Broken Skies (17 page)

Lir rubs my arm and wiggles around a little before leaning his head back against the tree. I rest my head on his shoulder and, if I tilt my head, I can just make out his profile. He’s still awake. His lashes sweep across his cheek when he blinks and his throat bobs when he swallows. What is he thinking about? I bet he can see now how strong I’m
not
, maybe even regretting sticking around for me. I’m not even strong enough to face the nightmares I know are coming.

I just watch him, studying his face, memorizing his features…why?… holding my eyes open until I lose the battle and drift off.

When the dreams finally come…they’re not at all what I expect. My dreams once again focus on me, me in danger, me crying, me shaking… It’s not the fear or the blood of those I killed filling my head, but my own. A sense of helplessness as a hand grabs my wrist. Shock at finding me covered in blood, shifting to relief that it’s not mine…

Many shifting scenes later and I’m back to looking out of my own eyes. Jace stands with his hand out, backed by a bright white light. His mouth moves, but no words come out and then his face twists, a scream flowing out past his lips. Echoing, bouncing, over and over, my brother screams.

My eyes fly open and I break out of Lir’s hold, springing to my feet, a silent scream resting on my lips. The rise and fall of my chest is rapid and it takes a moment before my heartbeat slows enough for me to even try to relax. I pace forward and back a few times, trying to work out the shakiness in my limbs. What the hell was that?

Eyes still closed, Lir hasn’t moved. I shake my head. Pale, scruffy and obviously exhausted, he needs the sleep, so I leave him be. If only I could find the same escape back into sleep.

My eyes feel like sandpaper and I’m less than fully alert. Briskly, I rub my hands up and down on my arms. I’m used to the nightmares, but that was something else, something worse. Jace is in terrible danger, he is in pain…and there is no possible way for me to know that, but I do. Every piece of me can feel it and a new urgency fills my body. Time is running out.

Red streaks in the sky signal the sunrise and it’s nearly light enough for us to set out. If we haven’t gotten too far off course, we should now be within two days of the city. Forty eight more hours for Jace to wait. Hopefully.

I pull the map from the satchel and eye a nearby tree. It’s not very tall, but it should get me high enough to make out where we are. The rough bark scrapes my palms as I climb, but I ignore the discomfort.

Once I’m above most of the tree line, I unfold the map and angle it so the eastern side is toward the rising sun. Finding the town we just left is easy, locating where we currently are isn’t. I close my eyes and try to retrace our mad dash through the darkness. We left through the front door of the store and traveled roughly northeast…Maybe.

I scan the area looking for some landmark that might show up on the outdated map. There’s a large body of water about a mile north of us. Another glance at the map confirms my guess. We did travel northeast, and, while we aren’t completely off course, we overshot the road that I planned to take over the mountain. Dammit. That might just add another day…

Lir calls my name out from below.

“Up here.” I look back at the lake. It’s in the right general direction and we need water anyway. And I need to feel clean again.

I shove the map back in the satchel and make my way out of the tree. “Come on. We’re going swimming,” I say.

FOURTEEN

It’s not a lake, more of a reservoir that we find on the other side of the trees. It’s large enough for swimming at least, large enough to wash the feeling of blood off me, and large enough for me to dip my head under and feel clean again.

I take off, half running and pulling my shirt off in the process. I have to sit to remove my boots, but it isn’t long before they’re left behind me as well. My fingers stall on my bra strap and an uncomfortable feeling gathers in my stomach. Lir is staring at my shirt, still fully clothed and looking less than enthusiastic. Meh. I shrug and shed my bra and pants. His hangups aren’t mine. Most of my clothes are covered in blood and I just can’t be in them any longer.

The water cools my skin instantly, just on the edge of being too cold, but it’s wonderfully refreshing. I swim out to the middle and tread water, stirring up some sediment and clouding the water, and I’m almost grateful for the coverage. Lir is still standing there and my face is heating at his obvious stare.

Of course I’ve swum with Jace before and even Flint a time or two, though Jace asked me to keep my shirt on then. But this… Lir’s eyes skitter across my skin and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. Lir is not my brother and his darkened gaze proves it. I’ve gotten comfortable with him, but the way he’s looking at me now…part of me likes it, likes the power I have to draw his gaze, but then there’s also a scared cornered animal that wants to hiss and back away. I settle for turning away from him and swimming all the way across to the other side.

It’s quiet out here, peaceful even and I let out one extended breath, releasing as much tension as I can from my body. On my next inhale, I suck in as much air as my lungs can hold and plunge my head under the water. The dark silence of the underwater refuge clears my mind enough that I feel almost sane again. I’m better, but not perfect. I don’t feel the blood against my skin and my hands are pale and just starting to wrinkle. More tension leaves me as I slowly release my breath into tiny bubbles that climb to the surface. Though the push to go get my brother sits in the back of my mind, the wrenching guilt over taking a life starts to recede and my worries slow and stop spinning around in my head.

I rise back into the air-filled world and lean back until I’m floating. The dream still plays behind my eyes, but it’s fading now, getting hazier with each lap of the water against the shore. “Just a dream. Just a dream.” The chant continues in my head.

The dark form of a bird drifts high in the cloudless sky. I lift my arm from the water and trace its flight with one finger. What would it be like to swoop and dive in the air? To be so far above everything and just go where the wind takes me?
Peaceful.

As the bird disappears in the distance, I realize I’ve been out here for a while. I swim closer to shore, lower my feet, and stand on the muddy bottom. Pulling my hair back from my face, I comb my fingers through it and braid it down my back in one long tail, just about touching the curve of my backside. Now that I’m clean and my head is a little clearer, the chill of the water starts seeping into my limbs. Indecision stalls me. How do I get my clothes back?

There aren’t many choices, only two actually. I can either stroll over and pick them up like it’s nothing or cower here until… until what? Crap. Looks like there’s only one possible decision.

I take a deep breath and stroke over to the other side of the pond, staying as submerged as possible until the last possible second. My eyes count the rocks at my feet as I retrieve my clothes. No chance of sitting out in the sun and drying here. I use my shirt to towel off and pull my jeans and boots back on, ignoring the dried blood that flakes off the pants.

The air is too heavy and my face is starting to heat. “If I’d known it would make you be quiet, I would have taken my clothes off sooner,” I say, nervously laughing at my own joke. Lir hasn’t moved, so I nudge him with my shoulder. “Can’t swim huh?”

He shakes his head. “No, uh, it’s not…” His eyes are everywhere but on me. “We don’t have any lakes in the city, so…”

“You never had cause to learn.” I snicker at the flush creeping up his cheeks. I missed teasing him. “It’s a good thing I’m around then. Sheesh, forget bears and snakes, you would have died the first time you fell into water over your head.”

His eyebrow goes up and a smile spreads across his face. “I am quite capable of swimming. You just distracted me.” I must be full on blushing now, but I smile anyway and then pull my shirt over my head.

“So what was it that you were saying out there about a dream? Did you have an interesting one about me or something?” He’s teasing, but my stomach still lurches and my hard won calm starts to recede.

“It was nothing. Just… a nightmare. About Jace.” Lir’s flinch at my brother’s name is slight, but still there. This isn’t something he wants to hear about, but now that he’s brought it up I can’t stop the words from falling out of my mouth. “He was there, reaching for me, trying to tell me something….but there was no sound until he started screaming, just screaming and screaming and screaming…” I trail off and brush my hands on my thighs and rusty specks stick to my palms. It’s not even something
I
want to hear about, to face, to realize. “It was awful. And I just know he’s in pain. He’s in danger…” Clenching my hands, I fight back the tears struggling to fall. I raise my eyes and find his, pleading for understanding with my gaze. “I don’t know how I know, but they’re hurting him.”

He thinks for a moment before responding. “You don’t know that.”

His denial only increases my conviction and anger. My hands move into tight fists. Yes, I’ve tried to discount the dream too… but he doesn’t get to patronize me. “I do know it. Maybe it’s only a twin thing and not as sophisticated as your alien link thingy, but I do know.” I narrow my eyes, preparing the verbal barb that is itching to leave my tongue. “Isn’t that what you would have done? A little bit of torture before killing him?” His shoulders straighten and the muscles in his jaw pop. It’s my turn to be cruel. “Seems your friends like to cause a little pain. Maybe you’re just like them. And you called us savages.”

“If I’d known who he was then, I would’ve just killed him in the clearing.” His words are loud and rushed. They jumble together and it takes a moment for the truth of them to hit me. I step back, the air leaving my chest like he punched me. Lir rubs the back of his neck and looks away. “Before… that’s what I would have done before I knew you. The ones that took him, they’re not my friends, if anything they’re just as much my enemies as yours.” His head comes up. “Things have changed for me. I don’t plan on taking vengeance on your brother. To inspire such dedication and loyalty in you…he must be redeemable, there must be more to the story than I know.”

The confession shatters my anger and leaves me speechless. I settle for nodding in acknowledgment and then heading back into the woods, my wet braid swinging against my back. “Come on,” I call back over my shoulder. “We’ve got to get going.”

Lir’s feet pound up behind me and he falls into step beside me. Neither of us speaks.

A few minutes later, we’re scrambling across some rocks and I hear it, the unmistakable sound of a rattler. It must feel threatened so it’s not hiding in one of the crevices, it’s somewhere where it was frightened by us. My eyes scan the rock bed, looking for a variation in the pattern, something that sticks out. I find the snake about a foot to Lir’s left.

He keeps walking despite my stilled frame. I throw out an arm to stop him and he turns with both his body and his feet, bringing his foot even closer to the snake. Almost in slow motion the snake rears back to strike and I yank Lir by his shirt toward me. His body bowls me over and I fall to my back, legs extended right into the path of the snake’s strike.

* * * * * * *

My breath hisses in through my teeth when Lir places the ragged piece of his shirt against my leg. Pain radiates up from the wound, the pressure building until I want to scream. A drop of sweat traces down the side of my face and falls onto my shoulder.

“What do I do?” Lir’s voice pounds in my ears, his tone frantic.

“Let it bleed,” I say. “And get my knife.”

Lir pulls my knife from his boot and wipes it on his shirt before handing it to me. The steel is cold against my leg as I run it up the seam of my jeans, parting the leg up to my mid thigh. I hack off the now loose jean leg and cut a strip from it. The strip I tie around my calf, just above the bite, not too tight, just enough to get my finger underneath. The blood is slowing, so I wipe the wound with the wet cloth.

We’re out in the open and that just won’t do. Even though rattlers don’t always inject venom when they bite, the burning sensation traveling up my leg and the slight swelling already forming around the wound leave no doubt. There was venom in that bite and it’s bad.

“Help me up. We have to find shelter. Now.”

He pulls me to my feet and I sling an arm over his shoulder. With a slow hopping movement, avoiding putting much weight on the bitten leg, we struggle through the forest. My eyes scan constantly for someplace, anyplace that might be safe for the next day, maybe two.

Dad was bitten by a rattler once, when I was ten. He was alone hunting in the forest and stumbled back to the cabin and fell into bed. The brief instructions he was able to get out before he went completely delirious weren’t very comforting. I did the best I could, but his leg still swelled and he tossed and turned for two days before coming back to himself. He was strong enough to fight off the venom, now I have to be too.

Each step sends a shot of agony throughout my body. I cannot keep going. The exertion is just going to make the venom spread faster and it needs to be contained as much as possible.

“Put me down. Find a cave. Someplace safe and then come back.” I grit my teeth as another blaze of pain shoots up my leg.