by Danika Stone
“You okay?” Vale asked when he could breathe again.
“Not so much, actually. I feel like something’s broken inside. Hurts to breathe.”
Vale bit the inside of her lip to keep from crying. There was no more denying it. Ash was getting worse, not better. They needed help and fast. “We’ll get you out of here. Promise.”
He nodded, but didn’t answer.
Vale watched Ash for a long time as sleep took hold of him once more. In the wake of the coughing fit, an unsettling rattling sound had started in his chest. Vale reached out to touch his forehead, then pulled her hand away like she’d been burned.
His fever was worse.
* * *
The night was misty and frigid. A bitter wind whistled through the valley, tossing the treetops and forcing icy fingers through the meager shelter of the lean-to’s walls. Ash woke twice, shivering in the dark. Why’s it so cold tonight? He struggled to pull the jackets and emergency blanket up, only to find that he’d pushed them off sometime earlier. His whole body shook as he reached down with his good hand, fumbling to find them.
“What’s wrong?” a familiar voice whispered. “Are you sick?” Vale.
“N-not sick,” he said through chattering teeth. “J-just knocked off the jackets.”
“Are you cold?” Vale sat up and pulled the coats up from where they’d fallen between them. “Here,” she said. “Let me cover you.” Her hand brushed his forehead, then disappeared. “You stay here. I’ll add some more firewood.”
She tucked the coats around his shoulders, then crawled from the shelter. The hollow between the vapor barrier of the garbage bags atop the branches and the jackets was a welcome warmth. Ash was relieved as the heat returned, then—a heartbeat later— frustrated that he’d needed to ask for her help at all. He watched her silhouette as Vale moved from place to place, backlit by the bonfire. She had a log as big around as Ash’s leg burning, and she pushed the unburned end of it inward toward the fire. Flames leaped upward, a wave of heat expanding to reach the nearby shelter. This approach to keeping the fire going was smart. Very smart. And it was Vale. She’d come up with it with the ease that left him both annoyed and grateful. They didn’t have an ax, but Vale had thought around that challenge.
No question. She’s keeping us BOTH alive.
Ash’s eyelids fluttered closed as another wave of shivering overtook him. Even with a raging fire, the chill air sucked the warmth from the air. There was no layer of snow to insulate the shelter as there’d been their first two nights. Yesterday—when Ash had stumbled back to camp—was a blur. But tonight he alternated between chattering teeth and raging fever.
Just want to go home, he thought as Vale crawled back into the shelter next to him. Back at home … back in my bed … back under the covers, warm and safe … Another bout of shivering racked his body despite the layers. When he’d headed into the hut, Vale had insisted he take the position nearest to the fire. He felt her carefully ease around him and lift the corner of the two jackets, crawling underneath. She lay behind him this time, trying to keep warm. Feeling her slide into place, Ash rolled over to face her spot rather than give her his back.
Ash opened his eyes. In the darkness, Vale’s face was an onyx statue, the planes of her cheeks and forehead carved in tones of blue. She shivered and blew on her hands. It struck Ash that she’d just built up the fire without wearing a jacket. She’d left him the extra warmth, rather than take her coat. Guilt rose inside him as she snuggled into their shared burrow. I should be helping her too.
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. All day he’d wanted to sleep, but now it felt more elusive than ever. What do I say? Vale’s shivering finally stilled, and she let out a slow, even breath as she relaxed. Sensing her hovering on the edge of sleep, he reached out with his good hand and nudged her shoulder.
Vale’s eyes flashed open at once. “What…?”
“Hey,” he said in a low voice.
She blinked. “Hey yourself, Ash.” A second later, the worry line he’d noticed so often appeared between her narrow brows. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I … I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“For walking off on you the other morning. For … for trying to climb that stupid mountain alone.” The tickle in the bottom of his lung returned, and he turned his face away and coughed, groaning a second later. When he looked back, Vale was waiting. “I should have woken you up and told you I was going,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have let you go.”
“I know that. I … also know we wouldn’t be in this situation if you had.”
Vale smiled. “It’s okay. We’re doing fine.”
“We’re not doing fine. We’re totally fragged.”
“Disagree.” She smiled. In the near dark, her eyes looked like glass, the reflection of firelight dancing in the edges. “And I’m the leader of Survival Squad, right? I get to make that call.”
“Well, if you’re in command, then—” Ash moved, and his damaged arm shot a dagger of pain through his chest. He yelped.
“Your arm again?”
“Uh-huh.” Ash settled carefully back into place. “Did I ever tell you about the guy who busted his left arm?”
Vale shook her head. “Must have missed that one.”
“Doctors were worried about him at first … but he was all right.”
Vale began to giggle, then Ash did too, but in seconds, his laughter turned into a fit of coughing. When he could breathe again, he wiped tears from the sides of his eyes. He took a rattling breath and slowly let it out. “Tomorrow we start walking out of here. Right?”
The line between Vale’s brows grew deeper. “You think you’re ready?”
“I don’t think we have a choice anymore.”
“But—”
“I need a doctor, Vale. You know it. So do I. If this was a game, my energy bar would be flashing red. I’m sick. Really sick.” His voice hitched. “And I’m scared.”
The wind rose around the hut, wheedling its way in through the pine boughs and reaching under the coats. Ash began to shiver.
“Hold still,” Vale said. “I’ll warm you up.”
She pulled him against her chest and tucked the coats around him. She was soft and warm, and Ash let himself relax against her as waves of shivers ran through him. Tears prickled against his eyelids, and he was glad it was dark so she couldn’t see them when they started to fall.
“I—I’m sorry,” he said in a broken voice. “Sorry for everything.”
“Shhh…,” she whispered. “You’re going to be fine, Ash. Just sleep now.”
And after a time, he did.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Let’s go. There’s nothing to fear here.”
“That’s what scares me.”
SATIPO AND INDIANA JONES, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
VALE STARED DOWN at her panties in frustration. “Well, this is just “great!”
It was barely light, but the bloody smear that announced the arrival of her period was unmistakable. She was annoyed, but not entirely surprised. Her period was due on Wednesday; today was Monday. With all the stress, it had arrived early.
Fuming, Vale pulled up her panties and jeans and walked back to the camp. Ash was dozing by the fire, but he glanced up as she arrived.
“You ready to go?”
“Just a second,” she said. “I’ve got to … do something.” Vale dug through the pack until she found the supplies. There were two pads left (the third had been used for Ash’s bandage), plus six tampons. She grabbed her second pair of panties, a sanitary pad, and a tampon, then headed back to the bushes where she’d been minutes earlier. The cramps that heralded her period’s arrival were already making her uterus feel like she’d been punched in the gut. Walking today would be unpleasant.
“Not cool, body. Not cool.”
Shivering, Vale undid her jeans. The first speckles of rain splattered the ba
re skin of her thighs. The storm she’d been waiting for was about to arrive, and Vale feared that at some point the rain would turn to snow. The air was already icy cold. With numbed fingers, Vale applied the pad to the fresh panties, grateful she’d brought them along. Thank goodness the blood didn’t soak through my jeans. She inserted the tampon and tucked the plastic into her pocket, then headed back to the fire.
Cramps or not, it was time to leave.
* * *
“This sucks!” Ash grumbled.
Vale looked up from where she was wrapping the scarf around his ribs. “Did I make the binding too tight again?”
“No. The wrapping is just fine.” He lifted his chin toward the slate gray sky. “It’s just this. All of this! I mean, it’s October, for God’s sake. Feels like December this morning.”
Vale shrugged. “True. But we’re in the mountains. The higher you go, the worse the weather gets.” She reached for his sweatshirt. “Lift up your hands—actually, make that hand—and I’ll help you get your sweatshirt on.”
Ash groaned as she pulled the fabric over his head “Feel like such a noob when you help me. Fricking hate that.”
She smirked. “My, my … You’re in a good mood this morning.”
“I’m fine. Just … tired and achy.”
The truth was, after another night on the cold hard ground, everything hurt. Pain had sharpened his temper, but he made a note to try to control it. Vale doesn’t need to worry more than she already is. Ash felt worse than he’d felt yesterday, but he certainly wasn’t going to say that to Vale. Not with her doing everything else. He waited as she tucked the floppy sleeve under his damaged arm and tethered it to the tape sling to hold it in place. She looked up at him and grinned. His frustration dropped a notch. She’s trying to help. I’m the one who is being a jerk about it.
“See?” Vale said. “You’re as good as new.”
“Good as new?” Ash said with a laugh. “I’m never taking you shopping. This is a Salvation Army discount sling if I ever saw one.”
Vale shook her head and laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.” He coughed, then yelped as his ribs pulled. The wrapping helped, but didn’t fix them. “So you ready to go?”
“Yeah. Just give me a minute. I’m going to grab some burning coals.” She headed over to the fire.
“Coals?”
“Yeah. We’re all out of gum wrappers. I want to try to move some of the embers to the next site so we can have a fire.”
Ash stared at her. “How?”
She dug through the dying fire with the end of a green branch. “Well, I had this idea that I could maybe just put a bunch in the pack. Sure, some will go out, but not all of them. Right?”
“Your pack isn’t gonna hold that.”
Vale dropped the stick and looked up at him. “It might.”
“No, it won’t.” Ash took a step, wanting to join her at the fire, but pain stopped him before he’d gone two steps. He hissed.
“Ash!” Vale sprinted back to his side. “Hold on. Let me help.”
He breathed through a wave of nausea, then forced a weak smile. “Sorry,” he said. “I … I should’ve waited for you to help me.”
Vale slid her arm around his waist. “Hold on. I’ll help.” She looked up at him. “Back over to the fire?”
“Yeah. That’d be good.”
Step by step, Vale helped him move to the other side of the campfire, then slowly let him slide to the ground. He let out a wheezing breath, seeing stars. Walking together was doable. If he was careful not to jar his ribs, and Vale braced his good side, he could make it. Just think about the next few steps, he thought. Don’t even worry about the rest of the day.
“You okay now?”
He squinted up at her. “Yeah.” He gestured to the backpack at her feet. “I was trying to tell you that you can’t do it that way.”
Vale frowned. “Why not?”
“Your pack will either burn up—and burn you too—or the fire will go out.”
Vale stood up and dusted her hands off. “Maybe, but our prison lighter is done and our last attempt at starting a fire by rubbing sticks together didn’t go so well.”
Ash nodded to the larger branches. “How about we make a torch or something?”
“It’s cold and damp. It’ll be raining by nightfall. The torch isn’t going to last as long as it’ll take us to hike out of here. Even if Waterton is on the other side of that mountain, we’re going to spend the night up there. We need something that’ll keep the coals alive.”
Ash glanced around the camp. There were so few items to choose from! Even the few days they’d been staying there had stripped the resources, and most of the dried brush had been burned away. His gaze lit on a piece of curled outer bark—too wet to burn—that lay amid the ashes.
“How about that thing?”
“What thing?”
“That wood. The bark.”
Vale followed his pointed finger to where it lay at the edge of the fire. “What about it?” she asked.
“It’s not burning, right?”
“Right.”
“So let’s put a bunch of coals into the curl of the bark,” Ash said, “then put that into the pack. We take a bunch of embers together and kind of … carry them. You know? Isn’t that what the First Nations peoples did when they moved camps?”
“I … honestly don’t know.”
“I think that’s what I read last year in social studies. Anyhow, the bark isn’t burning, so it shouldn’t light anything on fire, and if we get enough coals, at least some of them should be left when we reach the next site.”
“All right, then. Let’s try that.” Vale reached down for the curl of bark and set it aside. A moment later she took two unburned sticks and rolled a bright cinder of glowing coal into it. She carefully lifted it into the pack. Finished, she stood from the fire and brushed the ashes off on the sides of her pants. “Now, we should get walking, because I want to be out of this valley by nightfall.”
“Lead the way, Commander.”
“Stop,” she laughed.
“What?” he scoffed. “It’s a good thing.” He gestured to the forest. “We’re Survival Squad. You’re leading us to victory!”
“You’re so weird sometimes, Ash.” She took her place at his side, wrapping her arm around him.
“Weird?”
“I mean weird in a good way.”
He gave her a dubious look, and Vale giggled. “Seriously, Ash. I’m glad you’re out here with me.” Her smile faded. “Ready to stand?”
Ash nodded.
“One … two…” She heaved upward, and Ash let out a groan of pain. He wobbled in place, the urge to faint threatening to take him to his knees. “You okay, Ash? You’re looking—”
“Fine,” he lied, then forced a smile. (He hoped Vale bought it.) “You know, if we’re handing out medals for ‘weirdness,’ then you and I are gonna tie for first prize.”
“Okay, then we’re both weird.” Vale grinned. “Happy now?”
“Always.” He gritted his teeth. “Now let’s get walking.” And with the first, grueling step, they began.
The first couple of kilometers were pure torture. Ash’s body screamed with each step. He kept waiting for muscle memory to kick in, but every part of him was raw, demanding his attention. His nail-less fingers kept brushing his jeans. His broken ribs grated sickeningly. His lungs simply couldn’t keep up for more than short stretches at a time. The biggest issue was the cold air. Every so often he was hit with a blast of it and that triggered a bout of coughing. It felt like he had something wet in the bottom of his lungs, and no matter how hard he hacked, it would not come free. As his breath returned to normal after a particularly rough fit, he discovered Vale watching him, her fingers pressed to her mouth.
“Wh-what?” he panted.
“You sound terrible.”
He grimaced. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“It’s not a ju
dgment call. It’s your lungs. They sound congested.”
“They’ll be fine.” Ash stood up, wobbling as vertigo hit. “Just the ribs giving me trouble.” He tried to move, then gasped as pain shot through him. His vision darkened. “I … I don’t know if I can go on.”
Vale jumped back to his side, catching hold of him as he swayed. “Yes, Ash. You can.”
“My ribs hurt. They hurt bad!” Ash’s voice cracked, but there was no way to stop it. His whole body felt like it was dying. “I … I can’t do this hike. I can’t—”
“Not alone, maybe, but together we can make it.”
“Vale. Listen—”
“Hold on to me. Don’t rush yourself.” She tightened her arm around his waist and hooked her thumb in his belt loop. “See? Feels better already, doesn’t it?”
Ash shook his head.
“Let me help you, Ash. Just … try. Okay?”
Ash’s shoulders slumped. He wanted to be strong about this hike, but the short distance they’d gone had already proven he wasn’t up to it. He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “O-okay.”
“There, now … We’re going to take it a step at a time.” Vale took a step and Ash struggled to follow. “No rushing,” she said. “Just take your time.”
Ash nodded. Another fall would do more damage than he could handle. “Thanks, Vale. I—I owe you one.”
“No you don’t. Friends take care of their friends, right?”
Ash swallowed hard. “Right.”
And arm in arm, they walked again.
They headed southwest, walking past the area where Ash had climbed and fallen, and into a dip between two mountain peaks. They couldn’t go due south—or they’d end up climbing the same sheer cliff that had broken Ash’s ribs—but they went as close as they could, only veering west when they absolutely had to. Ash wondered if they’d see the chain of Waterton Lakes as they reached the summit. Right now, that dip between the two peaks felt like an impossible challenge. He put his chin down and forced himself to keep moving. Twice, he stumbled and Vale caught him. The second time, he leaned against a nearby tree, panting.