A door banged. Fresh air brushed across Clare’s face. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t suffocating her either. Beth had the bus door open and was trying to pull her outside.
She nearly lost her footing as she took the step down onto the earth below. Her limbs felt boneless, and the world tilted sickeningly. She didn’t realise she was still holding onto Dorran’s arm until he lurched to a halt beside her.
“It’s over.” Beth’s face was painted in strange shadows. Hair stuck to her forehead and neck as she unzipped the jacket and pulled the scarf free. A thin, crooked smile appeared as she gazed around the field. “We’re all right.”
Clare, dazed, stared at their environment. Flames still surrounded the bus, but they were no longer all-consuming. Patches of fire clung to the last sources of fuel in the field: branches, thicker clumps of grass, and roots half embedded in the ground. The fire’s front had passed them in a matter of minutes as the small amount of fuel was decimated. The earth was scorched black, the dry grass reduced to ash, and choking smoke rose from the still-hot soil. She looked to her left. The forest continued to burn. The flammable leaves and smaller branches were gone; now, only trunks remained as fuel, and they smouldered.
She turned in the other direction. The farmhouse she’d spotted earlier was now a pillar of whites and yellows as it succumbed to the fire.
We made it. We’re safe. The idea seemed hard to believe as the smoke blocked out the sky and heat radiated from every direction. But they were free. The fire would continue travelling, but it wouldn’t pass over the ground it had already charred.
Dorran pressed one arm across his face as he coughed in violent spasms. He let go of her arm and collapsed to his knees.
Clare reached towards him. She wanted to help but didn’t know how. Her mind was empty and dull, as though the fire had consumed everything inside too. She didn’t know what else to do, so she lowered herself to her knees beside him as his coughs subsided. Flecks of blood stained the sleeve. Beth stood over them, and Clare blinked up at her, feeling frightened and lost. “Beth?”
The word didn’t come out properly; her tongue was dry and refused to move. Beth swore under her breath. She jogged to the bus’s door and leapt inside. A moment later, she returned with two bottles of water. She unscrewed the caps with feverish haste and forced one into Clare’s hands. “You’re dehydrated. Drink.”
Clare stared at the bottle blankly. Her throat ached. Her nose and eyes burned. But she didn’t think she needed the water that badly. Dorran’s head was down, his breathing coming in thin gasps. She found his hand and pressed the bottle into it.
Beth muttered something furious. She unscrewed the second water and held it out to Clare. She didn’t take it. She was too busy watching Dorran.
“Fine, we’ll do it the hard way.” Beth tugged the cloth away from Clare’s face, put one hand under her chin, and tilted her head back as she poured water into her mouth. Clare wasn’t ready; she choked and reeled back, gasping and coughing as liquid flooded her nose.
“Ow,” she said as she righted herself, water dripping off her chin.
“Are you going to be sensible now and drink?” Beth asked. “Or do you want to be waterboarded again?”
“You get cranky when you’re scared,” Clare mumbled. She took the bottle. Beth’s force-feeding hadn’t been gentle, but just the taste of water had awakened a deep craving. She tried a sip, testing her ability to swallow, then tilted her head back as she drank deeply.
Dorran mimicked the motion beside her, draining his bottle in seconds. Beth watched them both, and she wasn’t able to fully conceal the fear underneath her icy glare. When she saw they were going to finish the bottles, she disappeared back into the bus to retrieve more.
Sitting in the ash-crusted field, watching streams of smoke drift away on the wind, Clare felt her mind creeping back to her a fraction at a time. She tilted her head to see the man beside her. “How are you doing?”
“Tired. But alive.”
Beth reappeared, opening three more bottles, and passed them out.
Clare had to stop herself from draining the second bottle. Her throat was still dry, and her body begged for more water, but she knew if she drank too much too quickly, she would be sick.
Beth crouched near her. She’d kept one of the bottles for herself but only sipped it as she gazed towards the smouldering forest.
“Aren’t you thirsty?” Clare asked.
Beth’s glance was sharp, but her shrug felt casual. “Not really. But I figure, if you need water, I must too.”
“Mm.” Clare rolled her tongue around her mouth. It was tacky, despite what she’d already drunk, and held the bitter taste of smoke and blood. She tipped more water into her mouth, swirled it around, and spat it behind herself.
“The tyres are still intact.” Beth seemed to be trying to make conversation. “That’s a mercy. And the fuel didn’t leak, either, which is always a good thing.”
The mental image of the fuel containers stored in their bus’s luggage compartment exploding into balls of flame made Clare’s skin crawl. She pulled a face. “If you’re trying to be comforting, you’re not doing a great job.”
Beth’s lopsided smile widened. “I thought you liked good news. If you want some more, we won’t have to worry about being interrupted for a while. That fire’s going to torch everything in its path, hollow and human alike. We’re probably the only things alive for hours in any direction.”
Clare shuddered. Beth had failed to keep the glee out of her voice. A clear path didn’t feel like it should be something to celebrate if it came at the cost of lives. Her stomach turned queasy, and she closed her eyes as she waited for the world to stabilise. The throbbing headache wasn’t abating as quickly as she’d hoped.
“We’ll be fine,” Beth continued. “I’ll give the bus a bit longer to cool. Wish I could open the windows. Regardless, fifteen or so minutes should be enough, then we can get back onto the road. We lost ground outrunning the fire, but it’s nothing we can’t make up. We should be at Evandale before midnight.”
Clare pictured it: back on the bus, her world swaying with constant motion. The headache swelled. She turned aside and was sick.
“Hey, baby.” Beth’s smile vanished as she reached towards Clare. “Come on, you need that water. You need to drink.”
Clare tried to answer. Her stomach turned over again. She retched, but she’d already brought up everything she could. Shivers travelled through her in waves.
“Clare?” Beth sounded truly worried. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
She slumped back, praying the ground would stop tilting. A hand, large, gentle, and familiar, rested on her back.
“Concussion.” Dorran’s voice was strained as he spoke through a raw throat. “Hit your head. I saw. You need to lie down. Beth—pain tablets in the bus.”
“Okay. Right.” Beth was up before Clare could draw breath. She returned within seconds, rattling bottles as she sorted through the bag of medication.
“Drink,” Dorran whispered. “Just a little. It will help.”
A bottle was held up to her mouth. Clare didn’t trust herself to hold anything down, but she didn’t have the energy to fight either. She swallowed a mouthful, then someone pressed two tablets onto her tongue, followed by more water. She tried to open her eyes, to focus on the world, but the endless field of greys and blacks and flickering reds washed together. Dorran’s arm wrapped around her as the shades faded into grey.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The headache continued to throb, but it no longer overwhelmed her other senses. Her tongue tasted like death. Her nose and throat stung. The smoke was so overwhelming that it turned her stomach, but at least she thought she was in control again.
Clare opened her eyes a fraction at a time. Nearby light hurt her retinas. She squinted while her head came to terms with it.
She was outside. Clare’s first thought was that the smoke had covered the whole world, but as her eye
s focussed, she realised she could see pale stars through the patches of smog. She squinted, not sure she could trust her vision. “What time is it?”
There was movement at her side, and Beth’s face appeared above her, smiling. “Hey, there you are. Can you sit up? You need to drink more water.”
The words were kind, and the smile tried to match them, but there was something distinctly unsettling about it. Clare struggled to identify what had gone wrong. It showed too many teeth, or it was too wide. Or it didn’t move her cheeks right. Maybe a little of all three. The eyes were unblinking as they gazed down at her, expectant, and Clare was suddenly struck by the feeling that she was locking eyes with a predatory animal.
Beth tilted her head then made a strange chuckling noise in the back of her throat. Her hand moved under Clare’s shoulders, and before she could object, Clare was pulled up.
“Oh—no.” She clenched her teeth, eyes closed, as the headache boomed through her skull and nausea returned with a vengeance.
“Gentle,” Dorran said. He sounded frustrated. “She’s hurt. You can’t throw her around like a doll.”
“She needs—to—drink.” Beth’s voice took on a strange sing-song lilt, bouncing through different tones, unnaturally happy. A hand patted Clare’s back, too hard.
“Gentle, gentle,” Dorran repeated.
Beth’s voice abruptly twisted into a snarl. “Back off.”
For a moment, everything was quiet. Clare cautiously opened her eyes. Beth crouched at her side, the manic smile fixed in place, her eyes perfect circles as she stared at Dorran. He was on his knees at her other side, one hand frozen in midair as he’d moved to touch Clare’s shoulder. His expression seemed mild, almost pleasant, but Clare recognised the look. It was the mask he wore when he was stressed.
Her eyes adjusted as she squinted at their camp. They were still close to the bus and had made a kind of nest in the ashes. Someone had scraped a stretch of ground clear from the worst of the charcoal and lit a fire in the centre. They had to be using the wood they’d kept in the bus. There would be virtually no flammable material for miles.
Blankets had been draped over Clare and folded under her head. Ash transferred readily, and it was in the process of turning every surface grey, including her companions.
Dorran slowly lowered his hand. His voice was level and calm, but he didn’t take his eyes off Beth. “I am here to help her, just like you.”
“Hah.” Beth’s gaze flicked back to Clare. The smile trembled. “I—I—”
Clare tried to find her voice. “Beth.”
“I’m fine. I just—” Beth blinked aggressively then shook her head, as though there were some kind of irritant sticking to it. “I know I’m overreacting. It’s the fire. I hated it. We all hated it, right? But it wasn’t just fire to me. I wasn’t afraid of dying. I was afraid of—of—”
“Hey.” Speaking made Clare’s throat ache worse. She rested one hand on Beth’s shoulder and felt as Beth’s body rocked with every breath.
“It was the heat and the light. I could feel it behind us. I could tell it was coming closer, even when I couldn’t see it. Every atom of my body was screaming, telling me to run, to run fast and run far. But I didn’t leave you.” She laughed, but the sound broke with fear and stress. “I stayed, didn’t I? And we’re fine. You’re fine. I’m fine. And you just need to drink some water—”
She abruptly stood and paced away from Clare, panting. She hadn’t yet put her jacket back on, and the spines created bumps across the singlet’s back. Red halos circled the three highest bones where they cut through her skin. She paused, facing the darkness, swaying lightly, hands buried in her hair. When she turned back to Clare, her face seemed a little more familiar.
“It’s the night too. It always gets worse at night. I’m going to take a walk, okay? A walk will help. Give me time to think… and breathe…”
Clare didn’t know what else to say. “Don’t go far, okay?”
Beth’s barking laughter seemed shockingly loud. “I’ll be back by dawn. You should be safe enough here. I don’t like being in the ashes; I don’t think the others will either.”
She didn’t give them a chance to answer but moved into the darkness at something between a jog and a lope then vanished like evaporating mist.
Dorran exhaled deeply. His head drooped, and Clare realised he’d been holding more tension than she’d thought.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his palm across his eyes, leaving smears of ash, then picked a bottle of water off a small stack beside them and unscrewed it before offering it to Clare. She took it, grateful, and downed as much as she thought she could handle. The headache continued to throb. The fire’s light hurt her eyes, but at least its warmth was welcome. She hadn’t thought the temperature would drop so quickly after the blaze, but she wouldn’t be surprised if frost dotted the ground by dawn.
Dorran wiped his hand on a cloth before popping two pain tablets out of his packet. Despite his best efforts, they still had a smudge of black on them when he placed them into her palm.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “The soot is somewhat endemic.”
“Mm, I don’t mind.” She swallowed the tablets and breathed slowly as she waited for the swelling dizziness to subside. “Was I out for long?”
“A few hours.” He shuffled closer to sit at her side. She leaned into him, appreciating the feel of his arm at her back. “You needed it.”
“What about you? Did you sleep?”
“A little.” To Clare’s surprise, he looked ashamed. “I tried not to, but—”
“Why wouldn’t you want to sleep? You were exhausted.” She tilted her head back to read his expression, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Something cold and unpleasant settled in her stomach. “Was it… because of Beth?”
He started to answer, stopped himself, and licked his lips.
Clare still had half of her water left. She held it up to him. “What did she do?”
“Nothing bad.” He took the water and sipped. “She was just… well, like you saw. She was worried for you. The fire had made her anxious, and I think she felt helpless as well. Unable to travel, unable to make you better. She couldn’t keep still. I’m sure she’ll feel more like herself when she comes back.”
He was trying to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal, but Clare knew it must have been bad for him to fight to stay awake. She rested her head against his chest, searching for his heartbeat, and found it. “I’m sorry for leaving you alone with her.”
“Don’t be. I’m just glad you had a chance to rest.” His chin touched the top of her head. “Do you still have a headache?”
“Not bad.”
“Mm. Symptoms may take a while to ease, even with the thanites. I’ll talk to Beth about taking it slow when we return to the road.”
Clare frowned at the fire. They were supposed to have been at Evandale by that evening. Hours were stacking onto their arrival time. And Dorran only had one dose of the antibiotics left—
“Wait.” Clare sat up, frowning at the pale, sparse stars above them. “What time is it?”
“Close to midnight, I believe.”
She muttered furiously under her breath and grabbed for the bag of medicines. “You should have had this sooner.”
Dorran took the final antibiotic and swallowed it without arguing. That worried Clare. It meant he truly thought he needed it. The fire’s light ran wild across his features, changing and discolouring them, and a coating of soot made him even harder to read. But she thought he was growing gaunter. The greyness around his eyes was more than stray soot. She pressed her hand to his throat, but the skin was cool.
“Have you had something to eat? Are you drinking enough?”
He chuckled and rested his hand over hers. “I am looking after myself. Do not worry.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she retorted, and Dorran’s chuckles turned into laughter. That warmed her inside. She made him dri
nk the last of the water then pulled him closer to her side. “I’m up now. That means you can sleep.”
“I’ll stay awake a little longer. It is a nice night, despite the dusting of charcoal.”
“Let me rephrase myself. I’m awake now, which means I’ll make you sleep.” She planted her hands on his shoulders and pushed, and he let himself be shoved back into the makeshift bed. His hair tousled under him as he smiled up at her. Clare leaned over him and pressed a gentle kiss against his lips. He tasted like char and blood, but she didn’t care. It was good just to be close to him. “Sleep.”
His smile faltered a fraction. “Stay with me?”
“Of course.” She nestled down at his side, resting her head on his shoulder, an arrangement that had become familiar at Winterbourne. His hand curled over her head, fingers tracing through her hair, and he made a faint regretful noise. “I’m sorry. I’m making you dusty.”
“I think I’ll be about fifty percent dust by the time we get out of this place.” Clare wrapped her arm across his broad chest and felt it rise with every breath. “A little more won’t hurt.”
“Mm.” His eyes closed. She’d guessed right; he was desperately tired, and already, he was slipping away. “Thank you, Clare.”
“I love you.”
She’d planned to stay awake and keep watch in case anything disturbed the camp. She shouldn’t have been tired after sleeping through most of the afternoon and evening. But as the fire burnt itself down towards embers and the headache ebbed to a barely perceptible throb, tiredness came to pull her back under. In the surreal moments where her mind hung between wakefulness and dreams, she thought she heard a hollow in the distance, chattering in a voice that sounded unpleasantly like Beth’s.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Good morning.”
Clare groaned. Sun pierced through her closed eyes. She was cold; her prediction of frost hadn’t been far off, and there weren’t enough blankets between her and the ground. The only saving grace was Dorran; they’d held together as they slept, both seeking out each other’s body heat. As Clare woke, he stirred at her side.
Whispers in the Mist: Black Winter Book Three Page 16