Free Chasing the Valley by Skye Melki-Wegner

paid bodyguard – hired by the richie girls, perhaps, to keep them safe in the wild. Either way, he didn’t show any qualms about revealing his proclivity to the rest of us. Only someone with a link to Flame could have killed the hunter like that.
    I suck on the back of my teeth, feeling nauseated again as the image of the burning hunter blasts across my mind. I tell myself that Hackel had no choice; that the man was going to kill us all. But it doesn’t purge my mental image of the man screaming as he burns.
    â€˜What are you thinking?’ I say to Teddy.
    He doesn’t answer for a second and I wonder whether he’s replaying the same scene in his own head. Then he forces a laugh. ‘I was thinking about the Magnetic Valley. If you got someone with a Metal proclivity, would they get attracted by the magnets? Because I reckon that’s what Clementine’s proclivity is – and it’d be pretty funny to stick her to a hillside.’
    I get an image of Clementine zooming through the air and sticking to a magnetic slope, as she spits out insults in her snobby accent. The idea is so ridicu­lous that it makes me smile. ‘What makes you think her proclivity’s Metal?’
    â€˜Well, she’s brought enough jewellery to open a metalwork shop.’
    I peer around his shoulders at the foxary in front of us. The two richie girls are hunched on its back, necks drooped as their animal traipses between the trees. Yet again, I find myself wondering why they’ve come on this trip. Maybe they thought there was something glamorous about fleeing the city, although I can’t imagine what. I bet they weren’t expecting so much cold or blood or pain.
    I indulge in a silent moment of ‘serves you right’ at the twins’ expense. Clementine was so confident last night, so certain that her parents’ money would buy her out of any trouble. All these twins have known is luxury and part of me hates them for it. This is what the real world’s like, I want to scream. This is what it’s like to fight, every day, to stay alive.
    The second twin glances back at me, just for a moment, and I see the puffy wetness of her eyes. She turns back and hides her face in her sister’s shoulders, but it’s too late; I’ve already seen. And what I’ve seen makes me feel sick with myself. She’s just a terrified girl, as lost and alone as the rest of us.
    And no matter what I tell myself, there’s no point feeling superior. I’m no better equipped to deal with this forest than the twins are. There are no bins out here to scavenge food from, no richies to beg for a cleaning job or barmen to offer me under-the-table shifts in their alehouses. There are only trees and hunters and death.
    â€˜What’s the plan?’ I say, as the foxaries pick up speed. They’ve shifted into a tighter formation now, allowing for easier discussion.
    â€˜What d’you mean?’ says Teddy.
    â€˜I mean, every refugee crew needs a plan to reach the Valley. Once we’re out of these woods, we’ve still got a massive country to cross. What’s our angle?’
    â€˜Ithought we should take the merchant trader approach,’ says Clementine, ‘so we could at least travel in comfort. But unfortunately I’ve been outvoted by these –’ She huffs out the first syllable of ‘filthy’, but catches herself. ‘By my crewmates.’
    â€˜We’re not following the road,’ says Radnor.
    I frown at the back of Teddy’s shoulders. Since the Valley lies to the southeast, the traditional route for refugee crews begins with Taladia’s main trading road: a vast belt that stretches right down the country’s belly. It provides the safest route from north to south, leading travellers away from the most dangerous wilderness.
    Following the road is risky, of course, because it’s full of traders and it’s the first