CHUPACABRA

Chapter Seventeen: The Undertaker

Cade buries him on a hill overlooking the campsite. The ground is softer here, lightened with the dew of the changing season, and it glows golden with the rising sun. Forty helps carry him up the small hike to the burial site. She feels it's the least she can do for Missy, who somehow thinks this is all Forty's fault. She's used to this, used to everyone blaming her for something she doesn't understand, but it doesn't hurt any less. Forty carries the weight of Missy's blame like the corpse of her grandfather on her shoulder, reminding her of yet another failure.

She doesn't know why she does it, but she sits beside the two siblings as they hold their vigil. Though death is not a foreign concept to her, this one feels different. It's intimate, so unlike the almost custodial cremations at the compound. Though Forty only knew of the man as he was dying, the strength of the siblings' morning makes the buried man feel like her grandpa too.

"He was the last thing we had keeping us all put together," Cade sniffles, pulling Missy closer into his embrace. The girl buries her head into the dirty t-shirt he wears, letting her grief be known with wracking sobs. "You know, he was the only one besides us who survived the attack. He was all we had left."

Forty can't pretend to know what he means, but she lays a comforting hand on his neck anyways. "He seemed to be very kind," she says honestly. What better way to remember someone than as a genuinely nice, loving person. Forty has never known someone like that. She's jealous the siblings got to know this man as he was alive.

"He was," Cade says, but his eyes aren't looking at the grave. He's somewhere farther, way beyond these wild lands. Forty can't even try to reach him.

She leaves them to talk in private and makes her way to the campsite. Khal, Kimi, Andres, and Thirty-Seven crowd around a smattering of tattered blankets, backs curved with defeat. Only Thirty-Seven looks up at her when she gets close. His brows are furrowed with concern, and Forty is saddened to realize he looks a lot like he did in the compound.

"There's no other option, we have to move." Khal's voice floats up among the quiet chatter. Forty sits down as quietly as possible next to Thirty-Seven, wishing she could melt into the atmosphere around them.

"Fuck! I'm tired of moving around. We finally found a place we could settle, and now this," Kimi snarls, running anxious hands through her hair.

Andres is uncharacteristically quiet, his expression somber. He looks like he's already resigned to the move. He must feel Forty's eyes on him because he looks up, something like a question in his dark brown irises. She shakes her head. She has no answers for him.

"Forty?" Thirty-Seven suddenly whispers beside her, just loud enough that only she can hear. "I need to tell you something."

He leads her past the earthen houses, deep within the trees. Here, the sun is nothing but dapples of light between leaves. It would be quite pretty without the circumstances. Thirty-Seven pauses under a large mulberry and slides down, his eyes heavy with bags. Forty stays standing, her nerves too frazzled to be in a relaxed position. "You have to tell me what he looked like," Thirty-Seven says. "I... I might know what it is."

Forty swallows a lump in her throat. She can go into heavy detail about what she saw in that room, but her mouth can't quite form the words. The implications of Thirty-Seven knowing the poison is exactly what Forty fears most. "It was like he was wasting away," she finally forces herself to say. "I could see his bones, his insides. He was melting."

Thirty-Seven nods solemnly. "Yeah, I know it well." He closes his eyes and Forty is sure he is somewhere lost in the compound, a thousand memories playing like a broken record. "Dr. Taft was trying to make a stronger sedative a couple years back, and he would use some of us to test it. You could fucking smell them, even if you couldn't see them. How much they suffered. They discontinued the trials after they lost too many specimens. I thought... I thought that was over." Thirty-Seven buries his head in his hands, his breaths coming out in short puffs. Instinctively, Forty drops to his side, places a comforting hand on his head. He leans into it just the slightest bit, his body more honest than his mouth.