“No, we’re not leaving you.” I looked up at Christa, seeking her approval.
She nodded in agreement. “You’re coming with us. We’re going to get to the power lines, and we’re going to get help. And then you’re going to be just fine.”
Milo tried to laugh, but he ended up coughing instead. His wound pulsed out crimson blood as his stomach contracted.
“Hey,” I said. “Take it easy.”
“I’m not going to be okay,” said Milo in a small voice. “It’s a matter of hours for me. I’m only going to slow you down.”
I happened to agree with him.
But Christa knelt down next to him, shaking her head furiously.
And the look on her face let me know that there was no way she would ever agree to leaving him behind. So I wasn’t going to say that he was probably right.
“Who cares if we’re slow,” said Christa. “We’re not leaving you behind.”
“They’ll get all of you too,” said Milo. “And I don’t want them to hurt you, Christa. You’ve been nice to me. And you got Silas looking after you. You got a real chance of getting out of this alive. I don’t want to mess that up for you.”
She squeezed his hand. “You won’t. Don’t talk like that. You’re going to be okay, Milo. Once we get to a hospital—”
“You don’t have to lie to me,” said Milo. “I know what’s happening. I can feel it.”
Emmett was trudging away from the stream, into the woods. “You guys coming?” he threw over his shoulder.
Together, Christa and I helped Milo to his feet.
We started after Emmett.
* * *
Christa and I were on either side of Milo, helping him walk through the woods. We went slow.
Even slower than we’d been going earlier in the day.
I wish I could say that we were quiet, but we weren’t. Not really.
It was impossible to be quiet when struggling through the woods, dragging along a dying man.
Milo was bleeding like crazy. The blood had soaked into his clothes—wet from our dip in the stream. They were red tinged and dripping.
Emmett went slowly as well, waiting for us to catch up.
We took regular breaks, just like we had in the morning.
As the afternoon wore on, the sun grew hotter, and we took more breaks. Milo seemed to be getting weaker.
I left Christa with him and ducked off into the woods to take a leak. On my way back, I ran into Emmett.
“Hey,” I said. “What do you think? You think we’re losing precious time by bringing Milo along?”
“He’s dying,” said Emmett. “It won’t be long now.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” I said. “We’re bringing him along with us, and for what? He’s not going to recover.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Funny, Silas, you seemed pretty adamant that we bring him along before.”
I sighed. “Well, I only said that because of the girl. I don’t need to upset her any worse than she already is.”
He shook his head. “You and that girl don’t know each other very well, do you?”
“Sure we do.”
“You even really together?”
“Of course we are,” I said.
“Whatever.”
“We are.”
He rubbed his forehead. “In answer to your question, uh, I think if we just wait here for a bit, he’ll probably pass. That would be less traumatic for him than dying alone, I think. I don’t know. I’ve never died. If you were dying, would you want to be left out in the woods alone?”
“I can’t die that way,” I said. “I can’t die slow. I can only die one way, and that’s fast.”
“Well, if you could,” he said.
Was that disapproval in his voice? What the hell? This was a guy who’d shot his wife and her lover in cold blood, and he was glaring at me like that? What gave him the right?
“Look, I’m only saying that he’s holding us up.”
“It’ll take the hunters a while to get down over that cliff and across the stream,” he said. “They’ll have to find some other way down. We’ve probably got a little bit of time. I doubt it’ll hurt us to show Milo a little human decency.”
Oh, fuck him. Way to make me out like the bad guy.
Human decency, my ass.
I rolled my eyes and stalked back in the direction of Christa and Milo.
Milo was propped up against a tree. His body sagged. He looked exhausted.
Christa sat next to him, biting her lip. She looked up when I approached. “I wish we had a canteen or something. He might want some water.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Milo.
She sucked in a breath. “Do we need to get going?”
“Nah,” I said. “Emmett thinks we can rest for a little while longer.”
“Oh, that’s good,” she said. “I’m sure Milo could use it.” She tried to give him a smile, but it came out a little strange and twisted.
“Stop it, Christa,” Milo mumbled. “I’m fading here. I know it. You know it. I won’t last much longer.”
She swallowed. “Don’t say things like that.” But her tone was weaker than it had been before.
I surveyed her. Did she really think that Milo was going to make it? It was pretty obvious that he wasn’t. Was she trying to keep his spirits up? Her own? Was it easier for her to think he might recover?
I turned away. Maybe she was right. Maybe talking about it was cruel. Maybe lying to ourselves was better.
A snarling sound emanated from a bush to my left.
I whirled.
A whir of gray fur sprang out of the bush, landing directly in front of Christa.
It looked like a dog, but it crouched, menacing. It growled, baring its teeth.
I took a startled step back. What the fuck was that?
The dog-thing snapped at me, then turned towards Milo.
“No!” yelled Christa. She advanced on it, aiming a kick at its flank.
“Christa!” I cried. What was she doing, kicking a wild animal? That thing looked dangerous.
But the kick connected and the dog-thing whined.
It retreated immediately, darting back into the undergrowth.
We were quiet for a minute, watching as the branches of the trees trembled in its wake.
I went to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “What the hell?”
She shoved me off. “It was after Milo. It must have smelled the blood.”
“You don’t just kick snarling… dog-things.”
“Dog-things?” She gave me a look, like I was an enormous idiot. “It was a coyote, Silas.”
I folded my arms over my chest. Coyotes? Weren’t they dangerous? “That doesn’t sound like something you’re supposed to engage with, Christa.”
“They almost never attack humans,” she said. “They’re loners a lot of the times, not like wolves. Thing probably weighed thirty-five pounds soaking wet. They’re fluffy, so they look bigger, but they’re not much of a threat.”
I raised my eyebrows. How did she know this stuff?
“I did a report on them once,” she said.
Emmett appeared in our little clearing, looking concerned. “What the hell happened?”
“Christa kicked a coyote,” I said.
“I was protecting Milo,” she said.
Emmett raised his eyebrows. “Is everyone okay?”
She nodded. “I scared it off.”
“How do we know its whole pack isn’t going to, like, stalk us now?” I said. I was shaky and still a little freaked, but I was processing that as anger.
“I told you, they’re loners,” she said.
Emmett rubbed his forehead. “Maybe we should try to be careful around wild animals, huh?”
“Thank you,” I said, glad he was backing me up.
Christa glared at both of us, then sat back down next to Milo.
* * *
We’d been sitting in the same spot for about an
hour or so. I really couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Even though I was freaked out, I had to admit that I was glad of the time to rest. The four of us crouched amongst the trees.
I watched Milo.
He’d been getting quieter and quieter. Mostly, he stared out blankly at us, his breath coming in shallow gasps.
I hated this. I hated sitting here waiting for him to die like this. I didn’t want to watch it.
Sure, I’d seen people die before. I’d killed people before. But not like this. Not so… slowly.
Milo shut his eyes.
Christa was holding his hand. She looked up at me, her face contorted, like she was going to start crying.
Fuck this.
I got up. I was going to walk. I couldn’t watch this any longer.
“Dark,” said Milo.
I turned back to look at him.
His eyes were wide open and terrified. “It’s only dark.”
“Shh,” said Christa. She stroked his forehead soothingly. “Don’t tire yourself out. Save your strength.”
Milo let out a loud, harsh laugh. “I don’t have any strength. What are you talking about? I’m dying here.”
“You aren’t,” she said.
“I am.” Milo’s voice was strained. “Bleeding out against this tree in the middle of nowhere. And afterward, you guys are going to walk off and leave me and the coyote will come back and eat what’s left of me.”
Tears sprang to Christa’s eyes. “Stop it.”
“Oh, am I upsetting you?” he said sarcastically. “I’m sorry if it’s too much for you. I’m sorry if I’m not taking my own death properly. I’m sorry I’m not making you feel better about the fact that I’m not going to exist in a few minutes.”
Christa snatched her hand away from his. She was trembling.
“Wait,” said Milo, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry.” He reached for her. “Don’t let go of me.”
Christa put a hand to her mouth. Tears were streaming down her face. “Oh god.”
I pushed her out of the way. I sat down next to Milo, and I grabbed his hand. “Hey, I’m here. We’re all here.”
Milo fixed his gaze on me. “I don’t want to die.”
I wanted to look away. I didn’t have anything to say back to that.
He started crying. “It’s all dark. I closed my eyes a minute ago, and I thought maybe, you know, there would be a light. My old, dead grandma standing there with her arms open, waiting for me. But there’s nothing there.”
I gripped his hand tight. “You don’t know that,” I whispered. “Maybe there is a light.”
“No,” he whispered. “It’s just darkness. It’s cold, and it’s lonely. And it’s… nothing. And I don’t want that. I don’t want to die.”
Fuck. What was I supposed to say to him?
“So don’t,” said Christa, peering around me at him. “Don’t die. Just fight.”
Milo shook his head. He laughed again. “I don’t have enough fight left. I don’t have enough blood left.” He turned to her. His eyes pleaded with her. “Don’t let me. Don’t let me go.”
“Oh god,” she said.
“Please,” said Milo. He looked back at me. “Please, don’t let me—”
His eyes bulged.
His head slumped forward on his chest.
I let go of his hand to shake him. “Milo?”
No response.
I shook harder. “Milo, come on.” I looked back at Emmett. “You ever see anyone do anything like that before? In mid-sentence?”
But Emmett didn’t look at me.
My chest felt tight.
Christa stood up. She wrapped her arms around herself.
I turned back to Milo, who looked like a bag of meat and bones.
I shuddered.
* * *
Christa was crying.
My eyes might have gotten a little misty too, but I’d hidden it, wiping it away, swallowing anything I might have felt. There was something about the way he’d pleaded us that had gotten to me a little bit. I didn’t care what it was exactly that Milo had done. He hadn’t deserved to die the way he had. The guy had suffered. He’d been in agony.
We were standing over his body, the three of us. It was late afternoon. Flies and insects were already alighting on his remains, and they wouldn’t go away, not even when Christa tried to shoo them.
“We have to bury him or something.” Christa looked at me, then at Emmett.
I looked at my shoes. “We can’t. We need to get moving.”
Christa’s voice was shrill. “He said that we would leave him to get eaten by the coyote, and we can’t do that.”
I drew in breath, still not looking at her. “Christa, we can’t.”
“Why not?” she said.
“We don’t have time, for one thing,” I said. “The hunters are going to find us again. We’ve been sitting still for way too long.”
“We can’t just leave him,” she said.
“How are we going to bury him?” I said. “You see a shovel or something lying around?”
“Fuck you,” she said. “You don’t care about anything, do you?”
“He wanted to leave Milo behind,” said Emmett.
I snapped my head up to look at him. Why was he bringing that up? I’d specifically told him that I didn’t want Christa to know that.
Her jaw dropped. “You what?”
I sighed. “It was only that I knew he was going to die, and you kept acting like he could pull through or something. But it was obvious that he wasn’t going to make it.”
“I knew that,” she said. “But I wasn’t going to tell him that. I wasn’t going to give up on him. You know, when my mother got shot, Leigh was there, and she said we had to be positive. And we were. And my mom’s just fine now. So, I thought—”
“He was dying,” I snapped. “He wasn’t going to be fine.” I looked down at him. “He’s not fine. He’s the opposite of fine.” My voice cracked.
“What’s wrong with you?” she said. “Does anything get to you at all?”
I clenched my jaw. Couldn’t she see how badly all of this was getting to me? Couldn’t she tell that I was wrecked about all of this? I shook my head. “Whatever.”
She turned to Emmett. “Let’s bury him.”
Emmett rubbed his forehead. “I guess we could cover him with leaves or something.”
“But the coyote,” she said. “I mean wouldn’t animals just dig under the leaves?”
“Well, Silas is right,” said Emmett. “We don’t have a shovel or anything to bury him with.”
She hugged herself. “Okay,” she said in a tiny voice. “Okay. Let’s get some leaves.”
I wanted to walk away from both of them. They wanted to waste time covering up his body when it was a stupid, futile gesture? Fine. I’d do the smart thing and get moving.
But I couldn’t leave Christa. I needed to protect her. It had been hard enough to find her in the first place. I couldn’t let her go again.
“All right,” I said. “We’ll get leaves.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Look!” said Christa. She caught up to me and pointed. “The power lines.”
We’d been walking for hours, ever since we left Milo behind under a pile of leaves. None of us had been in very good mood after that.
She was right. There they were, right ahead.
The power lines reached up higher than the trees.
The lines were attached to huge wooden crossbeams. There was one every so often, big thick electric wires draped over them, traveling up a tall hill.
The area around the lines had been cleared of trees and bramble, but it had been done a long time ago. It looked as if this area used to be regularly mowed, but no one had been there to do it in a while, and the grass was now waist high.
I looked up at the power lines. “Wow. They’re big.”
“They’ve got to lead somewhere,” said Emmett.
“They do,” said Christa.
I grinned at them. Something was going right. In all of the madness that we were living through, we’d actually found something that might help us.
We stayed inside the edge of the tree line and walked near the power lines, not out in the clearing, where we’d be too conspicuous.
Our spirits had lifted quite a bit, and as we walked, we discussed what we might find at the other end of the power lines.
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if we crested over that hill and there was a whole town?” said Christa.
“But there can’t be,” I said. “I mean, right? They wouldn’t be hunting us so close to civilization?”
“More likely a house or something,” said Emmett. “Maybe more than one. This is a pretty heavy-duty power line.”
We picked up the pace. Finding the power lines had given us a surge of energy. The sun began to grow heavy in the sky. The shadows grew longer. We pressed on, climbing to the top of the hill.
Even though I knew it didn’t make sense, half of me hoped that Christa was right, and that we’d climb to the top of the hill and see a town spread out in front of us. Tons of houses. Tons of people. Safety. Civilization. The end of this nightmare. But I knew it was more likely that what we’d see was nothing. The power lines would probably stretch through a valley and up another hill, further into the distance. There was probably nothing to see at the top of the hill.
Even still, as we reached the top, I felt a little bit excited. Hopeful.
I pushed myself to go faster, to try to get up to the top to look down over the hill.
Eventually, we made it, and the valley below us came into view.
Like I’d thought, there was no town.
But unlike I’d thought, the power lines didn’t stretch out over the hills.
Instead, they… stopped.
Actually, they’d fallen down. There was tangle of two of the crossbeams on the ground, the electric wires caught up in the splintered and broken wood.
On the other side of them, the forest closed back in. There was no clearing that used to be mowed. No waist-high grass.
Nothing.
I shook my head at the ruin of the power lines. What did it mean?
“Fuck,” said Emmett.
I looked at him.
“Fuck.” He took off running for the downed crossbeams.
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