“Son of a mother fucker!”
I whirled back around. Danny lay on the ground, cursing as Ethan crouched in front of him and pushed up his pants leg. Crap, crap, crap. I rushed over, cringing the second I saw Danny’s knee, which was already swelling. No blood, thank God, but it had to hurt. Danny’s face was scrunched in pain, and that was a bad enough sign. Danny was a lot of things, but he definitely wasn’t a wimp.
Ethan tried to straighten the leg, which made Danny groan through clenched teeth. I squatted beside him, and ruffled his hair to try and distract him from the pain. “You all right there, tough guy?” I asked. “What the hell did you do? Kick the road too hard?”
He grimaced while Ethan continued to work with his leg. I had an idea that probably wasn’t best for that type of injury, but we were already crunched for time, and I knew Ethan would never leave Danny behind. Even if he tried, I wouldn’t let him. Despite his pain, Danny forced the tiniest of smiles.
“Tell that damn brother of yours to stop screwing with the world,” he said, cutting his eyes to the side. “Stupid fucking road’s all torn up and I tripped. Mother fu—”
“Language,” I said, attempting to lighten the tension. “There are ladies present, don’t ya know.”
He rolled his eyes, but laughed. That laughter was cut short when Ethan stretched out his leg again. “Damn it, dude!”
Ethan glanced up. “Sorry. I know it hurts like hell, but if you can move it, that’s a good sign. Means you didn’t tear it up too bad.”
Danny winced, then tried to push himself to his feet. I grabbed his elbow, doing my best to help. I had no clue what to do about injuries, but at least I could give some moral support. After a lot of grunts, pants, and strings of swears, he managed to stand up. The second he tried to put weight on that leg, though, he plopped right back down onto his butt. I put my hands on my hips and let out a heavy breath, wondering how the heck we were supposed to get past this. We were starving, dehydrated, and exhausted. Now our main muscle was down for the count. Fabulous.
“Hey, Pretty,” Danny said, smirking. “You got a bandage on ya?”
My eyebrows furrowed. “Huh? Why?”
“Because you just made me fall for you.”
I don’t know if it was a result of having only a few hours of broken sleep, but I doubled over in laughter. I sat on the pavement beside him, wiping tears from my eyes. “You’re the corniest person I’ve ever met, you know that? And the only one I know who can crack jokes with that” —I nodded to his knee— “going on. You gonna make it?”
He looked me up and down. “I don’t know. You gonna carry me? Because I can suck up my pride for a pretty girl.”
“Holy shit, can you give it a rest?”
Our mouths dropped open as we slowly turned and looked at Ethan, who was glaring at Danny. I couldn’t really read his expression, but it was definitely one I’d never seen before.
“Come again?” Danny asked. “Because I know that couldn’t have been directed at me, the guy who’s not even able to walk over here.”
Ethan scoffed and stood. All I could do was gape. This wasn’t the guy I knew.
“You know who it’s for,” Ethan said. “Do I need to give you some privacy? Or are you content to keep hitting on the girl I like right in front of me?”
“All right man, pull the stick out of your ass,” Danny said, struggling to stand. I jumped up to help him, but he pulled his arm from my grasp as he made it to his feet. “Is she gorgeous? Hell yeah, she is, even with an inch of dirt covering her. Do I want her? No. One: there’s enough shit going on right now that I don’t need to add puppy love to the mix. No offense,” he said to me.
I shook my head, baffled. “Um, none taken.”
He nodded, then looked back to Ethan. “And two: I know you’ve got the hots for her. Why would I move in on that?”
What the hell? Were they talking about me, or a toy? My eyes widened as I stared at the two of them in utter bewilderment.
Ethan put his hands on his hips and lowered his head. Finally, after a few minutes passed, he sighed and looked back to Danny.
“Dude, I know. And I’m sorry I’m a douchebag. It’s just that all this”— he waved around him —“is getting to me. Bad. But I know you’ve got my back.”
Danny slapped him on the shoulder, and just like that, their little bromance was normal again. As for me? Well, I kind of wanted to jump up and down because the guy finally admitted he liked me out loud. Probably wouldn’t have been appropriate, though.
Instead, I spun around and went over to Haven, who’d plopped down in the middle of the road. Couldn’t say I blamed her. Ethan and Danny were nuts. When I sat in front of her, her eyes looked up to meet mine. It was becoming more and more difficult to be around her. Not only was she a spitting image of my sister, even with streaks of dirt on her face, but because it made the screams lingering in my head grow louder. Of course, it was either talk to her, the two nutcases behind me, or Nate. It wasn’t much of a contest. And she needed a friend. So did I.
“You okay?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. Not really.” Her gaze lifted to the sky, but I didn’t allow mine to follow. I was tired of looking up, hoping to see any sign of things returning to normal. I’d accepted that it just wasn’t going to happen. “My body can’t handle much more of this. I feel like I’m dying, Kerrigan. I’m so weak, and we have no food, no water—”
“We’ll be passing water soon,” I said in an attempt to lift her spirits as well as mine. “According to Fowler’s map, we’re close to a lake. And after that, it’s practically a straight shot. We’re getting there, Haven. It’s taking forever, that’s for sure, but we’re getting there.”
“I wish I had your confidence.”
“It’s not so much confidence as hopeful thinking. Having hope is better than the alternative, right?”
“And what’s the alternative?”
I thought about that for a minute. “Acceptance.”
“Acceptance of what?”
“Death.”
Her face fell, but even though she looked crestfallen, she nodded. “Do you still miss them?” she asked. “Your family, I mean?”
I stared back at her for a beat longer before standing. What kind of question was that? Of course I missed them. It took more energy than I knew was possible to push their smiling faces from my memory. But if I dwelled on thoughts of them for too long, I would break. And there was no time to break.
“I do,” I answered, holding my hand out for hers. She took it, and I helped her to her feet. “More than I can say.”
“You’re lucky,” she said. “I didn’t have much of a family to begin with.” Her eyes glazed over with tears, but she blinked them away just as quickly as they’d come. “I do miss them, though. So much it hurts.”
Without hesitation, I reached forward and pulled her into a hug. I knew that pain. No matter what had happened between us and our families before being placed in Sunrise, nothing could replace their spots in our lives. That emptiness would remain for as long as we lived . . . however long that might be.
Haven sniffled and backed out of my arms. “You know, my parents always treated me as if I was some project that needed fixing. Like I was a math problem that only needed the right formula to be solved. They looked at me like I was a walking time bomb.”
I held her gaze, my lips curving into a slight smile. “Like they were just waiting for you to go off?”
“Like I was the craziest chick they’d ever come across in their lives.”
That was a look I was super familiar with. “Welcome to the club of misfit kids.”
“It’s kind of ironic, if you think about it. I’ve spent years wishing I had the guts to just off myself. I never had the nerve to cut deep enough, though.” My heart fluttered, but I kept my mouth shut as she looked to the sky with a tiny smile of her own. “But now that everything’s crashing down, and I could probably die any minute. . . I want to live.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and for the first time since I’d known her, her face was peaceful. Happy. I squeezed her shoulder, my smile widening when her gaze met mine. “Then that’s what we’re gonna do.”
Something scuffled behind me, and I whirled around. Lovely. Nate had found some reason to start shoving Ethan in the five minutes I’d been gone. Here we go again. I ran over to them with Haven close behind.
“Get the hell out of here!” Ethan yelled. Danny had a death grip on his arm, holding him back as best he could with one good leg. I stopped a few feet away, afraid someone was going to start throwing punches. With the fire in Ethan’s eyes, I wouldn’t put it past him.
“You’re just scared of the fucking truth,” Nate shouted. “And the truth is, you’re wasting a bunch of damn time and getting their hopes up for nothing.”
“Then go!” Ethan gestured to the few trees left surrounding us. “You’ve got plenty of ways to leave. But don’t come crying back when you realize you can’t make it by yourself.”
Nate scoffed, then moved past Ethan and Danny with a look of disdain. “I’ve made it seventeen years by myself. I think I’ll be just fine,” he said, backing off the road. He spat in Ethan’s direction.
Yeah. The dude was certifiable.
He stormed off into the field of singed and collapsed trees without so much as looking back. As worried as I should have been about him going off on his own, I couldn’t find it in me to care that he was gone. I actually felt relieved. Relief . . . that was immediately followed by shame. What was I becoming?
“Bastard,” Ethan grumbled. He ripped his arm from Danny’s grasp. I looked from him to the side of the road, halfway expecting Nate to come back.
He didn’t.
“We can’t just let him go,” Haven said. “He’ll never make it by himself. What about . . . what about when the next set of stuff happens?”
“You heard him,” Ethan said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “He’ll be fine. And either way, he’s an ass who did nothing but hurt us. Let him save himself, since he seems so set on doing just that.”
In a way, I should’ve been disgusted with the guy in front of me. This wasn’t my Ethan. My Ethan didn’t pick fights left and right, or let part of our group storm off with nothing but the clothes on his back. But when I looked at him, I saw none of that. I saw the guy who covered my body with his in a ditch. I saw the guy who’d been guiding us without a second thought for days now. And as the bracelet on my wrist pricked slightly at the skin there, I saw the guy who always knew exactly what to do to put me at ease. So, when he swallowed and gave me an apologetic look, I smiled. And when he held his hand out for mine, I took it without hesitation.
“You guys really have lost your minds,” I whispered.
He held my gaze, his own tired and weary. “Look around us, Kerri. Is that really such a surprise?”
Chapter 14
We’d been wandering for hours when Ethan said, “We should take this short-cut through the woods. It’ll bring us out right beside the lake.”
Some short-cut. Now, we were surrounded by collapsed and singed trees as the sky darkened on yet another day. It was becoming the story of my freakin’ life. The plummeting temperatures had our teeth chattering, we were starving, and I couldn’t even think clearly anymore. Maybe that was a good thing, considering the next words out of his mouth would have completely destroyed me had they hit me full-force.
“We’re lost.”
It’s amazing that two little words could suck every ounce of strength I had remaining, but they did. With tears pouring down my cheeks, I collapsed. Though every part of me ached, my heart got the full brunt of the pain. How could all this have been for nothing?
For the first time in weeks, I sobbed openly. I’d known we were lost long before Ethan admitted it. We should have almost been to the estate by now, or at least to the lake. But we had no idea where we were.
We were supposed to save the world, but we couldn’t even save ourselves. What a damn joke we were to even think we could do this. This was so much bigger than we could’ve envisioned.
I opened my eyes just as Ethan kicked the tree in front of me. He kicked it again, this time letting loose a scream that echoed around us. He blamed himself, but it wasn’t his fault. He’d done his best to get us there. We’d all done our best. It just wasn’t enough.
Through a teary haze, I searched for Haven, and found her curled up on the ground nearby. Somehow, she was already fast asleep, missing out on the deathly plummet of our group morale. I scowled. Must be nice to be able to sleep at a time like this.
Danny, who’d been silent for the past few minutes, plopped down beside her with a grunt. He stretched out his leg, which was still bothering him. Even though he’d picked up a huge stick to use as a crutch, he’d been limping along for miles.
After pacing for a solid minute, Ethan gave the poor tree another kick—for good measure, I guess. He came over and sat beside me, and it was all I could do to keep from latching onto him. I needed closeness to someone—craved it. My body screamed to be held, to be comforted, to be told I’d be okay. But I told myself that no, it wouldn’t be okay. It couldn’t be okay.
“I’m sorry.” His words were quiet, nearly carried away by the gusting wind. “I fucked us over.”
I wanted to tell him it would be all right, but how could I lie to him when I couldn’t even lie to myself? Instead, another round of sobs erupted from me. I was too damn tired to try to stop them. He put an arm around my trembling shoulders, bringing me to his side. I buried my face in his chest while he held me tightly. Securely.
Hopelessness is quite possibly the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced. Knowing you’re screwed, and not having any idea what to do about it, is paralyzing. All I wanted to do was sit there in the dirt, with this sweet, adorable, and freakin’ amazing guy beside me. I wanted to imagine that things could be okay one day, but that’s all I was capable of doing—imagining. Deep down, my heart knew it would never happen. My tears fell harder.
“Ethan,” I said through a sob, “I’m scared.” It was the first time I’d spoken the words aloud, and they didn’t hold a candle to how I really felt. I wanted to say my heart ached with our failure. Dr. Fowler, Susan . . . their deaths were in vain. We failed them. We failed ourselves.
We failed the world.
I leaned over, placing my head in Ethan’s lap. I heard him choke back a sob of his own, but I said nothing. I wanted to tell him it was okay for him to break. We were all broken.
My mind has always been filled with fragmented thoughts, like pieces of a puzzle. But as sleep began to overtake me, all I saw was darkness. The last thing I felt was the kiss Ethan pressed to the top of my head, and I wished we had more time together. We could have had something good.
Now, I’d never know.
~*o*~
An ear-splitting crack startled me, and I shot straight up, searching for the source of the deafening sound. The blood rushed from my head, leaving me dizzy and my vision blurry. I blinked a few times, trying to focus on my surroundings.
By some miracle, it was daytime. Somehow, we’d actually made it through the night. Falling asleep crying makes for a miserable wake-up. Waking up after falling asleep crying, starving, and disoriented is a different torture altogether. But that didn’t matter, because I was alive. We were alive. For now.
I looked to Ethan, whose eyes were wide as he scanned the area in front of us. He must’ve been ripped from sleep, too. Danny had stirred and was struggling to a sitting position, but Haven . . . well, she was just kind of there. She hadn’t budged since the last time I saw her. Finally feeling somewhat awake, I crawled over to where she lay sleeping. I reached out and shook her shoulder, but my stomach sank the second I touched her. Her body was scorching hot. Well, now I felt like utter crap for being annoyed with her earlier; the poor girl was sick as hell. Taking a deep breath, I took hold of her shoulder again and gave it another gentle shake.
<
br /> “Haven.” When she didn’t respond, I shook harder, more desperately. “Haven, wake up!” Though it was barely noticeable, she finally moved the slightest bit. Her eyelids fluttered, looking as if they wanted to open, but couldn’t. “Damn it,” I whispered, standing. I ran a hand over my face, stopping to rub my aching forehead. Just as I bent down to Haven once more, the crack sounded again, and I jumped.
Ethan sprang to his feet as Danny struggled to his, while I willed my heart to resume beating. There was no mistaking it—the noise was coming from above. The three of us looked up, unsure of what we would see. It sounded like the sky itself was being torn open. The clouds were now a lighter shade of gray, but nothing else was new. We huddled together, standing back-to-back-to-back, desperately searching the area around us. Nothing. Nothing to signal what was coming. Nothing to signal what the hell we were about to go through next.
I really hated the unknown.
Ethan grabbed my hand, and I squeezed his gratefully. As long as he was there, we would be okay. I was sure of it.
“What’s going on?” Danny asked, his voice hoarse. “What the hell is it now?”
“Ice,” was all Ethan said just as another crack ripped through the air. Seconds later, the rush of sleet and hail filled my ears. I screamed, but the sound was lost in the roar.
Ethan’s hand tightened to a death grip around mine. “We gotta go!” he yelled. He started to pull me along, but I planted my feet in the ground, which was already piling with snow. Tiny hailstones smacked me in the head, but there was no way I was leaving Haven behind.
“Haven! We can’t just leave her here,” I shouted when he gave me a confused look.
Snow clung to his eyelashes as he held my gaze. He appeared truly torn. My mouth dropped open with amazement that he could even think otherwise, that he would consider leaving her behind. Before I could say anything, his expression turned to one of determination as he made a beeline for Haven. He scooped her into his arms.
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