Foreverland Is Dead

her back.
    Roc grabs the table, stands.
    “Stop it!” Cyn says.
    “Where is it?” The old man holds up the fob, thumb on the button. “ Where is the gate? ”
    “Call him off!”
    “Tell me! Now!”
    “Make him stop!”
    Roc starts around the table. Mr. Williams points the fob at her—
    “I’ll tell you,” Cyn says. “Make him stop.”
    Mr. Williams raises his hand. “This is your last chance. If not, I put all of you asleep. You will wake with half your faces melted to the stove. And I will continue experimenting with you until you do.”
    “It’s due south—”
    “No!” Kat shouts. “Don’t tell him—he’ll kill us once he knows.”
    Mr. Williams aims the fob at her like a weapon. The button clicks. Kat cringes.
    Click. Click, click, click.
    She opens her eyes. Still awake. Still standing.
    Mr. Williams looks at the ceiling. “You little bitch.”
    “It doesn’t work,” Kat says.
    “Sid, get over here.”
    Sid throws Mad and runs to his master’s side. The girls pick up their weapons. Roc, too. The old man pockets the fob, lifts his chin, masking the doubt and fear quivering just beneath the surface.
    “Girls,” he says, “if you do not drop those sticks, I will have Sid beat them out of your hands. You know what he is capable of doing.”
    He nods at Roc.
    “Stalemate,” Cyn manages to say. Her legs are coming alive, waking in pain. “If that animal comes, girls, break his legs. Both of them. Without Sid, the old man is helpless. He’ll never reach the gate.”
    The girls lift the clubs, each big enough to snap a bone, shatter a knee. He can’t take all of them. They’ll lose, sure. But so will the old man.
    Stalemate.
    The old man blinks, heavily.
    “I’m taking the girls to the gate,” Cyn says. “I can’t stop you from following, but if you interfere with us, then I’ll stop and you’ll never find it. We all die. We start over and you go back out to the Nowhere.”
    Mr. Williams’s lips stretch over his perfect teeth. He calculates the offer. Without the fob, without Sid…there is no counter.
    “Do we have a deal?” she asks.
    He opens the door, says with his back turned, “If you attempt to lose us, someone will suffer greatly.”
    He goes outside, waits on the porch. Arms folded. Sid follows.

    “Can you walk?” Kat squats down.
    No way she can walk. She closes her eyes, puts her arms up. Kat and Mad pick her up. Her skin burns with fever. The pressure on her legs is too much, like a thousand hot pins stabbing in and out.
    The room dims. She loses a few moments of awareness, panting to stay alert. Yearning for the cold to take the pain back.
    This body is almost done.
    Just a mile, that’s all. A mile and it’s over. One way or another.
    “Stop,” she grunts, leaning against the table.
    Mad gathers up the extra coats and sweaters they were using for bedding. The old man is still on the porch, huddled against the cold. He turns to see what the hell is taking so long. Roc is just inside the doorway, glaring back.
    Her eyes are dead and buried in bruised flesh. She swapped out her club for a broken chair leg that’s splintered and shaped like a blade.
    “Don’t,” Cyn says.
    Roc adjusts her grip, her knuckles white.
    “Whatever happened, drop it. They’re nothing. You understand, Roc? Nothing. You can escape.”
    “Here.” Mad shoves gloves at them, wraps a scarf around Cyn’s neck. Kat stretches another coat over the ones she’s already wearing. Mad pulls a hat over her head.
    Roc stares.
    “You need to say it,” Cyn says. “I need to hear it.”
    Her jaw flexes. Nostrils flare.
    Roc puts gloves on. Mad hands her a wad of scarves and hats. Those go on, too. She nods once.
    Good enough.
    Cyn throws her arms over Kat and Mad’s shoulders. They prop her onto her feet. She can’t support her weight. Just moving steals her breath. They drag her to the door.
    “We need to get Miranda,” Mad adds.
    “No.” Cyn grits. “She’s dead.”
    “I just saw her in the window this morning.”
    “Not what I mean. Miranda’s dead, she just doesn’t know it.”
    Mad pulls back. “You serious? You really going to leave her? Kat? We can’t do that; we ain’t like the old man, Kat. We got our differences, but we can’t leave her, you heard what he said—”
    “That’s not Miranda!” Cyn grabs a handful of Mad’s scarf, hisses through clenched teeth. “Trust me. She’s dead.”
    She lets go, lunges forward. Kat keeps her from falling, hauls her