Project - 16 (29 page)

“
You didn't say it like that.”

“
Oh.”

“
Oh.”

She pulled in closer to me. “I love you, Miller.”

“
I love you too.”

During the early hours of the morning the cold got the better
of us and we both led there, awake and shivering. It wasn't enough
to pose a danger but it was enough to stop us sleeping. I checked
my watch and the display lit up our cosy cave under the bags with a
strawberry-red glow.

“
What time is it?” asked Riley.

“
Not quite 2am,” I replied.

“
Jesus, how fucking cold can it get? I need to use the ladies
room too and I’ve been putting it off for the last
hour.”

“
Same here.”

She wriggled out of the bag and I heard her tramping through
the snow. She came back a few minutes later letting a gust of
ice-cold air in with her.

“
Oh my god I think we're going to die!” she said, rubbing her
hands together and blowing into them.

“
My turn,” I said and rolled out of the bag, sliding into my
frozen boots without thinking too much about it. It was dark save
for a clear sky above and the snow seemed to shine with its own
light. I walked away from the hammock, past the ashes of our fire
and found somewhere to relieve myself. The park was silent. There
was a faint breeze blowing in from the north, perhaps through the
bare trees near the wall, but the only real noise was coming from
me as my jaw chattered with the cold.

I hurried back to the hammock and slid in under the bags.
Riley was still shivering and together we rattled away until some
kind of warmth was generated. It might have been soul destroying,
waiting there for the morning to come if it hadn't been for the
fact that her lips were soon pressed against mine and her firm,
athletic body was entwined with my own.

“
Will we end up stuck together?” she said,
giggling.

“
Maybe. Won't be a bad way to die,” I said, a heat spreading
through my soul that no winter could ever chill.

“
True enough, Mr. Miller. What's your first name anyway? I
think it's my right to know now that we're going out.”

“
Going out? How old are we?”

“
Yeah, good point. Dating? Courting? What would you call
it?”

“
I'm not sure. We'll think of something.”

“
Well?”

“
Well what?” I said.

“
Your name?” I told her what it was. “Really? I can see why
you stick to Miller then. That's pretty fucking bad.”

“
It wasn't really my choice at the time.”

“
Your Dad?”

“
I guess so,” I said. “I never knew my mum so I couldn't tell
you.”

“
Didn't your Dad ever talk about her?” said Riley.

“
If he did I don't remember. My earliest memories don't have
any reference to her. I kind of grew up with just my Dad and anyone
who was there to learn from him.”

“
Was that hard?”

“
It's all I knew until I was old enough to understand what the
world was like outside of England. When I started going out with
Dad on his journeys I started to ask questions about the towns and
stuff. It took a while to get used to the idea that the rest of the
world was a frantic mass of people.”

“
You're telling me,” she replied.

“
When I started helping out with the classes it was the
soldiers who helped me come out of my little reclusive shell and
start interacting with them. I was a bit weird back
then.”

“
You still are in your own special way,” she said,
laughing.

“
Very funny. Do you want to know the story or not?”

“
Sorry.” I knew she was still smirking despite the
darkness.

“
Anyway, in answer to your question, Mum never got mentioned
and I guess I never asked.”

“
Strange,” she said. “I just assumed it would have been a big
deal for you.”

In the darkness I shrugged, thinking that maybe it should
have been more of a deal than it was. The woman who gave birth to
me, who was more than likely dead, had never known me and I'd never
known her. I didn't know how I felt about that.

“
What about you?” I asked. “You told me about your Dad but
what else do I need to know now that we're 'going out'?”

“
Well, there's not much more to it. I joined up, been there up
until recently when I retired to go private. Regretted it ever
since.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah, the Rangers were my fucking life, man. It wasn't just
the 'army' - it was family. I hated having to leave but I couldn't
stay. Not after France.”

“
So you went private.”

“
So I went private.”

“
And here you are,” I said. “Out in the middle of nowhere with
a strange loner who has no Mum.”

“
Boohoo,” she said. “You'll survive. Things just got better
for you now I'm here.”

“
Oh, really?” I said, laughing in spite of the violent
shiver-spasms that came now and again.

“
Yeah, I'm like a fucking personal army - a bodyguard for you.
You should be grateful I came here when I did.”

“
How's the leg?”

“
Ah, that was just a minor set back.”

“
Looks like it was me guarding your body from where I was
standing.”

“
And now it's yours to guard as often as you like,” she said.
“Though I think you need to pay closer attention.”

“
Why?”

She stopped laughing and lifted my hand to her breast,
twisting so that her legs slid between mine. Our lips met, parted,
tongues exploring each other, hands roaming soft cool skin. Then
she moaned and gently pulled back, stifling a sob.

“
I'm scared, Miller. I'm scared to go on.”

“
Scared? Why? Of what?”

“
I'm scared of what might happen when we get there. I'm scared
that we've just found each other and that we can lose each other
just as quickly. Miller, I’ve been waiting fucking years for
someone like you, someone who... I don't know... is the same as me,
someone who isn't some wet weekend looking for an emotional crutch
or a fucking sted-head looking to treat me like a whore. Now I
think I’ve found what I’ve been looking for and we've nearly been
killed twice, maybe even three times if you count the
soldiers.”

“
I understand,” I said - and I did. I knew it the moment she
chose to carry on. All I wanted to do was take her home and carve
out some kind of life for ourselves with the time we had left. The
last thing I'd wanted was to carry on for another hundred miles
risking everything just for someone who I believed was already dead
by now.

“
All my life I’ve been making my own decisions, being what I
thought a woman should be - strong, independent, empowered. Now I'm
scared that I'll fuck it up, that I'll make a bad call and send us
to our deaths by carrying on with something we should just walk
away from.”

“
That's part of being autonomous,” I said. “The chance that
we'll make the wrong call and people will get hurt.”

“
I know that, so what the fuck do I do? I'll be a complete
bitch if I go home without finding out what happened to Alex. How
could I face my sister, Miller? 'Yeah, sorry I didn't save your
son, I was too busy making out with a guy I met over
there'.”

“
I know.”

“
And yet, if we go, there's a good chance there'll be more
soldiers there - soldiers who want to kill us, thinking we're
terrorists. One of us, or both of us, could be dead by the end of
the week and it'll all have been for nothing...”

I kissed the top of her head, realising I was as close to her
as I could be yet unable to even comment on what she was saying. I
agreed with it all and I knew what I would do, what I wanted to do.
She just had to realise that for herself. If I didn't let her do
that then our relationship was doomed from the start.

We fell silent for a while and we must have fallen asleep
because the next time I looked the dawn was coming and Riley was
snoring softly in my arms. I looked at my watch. It was just after
seven.

“
Riley?” I whispered in her ear.

“
Yeah?” she replied.

“
Time to go.”

She opened her eyes and groaned. “So it wasn't all just a big
nightmare then?”

“
No, my love. It's very much real.”

We ate a large breakfast and drank the last of the coffee
given that we were in pretty bad shape. We were both exhausted and
hungry and without the calories in our stomachs our condition would
only worsen as the days wore on. In the old days we could have
jumped on a train or driven a car and been there in a matter of
hours. Now it was a matter of days and without a shop or a
restaurant for thousands of miles we'd have to find our next meal
ourselves. The last few MREs would have to be saved until we were
too desperate to do anything else.

The rifle only had two rounds left so by mid-afternoon I
decided to find somewhere to camp where we could lay some snares.
I'd seen plenty of fat rabbits on the path and the thought of a
couple roasting over a fire was too much to pass up. There was a
farm about half a mile off our track and I diverted us in that
direction as the snow began to fall again. It was only a light
dusting but the thick white cloud cover was threatening more for
tonight.

In one field was an old cowshed and I chose it for shelter
given that these buildings had already stood the test of time. Dad
had told me how most of them were over a hundred years old and if
they'd planned to fall down it would have happened by now. We
passed through a rusting gate made of tubular steel that hung
precariously on yawning hinges that'd pulled away from the
brickwork. There was the faint smell of animal but the ground was
hard packed and the roof was still in one piece.

I laid out Piotr's tarp on the floor and helped Riley to sit
down on it. She dropped her pack, sweat gathering on her brow
despite the cold and drank half a litre of water without
stopping.

“
Man, I'm fucked,” she said.

“
Let me get a fire going and then I think it's time to get
those stitches out.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah, 'fraid so.”

Within spitting distance was a densely packed strip of
woodland that grew pretty close to a fast running stream. I
gathered some small branches and carried them back to our shelter,
building a fire to start warming the place up with. Once I'd
collected enough wood to see us through the night I built it up
until we had a hazy warmth inside the shed that made our eyes
heavy.

“
Come on, let's get it over with,” I said, getting out my
tweezers and scissors.

“
This is going to hurt,” she said, lying back and unbuckling
her trousers, pulling them down to her knees. I looked at the thin
line of thread that had done a great job of helping the wound to
heal. There was a crusty red track around each puncture but after
cleaning it away with some antiseptic wipes I began the slow work
of pulling out the thread one stitch at a time.

Riley barely flinched throughout the procedure, but when she
saw me throw the cord into the fire she let out the breath she'd
been holding.

“
How is it, Doc?” she asked.

“
Looks nice and clean. The scar will be vivid I'm
afraid.”

“
Who gives a fuck - I still have my leg.”

I wiped the area again and put a light bandage over the top
just to be on the safe side, then let her pull her pants back
up.

“
It's a bit like our shelter,” she said, looking around at the
coarse brickwork.

“
A bit,” I replied. “I'm going out to lay some snares. I'll be
back in a short while."

“
Okay. Be safe.”

I smiled and got my wire from the pack whilst she began
gathering snow to boil in the two pans. I didn't suggest going to
the stream - already I was thinking in terms of risk to her,
shielding her and I could see from her expression she wanted to do
the same for me. How'd we become so close so soon? I couldn't
understand it but deep down I knew it didn't matter. I loved her
and we'd come close to never finding that out.

It took me about an hour to lay all the traps I could,
following the faint spoor left in the layer of quickly falling snow
that threatened to hide them from me. I set them a little higher
than I would have done normally and I hoped that by morning we'd
have a couple of kills rather than losing my snare wire to
snowfall. When I returned to the shed, Riley had two cups of hot
water waiting and half an MRE each.

“
Beef stew,” she said, passing me a plate. “It tastes
divine.”

“
That's because we're hungry. Any other day of the week and
it'd taste foul.”

“
I'm tempted to try and bag us a deer. Did you see anything
out there?” she said.