Sparrows & Sacrifice

by Nellie K Neves

  We worked well together, anticipating the other’s needs, a rock for a hammer, water for the tea kettle, before they were voiced. By 5 p.m., the fire was strong and water was heating to rehydrate my chicken teriyaki with rice and his house lasagna with meat sauce. We’d rolled a log closer to the fire, but even then Ryder opted for a stump on the other side of the flames. Cadet blues and somber grays filled the air between the trees, and I wondered if Eden’s Haven would pull us from our tent in our sleep or if they would wait until morning light. Would we pass their test or would we look as obvious as the two who’d been sent in before us?

  “Do we really have this little to say to each other?” Ryder’s voice broke into my thoughts, the first actual conversation we’d shared in hours.

  The words stunned me and rubbed me raw. It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to say to him; rather, I wasn’t sure how to say everything I wanted to.

  “You were great today.” I cleared my throat though I wasn’t sure why. “I was impressed.”

  Ryder poked at the fire with a long stick. His shoulders shifted as he exhaled without a sound. “You mean I’m not completely worthless after all?”

  “I never said you were worthless.”

  He’d obviously been stewing on it all day. “You might as well have. You threw me to the wolves in Saunders’ office.”

  My fingers laced up into my hair as I nervously twisted the length around my fingers. “I was trying to make a point.”

  “What? That because I don’t relish the sight of blood and death, I can’t be of any use to you?”

  His words brought too many images to my mind that I’d tried to shake. I pulled my fingers free and then laced them once more, eager to forget the memories.

  “I was trying to keep you safe.” The words felt about as useful as a teacup of water in a forest fire.

  As usual he ignored my distress. “Have you ever thought that maybe that’s what I’m doing? I told you, I can’t wait around this time and see if you’re coming back alive.”

  The long scar that curved around the back of my wrist stalled in my vision. As real as the first time, the jagged blade hovered over my hand. My chest clenched as it neared my flesh once more. I’d begged and pleaded for him to stop, for him to remember the time we had spent together.

  Please Dallas, don’t. Remember you love me.

  “Lindy, are you even listening to me?”

  The knife vanished. I looked up into the narrowed eyes of Ryder Billings and took hold of reality again. The rapid beat of my heart pounded against my chest. Despite my efforts to find calm, my breathing remained erratic. As he watched me, his frustration melted away into concern.

  But I didn’t want it. Not if it meant he could see my cracks and ragged edges.

  I stood and walked to the shadows of our clearing, arms folded, hands trembling even as I crushed them against my torso. The soft parts of me longed for Ryder to follow me, forget her and follow me to the edge of the darkness where no one would see. He could make me forget. He’d done it before. He could do it again. We could fly. We were invincible when we were together.

  I caught sight of my wrist and the violence that had been etched there. I wasn’t who I’d once been. Ryder would never want someone as disfigured as me. The patchwork doll of the circus freaks. Ironic that once I’d finally found someone I could see myself falling for, I’d become too shattered to ever fly again.

  The kettle whistled and I heard the crinkle of plastic as Ryder poured the necessary water over our meals. He wouldn’t stand. He wouldn’t seek me out. We were partners, not even friends anymore. The last of the sun faded and even the grays and blues slipped into black.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Ryder allowed me time to change in the tent alone while he strung up our bags to keep predators at bay. I quickly did my injection, clipped the needle and tucked it into a small case where I also kept my knife. My sleeping bag felt thin and pointless against the dropping temperatures of the forest, but I convinced myself it would improve. Even after Ryder had slipped into his own bag only nine inches away from me, the silence remained. It wasn’t that we had nothing to say to each other; it was that we were too exhausted to start.

  I pressed my mouth and nose beneath the nylon shield of my bag and felt the condensation of my breath against my face. I silently prayed that I might be spared the normal parade of nightmares.

  Sleep clouded my thoughts, but I heard Ryder’s faint whisper, “I love your hair. It’s a beautiful color.”

  I’d caught sight of it before I’d left home that morning. The mix of colors had turned it darker than I’d intended, a deep brunette instead of my normal mousy brown.

  “Thank you,” I whispered into the darkness. “I thought it was too dark.”

  There was safety in the pitch black of the tent. For whatever reason, it was like home base during a game of childhood freeze tag, and Ryder’s voice betrayed that ease.

  “I think it’s beautiful. It makes me want to paint you.”

  Feelings I’d forgotten climbed into my throat and stung at my eyes. Breathing became a task, like something I had to learn all over again. I could take his anger and his frustration. I could handle betrayal and pain, but kindness pulled at my seams and threatened to destroy me all over again.

  “Goodnight Ryder.”

  Warmth hovered over my shoulder, as if he’d reached out to touch me, but it faded with the rustle of his sleeping bag.

  “Goodnight, Huckleberry.”

  Chapter 11

  I might have had nightmares if I’d slept much at all. Being half frozen through most of the night didn’t make for a decent night of slumber. Ryder, however, slept like a bear in hibernation. As soon as the first glint of sunlight illuminated the tent, I was up. The morning air took my breath away, but a promise of a fire was enough to motivate me to move with added haste.

  I had a small fireplace in my house and many nights I started a cozy flame to save on heating costs. I built the teepee with small twigs, blew the flicker to life, and gently coaxed it into a full flame. The rough tree bark grated on my fingers as I set a larger piece of wood on the fire. The zipper chirped before Ryder stepped out, eyes still red but looking far more rested than I felt.

  “Look at that, you know how to build fires.”

  I smiled with playful arrogance, “I guess I’m not worthless either.”

  For the first time, he actually laughed. “Glad we’ve established that.” He sank onto the stump opposite of me. “Did you sleep?”

  If he sensed that I hadn’t, then I probably looked too awful to lie about it. “Not much.”

  He nodded. “I woke up once and heard you whimpering. I wasn’t sure how to help you.”

  My shrug was instinctual. “I was probably cold.”

  “You didn’t sound col—”

  “I was cold,” I snapped, knowing I had likely dreamed and forgotten it.

  Regret. Immediate regret. The same tension from the day before seeped in between us. I kept my eyes on the fire, wishing it would grow and devour the tension, but nothing worked. If it wanted to, the tension could squelch the flames with its icy touch.

  “I was thinking we could head back to Marble Creek Campground today. I don’t think we can go too much farther than that before dark comes, but at least there are good views and it’s close to civilization. We can work our way south along the river tomorrow.”

  I appreciated his efforts to maintain normalcy. It had to be hard to work with someone as shattered as I was. My hands wrapped around my psyche, jagged glass cutting at the gaping wounds as I tried to hold myself together. Any time anyone came close, they met the same fate, cut wide open by my distrust and pain.

  At least I knew what it felt like to bleed.

  I could handle it.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Breaking camp didn’t take long after a quick breakfast of watered-down oatmeal. Ryder retrieved the phones and again returned with heavy breathing and sweat across his forehea
d. I couldn’t help but notice once more how much larger he was then I remembered. Granted, I was dying at the time, so I was a bit preoccupied.

  Ryder’s trail markers worked with ease. I considered complimenting him, but worried he might snap at me again. We found the creek and made it to Marble Creek Campground by late afternoon. Days ended early without electricity to lengthen them. Neither one of us wanted to be stuck in an unfamiliar place with the sun sinking. We paid for a site and made camp for the night. Again, I felt the same heightened awareness as we moved around staking poles, gathering wood and so forth. I felt him near me even when he was still five feet away.

  We were both sweaty from the day’s work, but Ryder’s shirt clung to every ridge and valley of his torso. I was about to tease him about it when he abruptly pulled his shirt from his body. I dropped my eyes to the ground and felt my cheeks go red hot. Try as I may, I couldn’t pull the image from my mind. Muscles like the finest pieces of art my mother had tried desperately to make me appreciate as a teenager, agility like the basketball players I’d watched over the years, all accompanied by a cloud of nerves thick enough to obscure every thought in my head.

  “Man I’d love a shower right now, even a dip in a lake, doesn’t that sound nice? Baker is pretty. You ever gone swimming there?”

  The flushed glow of my face could be used to call in oncoming planes. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Shame. It’s refreshing.” I didn’t have to look to know he was grinning at my reaction. “I’m gonna change. I’ll be right back.”

  I lifted my head again once he’d disappeared into the tent. His words stayed close though—swimming, lakes, all my fears wrapped with a tidy bow. To others, it was a source of recreation, for me it was a living, breathing entity bent on destroying everything I held dear. Between my false memories of Jackie drowning, or my own near drowning in the falls over the summer, not to mention the conflicting memories of the day I’d spent with Dallas, I couldn’t help but feel as though it was dangerous.

  The whiz of the tent zipper caught my attention. Ryder stepped out dressed in his familiar Henley top and a pair of sweatpants. His grin spread easily as he caught me watching him. Ryder chuckled softly to himself. His laugh had a way of dispelling every tension and aggravation between us and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s so funny?”

  He nodded toward the road near the camp. “If we had a car we could have real food in ten minutes or less. I was debating whether or not a pizza joint would deliver.”

  “We’re not real good at this survival thing if we’re already craving pizza.”

  He held up his phone. “Come on, where’s that rebel I remember so well? Doesn’t it sound good?”

  My mouth twisted as I tried to suppress my smile. “Maybe,” I finally admitted.

  We called four different pizza joints before we found one that would deliver to the campsite, even then there was an extra fee, plus the warning that the pizza might be cold.

  “Worth it,” Ryder said as he hung up the phone.

  “Not sure if this is what the chief meant our spending money was to be used for.”

  Ryder’s mind was elsewhere as he stared into the tall trees around us. “So we’ll camp in the back woods an extra day to make up for it. We’re putting our lives on the line here, Lindy, the least he can do is buy us pizza.”

  The reality of the time we had in front of us hung heavy in the air. Ryder was the first to breech conversation.

  “You’ve never been to Baker Lake?”

  I knew I saw water differently than he did. “I don’t like swimming. I haven’t gone in a long time.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair as if to assess the length. “Because of your sister, right?”

  We’d never talked about Jackie, not extensively. I was sure my look of distrust knocked him off balance because he quickly added, “Shane told me about it. Germany, brain surgery, the whole thing.”

  Tiny bugs scurried over my skin, but as I looked there was nothing, just a psychosomatic response to the rising panic within my chest. He’d written it off as if it were a summer I spent on vacation, not a life-altering experience. I ran my palm over my arm, trying to alleviate the unsettled buzz, but no amount of shifting or twisting could stop the feeling of naked exposure of my past.

  An apology laced in with his tone as he spoke again, “Hey, I’m sorry if wasn’t supposed to know. I wasn’t trying to downplay it. I get that it was hard.”

  “You get that it was hard?” Tears blurred my vision, tears that had nothing to do with brain surgery or Germany. “How could you understand? How could you know what—”

  The muscles around his jaw flexed and tightened once before he reminded me, “Because I grew up with Charles Harrison as my father. That’s how I recognize hard.”

  Round and round, taking turns lashing out and hurting each other. When would the pain stop?

  The crackling filled the silence, and my anxiety melted. After a couple minutes, he asked, “The memories aren’t real, but you still don’t swim?”

  I chuckled, but not because I was happy. “I was thrown off a cliff into the rapids below a waterfall last summer, does that count?”

  The edges of his mouth turned upward. “Not exactly what I was thinking of.”

  I pulled my hair to one side, twisted the length around one finger and let it slip through. I hadn’t talked with anyone about my relationship with Dallas. It was all tangled up with the psychopath who’d tried to kill me. Still, the words rose in my throat, pushing to escape like bile I couldn’t keep at bay any longer.

  “I went swimming with Dallas at the Rockin’ B. We mostly played in the shallow end, but there was a time when I was actually treading water. It wasn’t so bad.”

  When I looked up, he was facing me, lips parted slightly, leaning forward, arms resting on his knees. I looked for pity and found only regret and sadness.

  “See? Maybe we could get over your fear after all.”

  I tossed another log on the fire and let the sparks dispel any connection we might have built. “Yeah, because everything with Dallas ended so well.” Before he could say anything else, I pushed to my feet and started for the tent. “I’m going to change.”

  The tent was the only sanctuary I had. The thin nylon walls allowed me one brief second to let down my guard and shed the silent tears I couldn’t face in the real world. I slipped on sweatpants, heard an approaching engine, and pulled a sweater over my head. As I stepped out again, I saw Ryder pay the delivery guy, and laugh heartily at something he said before he walked back to the fire.

  Wiping my eyes and zipping the tent shut again, I started for my space on the log, but Ryder had already taken it. Unsure of where I should go, I took his spot on the stump. Though I’d only been backpacking for a little over a day, the smell of the pizza was almost unbearable.

  When Ryder cracked the lid and began to devour his first slice, I shot him an incredulous look. “Are you going to share?”

  He shrugged. “I paid for it. I think it’s my pizza now.”

  “I made the fire, does that mean it’s mine?” I was never rational when it came to junk food.

  His eyebrows rose slightly as if he were proposing some sort of back alley deal. “Tell you what, you share your fire, and you can come over here and share my pizza. Deal?”

  “Maybe.”

  I actually considered a dehydrated packet for a moment, but I was weak and the pizza smelled intoxicating. I kept a full eight inches between us at all times, looking more like a scared deer than myself as I snatched a slice from the box. I swore he cut the distance between us by half at some point. I wrestled everything within myself, conflicting feelings that told me to reach out and pull him close but shove him farther away all at the same time.

  “It’s pretty good, right?” The soft tone of his voice made me wonder if he was talking about pizza. I’d never fully thawed from the night before and the heat of his arm drew me nearer.
It released emotions I wasn’t prepared for, memories I couldn’t face. All at once they bombarded me—a mess of dirt in my mouth, a breeze in my hair, his lips on my cheek, all fading into the feeling of Dallas pressing me back against his cabin door with passion I hadn’t expected.

  “Lindy.” Ryder’s gentle whisper pulled on my mind. My eyes squeezed shut as though the sound itself might hurt me. “Huckleberry, it’s me. Talk to me. What’s happening?”

  “Nothing,” I lied.

  The remnants of my pizza smashed in the tight ball of my fist. Just as real, I felt Dallas’ blade tracing my neck. The fears that he might finally snap and slit my throat, burbled up to the surface once more.

  The bark beneath Ryder crackled as he shifted. My mind clung to the sound of the crickets and frogs chirping their song, anything to not go back to that cabin.

  “Stay with me, Lindy. Hang onto my voice.”

  “I’m fine,” I lied again. Pizza sauce dripped over my wrist, and I felt the blood draining from my wounds.

  “You’re not fine. You’re crying.” His warmth pressed closer, but with my eyes shut I couldn’t discern if it was Dallas or Ryder. “Hey, it’s me. You can trust me.”

  Trust?

  “I can’t trust anyone,” the consonants whistled through my breathy confession, “not anymore.”

  “Look at me,” I could hear his voice, but it still refused to gel. Fear tore at my sanity. He tried again, “Huckleberry, open your eyes and look at me.”

  His hand hovered near my chin. The energy glinted off my skin, but he dared not touch me. I knew it was Ryder, and yet I couldn’t help the irrational fear that if I opened my eyes, I’d see the angular features of Dallas. The rough grip of his hand on my face as he carved at me with that knife flashed through my mind. His breath brushed over my cheek as he watched my blood pool and drip before he set the blade and reopened it once more. I couldn’t help the tears that slid free as I tried to shake his memory.