hair. “Tell you what: let’s have a toast to celebrate.”

He watched me as I pulled out my water bottle, his small face uncharacteristically serious. For an anxious second, I thought he’d realized what I was doing. Until he said, “Ash? I want you to know I’m sorry. About the rabbit, I mean.”

I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I just thought,
someone
should eat it since it was already dead. Those stupid enforcers didn’t even want it. They were only seeing how far their streakers would shoot.”

“I know, Jaz. Like I said, it’s okay.” I held up my flask, watching as he pulled out his. “A toast, yes? To the fire!”

“The fire!”

We clinked our bottles together and drank. I made sure I took a long, deep draft to encourage him to do the same. Although he probably wouldn’t need to drink much. The herb that Ember had mixed into his water was strong. I used it myself when I wanted a proper heavy slumber without dreams or Sleepwalking. It should make Jaz sleep for hours, certainly long enough for me to carry out my plan.

The two of us sat in silence for a while, sipping our water and watching the fire die. I noticed that he didn’t seem very tired.
Maybe I should have used more of the herb.
I went to lift my flask to propose yet another toast, but found my arm strangely heavy. I stared down at it, puzzled. Why couldn’t I move?

“That herb is pretty powerful stuff,” Jaz said.

My heart froze in my chest. “Jaz, what have you done?”

“Switched the flasks. Also put in more herb, since you’re bigger than me.” He sighed. “How stupid do you think I am, Ash?”

I tried to reach out to him but found my limbs sluggish, unwilling to obey me. “You don’t understand, Jaz.”

“Yes, I do.” His gaze, when it met mine, was steady. Determined.
Completely unlike Jaz
. “I understand that the reason we can live in the Firstwood without the saurs chasing us out or gobbling us up is because you made a pact with them. None of us is supposed to eat the flesh of animals. I thought it’d be okay, since I didn’t kill that rabbit myself, but it’s not. Now you have to give me to the saurs. That’s the way it is.”

The herb was working fast. I could no longer support myself, and I began to topple to one side. Jaz jumped up, put his small hands on my shoulders, and lowered me to the ground. “You know,” he said, “I never did have much of a home before. Almost didn’t here, either. Remember how everyone wanted to throw me out for stealing when I first got here? That was before you made me promise not to do it anymore. Even so, every time something went missing after that, everybody blamed me. Until you went around and found their things and said they’d misplaced them. And everyone was
very
sorry that they’d been mean to me.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “Except you and I both know that I did take their stuff, even though I’d promised not to. I’ve never been able to figure out how you found my stash.”

“Jashhh . . .” It was getting harder to form words. “Run. You have to runnnn. . . .”

He shook his head. “If I run, they’ll take you. But that was what you wanted all along, wasn’t it?” I blinked in surprise, and he laughed. “See? I
do
understand. You were going to wait until I was asleep, then give yourself to the saurs instead of me. Only you didn’t tell the others that, because you’re the leader of the Tribe, and they wouldn’t let you do it. Well, guess what? I won’t let you, either.” He rested his hand on mine and squeezed it. “You’re more of a mom to me than my own mom ever was, Ash.”

I tried to grab hold of him to keep him with me, but my stupid body wouldn’t respond. He bent to press a kiss on my cheek. “Don’t feel too bad, Ash. Maybe the saurs won’t eat me. I’m too little to be much of a meal, and too tough to be tasty. Besides, they might be won over by my endearing personality.” He gave me a classic Jaz grin, brimming with reckless mischief. Then he bounded away, leaving me to watch helplessly as his small feet disappeared into the forest. I tried to crawl after him. But the herb took me, plunging me into a sleep from which I couldn’t wake and in which I couldn’t Walk. I could say nothing, do nothing. Save no one . . .

I woke hours later and found the air cold and the sky growing dark. “Jaz!” I yelled. “Jaz!” He didn’t answer, and I staggered in the direction he’d gone, following the marks of his footprints to the edge of the Firstwood. When I reached the grasslands, I found his water bottle sitting upright, as though he’d left it there for me. No, not his water flask. He’d switched them. This flask was mine.

I fell to my knees beside it, my chest so tight that I had to gasp for air. Scanning the earth around me, I read the grim story told by the tracks in the soil. The passage of the saurs was marked by flattened grass, and I could picture how the big lizards must have looked as they came pounding across the grasslands, their dark, scaled bodies so much larger than Jaz’s tiny frame. And Jaz — my brave, stupid Jaz — had come out of the forest to meet them.

I checked for signs of a Firestarter death inferno, flames or scorched earth or smoke, but there was nothing. The saurs understood what Jaz was, and they wouldn’t have risked damaging their hunting grounds by killing him where the grass would burn.
They’ll have taken him to water, and then . . .

Gruesome pictures filled my mind, and I couldn’t make them go away.
I should have known what he was planning.
Somehow, someway, I should have known. I’d lost another Firestarter. And it was all my fault.

I pressed my face into the ground that Jaz had walked and wept useless tears into the small imprints of his footsteps.

The memory stopped, freezing on that moment of wrenching grief.