Chapter Text
v.
“Which is better – to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?”
– William Golding, Lord of the Flies
They run, ducking around the end of the train and into the edge of the forest. Tracing the perimeter of the town is harder than it may seem, with the amount of green space and outcroppings the small town of West Ham already had. They run for over a mile, tripping over logs and snagging branches on their clothes, sweating through socks and heavy undershirts. Their paces finally slow somewhere behind the football field, a long way’s away from the train station and the threat of discovery. Kelly waits until they stop, hands on knees and heartrates high, to turn on Harry.
“I’m sorry,” she says, eyebrow twitching in panic and frustration. “What the fuck just happened?”
Harry tries to hold up his hands in supplication, but quickly supports himself on his knees again. He hasn’t been getting in his cardio. “I don’t know. Fuck, I need a minute.”
“You lied!” Becca wheezes. Eden is whimpering where Becca holds her against her chest, threatening to cry again. Kelly doesn’t blame her. She wants to cry too. “You said no one was following you, that no one would see!”
“No one was following me,” Harry stresses. “And no one did see.”
Kelly takes a step forward, pointing a finger at Harry’s chest. “You put her in danger.”
“She did that herself!”
“Grizz,” Becca breathes, horrified. “They went after Grizz.”
“Why are you here, Harry?” Kelly asks, nose turned up in anger.
“Because she decided that after I saw her, I couldn’t rat her out to anyone!” Harry gestures wildly at Becca, and then leans against a tree. He throws his head back against the bark.
“She was right to do that,” Kelly spits.
“Yeah, right.”
“When in the past year have you given me any reason to trust you?” Kelly can’t hold back the raw emotion in her outburst. “Any reason at all?”
“Okay, you.” Harry stops, standing up straight. He runs a hand over his mouth, raising his eyes to the sky and taking a step back. His lips curl up in a snarl. “You don’t get to do that.”
“Can you guys stop?” Becca cries. They both turn to look at her. She’s fuming, all 5’1 of her threatening to melt the snow with her anger. “Just fucking, cut it out. Do we have a plan? What is our plan?”
Kelly throws one more glare at Harry before crossing her arms, turning out to look past the football field. “We keep walking.”
“Until when?” Becca asks. “Until my feet fall off?”
“Until we reach the nursing home on the edge of town,” Kelly replies. “They might have some medical supplies there, and food. We all sort of forgot about it, seeing as no one lives there. Obviously.”
“Cassandra didn’t forget about it,” Becca shakes her head. “I remember someone talking about checking it out, early on. But then…everything happened. I don’t know if anyone ever went.”
“I imagine it wasn’t super high on Allie’s priority list,” Harry says snidely, and both the girls frown at him.
Kelly shifts her bag up further onto her shoulders. “We need somewhere to go, where no one will think to look for us. I think it’s our best bet.”
“Anything will be better than that train car,” Becca mutters. “Do you think they got him?”
“Grizz will be fine,” Kelly says, because she needs to believe it. The last thing she saw before they all booked it in the opposite direction was him disappearing into the trees, the Guard close behind him. She knows Grizz would never purposefully lead them back to the camp to be sitting ducks. She just hopes he doesn’t decide to be a martyr. Becca puts down her things to fish the papoose out of her bag. She hadn’t had time to put it on before they ran, and it hadn’t been a comfortable escape for her or Eden. When she stands, Kelly gestures for all of them to move on. “While the sun’s still up.”
Kelly has always resented winter. It wasn’t a conscious or a wanted anger, but it was one that lingered throughout every year. The sunset at four in the afternoon, before she had even gotten out of her extracurriculars. Driving home in the dark. Day after day of the same bleary, gray drabness, melding time into something untraceable. Combine that with high school, and out comes something to hate. Before, she had at least had consistent central heating. Now, she hates winter even more.
She can’t help but think of Grizz, and she knows the others are doing the same. Maybe not Harry, but she hasn’t been able to read him in some time. She can tell that Becca is thinking about it, though, and by extension thinking about Sam. She thinks about the gunfire she heard. She wants to bring it up, but can’t think of anything to say. She wonders if Becca heard it, and knows she did. There is no way she wouldn’t have.
The football field is slightly more elevated than the rest of the town, sitting solemnly and empty above the school. The journey around the academic buildings and down toward the west edge of town is a quiet one, made easier by the light decline. The wind bites at her clothing, and Becca walks with her arms crossed in front of her, protecting Eden from the harsh gales. Kelly tries to remember if any winter has ever been so unforgiving, but draws a blank. In reality, she’s always just been inside, only emerging for ice skating and photo ops on mild, snowy days. She scoffs. Every day that she remembers who she used to be, she feels ignorant and small.
She doesn’t have words for how cold it is, and how heavy every step forward seems to be. With every breath, moving her chest becomes just a bit more labored, and she has no words for it, nothing to say. Before, she didn’t need them, and now she has no vocabulary for this kind of living.
Will’s house is just beyond the west edge of the town, obscured and erased by the forest. At least, that’s what he told Kelly. She’s fairly sure no one ever visited Will at his house in high school, not even Allie. Kelly never thought to consider why and now, in the echoing absence of an explanation, it’s all she can think about. The nursing home is just before, hugging the line between town and space. Bushes and ivy curl around the edges of the far wing, threatening to overtake it and turn structure into nature. As they approach, they come out from the woods and step onto the pavement. It’s slick, and Kelly hooks an arm through Becca’s to make sure she doesn’t slip and fall. There’s no one on the road, and no one following them. Whatever Grizz had planned with his diversion, it worked.
They walk around to the front door. Frost clings to the glass looking into the atrium. Kelly presses her hand against it and looks in, peering at the abandoned front desk and shadows littering the entranceway. She tries the door handle, pulling it toward her. It doesn’t budge.
“It’s locked, I think,” Kelly says, frowning. She didn’t think it’d be locked. She starts to run through her head how they’re going to break into the building without leaving a window shattered for the wind to come through.
Harry rubs his nose into the crook of his elbow. “This blows.”
Becca lets out an exasperated moan. “Can you shut the fuck up, Harry?”
“Let me try again,” Kelly tries to mediate, tugging again at the door. It moves slightly, but doesn’t open. She beckons Harry over to help her, and they each position their grip on the handle, digging their heels into the crevices of the concrete and pulling on the door. On their third try, it busts open with a sharp crack near the door hinge, a sheet of ice falling away and crashing down on the walkway.
“See?” Kelly says, smiling. She’s out of breath, and the wind hurts her lungs. “Just frozen shut.”
“One in a million, Kel,” Becca says, shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably. “Now get inside the building, my toes are going to fall off.”
They file in through the door, and Kelly locks it manually behind her. She’s not sure how much that’ll do, so she drags over a chair and props it against the glass for good measure. The four of them loiter in the atrium, unnerved by the silence and unsure exactly what to do. Kelly thought that if all the adults were to disappear, even those needing assistance, that they would just vanish from the face of the earth, leaving behind whatever it is they were doing at the time. New Ham defies this expectation. As they walk through the silent halls of the facility, taking stock of their surroundings, there are no wheelchairs left in the middle of the hallway. There are no rogue Jello cups uneaten, or even beds unmade. The whole town is constructed as though everyone just put away their things and walked out of their homes, away into the forest. Each time Kelly walks among the trees, part of her is certain she could walk far enough and find her parents living somewhere in the pines, away from this town and in this new world. Even an unfinished note on a computer screen would give her closure. She keeps looking for signs of disruption, of struggle, and finds none.
Harry manages to voice the train of thoughts in her head simply. “This is really goddamn eerie.”
They stop under an unlit ceiling light, next to a nurses’ station. Kelly wipes three fingers across the surface of the counter, dragging up nearly a year’s worth of dust on her skin. She blows it off into the air, and Becca scrunches her face up, still half obscured by her thick scarf.
“You’re going to make me sneeze,” She complains.
“What do you think?” Kelly asks. “Should we look for the kitchen?”
“Can we find somewhere to put our stuff down?” Becca asks, shifting. “I’m exhausted, Kel.”
A form of shame washes over her, along with her own exhaustion – she didn’t get much sleep to begin with, and the morning at the camp with Will’s hallucinations seems like it was weeks ago. Kelly feels bad. For weeks since she had the baby, Kelly has been trying to make sure Becca doesn’t overexert herself, or stress too much. It’s stressful enough, having a baby. Kelly thought she could take some of the other bullshit off of Becca’s shoulders. And here she was, making her flee miles through a forest, relocating from strange place to strange place.
She nods, swallowing a lump in her throat. “I’m sure there’s a lounge somewhere. If not, there’s lots of rooms.”
“I’m not sleeping in some old lady’s deathbed,” Harry mutters.
“I’d rather you not sleep here at all,” Becca gripes.
“If you want me to leave, I can,” Harry shrugs. “If that’s your permission for me to go, I’ll just make my way– ”
“No.” Kelly and Becca speak in unison. Eden gurgles her agreement.
“Everyone’s going to think I’m dead.”
“Honestly? Everyone’s just going to think you’re high, Harry.” Becca tosses her hair back with a jerk of her head. “Has anyone even texted you?”
Kelly sneaks a look at Harry, who doesn’t even make to pull out his phone to check. His eyes are trained on the tile of the floor as it passes by, hands stuffed into his pockets. It’s a strange thing, to be with someone you used to know everything about. It’s like seeing something you used to be able to touch trapped behind glass. She knows Becca’s comment hurt him, but she doesn’t do anything about it, doesn’t say anything to make him feel better. Harry, for his part, just grows more distant, and doesn’t say anything more.
They find a lounge around a corner, a small waiting area for families filled with armchairs and couches. They drop their bags into a pile by a lamp and push some of the furniture together to make beds. Becca pushes one of the armchairs up against the wall and then buffers the four sides with cushions, placing a now sleeping Eden inside. Kelly wishes they could have taken the crib from her house, but it will have to do. Harry’s sitting on the floor. Becca collapses into one of the couches, moaning with exhaustion. It’s four in the afternoon.
“I’m going to go look for the kitchen,” Kelly announces softly. She looks at Becca, and decides that she should stay to rest. “Becca, yell or call if you need us.”
“Us?” Harry asks.
Kelly sighs. “Get up, Harry.”
“We just sat down,” Harry says, shifting on his hands. He rubs his face a little bit, eyebrows furrowed, and looks at Becca. “I can’t believe you slapped me in the face.”
Becca glances over at him, eyes awash with vindication. “You want another one?”
“Alright, come on.” Kelly pulls at Harry’s arm until he’s standing. “Step one to making reparations, helping me find food for us and the camp.”
“Now I’m feeding traitors,” Harry says, but there’s nothing behind it. He sighs heavily. “Living the dream.”
Becca lies back to nap. The kitchen turns out to be relatively close by to the lounge, but it’s slim pickings. Most of the food in the fridge is way past due, so much so that Kelly slams the door shut as soon as she opens it, gagging slightly. The cabinets are more promising, with cans of preserved fruit, chicken noodle soup, chili. Kelly grabs a bunch of the cans, piling them into her now emptied backpack until it’s full to the brim and hard to zipper. There’s still several left over, enough to feed a couple of people for a week or two. The cans in her bag will only feed the camp for a week, if they spread it out, but there’s nothing else they can do. Kelly hopes that maybe there’s some more supplies throughout the building, but she doesn’t have time to check.
“Tomorrow,” She begins, hoisting the heavy bag up onto her back. She winces with the weight. “You need to begin combing the building, checking to see if there’s any more nonperishables anywhere else, maybe a nurse’s lounge or something.”
Kelly walks out of the kitchen, focusing on keeping her posture upright on the way back to Becca. Harry frowns, following her out.
“Tomorrow.” He repeats. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I need you to do that for me.” Kelly pauses for a second, looking back. She can only make eye contact with him for a moment before she tears herself away. “Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess.” Harry huffs. “Kelly, come on. What is all this? We could go back to my place, we don’t have to stay here.”
Anger boils in the pit of her stomach. “You would have to be an idiot to believe that.”
“Kelly.”
“Do you seriously think that the world works the way you want it to?” She spits at him. “Nothing just happens because you say so. You are a puppet in Campbell’s town right now, and Campbell? He’d love to see my head on a stake in front of the church, if he had his way. Because I helped Becca give birth to Eden, and I protected them. A girl who had a baby with Campbell’s brother, who he’s never been quiet about hating. That’s at least three levels of treason in his book, and no affiliation with you is going to save me.”
“Campbell will listen to me,” Harry asserts. “I can make him listen, we can go home –”
“Open your eyes!” Kelly whips around, the heavy bag pulling on her shoulders. She squares them anyway, steel and spite. “This isn’t about me, Harry. None of this has ever been about me. And you’re a fool for thinking for a second that it was ever about you, either.”
Harry blinks at her. She turns around and walks briskly back toward the lounge. It’s obvious that Harry has more words caught in his throat, but he doesn’t say any of them. Becca is sitting up on the couch when they return, evidently having heard every word of their brief argument. She eyes the bag on Kelly’s shoulders and frowns, eyes questioning. Kelly holds onto the resolve she was just feeling, tilting up her chin.
Becca stops her before she can begin. “You’re not going again.”
Kelly deflates immediately under her gaze, and her eyes go to the floor, all previous confidence washed away. She holds onto her willpower instead. “I have to find Gordie.”
“No, you don’t.” Becca leans forward, grabbing her knees. “You need to put that down, sit your ass down on one of these couches, and rest.”
“Someone has to get these to the camp,” Kelly argues.
“You can do that in the morning.”
“Gordie needs to get away from all of this,” Kelly says. “He’s been dealing with the town for too long, and once they start looking for us, they’ll go after him, too. I can get him to come here, and take care of you while I go back to the camp. Once I go and make sure everyone is safe, I’ll come back.”
“And who’s going to keep you safe?” Becca asks. “Now that the Guard is out in the words, looking for everyone. Have you thought about that?”
“Someone has to tell them what’s going on.”
Becca lets out a frustrated noise. “You’ve already done that. You’ve done it, Kelly.”
“Someone has to tell them about Grizz,” Kelly stresses. Becca’s eyebrows flicker. “Someone needs to tell Sam about Grizz.”
Becca’s mouth closes, jaw working. She looks away from Kelly and stares at the upholstery of the couch, fingers picking at stray pieces of fabric. Harry looks between the two of them, expression confused.
“What the fuck am I missing, here?” He asks.
Neither of them acknowledge him. Kelly stares at Becca until she looks back at her. The girl’s eyes are full of tears, hand shaking where it pulls at the strings. In her sleep, Eden makes a soft, troubled noise.
“Stop running,” Becca says. Kelly blinks, the bag weighing heavier on her back. “Stop running away, and rest.”
“You look exhausted, Kelly,” Harry adds softly, and somehow, damn him, that’s what does it. Kelly wipes at her eyes and takes the bag off of her shoulders, letting it clunk onto the tile floor. She sinks back on her heels, bringing her arms up and over her head, crashing down around her ears. She rocks back and forth a couple of times, breathing through a hitch in her chest.
“Fuck,” she says. “Fuck.”
“We can protect them,” Becca tells her, nodding purposefully. “We can protect them. We’ll go in the morning.”
Harry sits down near her, not quite close enough to touch. Kelly’s grateful for it. She shakes her head. She starts to speak, and her composure breaks. “I think it’s too late. I think. Fuck. I think they shot him.”
A sob breaks loose in her throat and she rocks forward, legs falling around her and crossing forward. She sits on the cold tile floor, feeling her breath buckle without command. If Becca wants her to stop moving, this is what she will get. Kelly wraps her breath around the block in her throat, sobbing again on the exhale. When she looks up, Becca is crying too, big tears making their way down her pretty face. Harry stares at them, face washed in shock and slow comprehension. Kelly reaches a hand forward, and Becca grabs it, fingers interlocking and holding each other tightly. Only just not tight enough to bruise. They breathe together, young and afraid. The sun begins to set behind them, windows leaking in the last moments of light before the four of them are bathed in darkness.
.
Grizz is asleep, taking slightly labored breaths with his head tilted back, the air passing in through his nose and out of his mouth in a cloud of frigid evidence. Sam sits in the entryway to the tent, the door secured open. He glances back every now and again to make sure Grizz doesn’t wake up, or that he doesn’t shift and knock his leg from its elevated position, cushioned on three stacked backpacks and a pillow. Bean sits with Sam, hands moving in a flurry as she tries to translate what the others are saying. They’re all sitting with their backs to the fire, facing the tent. Will stands, occasionally pacing back and forth the short distance between wood and fabric. Bean’s trying her best, and Sam is trying to pay attention, but he’s still missing a lot. She’s not as good as Becca is, takes too long to spell out the words she doesn’t know. He stares at her hands anyway, his own palm placed delicately on top of Grizz’s uninjured leg.
They tried to kill him, Bean says, moving her lips deliberately as she attempts to sign, and then faces Sam for a moment. Gwen thinks we need to go back to town and confront the Guard.
Sam shakes his head, biting his lower lip. Even the thought makes his heartbeat race, but mostly he’s just sad. He’s sick of this talk of what to do. He wants to close the flaps of the tent, curl into Grizz’s side, and will this all to go away. He wants to know that Becca and Eden are safe, only ever a few feet away. The longing creaks in his ribs as he breathes, holding in a breath in a futile effort to expand his lungs and expel the pain. Grizz shifts under his hand, and Bean steals a glance at his face. He must have groaned in his sleep. Sam releases the breath, disappointed when the sensation remains.
Allie thinks that’s a bad idea, Bean tells him, and Sam nods. But we can’t just sit here and wait for Campbell and the Guard to find us. If what Kelly says is true, they’re looking for us now.
“It’s true,” Sam mutters, signing back. He gestures to Grizz. “How could it not be true?”
Bean shrugs. We’re talking a matter of prevention versus retaliation.
Sam pulls his lips to the side. “We’re talking about both, if we go back.”
He turns his head toward the others now, trying to read what they’re saying on their lips. Most everyone is silent currently, looking at Allie. Her arms are crossed, chin dipped down as she contemplates exactly what to say.
There are only seven of us, six since Grizz is out. She rubs the back of her head, frowning. She sighs heavily, condensation marking the emotion in the air. Even if we split up, that’s not enough people to take on the Guard or protect us against them. We need to outnumber them in any scenario.
So we don’t fight back, Gwen says.
So we don’t do it like that, Allie retorts. It doesn’t make sense.
Will raises his hand in some effort to grab everyone’s attention. Sam focuses on him. He’s starting to get a headache. Hate to state the obvious, but. Grizz and Kelly both left, and only Grizz came back.
Barely, Sam thinks, but reins it in. A hot, bubbling source of rage kindles within him, just below the pain in his chest. It mixes in with the sharp coldness of his panic and fear, dissipating in logic, but it’s still the only thing that seems to be keeping him warm.
We don’t know if Kelly, or Becca are safe, Will stresses. If the baby is safe. Grizz didn’t say.
Grizz wasn’t in a place to say, Gwen argues. Because they shot him.
Grizz shifts again, rolling in his discomfort, in his pain. They have no pain medication, no booze, nothing to deal with this situation. It wasn’t one of the many they’d dreamed of.
Sam coughs. “We need Kelly.”
Allie nods. Or Gordie. Grizz’s first aid book isn’t enough.
We don’t know if the Guard is still out there, Mickey says. We can’t just wander through the woods.
“You know what Grizz said,” Sam argues. “No one goes out alone. Not with the Guard looking, and not with that thing out there.”
At the mention of the presence, they all fall silent. Will shivers, clutching his own biceps and turning away. Sam looks back at Grizz. His hair has fallen over his face, greasy and damp with sweat. Sam is certain that Grizz must have encountered the voice while in the woods. There’s no way he couldn’t have, injured and alone in the snow. Bean hypothesizes that he might have a slight concussion, but nothing bad enough to have to keep waking him up throughout the night. And still, Grizz had said nothing as they dragged him back to the camp and laid him down. Sam had watched the empty gaze waver and break before he had fallen asleep, not waking even as Sam had rubbed life back into his cold hands and feet. Sam thinks of Campbell. He realizes that he has no idea what it could be that Grizz would hear. Maybe his parents, maybe something else.
It’s a horrible thing, realizing you don’t know someone as well as you think you might. Sam couldn’t paint Grizz’s nightmares out on the canvas of the snow. He couldn’t tease out the reasons he is so gentle, despite holding rawness and weight in his hands. He just knows he aches to protect it, and that he couldn’t succeed.
He thinks of Becca, and it twists his chest so much that he pushes the thought away.
I’ll go back to the town, Bean volunteers, breaking the silence. I can get Gordie, and bring him here. He shouldn’t be there alone, not now.
I’ll go too, Gwen offers. To get us both through the woods. I’ll look for Becca and Kelly.
No one objects, although it seems that everyone wants to. Allie nods, and stares at the ground. She’s good a that – staring at the icy covering like she’s willing grass to grow. Bean rises from her position across from Sam, seemingly to get her bag, and Sam catches her wrist before she can get too far.
“Be careful,” He emphasizes, looking her in the eye. She smiles at him, and nods.
Don’t let him move his ankle around, She says, nodding toward Grizz. We’ll be back soon. All of us.
“You better,” Sam says, and then lets her go. There’s no use waiting around, and the two girls quickly gather their things to go. The sun is already high overhead, listing slightly toward the east. In the winter sun, they only have a few hours before the world plunges once again into night, not a lot of time to go find their friends and bring them back. Sam rubs his thumb on the inside of his opposite palm. He doesn’t like the idea of Bean and Gwen traveling in the dark, but he doesn’t like the idea of not knowing about Becca and Eden more. None of them know how to tell if Grizz’s ankle is broken or not, or how to fix it. They need their whole group together.
He hopes their whole group still exists. That twists an ugly fear in his stomach, and he pushes it away. He can’t think like that.
Sam pads his way back into the tent from the entryway, untying the flaps and letting them fall. It makes the inside of the tent much darker, even with the sun outside, but Sam doesn’t move to light the lantern. He just stares at the crack of light in between the unzipped flaps, watching as everyone gets up from the log and disperses. There are only five of them in the camp right now, and Sam isn’t even positive Mickey will stay. Each day he seems to shiver a little more, stare off at the woods a little longer. He wouldn’t blame him if he returned, pledging his loyalty to the Guard, but it worries him what kind of information they’d make him give up in order to let him stay. Allie’s been keeping a closer eye on him. They can’t let that happen.
Sam turns back to Grizz, looking down at his face. Even in his rest, there’s a crease in his brow. Sam reaches out gently, casting a thumb over Grizz’s forehead, trying to soothe it. Grizz’s eyes twitch, and he opens them blearily. He looks at Sam, and Sam tries to smile.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” He says, but he regrets reaching out to him. Grizz is supposed to be resting.
Hey, Grizz smiles back at him, but then seems to remember the pain, and grimaces. He shifts his gaze to look down at his ankle, and then frowns down at his arm. He makes no effort to move either of them, though, just looks back at Sam’s face. What time is it?
“Around one in the afternoon,” Sam supplies.
Grizz scrunches his nose, and throws his unharmed arm limply over his face before he lets it fall so his mouth is exposed. He moans. What day is it?
“Friday,” Sam says, although he has no fucking clue. “February 4th.”
Grizz’s lips split into a grin. Ten days until Valentine’s Day. What are you gonna get me?
Sam huffs, shifting so that both of his legs are crossed under him. His pointer finger hooks around Grizz’s pinkie, and he tugs both of their hands onto his lap. “Nothing special. Three dozen roses, gourmet truffles. If you’re good, I’ll make a reservation at your favorite restaurant.”
Pepe’s Pizza, Grizz groans in longing, and laughs lightly at Sam’s look. Were you thinking more like steak?
Sam shrugs. “I want filet mignon. Surf and turf. Crème brulée.”
Expensive tastes.
“I’m worth it,” Sam says. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”
Grizz’s expression turns stormy, and he attempts to shift; all it does is cause him to flinch, and Sam reaches out to still him. Grizz exhales, a long and weary thing.
Becca and Eden, Grizz says, looking up at the ceiling of the tent. Tears brim at the corners of his eyes. Kelly. I don’t know if they got away. I think they did, but I don’t know.
Sam swallows. “Who chased you?”
Grizz closes his eyes. There were three. Shoe, Clark, and Luke. Clark had the gun.
Sam tries to take a deep breath and fails. Grizz’s pinkie tightens around his finger. “All three of them went after you?”
I think so. Grizz drags a hand over his face, biting his lip so hard it looks painful. He looks exhausted, despite having slept the morning away.
“So they probably got away,” Sam continues. “If there were just the three, and they all went after you.”
There was someone there, though. Grizz turns his head to look Sam in the eyes, his irises coated with misplaced shame. In the train car.
“Who?”
I think it was Gordie, Grizz says. But I don’t know.
Sam tries to wrap his head around that. It’s obvious that Grizz doesn’t want to talk about his night in the woods alone yet, and Sam can respect that. If Gordie is with Kelly and Becca, then they’re all together, and that’s good. He can hope that at the end of the day, five friends and his baby will walk through the break in the woods. He holds onto that hope like a lifeline.
He clenches Grizz’s finger, other hand ghosting over his hair. “How are you feeling?”
Grizz swallows, looking up at the ceiling again. A lone tear escapes from his left eyelid, tracking its way down his cheek. He doesn’t answer Sam. He just closes his eyes, holding on tightly to him and breathing. Sam wipes away the tear from Grizz’s skin, casting his fingers through the strands of his hair. He doesn’t say anything else, just sits there, humming under his breath in broken tones. He can’t know if they’re pretty, or even comforting, but he does it all the same, if only to feel the vibration in his throat.
.
It’s dusk when Helena worms her way into the forgotten shed sitting at the back of the play yard, past sunset by the time Luke joins her. The room is cramped and musty, the wooden floor offering nothing to ease the shaking in her bones. The cold is relentless, and will not let up. Luke extends his hand to her, but it does little to soothe their shared anxieties. They sit there, among the cans and the gardening spades, not saying a word. By the time Elle opens the door and slides in with them, Helena can see stars littering the sky.
“Where’s Gordie?” Luke asks, voice lower than a rasp.
“He’s not coming.” Elle looks down at the cans. “Did you get everything?”
“Of course I did, I’ve spent three days sneaking to the station and back,” Luke growls. He brings up a hand to scratch at his chin, studded with prickly stubble. He can’t grow much more than a patchy mess, but he hasn’t had the mind to shave. Helena stares at a slight bald spot on his lower left cheek. “What do you mean, he’s not coming? He’s a part of this.”
“We can’t risk him getting caught,” Helena explains. “He’s already tied to the fugitives, Campbell’s just waiting for one excuse to arrest him, or worse. Plus, he’s the only medical person we have. He’s not exactly expendable.”
Luke’s stare is glaring under the fractured moonlight. “What, and you are?”
Helena has nothing to say.
Elle is impatient, her foot tracing anxious circles on the dirty floor. “The celebration is over, Campbell is asleep. But he’s a restless sleeper, he’ll wake up sooner or later to go to the bathroom. We need to go now.”
The rest of them stand, awkwardly bumping into each other, trying to remain silent. Helena slams her elbow against a work table and bites her lip, cursing under her breath.
“What did you do to celebrate?” She tries to ask, like they’re catching up over lunch. She reaches down and grabs a can, holds it on her hip so she doesn’t drop it. Elle hunches down and grabs the other. Luke can hold two.
“We made dinner and cupcakes together,” Elle recites their activities like she’s reading it off of a board, her tone bored and detached. “Then we watched a movie and had sex. He thinks he might be coming down with something, so he went to bed early. He didn’t leave my side the whole night.”
“Sounds great,” Luke drones. “Very domestic.”
Elle blows out air through her nose. “Sure.”
The wind is still present, but not nearly as unforgiving as it was the night before. It casts across the yard, the light catching across the scattering of snow. There’s not much left in the Eliot yard, the sun and lack of trees melting away the majority. Still, they don’t dare touch the frozen, wet grass, instead moving purposefully toward the back porch. Helena steps carefully from frozen patch to frozen patch, choosing the spots least likely to leave footprints. The closer they get to the house, the more her stomach tries to crawl its way back up through her throat. Her heartbeat is erratic and strong. She tries to swallow down her nausea. They have to do this.
“Are we sure?” She asks anyway. Elle pauses on the steps of the porch, looking back at her. She’s frowning, her eyebrows furrowed. When Elle becomes focused on something, she sticks to it. Helena has admired her determination in the months she’s gotten to know her. Now, it frightens her, just a little. “This is the way?”
Luke looks down at the dead weeds poking through the porch floorboards. Elle grimaces, her grip around the can tightening.
“I’ll meet you guys in the front,” She says instead, gesturing with her chin. “Be quick, stick to the walls.”
Elle moves silently away, opening the sliding back door and disappearing inside the house. Helena chances a look at Luke. He looks back at her, the muscles in his jaw working, and nods. He turns and opens his gas can, slowly pouring a line across the porch. He moves up to the side of the house, splattering the gasoline against the siding, and slides over the balcony to the ground, continuing around the left side of the building. Helena stares after him, and then into the dark house. She takes a deep, heaving breath, and then opens her own can, mirroring Luke’s movements around the other side.
It stinks. Helena has always hated the smell of gasoline, of alcohol, anything sharp and rancid, but this seems worse. She wishes she had brought a mask. She tugs her scarf up over her nose instead, hoping the liquid won’t splash back onto her but knowing that some will. It’s difficult at first, lifting the can high enough so that the gas spreads on the siding and not on the ground, but as the can gets lighter it becomes easier. She keeps looking back over her shoulder, certain that someone is going to see them, apprehend them, put a gun to her head. No one appears. When she rounds the other side of the house, coming up through the bushes lining the front, Luke is standing on the front porch. His second can is open, the first one cast aside into a dormant hydrangea. He dumps the gasoline over the paneling, splashing some on the front door and around the bushes.
Helena pauses and stares at his face, the mixture of fear and hatred coating his features. It’s the only combination that makes things like this possible, this blending of determination and desperation. Helena wonders if the same emotions are painted on her own face, or if she’s just doing it because she knows it’s the only thing left to do.
Luke looks up at her, gestures for her to move faster. She dumps the remaining liquid left in her can and discards it, tucking into the branches of a small crabapple tree. Helena ducks under it and scampers to meet Luke on the steps of the porch, just as the front door opens and Elle slinks through it, hands empty.
Luke rakes his gaze over her, jaw working. “Are we good?”
Elle doesn’t bother fully closing the door, just leaves it slightly ajar. Helena keeps expecting to see a face appear in the dark space. The back of her neck has goosebumps, and she shakes her head sharply. She doesn’t think she’s ever been so afraid. “Campbell?”
Elle looks at her. “He’s not coming.”
Helena doesn’t know how she can be so sure, since they’re all right in front of his house, but she doesn’t say anything. Elle gestures to the gas can still in Luke’s hand.
“Did you save any?”
Luke shakes the can, frowning when no more liquid sloshes around inside. Elle exhales sharply and digs into her pockets.
“It’s time to go,” She says, and Luke sets down the can. Helena hovers by the steps of the porch, leg wanting to bounce. She forces it to stay still, afraid of the noise it could make. “Get to the edge of the property until I light it, and then run. To the woods, away from here. We stick to the plan if we’re separated, okay? If we don’t find the others we meet up behind the school in two days.”
“Wait,” Helena blinks. “You’re going to light that right here? There’s too much gasoline around, we have some on our clothes –”
“There’s none left,” Elle retorts. “We can’t make a trail down the walkway, and we have to do it now.”
“I’ll do it,” Luke says. “You two go.”
“No.” Elle shakes her head. She fishes the matches out from her pocket, but her hands are shaking. She nearly drops them once before she latches her fingers around the box. Her knuckles are white, no gloves covering her pale skin. She shakes her head again, glancing at the door and back again with a panicked furrow in her brow. “No, it has to be me. I have to do it.”
“I can run faster than both of you,” Luke argues. “I can drop it and go, you might not, and I can take him in a fight if I have to.”
“No,” Elle backs up a step, and the floorboard of the porch creaks. “No, get out of here now. You don’t understand.”
“Elle.” Helena steps forward, grabbing both of her hands. The matchbox rests in between their palms, and Helena shakes their grip once. Elle looks up at her, breathing quickly. There are tears brimming at the corners of her eyes, and Helena’s heart breaks for her. They just don’t have the time. “Elle, he’s right. I understand what this means to you, I do, but right now? Right now we need to go.”
Before Elle can finish nodding, Helena takes the matchbox out of her fist and shoves it at Luke. He wastes no time, opening it and grabbing a match to light. Helena leads Elle down the stairs and then turns back, quickly ascending two steps to throw her arms around Luke’s middle. He wraps his arms around her, kissing the top of her head.
“Run fast,” She says. “Come home.”
“Always,” Luke says, and he grabs her, kissing her lips and then her forehead. “Always.”
Helena nods, and then she’s gone, grabbing Elle’s hand and running away from the house. They cross the street and run until they reach a line of hedges near an intersection. Luke and the house are still in sight, and the two girls watch as he steels himself against the circumstance and the cold winter’s night.
When Luke drops the lit match onto the wet porch, they’re already sprinting down the street, toward the woods. When Helena turns her head back, Elle is already looking, transfixed on the flames covering the front of the building, screaming in their birth, curling around to the back and reaching for the sky. Someone screams. Luke is standing at the end of the walkway at the curb, looking upon the flames. Helena thinks that he looks like a soldier, standing at attention, waiting for the job to be done. Like he’s the barrier between this, and them. Helena thinks he looks brave.
They break the tree line, crashing through bushes and brush, getting as far away as they possibly can. Helena trips over a root, catching her jacket on a branch and ripping it open. After several moments, they can’t hear the crackle of the fire, or the emerging shouts coming from the surrounding homes. They can only hear the sound of their own ragged breath, the rapid beating of their own hearts. They pause for a moment, and Elle brings her hands up to the side of her head, letting out a frustrated exhale, grated and laden with sorrow. She kicks at a tree trunk and then follows up with her hand, crying and cursing under her breath. Helena looks back through the trees. She can see the smoke beginning to climb into the clouded sky, the slight flicker of the flame, but Luke is nowhere to be seen.
.
Gordie watches the sun set from the third floor window, and then he goes downstairs to lock the hospital doors.
He will be sleeping here tonight, he thinks. His limbs are heavy with fatigue and an even more burdening sense of anxiety. He keeps glancing at the clock, knowing that it’s a futile and compulsive effort. There’s no way any of the others have even arrived at Campbell’s house yet. Luke is probably still at the gas station, filling up the last of the cans to smuggle into his car. Still, his heartrate is through the roof. Gordie climbs the stairs back up to the third floor, around into a wing that they haven’t occupied yet other than to glean supplies. It’s completely empty, but there’s a lounge with a wrap-around, a corner with a window where he can watch the sky and be out of sight. He’ll try to sleep there, but he knows that he won’t. He has his backpack next to him, ready to go if need be. As far as he sees it, either way he’ll be leaving. One way he’ll have a warning, and one way he won’t.
Even when he reminds himself all the horrible things Campbell as done, even when he visualizes him holding a gun up to his face, Cassandra’s face, Gordie is still having a hard time rationalizing this. To say it needs to be done feels incorrect. He feels like he hasn’t thought through it enough, hasn’t thought through all the options. And yet, he’s almost content to let the angry part of him be satisfied. The other part knows he’ll never feel satisfied, nothing will ever make up for the rest of it all. He pulls his mind away from delving down a rabbit hole of what ifs and if onlys. He instead tries to think about how he’ll feel if Campbell is dead.
Predictably, better and not better at all. Relieved, and full of dread. Gordie hates the conflict that rides in his bones. It doesn’t matter. It’s not his decision, and he can’t stop it now. All he can do is watch the sky, and find out what his next move is. Find out if his friends die, or if Campbell does.
Gordie knows in his heart he’ll run either way. To consider Luke and Helena friends at this point is honestly a stretch, but they’re the closest allies he’s got in this situation. He hopes they survive, that their plan works and they make it into the woods. Gordie hopes he can find his way through the forest, the trek he’s been anticipating and dreading for months.
He hopes he doesn’t find an empty camp.
Abruptly and all at once, he curls in over on himself, sobbing dryly into his jeans. He thinks of Allie, with the blood of a thrown stone smudging her face. He thinks of Bean’s face when he told her they decided to execute Dewey. He thinks of Becca’s scared face when she first held Eden, and Eden’s cry. Just as he’s rising, the clench in his chest going away, he remembers Cassandra, and buckles down all over again.
No tears come out of his eyes to stain the denim on his knees. He just breathes out harsh, erratic breaths, his chest bucking underneath him. Gordie looks up, body still fighting against him, and watches as the sun begins to set over the far trees on the eastern side of the town. There are already some stars coming up overhead, just barely visible in the dimming light. Gordie wipes at his mouth, drags his hand across the side of his pant leg. The moon is a bright crescent, standing out in the darkness of the sky. The edge is still blue, a shallow sea blending into depths. It looks too beautiful to be there, something misplaced and left behind for only him to stare at. He doesn’t think he quite deserves it.
A sudden buzzing in his back pocket makes him nearly jerk out of his seat, reaching back to instinctively pull his phone out in front of him. He blinks at it, confused as it keeps buzzing in his hand, Bean’s face filling the screen. He hasn’t received a phone call in months. No one in town bothers texting him, they just bring themselves or their loved ones to the hospital. He hasn’t received a text or a phone call that wasn’t a vaguely threatening message from the Guard since his friends all ran away into the woods.
He pulls the phone up to his ear. “Hello?”
“Oh, so you are in there,” the voice on the other end says. Bean breathes through the receiver, sounding slightly out of breath. “You’ve locked the door.”
“Yeah,” Gordie agrees, searching for coherent thought. “Where?”
“The hospital?” Bean’s voice is shaking, slightly. Gordie stands slowly, walking the few short steps across the dark room to the window. He presses himself against it, trying to look down, but he can’t see the door. “You are in the hospital, right? You’re not at home?”
“Are you with anyone?” Gordie asks, and then feels like an asshole. “Are you okay?”
“I was with Gwen, but she went looking for Becca and Kelly. Gordie, we need to get back. We need your help.”
“Make sure no one’s followed you.” Gordie moves away from the window, turning and walking toward the stairs. “Be absolutely sure.”
“Why?” Bean asks. “I know they’re looking for us, but. Have you done something?”
Not yet, Gordie thinks dryly, descending through the dark stairwell. He hasn’t bothered to turn any of the lights on, had actually actively turned the clinic lights off when he’d sent the last patient home. He didn’t need anyone to think he was still here. And yet, someone had. He tries to remind himself that it’s someone good.
“No,” Gordie replies. “I’m just trying to be careful. I’m hanging up now, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Okay,” Bean says, and Gordie ends the call. He flies down the last flight of stairs, shoving open the entrance door and walking briskly down the hall. The pale moonlight filters in through the windows, casting long and dim shadows across sterile floors.
He takes a look at Bean before he opens the front door, eyeing her and the empty space behind her. She looks above all else, cold. Her small arms are wrapped around her, donned in a thick parka. Her diminutive features have been made smaller and sharper by the rationing of food, something Gordie thought he had noticed in everyone in the town but notices even more in his friend. He doesn’t feel the way he thought he might feel when he saw her again. He’s been separated from them for so long, he’s begun to feel like his own entity, his own side, stranded in the hallways of this building. For a moment, he’s afraid he’s lost all connection with their fight and their friendship. That is, until Bean smiles at him, nervous and impatient, and something in Gordie’s chest begins to warm.
He unlocks the door and quickly lets her inside, feeling the biting air come in behind her. He quickly locks the door again, dragging a bench in front of it. Bean stares at him, still shivering.
“Things are that bad, huh?” She asks.
“What’s happened?” Gordie counters. “You’re here, what’s wrong?”
“I wanted to visit you,” Bean smiles coyly at him, and he frowns. She drops the charade. “We need you at the camp. Grizz is hurt.”
“Grizz,” Gordie repeats. “How?”
“The Guard shot him,” Bean says, and Gordie finds he’s not surprised. Not surprised, but very afraid. Grizz used to be one of their best friends, once. “Grazed his shoulder. He got away, but messed up his ankle. I can’t tell if it’s broken, and I don’t know what to do.”
“What about Kelly?” Gordie asks. “She knows just as much as me, if not more.”
“Kelly’s gone,” Bean snaps. Gordie remembers too late her saying she was with Gwen. Gwen, looking for Becca and Kelly. “She and Becca left over a week ago because of the cold. Kelly came back, said that she ran into Luke, who told her that the Guard was planning to hunt us down –“
Gordie scrunches up his face. Luke hadn’t said anything about that. “Wait a second. Luke?”
“She had to get back to Becca and the baby, so Grizz took her back. But then the Guard attacked them, I guess, and Grizz lost them, he doesn’t know where they are, didn’t say anything.”
“We need to back up,” Gordie demands. “Where is everyone else, is everyone okay?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Bean says. “Allie, Will, and Mickey are back at the camp. Sam is watching over Grizz. Gwen and I are here, but we all need to leave as soon as possible. The Guard is going to come after us, and we all need to be together.”
“What do you mean, the Guard is coming after us?” Gordie scoffs. “They’ve had their heads up their asses for the past two months, dealing with the food shortage and now this flu, are they really going to waste time on us?”
“They’re going to waste time on us because we defied Campbell,” Bean restricts her voice back to a hiss so that she doesn’t shout. “And he’s decided that he’s going to, I don’t know, make examples out of all of us. They shot Grizz, Gordie. What do you think they’re willing to do to us?”
The two stare at each other, illuminated in the ever brightening shine of the moon. He thinks of the mess still in the clinic, just twenty yards behind them. He thinks of his bag, already packed and strapped to his aching back. Bean’s lip quivers. He knows that his brain is fooling him, but if he concentrates hard enough, he’s sure he can already smell gasoline.
Gordie takes a breath. “Where’s Gwen?”
“Down by the train station,” Bean replies. She’s staring at him with something inquisitive in her eye. Gordie’s too tired to extrapolate the meaning behind it. “That’s where Becca was waiting for Kelly to come back, it’s the last place we know they were.”
“Then we need to go there,” Gordie shoulders his backpack tighter, pulling on the straps. “And then we have to get back to the camp as soon as possible.”
Bean tugs her phone out of her pocket and looks at it, frowning. “I texted Gwen when I got here, but she hasn’t responded.”
Gordie looks out the window, and then down at his watch. It’s just after nine. They only have a couple of hours before Luke and the others act, and they need to be long gone by then. “We need to go now, then. While we can.”
“While we can?” Bean steps in front of him when he goes to move. “Gordie, something’s happening, and you’re not telling me. What’s going on?”
Gordie doesn’t answer her. He doesn’t have the words. His throat works around something, anything to say that will come close to describing this helpless situation, this sense of desperation. How he’s done things that he hates, and that he can’t quite forgive himself for. That he doesn’t think people will agree with, or pardon, and he doesn’t want them to. How he’s waiting on edge, in blissful anticipation, for an act of violence that he won’t be responsible for but will dream about all the same.
Before he can speak, the shadows shift on the wall, a foretelling painted on plaster. Gordie and Bean whip around, hearts in their throats, as Kelly places her palm on the door.
.
Elle doesn’t know how long they spend running, drawing in harried breaths and pushing past the burning in their quads. She just knows at some point her body and her mind decides it’s had enough, and she crashes to her knees in a frosted pile of leaves. Her kneecaps ache with the force of impact, the sudden drop of movement to stillness. Helena keeps running for a few paces before she slows to a stop, missing the matched sounds of snapping twigs and shuffled leaves. She turns and walks back to where Elle is kneeling, jeans soaking through with moisture. She’s sweating with nervousness and exertion, and she knows that the snow beneath her should feel jarring, should feel cold, but right now she’s having trouble feeling much of anything.
“Elle?” Helena asks, breath leaving her mouth in shallow bursts. Elle looks at Helena’s chest, watching it move up and down. Helena’s hair is wild, face wet in a combination of sweat, tears, and melted ice. Elle wonders, distantly, if she looks the same, or even worse. “Elle, we have to keep moving, we have to keep going.”
Where? Where do we go? Elle thinks, but it doesn’t make it out of her mouth. She wants to say a million things, but she just shakes her head instead, switching her gaze so that she’s staring at the trunk of a birch tree. The paper thin layers of the bark are peeling off in large swatches. As she watches, a piece breaks off and drifts gently down onto the ground. Tears start to brim in the corners of her eyes, but she can’t figure out why.
“Elle,” Helena says, crouching down in front of her. She squats gently, so that her legs don’t hit the snow, but it can’t be comfortable. Still, she puts her hands on Elle’s shoulders, rocking minutely. “I know it’s hard, I know you’re tired. But we can’t stay here, we have to make it to the back of the school to meet Luke.”
“Luke didn’t make it.” Elle remarks on the tone of her voice, like someone has taken it out of her throat and played with it for a little while. Helena’s face shuts down fast, and anger settling over her eyes and disguising itself as denial. Some small part of Elle is satisfied that she can make Helena look like that. It’s the part of herself she hates the most. It’s like she’s holding her thoughts out an arm’s length away, looking at them. Half of her is still back at the house. “Campbell didn’t die, it didn’t kill him, and if he’s alive, Luke isn’t.”
“Shut up,” Helena hisses, her fingers digging into the sides of Elle’s jacket. The pressure is enough to sting, but Elle just blinks. “You saw that fire. There’s no way.”
“There’s always a way,” Elle says. “I know we tried, Helena, thank you for trying.”
“We have to keep trying,” Helena replies. “We have to go to the school, and meet Luke, okay? He’s going to meet us there.”
“What if he isn’t?”
Helena swallows, blinking harshly. “Then we deal with that then. Elle, there is no way Campbell got out of that fire, okay? And I know it hurts, and it’s hard, and I can’t even believe we did that, but it’s done. It’s over. Why do you feel like it’s not?”
“Because I can still feel him,” Elle sobs, breath breaking over the words. The world feels heavy around her, a pressure feeding the numb nothingness that has taken the place of temperature. “I thought that if it ended, that if he was dead, that I would stop feeling it, but it’s still here. I can still feel him, like he’s right here.”
“He’s not here,” Helena says, and Elle shakes her head again, the sharp movement hurting the base of her neck. “We can be safe soon, he’s not here.”
“Where are we going to go?” Elle asks, looking at Helena. The furrow of her eyebrows casts lines across her face, making her look like she’s aged. “To Allie?”
“If we have to,” Helena says slowly.
“She won’t take us,” Elle sniffs. “I wouldn’t, after what I did to her.”
“Grizz will help us,” Helena asserts, talking more to herself. “Grizz will help Luke, if he asks.”
Elle eyes her, but doesn’t say anything. After a moment, Helena nods to herself and rises, dusting off her coat in more of a compulsion than anything else. She looks behind her into the darkness of the woods, peering up at the moon peeking through the trees, before turning back to Elle and offering her hand. Elle takes it, letting herself be hoisted up into a standing position. Her head spins for a moment, the sense of pressure not easing at all. She tries to brush off the growing sense of nausea, and follows Helena as she begins walking on.
In the dead of the night, the wind comes back. It screams and howls, whipping around the bare trees. Helena covers her head with her arms, leaning forward and pushing on, but Elle doesn’t make any move to cover herself. She lets her hair toss around her, sometimes passing over her eyes, and tries to feel the bite on her skin. She’s felt cold for this entire winter, but now she’s having trouble connecting to it. She can only feel the heat of Campbell’s breath on her skin, his foot casting over the skin of her leg in his sleep. She can feel the burst of heat from when the gasoline was lit.
She didn’t expect to feel like this. She had expected some sort of film to fall away from her eyes, to feel relieved. She just feels sick to her stomach, and sad.
“We’re almost there,” Helena says awhile later. How she can know this, Elle has no idea, because she looks around and sees nothing she can recognize. Trees and more trees. Revolutionary.
They climb up a steeper incline, and above the crest of the hill Elle can see the dark outline of the bleachers on the other side of the football field. None of the lights are on, haven’t been since the beginning of their time in New Ham. Still, a strong and sudden anxiety courses through Elle like a strike of lightning, like she’s shocked herself on an electrical outlet. Helena keeps moving like she’s just going to waltz through the tree line, right into the open.
“Wait,” she says, and Helena pauses, looking back at her impatiently. “We can’t just go out in the open to be seen.”
“It’s midnight,” Helena deadpans. “No one is going to be here but Luke.”
“Unless someone followed him,” Elle points out. “Just wait. Listen.”
Helena crosses her arms, beginning to tap her foot but then cutting it off when the sound echoes. They sit there, trying to listen over the occasional howl of the wind. Helena keeps looking back at the break in the trees, shifting from side to side. Waiting for Luke to make some sort of noise, Elle knows. She also knows that he’s not there. She can see the moment the bad thoughts begin to cross Helena’s mind, the consideration of the worst case scenarios. She wishes she could offer some comfort, but she has none left.
There’s a snapping of twigs somewhere behind them, deeper back in the woods. Elle turns her head; Helena doesn’t move. It comes again, a light but noticeable noise. Goosebumps erupt on the skin of her arms involuntarily.
“Do you hear that?” She asks, and Helena frowns, shaking her head. The other girl turns back toward the football field, eyes searching and pleading. Nothing comes. Elle turns the other way, seeking the source of the noise. After a moment, it comes again – too light to be a human as big as one of the men in the Guard. Too small to be a woodland animal. “There’s something out there.”
“It’s probably just a squirrel.” Helena shivers, rubbing her gloved hands over her arms. Even in the darkness, Elle can see that her cheeks are rosy and sharp with the cold.
Elle frowns. “I don’t think so.”
It comes again, further now, but Elle finds herself stepping toward it. Helena turns, frustrated, and tells her stop, but she doesn’t. With every step, it’s almost as though the pressure in her head is lightening, easing and being replaced with a floating feeling. Just the fleeting feeling is enough to make her emotional, and she rubs at her chest with the bottom of her palm. It’s intoxicating, if brief. Helena calls her name again, louder now, but Elle ignores her.
“There’s something out there,” she repeats, and keeps walking. Helena groans under her breath, tearing her gaze from the football field and following her. The forest floor is darker now, clouds passing over the illuminant moon and making everything look like it’s in black and white. Elle stops briefly, waiting for the sound again, and Helena catches up with her. When she hears it again, she takes off at a faster pace, Helena stumbling behind.
“Elle, wait,” Helena barks. “ What are you doing? We have to wait for Luke.”
“You can wait,” Elle says flippantly. “I think something’s here. It sounds like it needs help.”
Helena screws up her face in confusion, about to retort, but then a whine cuts across the silent landscape of the forest. It’s high pitched, long and drawn out in its pain. The two girls make eye contact, a chill coursing through the both of them that has nothing to do with the wind.
“What is that?” Helena asks. “What could be out here?”
“It sounds like someone’s hurt,” Elle says. “Or maybe a deer, or something.”
“Or a coyote,” Helena mutters bitterly. “Deer don’t sound like that.”
Elle starts again, picking her feet up out of the heavy snow. “Come on.”
They walk toward where the sound emitted from, heartbeats in their throats. Elle has no idea why this feels so final, so significant, but it weighs in her bloodstream like there’s metal in her veins. When the whine comes again, she starts running, restored with an energy that left her hours ago. Helena has trouble keeping up with her now, as she runs, the stars coming down from the sky to lend her their light. It’s like she knows where she’s going, coursing across the unrecognizable paths. She slides down a hill, catching herself on her hands, dodging around a birch tree in her way. Suddenly, there’s a bark in front of her, and Elle skids to a halt, gazing in front her. Her chest heaves with effort. The forest seems brightened, and the pressure is gone.
“Charlie? What are you doing here?” She asks, entire soul in disbelief. The dog barks and bounds forward, coming into her arms as she crouches down into the snow. Helena comes up behind them, wiping at her face. Charlie licks her face and she laughs, looking up at her friend. “This is my dog.”
“Your dog?” Helena asks. “What the hell?”
“I thought he was dead,” Elle admits, running her hands down Charlie’s coat. “I thought Campbell killed him.”
“Then how is he here?” Helena hesitantly reaches down to pet the top of Charlie’s head, and his tail wiggles and he squirms in Elle’s arms. The whole area is silent again, offering only the beginnings of explanations. They look up at the clearing. Although they’re not far from the town, it seems like they’re in an entirely different world. They turn back to the shadows, not saying a word. The forest is waiting for them.
.
Allie’s awake again in the middle of the night, like she often is. She sits at the edge of the tent, the entrance half open as she sits and watches the embers of the fire. They look like they might die down soon enough, and when they do she knows she’ll rise to stir them. Will is asleep behind her, arm thrown up in a seemingly uncomfortable position as he breathes softly through his nose. He looks innocent, like he might have looked as a child before he was shipped from home to home. Allie knows he’s having good dreams, because that’s the only time he looks like this: at ease. She can’t remember the last time she didn’t have bad dreams, taunting her in her sleep like shadows somehow stark in the darkness. That’s probably why she doesn’t sleep much, anymore.
She wishes she could walk out into the forest, down to the stream. She used to like to sit there, watching the water flow around fallen branches and patches of ice. If she was a more poetic mind, she would think about the colliding of these two variances of the same element, differing densities forming a juxtaposition of form. Really, when she would look at it, all she would see is two things refusing to compromise. But she can’t go to the stream now, not alone. Not when she’s waiting for half of her friends to return, hopefully this time without any bullet wounds.
Allie gazes across the circle of tents to where she knows Grizz and Sam sleep. None of them have said much of anything since Becca left and the two boys became inseparable. It didn’t seem like there was all that much to say. Back in New Ham, maybe there would have had to be explanations, avoidances of repercussions. Here, it just turned out that none of them really cared. Either that, or they were so wrapped up in their own miseries that they didn’t have the mind or heart to oppose any form of happiness. Allie tries really hard to be realistic. She knows that it’s more likely the second scenario.
She rises silently, padding across the clearing toward the fire. She adds more wood and stokes it with their long branch, the end of it charred away. She strains her ears, as though maybe she could hear something going on in the woods, some commotion she could check out. She had thought that too, when they were waiting for Grizz to come back. She hadn’t heard a single thing, not until he was practically within arm’s reach. This forest, she thinks, swallows things. It strips things away.
She pokes the fire again, watching sparks fly up into the dark of the night. It’s only then, after she follows an ember until it dies out, that she realizes that someone else is awake. Allie looks over again at Grizz and Sam’s tent, noting the navy blue of a sky about to welcome the sun again. Grizz’s eyes look imploringly back at her, always noticeable, always bright and somehow kind against the warring heaviness. Allie blinks, watching the boy shift in the entrance of the tent. Sam is asleep behind him, he must be, but all Allie can notice is the lines of pain drawn across Grizz’s face as he tries to find a comfortable position. Allie sighs, gesturing for him to come over and sit beside her on one of the logs. Grizz looks conflicted, shifting his gaze from her to the empty space behind her and back again. Eventually he attempts to lift himself up, grunting slightly under his breath as he struggles to not put any weight on his bad leg.
Allie doesn’t offer to help him. Grizz stands slowly and hobbles over, pausing to use the other logs as support. He finally reaches the other side of the circle, falling onto the seat next to her, trying to hide the fact that he’s breathing harshly. Allie eyes him in the dim light of the fire, and the coming dawn.
“You’ve looked better,” She remarks softly, not unkindly. Grizz scoffs, raking a hand back through his messy hair.
“Thanks.” Grizz huffs out a silent laugh. “I feel like a million bucks.”
“You’re lucky,” Allie says, and Grizz purses his lips. “How does it feel?”
“My ankle?” Grizz asks, and then his mouth forms a grim line. “It hurts.”
“No shit.” Allie rolls her eyes, doesn’t know if Grizz even sees. She pokes at the fire again, knowing full well it’s not going to do anything. “You know you scared the living hell out of all of us, right?”
“I know,” Grizz frowns. “I didn’t mean to.”
“But you did.”
“What do you want me to say?” Grizz asks, in a moment of anger Allie has rarely seen from her friend. She knows it’s her fault when people do this, she just pushes and pushes until people snap back at her, but she never really considered that it would happen with Grizz. Not with her. “I wish things had gone differently, and now we’re all fucked. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Allie says, but Grizz presses on, softly and quietly in the fractured, borrowed moments they find themselves wading in.
“I knew what would happen, when I came out here,” Grizz says. “I knew what the consequences would be, with all of my friends. I just thought – I don’t know what I thought. I thought it wouldn’t happen, maybe. The worst case wouldn’t exist. That maybe it would be different.”
“’Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen,’” Allie replies, and Grizz stares at her, a small grin on his face. She shrugs. “What? I read.”
“Not voluntarily.”
“So what, I took your book out of your bag one day while you were off doing who knows what.” Allie rolls her shoulders back, shrugging off the implication. “What’s a girl to do, when there’s no TV?”
Grizz smiles again, a gentle thing, and uses his hands to lift his leg in the air. He settles his ankle elevated on another log, turning slightly away from her. Allie says nothing more, just feeds the fire and enjoys the company as the sun begins to crawl its way up toward the sky. After a little while, Sam emerges to join them, followed by Will just as the sky is beginning to lighten. It’s hard to stay asleep in the cold, and for weeks now they’ve all just followed the will of the nature around them, rising when it rises, sleeping when they can bear to. Mickey stays asleep in his own tent, the entrance flaps closed tightly and secured.
It’s not until the sky has turned orange, bleeding into blue in the breaking of the dawn, that they see the smoke.
“What is that?” Sam asks. Will stands, walking forward a few steps as though that will better his view. The smoke climbs over the edges of the trees, nowhere near them but certainly visible. Allie feels like she should be able to smell it, but it’s not strong. It’s probably just the smoke coming from their own fire.
Grizz frowns, shifting in his seat. Allie finds that she doesn’t feel she can move from hers. “That’s coming from the town.”
“I thought it was just the smoke from here,” Allie hears herself saying. Will shakes his head.
“That’s way more than one fire.” Will looks back at them, as though they have anything to say, any solution, and then turns back again. “Something’s happening.”
Allie looks to her right. Sam’s face is filled with fear and confusion, shoulders shivering from more than just the cold. Grizz’s hand is entwined with his, but he breaks it as he struggles to his feet. Both Allie and Sam give disapproving sounds, but he ignores them.
“We have to go back,” Grizz asserts, taking a shaky step forward. He barely makes it a few feet before his knee buckles, and he has to support himself on one of the logs again. Sam stands, walking over and straightening him up.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Sam says, and Grizz’s eyebrows furrow, his jaw clenching.
“He’s right,” Allie defends him, and Grizz looks more frustrated. “There’s no way you’re making it all the way back to New Ham on that ankle. And we’ve sent too many people away already. We have to wait until they come back.”
“If they come back,” Will retorts, and Allie glares at him. “Grizz is right. Something’s gone wrong, and we have no way of knowing what if we don’t go.”
“Or we get caught, and everything goes to hell.” Allie crosses her arms across her chest, defensive.
Sam shakes his head. “We need to stay here.”
“They could be in danger!” Grizz breaks away from Sam, turning to face him. His hands fly in a flurry of half-signs, distressed. “Sam, we have to go. Becca could be in danger. Eden could be in danger.”
Sam’s face screws up in despair, looking to Allie for something, some sort of support. Allie leans back on her heels, grinding her teeth. Will tugs on his hat, shoving extra warm gloves onto his hands. The lighter the sky becomes, the easier it is to see the smoke climb over the horizon.
Will stomps over to Mickey’s tent, shaking the top and yelling for him to wake up. Allie can only stare at him, at the rigid posture carrying him forward. Will has always carried this sort of righteousness that seems to take over his body, and as much as Allie loves and admires it, she hates it too. She carries it as well, a hot pulse in her blood, they all do. But it’s moments like this that separate her from Will, from everyone else. In this moment of action, this is when she feels most alone.
She walks over to Will, ignoring Mickey’s cries that he’ll be out in a minute. She grabs his arm, makes him look at her.
“We need to think,” She says. “We have to stop running into these things blindly. It could be a trap, or something we should be staying the hell away from.”
“A trap?” Will scoffs. He looks to Grizz for support, but the other man says nothing. “There’s no way they can think that far forward. People might need help, Allie.”
“Yeah,” She agrees. “You’re right, they might. But what are we going to do for them?”
Will stares at her, jaw muscles working in thought and frustration. After a moment, he reaches down to grab his backpack, throwing it over his shoulders and moving to brush past her. Allie reaches out to stop him, putting her hands on his chest, but Will stops before she can protest again. Grizz makes a pained, confused noise in the back of his throat. Allie looks at him, but Grizz is gazing past the barriers of the camp, out toward the tree line. Allie turns to where the boys are looking, heart in her throat.
Out from the edge of the forest, two figures stumble into the field. The smoke continues crawling up overhead, painting the dawn in its dark visage. The four of them stare as Gwen limps toward them, arms around a tired and battered Luke. Allie swallows. Gwen’s shout for help seems underwater, coming forward in slow pulses like the forest itself.
Will drops his backpack. Behind them, the fire roars.