by Redding, Mae
He lied down, his back pressed into the mattress as he clasped his hands under his head. He looked up into the darkness of the cabin. I rolled over, cuddled up to his chest and rested my head on his shoulder. He brought his arms down and wrapped them around me.
“I’ll stay as long as you think we need to. I won’t fight you about it... Sorry, I got mad.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
I tried to fall asleep. I heard his breaths and could tell he wasn’t asleep either. His arms felt tense and he seemed troubled.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you mad at me?”
“No, it’s not you.”
“I have a hard time with people telling me I can’t do something, sorry.” I sat up and looked at him through the darkness, but I could see his face from the moonlight that came through the window.
“You mean, you won’t take no for an answer.”
He surprised me with his serious expression, but then he broke out into a smile. He grabbed me and pulled me down next to him.
“That is one of the things I love about you, Jade. Your will is so strong... Your determination,” he paused, “the fire you get in your beautiful green eyes when you set your mind to something. You don’t seem to be afraid of anything, and if you are, you don’t show it.”
“You love that about me?”
“Yeah, all fiery five-foot two of you.”
“I’m five-three,” I said, and he laughed. Like an inch made a difference.
“Maybe with your shoes on.”
I burst out in laughter at his comment then tilted my head back to look at him. “You are probably right about that…” I loved he knew that about me and I realized he knew a lot more about me than I did about him. “I didn’t know you have a sister? I thought it was just you and Joel.”
“Yeah, Ivy. She’s seven and lives with Deanna now. It’s better for her that way.”
“Who’s Deanna?”
“My aunt, Zach’s mom.”
“Oh…”
I ran my fingers over the leather he wore around his neck and pulled the pendant from under his shirt. I tried to count the times I wanted to do that, too many to count. I absently played with it, I studied it. The silver koru and hilt of the sword glinted against the pale moonlight. My fingers traced over it.
“Where did you get this?”
“My dad sent it one year when he was in Guatemala.”
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered. The black blade of the sword, some kind of stone, smooth as glass.
“Do you know what it is?”
“No.”
“You really don’t?” He looked at me puzzled.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Why, should I?”
“You share the same name…The sword is jade, black jade. This one came from the mines in Guatemala where my dad was stationed.”
“I’ve seen jade once before, I didn’t think it was a very pretty color of green from what I remember. It didn’t look like this,” I said, as I looked closer at the intricate details of the pendant.
“It comes in a lot of different colors, not just green. My dad said the people there believe that jade gives energy, strength, and wisdom to those who wear it,” he paused, sounding a little self-conscious, “I just wear it because I like it… It reminds me of you… that’s probably why I like it so much.”
“I like that you wear it.”
I drew in a sharp breath. I reached my hand up towards the window. The pane squeaked as I traced the swirl into the fogged glass. “After everything happened… when everyone died and I was waiting to die, I used to draw these in my window. Hoping it wasn’t the end,” I whispered. “That there was someone out there.”
From the pendant, it became clear to me what we needed to do. The power of the black blade, sheathed in the koru. The giver of new life, to begin new and the strength and the wisdom to do it. I didn’t know if I was that strong, but I knew I would try.
“This isn’t the end, Jade,” Gage whispered back. “I refuse to believe that.”
I wouldn’t simply wait to die anymore or wish to be dead with my mom. I wanted to live, start new. Something I would fight for. Gage changed that in me. A reason, not to merely exist, but something to live for.
I tilted my head back to look at him. He squeezed me closer.
“Want to go outside and watch the stars?”
“I would love to.”
Gage sat up and put on his boots. I slipped on my shoes and wrapped myself up in the blanket. We walked outside and found our rock. Crickets chirped, voicing their annoyance that we disturbed them. The stream bubbled not far from us with a light breeze from the north. I set my head on his shoulder and slipped my arm through his as he found my hand then held it.
An occasional shooting star moved through the darkness. Breathtaking with the white shimmery reflection of the constellations on the pond as it mirrored the lustrous image above. I curled close to him under the blanket for warmth. I closed my heavy eyes and I felt myself dose in the comfort of his arms as the night moved slowly.
“Hey beautiful…”
“Me?” I asked half asleep and he chuckled quietly.
“Yeah you, who else… The sun’s about to come up.”
Morning did come and the glimmering stars slowly dimmed and the dark night faded into grey, and then turned to a soft pale blue as we watched the sunrise with coral and purple clouds reflecting the colors from the sun.
He stood slowly and held out his hand. “I think I could fall asleep now.”
I took his hand and we walked to the cabin. We crawled onto the bed and wrapped up in the blanket. He offered his arm and I found my usual spot on his shoulder.
My eyes grew heavy with sleep as I thought of how amazing Gage was and how good it felt to be next to him. He was perfect in my eyes though I expect, he had faults just like everyone else. Some worse than others, I thought, as Damian came briefly to mind, and then I quickly pushed him out.
I glanced at Gage as he slept. I knew I had a fair share of my own faults and I looked forward to discovering what his might be.
The turn of events that brought us up here together in the first place toiled through my mind. So much happened beyond our control, and I knew I shouldn't allow myself to get too comfortable. I felt content here with him, probably too much so and a sense of dread encompassed me, as I feared the bottom of my fantasy world would soon fall out from underneath me.
CHAPTER 18
“Jade, wake up!” The urgency in Gage’s voice startled me as he shook me and I woke with a start. A little disoriented and slightly troubled, I rubbed my head as I looked around the cabin and watched him earnestly place our stuff into the backpack. He grabbed the small pan and the tin cup and shoved them in as well, then quickly scanned the tiny cabin. My heart sank as I came to the realization that we had to leave for some reason.
“Grab the quilt and get your shoes on! We need to go, now!”
“What’s going on?” I asked as I fumbled for my shoes.
“Listen.”
“Dogs! I hear dogs!”
“Yeah,” he paused only briefly, “Damian’s close so we need to get moving. I hope they don’t find this place, but we can’t stick around to find out,” he said, as his eyes scanned the room.
“You saw him?”
“Yeah, he’s not that far away.”
He grabbed the bow and arrows from under the shelf, then my rifle and checked it quickly for bullets. As he threw one in the chamber and locked it, I gasped at the realization of what that meant. Our eyes met as he put a few in his pocket. My heart pounded as my panic rose and constricted my already tightened chest as he clutched my arms.
“We’re going to be fine, okay? Don’t worry,” he said, as he tried to reassure me. “Let’s go…”
I took one last glance around the tiny room that had become our home for the last ten days as I stuffed the pack with the quilt. The overstretched seams, taut from a brimful pack, wouldn't give any mo
re as I struggled with the zipper. It would have to remain partially open.
“Where are we going?”
“As far away from those dogs as we can.”
Gage grabbed the binoculars off the table and we fled the cabin. We rushed through the trees and continued up the steep slope of the mountain. The barking suddenly stopped and my guess was they found the cabin. Even though this would allow us to further distance ourselves from Damian, it was more upsetting than I thought, and my throat tightened as I imagined him walking through the front door.
I felt offended, violated all over again as he intruded on my life once more. Soon he would rummage through the small cabin and look for anything that would tell him we were there. He would know right away we hadn’t been gone long, maybe even just minutes before he arrived.
The bed looked slept on. The fire in the stove died down from the night, but it would be warm as embers still burned in the stove. It wouldn’t take long for the dogs to catch our trail again, we weren't far enough away.
“I saw eight men and four dogs… in two groups,” Gage paused between breaths as he gave me a sideways glance. From the look on his face, if Damian caught up, there would be too many of them for the two of us. We had a gun and a bow. However, they had weapons too, a lot more than we did.
Damian must not have wasted any time searching the empty cabin because within minutes, the dogs barking continued. The sound of them bellowed louder as they pressed closer. Gage grabbed my hand and pulled me along faster. The cracking sound of a gun echoed through the trees as a bullet whizzed by. Startled, I screamed and hunched down just as another bullet struck the tree next to me. The tree stripped of the bark and sent splinters of wood through the air.
“Get down!” I covered my head as Gage pulled me down behind a large fallen log with boulders and thick brush around it. Hidden for now in the brush, I peered through the scope of my rifle and scanned the camouflaged landscape. The dogs emerged closer still.
“There’s Rubin!” I pointed far to the right, about three hundred yards down the mountainside. I made a desperate attempt to find Damian.
“I see Rubin… And two others…Don’t see,” I paused as I scanned the hillside, “he’s over there.” I pointed down the mountain to the left. Damian moved through the trees as he came from the direction of the cabin, about four hundred yards to the left of Rubin.
“Get that gun ready! You’re going to have to shoot it!” Gage aimed the bow towards Rubin’s group as they narrowed the distance between them and us. It wouldn’t be long before they were right on top of us.
“You want me to shoot them?” I don’t know why that surprised me, or why it bothered me but I wasn’t sure if I could shoot another person. Very capable, I knew I could hit them. I just didn’t know if I would be able to pull the trigger, while aimed at another human being.
“Jade! They are coming after you! They just shot at us! They aren’t going to feel bad about shooting or killing you… Shoot!” At that moment, Gage let the arrow fly. One of the dogs yelped wildly as he struck it. Gage aimed again. Another arrow shot through the trees and struck a man. He grabbed his chest and dropped to the ground. “You don’t have to aim to kill, just wound them.”
Rounds continued, one after the other as they shot back. Hidden behind the rock next to Gage, I waited. I stayed low and turned to look through the bushes. I found Damian, and watched as he and his group of Militia inched closer into shooting range.
It was a long shot, but I took the pause in Rubin’s gunfire as my chance and aimed towards Damian. I looked for him. He was nearer still, but hidden by the trees. I steadied my hands and took aim at another unlucky soul centered in the cross hairs of my scope.
The cool mountain air surged through my lungs as I drew in a deep breath. I engaged the bullet and squeezed the trigger as I let out my breath. The crack of the gun blasted through my ear as the gun kicked back and slammed into my shoulder. Wounded, the man fell to the ground. I shot him! I felt sick to my stomach. I watched Damian and his men dash for cover under brush and rocks as I shot round after round until I heard the empty click of my gun.
They returned fire as I slid behind the rock and threw another clip in the rifle. I glanced at Gage briefly, as he shot another arrow then I turned back towards Damian and took aim. The rifle, pressed steadfastly against my shoulder, jerked again as I pulled the trigger once more. Another deafening roar of the gun pierced the air as I hit one of the dogs. I must have killed it because it didn’t make a sound. A pang of sadness sat heavy in my chest as I emptied my rifle once more while I stopped Damian, hitting another man. I slid down behind the rock and closed my eyes for a moment to head off tears then quickly reloaded again.
“Okay… Let’s go! I think we slowed them down some,” he said, as he grabbed my arm and led me through the trees to the thick pines ahead. “I wounded Rubin and the other two are down. Damian is far enough away I think we can gain some ground.”
Gunshots ceased as we merged into the dense pines and the dogs became more distant, widening the gap between Damian and us. The breathless sounds of Gage and me, loud in my head. Every muscle in my body screamed with heat as we slowed our pace to recover.
We came to a stream and plunged through it to throw off our scent. The moss-covered rocks were slippery and made it hard to get my footing as I avoided grabbing any branches along the way. Deeper through the mountains, we trudged upstream and I found myself in unfamiliar territory with the uncertainty of our destination.
“Do you think Damian… Is still coming?” I asked. My lips struggled to work, winded and frozen from the cold. There were still two dogs out there and maybe three men who weren’t injured, Damian among them.
“Did you hit Damian?”
“No… I hit two other guys’.”
“Then Damian is still coming… Especially, now… He’s on to us.”
The ice-cold water numbed my feet and I slipped into the frozen water. I stumbled over rocks at an attempt to gain my footing. Icy water splashed in my face and stole my breath suddenly as it rushed around me and I gasped. Gage grabbed me and pulled me out but I was drenched.
The higher in elevation we climbed, the lower the temperature seemed to drop. The cold breeze cut through to the bone as the ominous dark clouds threatened overhead. My saturated clothes pulled the warmth from me. Shelves of frozen, hard packed snow climbed the banks into the mountains. At the cabin, there were a few scattered mounds of snow in places that didn’t see much sun. Most of the snow had melted off, but not here.
We stumbled out of the stream and up the rocky embankment into the trees. My weary legs heaved up the steep ridge to a large boulder, grateful for rest I collapsed onto it. The only sounds heard were that of my own exhaustion. My chest burned and I shivered uncontrollably as my breathing recovered, while Gage rubbed my arms and put his around me for warmth.
“Where are we going?”
“I have no idea but we need to get there fast. Your clothes are wet,” he said as he untied the sleeves of my jacket, strapped to the backpack and wrapped it around me then did the same for himself.
“I’ve never been this high before. We could get lost,” I said as I shivered, with little relief from the thin jacket.
He laughed a little. “Isn’t that what we are trying to do?”
I tried to smile but my lips wouldn't work and I found it hard to talk. “I guess so… But, I don’t want to get so lost we can’t get back home.”
“I’m more worried about Damian finding us than getting lost,” he paused for a moment, and my heart sank with my shoulders as I heard the faint sound of a barking dog. “Let’s go.”
***
The soothing sounds of a waterfall in the distance floated through the trees as we hiked on. Out of nowhere and magnificent in size, a steep mountain ledge ascended straight out of the ground into the grey sky. I shielded my eyes from the brightness of the transparent clouds against the sun as I looked up. Light sheets of water cascaded over th
e edge and ran down the side of the mountain as it landed on the shell rocks at the base below. Tranquil colors of the rainbow reflected through the mist, thick in the air.
The breathtaking view stopped me briefly where I stood. With the impending threat behind me, forgotten for a moment, I marveled at the jagged sheer cliffs. If it were any other day, and a bit warmer, I would have wanted to stay.
We needed to keep moving. My heart sank with the overwhelming challenge before us. With nowhere to go we walked along the bottom, which led to a continuation of the cliff with a sharp drop off. No luck. It descended another five hundred feet, straight down to a meadow below. We traced our steps back beyond the falls. Daylight threatened to disappear as we anxiously searched for some kind of deer trail that would lead us to the top.
With Damian somewhere behind us, we couldn’t risk going back down. It wasn’t impossible for him to be nearby already.
Far to the side we found a steady slope of rocks. Boulders from an old rockslide as part of the mountain had collapsed. It appeared to be our only way up. I stepped carefully as we inched towards the top. An occasional rock, loosened by our steps, tumbled to the base below.
The mist from the falls condensed and water dripped off my body. Beads of water trickled from Gage’s saturated hair. With my hand in his, he kept our pace.
“I need to stop,” I said, exhausted. A rock called my name as I sat to catch my breath. The strong wind whistled sharply in my ears causing them to ache and I clutched them with my hands to warm them. My wet hair, stiffened from the cold, gave me a headache and I shivered.
“Take your jacket off... It’s soaked.”
He unzipped his jacket and pulled me closer to his warmth then vigorously rubbed my exposed arms and wrapped his jacket around me. I buried my face in his chest to warm my numb lips as my body ached from the tension of being so cold and my teeth chattered with lack of control.
“We can’t stop here. We need to get to where we can build a fire...It’s not safe and we’ll stay warmer if we keep moving,” he said, and then slipped off his jacket.