Evolution (13 page)

Jonas makes it to him, grabs him under the arms and hauls
him to the tree line.  I lay still, unable to move at first.  Taylor,
who had Jonas by the feet much the same way Jonas had me, runs to one of our
abandoned packs and digs for something.  Jacob is throwing wood into a
pile.  Taylor rushes to his side with an aether flashlight, tosses it on
top, and smashes it with his boot.  Faster than a match or lighter. 
The aether creeps outward in blue tendrils, igniting the wet wood.  Smoke
and blue-tinged aether fumes rise upward, followed by a crimson plume of flame.

They work in a flurry to strip the icy-stiff clothes off of
Apollon and get him into one of our sleeping packs as close to the fire as they
can safely put him.  Jacob throws snow in a small pan and puts it on the
fire.  Good thinking.  Warm him up from the inside, too. 
There's got to be something I can do to help.  I manage to sit, then try
to push myself up.  Instead, I fall over in the snow.  I’m shaking,
and the pain in my arms is tremendous.  I clamp my eyes shut against its
growing intensity.

Jonas suddenly plucks me off the ground and carries me
toward the fire.  I didn't even hear him approaching.  He sits me on
another sleeping pack and removes my coat, gloves, and soaked mask. 
They’re not only wet, but frozen.  The rest of my clothing is not so
bad.  Only a little damp.  My coat kept most of the water out. 
Jonas sits behind me, straddling me with his legs, and wraps his arms and a
blanket around me.  For a while, the pain in my arms is almost
unbearable.  I feel like all the bones have been smashed, and my flesh has
been set on fire.  I grind my teeth against the agony, forcing each
breath.  But after a while, it starts to fade.  I manage to focus my
mind elsewhere.  I watch Taylor and Jacob look after Apollon, and allow
myself to sink numbly back into Jonas' arms.  The fire begins to feel good,
and Jonas breathes warm air down my neck, which feels even better.  Pain
begins to fade into comfort.  When Taylor presses a steamy cup of water
into my hands, I'm already drifting to sleep.  I manage to raise it to my
lips and drink, then I hand it back to him, and let everything disappear.

***

When I awake, I immediately regret it.  My body feels
sluggish and sore, but leaving the peacefulness of my dream is the real
discomfort.  I know exactly where I am before I'm fully conscious. 
The awareness comes with a rush of longing—with the knowledge that it will all
change too soon.  Before I can make myself be still, Jonas has noticed the
difference in my breathing.  He shifts in preparation for
withdrawal.  I suppress my groan of protest and, blinking, sit up.

When I open my eyes, I realize my selfishness.  I scan
the dark lump of blankets where Apollon rests.  "Is he
OK?"  My voice is a hoarse squeak.

"He'll live," Jonas says.  I almost laugh at
how much he and Apollon sound the same, remembering Apollon's response when
Jonas was injured saving me from the tree.  He takes his arms from around
me, pushes me fully upright, and stands up.  He drops the blanket across
my shoulders and moves away.

I pull the blanket around me and clutch both sides together
at my chest.  On the other side of the fire, Jacob is filling the pan with
more snow.  Taylor settles another dampened branch onto the
already-blazing pile of flames, then rummages in his pack.  I stretch my
legs and manage to climb to my feet, though I'm feeling a little
unsteady.  I'm grateful when Taylor brings me a handful of dried meat and
some nuts.  I free one hand to accept his offering, then munch on it as I
hover near the fire.  I peek occasionally at Jonas, who pays me no
attention in return.

I watch him check Apollon, feeling his hands for warmth,
pulling his blankets closer.  The way he tends to his longtime friend
shows far more care than the simple assessment of his words.  I want to
kneel beside him—to help in some way—but I know I’m not welcome.  Instead,
I linger where I am and feel lost.  Separate.

Apollon continues to sleep through the deepening
night.  As Taylor and Jacob build up the fire, I consider that a whole day
has passed, and we have barely begun our journey.  We're beaten up already. 
Time is ticking away.  Sentries may be tracking us.  Is there any way
we’ll get to the tower in time to save the Outpost?

Before I left, Matt and I came up with an emergency plan—get
everyone below ground if the Sentries come again—but will it work?  Would
they be able to hold out there long enough?  Matt is moving food and
supplies below, but the Outposters will not be able to survive in the tunnels
forever.  My thoughts are thick with doubt and fear.  I hardly notice
the others talking, at first.

"...It's not a big deal," Jonas is saying. 
"Eden and I can share a bedroll."

I squint at them across the campfire.

Jacob and Taylor are sputtering.  Clearly they don't
like the idea of Jonas being anywhere near me.  They are Matt's men, after
all.  But Apollon's pack is now somewhere under the ice, and it's cold
out.  Someone's going to need to share.

"She's small," Jonas says.  "We'll both
fit.  It just makes sense."

Neither of the brothers look happy about it.

Jonas adds to their discomfort before turning his back on
them.  "It's not like we haven't slept together before." 
He walks toward me.

I tuck my chin downward, letting my hair fall over my face
to hide the flush of red.  My heart is leaping at the remembrance of lying
next to him, his arm tucked over me, our friends on either side of us. 
Home.  But next to that is a nagging sorrow.  Maybe he's not talking
about this life at all.  Maybe he's talking about something that neither
of us will ever know or remember.  Something that's gone.

We slip into the pack next to each other without so much as
a word or a look at each other's face.  Across the way, Jacob and Taylor
are getting ready to sleep and carefully ignoring us.  I lie down facing
the fire and Jonas slides one arm under my head.  His other goes over my
waist.  I think I'm going to manage to hold in the sigh, but then he pulls
me close and it escapes freely.  I let myself relax against him, sinking
into his warmth.  I let myself feel the happiness of his embrace. 
However temporary this might be, it feels right.  It feels like home.

We're taking the terrain slower, now, careful of the ground
we're stepping on.  All of these barren stretches are water, it turns
out.  All of them full of peril.  Who knows what else is out
here?  If the ground can open up and swallow you, then what else can
happen?  All the while, we’re glancing behind us, looking for signs of
pursuit.  Every noise makes us jump.

We're three days in, now.  Sore, and cold, and
exhausted.  We have to stop often to rest and warm up.  Apollon's
been weak since he woke up.  I imagine it will take some time for him to
feel fully recovered.  Not that traversing this icy world helps.  He
still favors his side, too.  The others don't seem to notice, but I can't
imagine that Jonas has missed the fact.

I'm as worn down as the others, but every time we stop, I
feel panic rise within me.  Only part of it is the threat of the Sentries.
 Mostly, I’m compelled to push onward.  We need to move faster. 
I want desperately to blame this urge on the pull of the tower—on whatever it
is that has been buried within me.  But I find myself thinking about the
Outpost.  About Neveah and Miranda.  Coyote Dan, Julian,
Sawyer.  And Matt.  I try to force myself to think of the others
first, but I don't.  It's always Matt.  Too often, I ponder the
things he said that day we went on our drive.  I'm enthralled by the
sentiment of his words, even if I'm not willing to accept them. 
Sometimes, I let my mind graze the idea of a future with him.  I push it
away.  I'm feeling lonely, I tell myself.  The world out here is deep
and cold.  How could anyone not feel lonely out here?  It doesn't
help that my companions are so quiet.  There is hardly any companionship
at all.

When Jonas does speak, it's all acid.  Or mumbles to
Apollon that my ears can't pick up.  He's still angry with me and it
doesn't look like he plans to forgive me anytime soon.  Part of me
understands, but part of me resents his anger.  I got us through.  I
got us out.  We're not Grey's subjects.  We're not hiding in a
hole.  If I hadn't done what I did, things would be so much worse. 
And he's got what he's wanted for so long.  He's headed south.

It’s Apollon that really breaks my heart.  However much
I internally justify my actions, I cannot shake the feeling that when he looks
at me, he’s seeing the horror of what happened to Elaina.  Is there any
way he’ll be able to forgive me for her death?  Any way we’ll ever move
past all the things that have happened to us and rekindle our friendship?

The sky is dark today and the wind strong.  We've been
walking through a long stretch of forest, and now we stop to rest. 
There's not much wood to build a fire here, so Apollon volunteers to go get
some.

"I'll go with you," I say, feeling restless
already.  And I'm not letting him go off on his own to get into any more
trouble, either.  Though I doubt I’ll have the courage to bring up the
things that are weighing on my mind, part of me longs for the opportunity to
talk without the others around.  Truth is, I miss him.

We crunch off through the trees, looking for recently fallen
branches.  Something halfway dry.  Something not buried in snow.

"You doing OK?" I ask as we go.

Apollon snorts.  "I haven't fallen into freezing
water today, so I'd say that's pretty good."

"No kidding, huh."

He throws me a half-smile that looks so normal.  So
Apollon.  A moment later, he says, "How 'bout you?"

"Ah, well, none of my friends have fallen into freezing
water today, so..."

He laughs, grabs a dead branch still hanging off of a tree,
and breaks it off.

A gust of wind sends snow swirling around us.  I
tighten my hood and adjust my mask.  "It's freaking cold out
here."

"No shit."  The comment comes with a cocky
smile.

There's an easiness in the way Apollon responds that makes me
feel warmer.  For the first time I start to hope that our friendship will
survive the mess I’ve made.  "I just wasn't meant for the cold,"
I ramble on, wanting to keep the conversation going.  "I must've come
from somewhere warm."

"That would explain the horns and pointy red
tail."

I check behind me.  "I thought that was invisible
to humans."

Whatever his words were, they blend into the howl of the
wind.  I turn my back as I'm pelted with snow coming from the side. 
I wait for it to die down, but it doesn't.  Within seconds, I'm covered in
it.  I look at Apollon, whose dark clothing is entirely coated in
white.  I can barely see past him, though he's right next to me.  We
look up and have the realization at the same time.

He grabs my hand, still clasping the branch with his other,
and tugs me into motion.  "Let's go."

We start running, but before long, we’re stumbling.  A
violent wind pushes us backward.  I lean into it, trying to move, and end
up on my knees.  Apollon drags me to my feet.  My mask is sliding off
my chin.  We gain a few steps, our eyes clamped, mouths spitting out
snow.  Tiny, sharp daggers of ice blast into our faces, stinging like
fire.

"The tree," I think Apollon has said, though his
voice is broken on the wind.  We fall down against the nearest trunk,
finding a bit of shelter from the wind and ice.  But the snow is still
whipping around us.  Everything is white, and getting whiter.

"This is bad," Apollon yells beside me.  His
voice is small and faint.

"We have to get back to the others," I yell
back.  He nods.  We hang onto each other, and make another attempt at
changing location.

We move about five yards to the next tree and almost run
into it before we even know it's there.  We crouch down to shelter,
batting piles of snow off of each other before trying again.  But by the
next tree, we're both shivering intensely.  We're not going to make it
back to camp.  We need to find real shelter.  We continue our plight,
but both of us know now that our goal is simply to survive.

Relief floods through the adrenaline when we stumble upon a
dense clump of growth.  A couple of bushes grow near a large fir that
bends its branches all the way to the ground.  We scramble into the little
space underneath, breaking branches to get further in, then pile up what we can
to cover the opening.  Again, we brush snow from each other, then huddle
together, trying to get warm.  Some wind makes it through into our
shelter, but the worst is kept out.  Outside, the storm screams its anger
at our escape.  Neither of us speak, but I know we're both wondering the
same thing:  Are our friends OK?  Is Jonas OK?

Darkness falls on the world outside our shelter, though it
can’t be night yet.  Just the storm, blocking out every bit of the
sun.  For a long time the world hovers in that false twilight, and then,
hours later, it really gets dark.  The night around us is pitch black, the
storm roaring loudly.  Neither of us sleep.  We huddle, and shiver,
and wonder for hours on end.

In the morning, I wake suddenly, surprised that I've slept
at all.  I'm curled into the crook of Apollon's armpit, and we're both
leaning against the trunk of the fir.  I must have startled Apollon awake,
too, because he sits up straighter and looks groggily around like he's not sure
where we're at.  Through our tangle of branches, one brilliant patch of
snow makes me blink against its brightness.  Everything is quiet, like
there never was a storm at all.

"It's done," Apollon whispers.  His breath is
a cloud of steam in the frozen air.  I can feel him shivering, which makes
me realize how cold
I
am, right through to the bone.

We begin pulling away the branches that enclose us. 
The snow is biting cold against my knees as I crawl outside.  More snow
launches itself from the branches above me, piling on my head.  I stand
and dust myself off, scanning the world around us.  Everything is covered
in a thick layer of white.  There's no sign that we were ever here. 
No footprints to track back to the campsite, and no way of telling where we came
from.  It's all the same.

Apollon looks around for a moment.  "OK. 
Don't panic."

"Not panicking," I say, though my voice sounds
tighter than I intended.

We spend another minute in silence, taking in our
surroundings.

I jump when Apollon suddenly bellows
"Helloooooo...."  I glare at him, then join him when he takes a
deep breath and tries again.

"Hellloooooo...."  Our voices echo across the
snowy expanse, disappearing into the oblivion.  We stand still and
listen.  We turn our heads.  Waiting.  Straining our ears. 
Nothing ever comes.  We alternate yelling and listening for about ten
minutes, then give up.

I rub my hands over my face, take a deep breath.
 "What now?"

Apollon hesitates.  He doesn't have any better idea
than I do.  "Bathroom break," he finally says.  I nod and we
head to opposite bushes.  No point in trying to make critical decisions
when you need to pee.

A moment later we regroup where we were.  Again, we
stand stupidly and look around, as if anything has changed in the last two
minutes.  I find myself looking at the sky, at how blue it is, and
wondering why it's so damned cold when the sun is shining.  I'm shivering,
and Apollon still is, too.

"If only we had a way to build a fire," I
mutter.  "We could warm up.  And maybe if they're still...
nearby... they could see it."  A new kind of shiver works through me
at the choice of words I avoided.

Apollon starts digging in his pocket.

"We're kinda screwed," I admit.  "All I
have is my knife.  Without food, blankets... without fire... we're
probably gonna die out here."

He holds out his hand and grins at me. 
"Fire."

I snatch the aether lighter from his hand.  "Oh my
god," I say.  "Oh my god.  You have a lighter."

"Of course I have a lighter.  I would be stupid to
come out here without a lighter."

I scowl at him.

"I mean... I would be stupid to come out here without a
friend
with a lighter," he corrects quickly.  Another
grin.  I forgive him and begin hunting for firewood.  It occurs to me
that that's where this all started.

In a short while we manage to put together a small pile of
damp wood.  Luckily, the pine needles we heap under and around the
branches go up like a torch the second I touch the flame to them.  They're
enough to get the other wood going, even though it smokes a lot.  But
maybe that's a good thing.  Maybe our friends might be able to see all the
smoke.  I carefully avoid acknowledging the thought that any nearby
Sentries could see it as well.

I sit there and think of Jonas.  What if...?  No.
 No what-ifs.  I need to think of something else.  So I squint
at the pine needles for a moment and decide to experiment with the fire. 
Some things obviously burn better than others.  I remember the way the
Christmas tree in the Outpost went up like a torch.  At the time, I had
thought it was all because of the aether lanterns, but now I'm beginning to
suspect the tree itself helped.  We may need to make the aether in our
lighter go a long way.  So I forage around the area near our campsite,
toss some different things into the fire, and watch the way they burn. 
Christmas tree is definitely a winner.

"I didn't know you were a pyromaniac," Apollon
says, toasting his hands on the fire.

"Guess it comes with the tail."

He gives me a wry grin.  The sight of those dimples
makes me want to cry in relief, but I hold it all in.

"Christmas trees are highly flammable," I say in a
voice that sounds completely normal, concluding my studies after a short
while.  I flop down next to him, conceding to the need to thaw myself out,
and just wanting to sit with my friend.  "Do you think anything grows
out here that we can eat?"  Neveah taught Apollon a lot about plants.

He shrugs.  "Maybe.  If we can find it under
all the snow."

We sigh and fall quiet, soaking in the heat of the
fire.  My mind is immediately on Jonas.  Try though I may, I can't
make the frightening images stop parading through my overactive
imagination.  "Do you think... they're OK?" I finally whisper.

He laughs.  "They're probably better off than
us.  They have all the supplies."

It's true.  If nothing else, they could have huddled
together under all the sleeping rolls, braving the storm that way.  I
should be worried about us, not them.  But maybe it's not so much that I'm
worried
about
Jonas as it is that I'm worried about never seeing him
again.  I sigh, and look off into the distance, and consider how to find
him.

"We slept a little late," Apollon says, eyeing the
sky.  "Look where the sun is.  It's almost noon."

I follow his gaze and nod.  We must have been exhausted
when we
did
finally fall asleep.

"They probably looked for us, didn't find us, and moved
on.  Either they think we're dead, or they're going to the only place
where we'll know to meet them.  Both ways, that's south.  At least
for Jonas it is."

I have trouble imagining Jonas tromping off happily after my
apparent demise.  I'd like to think he's a little more torn up than that
if he thinks I'm dead.  But then, he does seem to hate me lately.  On
a more positive note, maybe he's hopeful that I'm still alive, and he's doing
exactly what Apollon said—going where we're going.  To the tower. 
That gives me a new reason to get there.  Not just to satisfy some
ingrained need.  Not just to save an Outpost.  To find Jonas. 
I'm climbing to my feet before I even know it.

Apollon gazes up at me incredulously and doesn't move a
muscle.  "Seriously?  I'm barely getting warm."

I sigh and gaze off into the distance, my shoulders
slumping.  It is crazy.  We have a fire right now.  We can rest
and stay warm.  We can spend another night in this shelter, and be ready
to go tomorrow.