by Gaia Octavia
He did.
He didn’t approach me. Instead, he went to the young boy who was lying shivering on the ground. He held the mouth of the skin up to the boy’s lips and let him drink, slowly, and in small amounts, until the boy was unable to take any more. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least the boy wouldn’t die of thirst tonight.
I didn’t even look at the raider when he finished and wasn’t surprised when he went back to the fire and picked up his stone to resume his grinding. While I wanted water very badly, I wanted the boy to live more. And gods help me, I wanted to be back with Emit even more than that.
When the sun slowly crested over the hill early the next morning and light began to creep across the forest, I still hadn’t slept. I’d been up all night, working at my restraints. But they’d been tied so tight that I couldn’t get any slack, and eventually, my hands had fallen back asleep. My feet were tethered to a tree along with the boy’s, so there wasn’t any hope of freeing myself without my hands.
When Big left his tent to piss a few steps outside its entrance, he looked over his shoulder to make sure we were still where he’d left us. He grunted as he scratched his ass and when he finished, he walked up and kicked the legs out from under the smaller raider, who’d fallen asleep in the same position he had the night before.
“Get up, Patu,” he growled, “pack it up. I want to be gone before the sun is fully up.”
Patu picked himself up off the ground and brushed his ass off but didn’t complain as he began untying the canvas from the wooden stakes before pulling them out of the ground. I began to wonder if Patu was related to the big man or if he was just the kind of man who took orders. Maybe both, I decided. Whoever had named him, though, had a terrible sense of humor.
Big dug through one of the packs and pulled out some cloth-covered bread, ripping a hunk off for himself before replacing it. He then began stomping his way toward the stream, and before I could think better of it, I heard myself grate out, “Water.”
Big stopped. Turning back to me, he looked annoyed. I watched as he ordered Patu to untie my legs, which he did, and then Big was reaching for me. He grabbed me by my wrists–which were still tied behind my back–and hefted me up by them, causing my shoulders to scream in pain. I managed to let only a small groan slip out before I was on my feet fighting to keep up with him as he stalked toward the stream, pulling me backwards by my wrists behind him.
My brain was screaming in relief as I neared the shin-deep, rushing water, but I was aware that it could just be another cruel trick of his. Once we were there, Big shoved me down so that I was kneeling at the edge of the water.
“You want drink?” He growled, “Take your fill, little Juta.”
As he cursed, he placed the bottom of his boot on the small of my back and shoved me forward so that I fell facedown into the water. He left his foot on my back, holding me under, and with my hands tied, I had no way to push myself up.
Instead of panicking, I opened my mouth, allowing water to fill it before closing my lips and waiting for him to pull me up. I knew that I was far too valuable to him alive for him to let me drown, but I also had the thought that drowning would be a much better death than any death Callas would give me, if he’d even give me that.
I started counting, remembering how I used to hear Emit behind me, softly counting his steps to pass the hours as we put distance between us and the raider camp in those early days after our escape–his sweet voice always allowing me to judge how far behind he’d fallen without having to turn around. Since he tended to focus on the ground in front of him, he wouldn’t have known how I’d obsessively checked to be sure that he wasn’t far from me on those days he hadn’t been counting. He must have assumed I hadn’t cared. I’d lost so much time with Emit back then. So many hours, days, and weeks that we could have been sharing together. But I had been scared and confused, angry at myself for putting Emit’s safety in my own hands.
At last, Big pulled me from the water. And though I’d meant to hold the water in my mouth, I instinctively gulped it down, ignoring the searing pain of the large swallow. Knowing that I needed to refill my mouth, I began to cough and gasp for air in what I hoped amounted to terror. Big barked out a laugh and took the bait, tossing me back in without bothering to replace his foot on my back.
I rolled to my side and took another gulp of water, quickly swallowing it down before allowing the current to fill my mouth again, right before he dragged me from the water and back up to camp.
Patu seemed to be busy with gathering their belongings, but I saw him glance up at me. I wondered if he was checking on me or if he was just thankful that I was the one drawing Big’s ire for once, instead of him. It occurred to me then that Patu and I might have a lot more in common than I’d originally assumed; nothing made one better at following orders than years of torment and abuse. Just the thought of that being a possibility had me vowing to kill Big the first chance I got.
I realized that not only had I gotten a couple mouthfuls of water, being wet meant I would stay cooler for longer. I was glad I’d gotten Patu to give the boy some water last night, since he wouldn’t have fared as well if Big had done the same thing to him down at the stream. I still held the water in my mouth, hoping that Big wouldn’t try to get me to talk any time soon. The boy was still lying down but Patu untied his feet before loading himself up with their supplies. Big hardly carried anything and began telling Patu something uninteresting.
While they were distracted, I nudged the boy until he opened his eyes. Leaning over him, I let some of the water I held in my mouth dribble out so that it fell on his cheek. I adjusted my position as the boy opened his mouth and slowly let the water fall from my mouth to his, careful not to let it out too fast and choke him. I had no other way of getting any water to him but luckily, he didn’t seem to mind the delivery and didn’t complain when my mouth was empty once more.
The raiders forced us up and we began another seemingly endless day of walking. Thankfully, it rained as we walked and whenever Big’s back was turned to us, I opened my mouth to the sky, turning so the boy could see me and do the same. Patu saw us but he didn’t call out or bring it to the attention of Big. When we stopped late that afternoon, Big left to set traps while Patu set camp and took out what they had left of their food.
“The boy,” I said to him, “he needs to eat.”
Patu looked at me, narrowing his eyes and not surprisingly, remaining silent.
“He’s not going to make it if you don’t feed him. His body isn’t used to this.”
Patu seemed to ignore me but once he’d divided the food, he looked around and snatched a bit of meat and bread from his own rations before sitting next to the boy. I watched as he took his waterskin from his belt and wet the chunks of bread, pressing them into the boy’s mouth. I didn’t know if he was protecting his investment or if it was something more, but the fact that he seemed to have thought about bread being impossible to eat when your mouth was dry had me thinking that maybe Patu wasn’t what he seemed to be.
After he patiently fed the boy most of the food, we both heard Big making his way back to camp. Patu stuffed the rest of the food in his own mouth and began fiddling with the boy’s ankle restraints as if he were fixing them.
I was careful not to look at Patu when Big showed up, bellowing at him to get back to the fire.
“You worry about that one’s ties,” Big gruffed, nodding toward me, “if I hadn’t got up to piss, he would have taken my boy–and you would be dead by now.”
Patu said nothing, but I was surprised to learn it’d been Big who had knocked me out as I was cutting the boy free. I shouldn’t have been, but I had assumed it had been the smaller raider, who’d been sleeping only feet away. I didn’t have time to think on it, though, as I heard Big say that we were two days away from Callas’ camp. It took everything in me not to gasp, but my eyes went wide at the knowledge and I could see Patu watching me as I fought to tamp down the terror that was threatenin
g to engulf me.
Big finished his meal and made it to his tent at some point, but I hadn’t been able to focus on anything since I’d heard that Callas was now only two short days away from me. My stomach threatened to retch, but it was so empty it didn’t even bother. My mind was racing, trying to come up with ideas about how to keep myself out of Callas’ cruel hands. But I couldn’t think of any. I couldn’t escape my bindings and there was no way I would be able to make Big angry enough to slip up, not when he was promised a reward when he turned me over to Callas.
My mind was weighed down with utter hopelessness and a clawing, rabid terror. I couldn’t even pay attention to the boy beside me, though I half-thought that I hoped he was okay and would make it through this mess. I hoped more than anything that he wouldn’t be sold to the camp when we arrived. He was better off with a beast like Big than he was in that place. If I had to watch him suffer–to listen to his screams knowing that I had failed to save him–well, that would be even worse than being in Callas’ hands once again.
Sometime later, I woke up to a hand covering my mouth, the terror still chasing me from my dream. It took me awhile to focus on the face in front of me in the darkness, its eyes wide, gesturing toward the tent. I must have been screaming during my nightmare, since my heart was still racing, and my throat felt raw. I needed Emit. Emit’s arms always chased my demon away. Where was Emit? But the pieces fell into place, and I realized it was Patu who was kneeling before me, hand over my mouth, wide eyes desperately pleading with me to stay quiet as he gestured toward Big’s tent again.
I finally nodded.
Patu removed his hand and sat me up, staying where he was in front of me. His grey eyes were still somehow brilliantly bright in the night, like swirls of storm clouds lit by the moon. I watched him as his dark hair–almost touching his shoulders–hung forward, outlining his sharp cheekbones. He showed me his waterskin and opened it, tipping it into my mouth as I drank greedily. He stopped too soon, holding up two fingers and pinching them together. I understood what he meant; I couldn’t drink more than a small amount at a time, or I would vomit and lose it all.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
He made to move, but before he did, I whispered, “Patu, please.”
He stilled and warily turned his face to me, most likely expecting me to beg him to let me go. But I wasn’t stupid. I knew that letting me go would mean ensuring his own death at the hands of Big. I also knew, by the near panic in his eyes when he’d gestured at the tent, that I wouldn’t be able to convince him that I could get us out of here. After all, Big had already caught me once.
“Please,” I said again, holding his eyes with mine, “kill me.”
Patu squinted his eyes in confusion but I didn’t relent.
“Please. Before we get to the camp. Before he gives me back to Callas.”
I fought for air, which had suddenly become difficult to find as terror seized my throat, forcing me to draw in desperate gulps. I was trying to calm myself down, but I was failing miserably.
Where was Emit? I needed him so much. How could I have walked away?
I continued talking in stunted spurts. “I can’t go back. He won’t kill me. He’ll torture me. He’ll keep me. It won’t ever end.”
I desperately shook my head. “Please. Please kill me.”
Patu’s eyes were wide, but not in surprise, in understanding and pain.
“You can kill me and take the boy. You can run, Patu. You can do it.”
Patu shook his head vehemently and moved away from me, as if suddenly afraid that being near me might cause him to catch whatever delusion I was surely suffering from.
“Please,” I moaned, collapsing back into the dirt, “make it stop. Please. Please kill me. Kill me.”
Patu walked farther away, blocking his ears as I turned my face into the ground and wept, repeating those two words until my voice left me, and all I could do was mouth them.
Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
⸙
EMIT
We’d been walking for days and still hadn’t caught up with the raiders. My mind was constantly torturing me with images of what could be happening to Jade at that very moment and with questions that I couldn’t stop my brain from screaming over and over. Were we too late? Had we gone the wrong way? Would we find Jade in time?
I trusted Eaton because Ma trusted Eaton, but I didn’t know the man. What if his skills weren’t as honed as Ma thought? Gods, I had to stop torturing myself. Focusing on Eaton’s back, I willed my exhausted body forward. I was surprised at how much a couple of nights in Ma’s settlement had affected my stamina; it wasn’t even midday yet and I felt like I was dragging ass. Of course, the fact that I had hardly slept since the last night I’d held Jade in my arms didn’t help.
The raiders must have set a grueling pace though, because I’d been sure we would have made up for our half-day’s lag by now. It seemed like no matter how late we traveled or how early we began, we just couldn’t catch up. I had suggested we not stop to camp, but Eaton had immediately shot it down. I understood why; these woods were deadly enough during the day. If we traveled at night, we’d be gambling with our lives, and our hand wouldn’t be a good one.
He told me we were no good to Jade dead, which I repeated to myself like a prayer each night as I forced myself to lie still, knowing I wasn’t going to fall sleep. I tried to keep myself busy as we walked. I began counting my steps aloud like I used to back when Jade and I had first left the raider camp. Unlike Jade, Eaton found it quite annoying. When he growled at me for the fourth time in less than an hour, I gave up.
“Camp!” Eaton called out.
I hurried to catch up, though I knew Eaton wouldn’t have called to me unless we’d come across an empty camp. Eaton sifted through the ashes in the campfire.
“This is recent, from this morning, no doubt.”
Which was good. It meant that we were only a few hours behind them now, if this was indeed their camp. By the look of it, and by the way the trunk of the tree about ten feet from the fire was missing chunks of its bark around its base, it seemed like a safe bet. There was no cut rope this time, but a rope had left its mark behind, and the refuse from a meal was scattered about.
Not to mention the overwhelming reek of piss.
But even at the horrendous thought of Jade being tied up, a prisoner to raiders once more, my heart seemed to beat stronger and my legs felt less tired at the thought of him still being alive, only a few hours away from me now.
“We should catch up to them by tomorrow at the latest, today if we can move faster than them for longer.”
“Then let’s go,” I said, not waiting to see if Eaton followed.
I knew he would.
And soon, he took his position in front of me, leading me toward the only thing in the world that mattered to me.
“I’m coming, Jade,” I promised, closing my eyes and willing him to hear me. “I’m coming.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
⸙
JADE
One more night. I only had one more night left before I would be back in the hands of the devil. My mind had been racing since the night before, trying to find some way, any way to get us out of this mess. Neither raider seemed interested in losing their reward by putting me out of my misery. The smaller raider, Patu, had stayed away from me for the rest of the night, blocking his ears as I called for him to end my suffering.
I hadn’t slept at all after my nightmare. There was no way I was going to close my eyes and allow Callas to torture me any sooner than he would be doing so in real life. The only hope I clung to was that the boy would remain with these raiders and that they wouldn’t sell him to the camp. But unless Big was keeping the boy for himself, I knew that was exactly what they would do. It’s why they’d taken him in the first place and why they hadn’t bothered to feed him; he was there to turn a quick profit, nothing more.
We stopped for
Big to fill the waterskins in a large pond. The water wasn’t flowing, so I hadn’t asked for a drink, nor had I been able to stop myself from asking the gods to make sure the water held some nasty strand of sickness in it. The thought of Big suffering the fate I’d seen of others who had drunk from similar sources was a small comfort. As Big filled the second skin, Patu sat with the boy a little way from the water’s edge.
Big had ordered me to stand near him and had kept me within arm’s length ever since he’d emerged from his tent this morning to find Patu sleeping much farther away from us than usual. Not surprisingly, he’d been furious.
He’d screamed at Patu, advancing on him until I’d yelled that I’d been the one to drive him away. Big had rounded on me then, striking me across my already swollen face and ringing a moan of pain from me before I told him what I had said to drive Patu away. He’d laughed when I’d told him. I knew it was pointless to try to goad him into killing me, so I hadn’t lost anything in the admission. But I had drawn Big’s temper away from Patu, and while I didn’t necessarily have warm feelings toward Patu, I never saw him hurt the boy, and I hoped that my actions would earn more food and water secreted to him if the boy indeed stayed with them after I was gone.
Big started splashing water on his face and arms, trying to cool himself off. I knew it was a stupid move, but I wasn’t about to give him any pointers on how to survive around large bodies of water. I looked out over the pond, watching the reflection of the sky, and tried not to cry. I thought about all the times Emit had made me laugh with the crazy things he said he saw in the shapes of the clouds.
I could see in the sky’s reflection that it was full of them today. Then I noticed that the clouds were rippling in the water, even though there was no wind or rain to speak of. Yet the ripples kept coming toward us from the center of the pond. It didn’t take me more than a second to realize what those ripples were and what they meant. I only had a few moments to decide what I was going to do, but as my body began to react, I already knew what my decision was. I didn’t want to die but going back to the man–to Callas–was something that was going to kill me anyway, just much, much slower.