by Katie Cross
"Dev! It's me, Ellie."
"Gotta get out of here," he mumbled, then searched around. He stopped, and his erratic movements paused. He stared around us. I grabbed his shoulder to shake him. "Dev! Please listen. It's Ellie. You're not really there. You're in the mountains."
He shook his head and motioned for me to be quiet, then pressed himself all the way to the forest floor.
“Devin Blaine,” I snapped. “You will not go back to Afghanistan, do you hear me? You are here with me, and I need you. We have to get out of here now!”
Devin turned to stare at me in a haze of misunderstanding. The vague, distant expression had returned to his glazed eyes. He lay right in front of me, but he was worlds away.
"Stop. Talking," he whispered, then mumbled something about bullets and sand. He flinched and ducked.
Fear like I’d never known slipped through me. How did I get through to him? He wanted me to ground him, but what he'd told me to do wasn’t working now. Would he go so far into the hallucination that he'd hurt himself? Me? Neils would catch up to us if we stay here. Kimball probably lay dead somewhere, I assumed, but the sound of fighting continued overhead. Someone had to be here still. The chaos of this moment was our only chance to get out. I climbed on top of him, then grabbed his arm and forced him to roll onto his back. He snarled.
I slapped him.
The crack of my palm hitting his cheek brought his eyes back to me. Shocked, he stared at me in wordless confusion. My palm stung like a thousand needles. The sensation frightened me. Had I actually just hit him? He gazed at me in blatant question now. I grabbed his face with both hands.
“You are not in Afghanistan!” I whisper-cried. “You are here, with me, in the mountains. Where you belong. Where we both belong. I need you, Dev. I need you to come back to me and help me here. I need you and I openly admit it. I want you to stay. And maybe you'll leave after all this. Maybe you won't love me the way I love you, but it's a chance I'll take.” A suppressed sob weakened my voice. "Because Mama was wrong. Not all men leave. Love doesn't have to die. And I can always take care of myself—even with you."
He blinked. Some of the haze slipped away from his eyes.
“Ellie?”
His response was slow and sluggish. The blurry motion of two men grappling in the underbrush came out of the corner of my eye. Steve and Neils? I couldn't tell for sure. They were too close to be safe, so I swiped the errant tear off my cheek, grabbed his arm, and yanked him down the mountain.
“Come on,” I whispered. “We have to go.”
Devin followed my command, but I couldn’t be sure why. My heart felt quick and light with the terrifying sensation of running away, all while my mind threatened to fall into despair. A guttural shout, then another shot, ripped through the mountainside. I flinched. Devin grabbed my arm and pulled me close.
“With me!” he hissed.
He skidded down another precipitous drop with his fingers linked through mine. Dev held me close as we slipped and slid down a slope slippery with thick, fallen leaves. Mossy rocks overgrown with lichen rushed past us as we hurried down another short embankment and came to a stop on hard ground. A waterfall of leaves and rocks fluttered past us when Devin pressed himself against the wall of the embankment and murmured, “Don’t make a sound. They’ll hear.”
Was this Afghanistan Devin or my Devin? I didn’t question it yet. My heart bruised my chest as we waited, not even the comforting twitter of birds overhead. Tender, exposed roots curled out of the dry dirt near my cheek. My heavy breaths sent them drifting back and forth, where they tickled my skin with their gentle touch.
Devin stared at me with seemingly lucid eyes, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
“Am I about to die?” he whispered. His voice trembled just a little, and the fear in his wide eyes broke my heart. “Each time I almost died, you came to me the moment before I thought everything would end. You looked so scared, just like right now.”
The words each time echoed through my mind. How many times had there been? They must have been utterly terrifying to still wreak their havoc now, and I hated the circumstances that put him through this.
I reached a trembling hand to his cheek. “No,” I whispered. “We aren’t going to die. I won't let it happen."
The lie was blatant. At any moment, a bullet could end both our lives so quickly we might never know what hit us. Neils could continue to chase us through the woods and stalk us until he murdered us in cold blood, like the most malevolent kind of predator.
But I had to believe it wouldn't be true.
"And if we do die today," I said in a fierce whisper, "we'll do it together. If I have anything to say about it, Devin Blaine, we will never be parted again.”
He leaned into my palm with wide eyes, vulnerable in their ferocity. “Then you are real. You never spoke to me before.”
“We won't die. Do you trust me?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
His quick reply, without a beat of hesitation, filled me with courage. “Are you back to me?”
“I'm not sure."
"Then let me bring you back."
I grabbed his shirt and jerked him into my chest. He stumbled into me with a silent breath of surprise that I caught with my own. The moment my lips pressed into his, he melted. All the bones disappeared from his body and I caught his weight on top of me. He moved, pressing my back into the embankment, and planted his hands on either side of me to keep from crushing me beneath him. My hands on his face elicited a low groan in his throat. His lips parted to mine. They were warm, hungry, and filled with passion.
They were everything.
They were soulship.
My stomach dropped as he twined his arms around me. His hold felt tight and protective and encompassing and everything I'd ever imagined it would be. Our bodies molded together with the declarative kiss. And now, there was no going back. His hand touched the small of my back, my hips. He reached down and pulled me into his arms until my legs wrapped around his waist and he held all of me.
Sheer exhilaration became my heart.
All the while, my lips didn't leave his, even though my heart fluttered free for the first time. The distant sound of shouts brought me back out of the sky. I pulled away with a gasp. Tears had jolted out of my eyes when I pulled back to look at him. Hunger had overtaken the haze in his eyes. He blinked, peering at me through positively burning want.
“I love you,” I whispered frantically. The raw, raspy words sounded in a world of utter stillness.
The anxiety left his face and bled into concern.
“What?”
“I’ve always loved you," I whispered. My shaking hand found his cheek again. "I love you, Devin. I love you. I love you. You are my best friend and always will be. I loved you in high school and I loved you through your deployments and I love you now. You have my heart. My soul. All of me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don't want to be your friend, your acquaintance, or anything like that. I want to be your soul. I don't even want to be a guide . . . all this time I just wanted you.”
A cracking twig sounded overhead, not far away. I leaned closer, frantic. Our foreheads pressed together. Pressure built up in my throat as all the boxes unbraided. They spilled every emotion I'd battled since he left and swept out like a tide. His kiss had unraveled everything inside of me. Boxes that were once as strong as steel were now wet cardboard. I didn't even try to replace that stoic facade of indifference that had saved me for so long.
My boxes broke, and I let them go.
Different words flooded free instead.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, gaunt. Tears blurred the dark vision of his astonished expression. "I'm so sorry. If we die, I wanted you to know. I'm sorry that I brought you on this hike and didn't turn us back. I'm sorry that I never gave you a chance to explain. The past three years . . . I've kept us apart. I was stupid and stubborn, and I should have trusted you. I'm sorry, Dev. I'm so sorry that I've loved you for so long and didn't tell
you. That’s why I didn’t go to your dinner and it’s why I couldn’t talk to you when you came home. Because I loved you so much I couldn’t lose you again."
Tears slipped down my cheeks as I gripped his face. Could he feel my wild desperation? The terror of revealing all and knowing I could now lose him all over again? Mama reminded me not to be a fool with a quiet whisper.
Men leave, baby girl, she said. Love dies. You take care of yourself.
They leave, my heart whispered, but the good ones come back.
Mama disappeared.
His arms came back around me like a steel trap to hold together all the falling pieces. "Ellie," he whispered gently. "My Ellie. I have always loved you."
A hot kiss sealed his response and captured my disbelieving sob. He leaned into me until I couldn't breathe, but I took his weight because I wanted all of him. All of whatever he gave. The feeling of being turned inside-out quieted when he pulled away. He leaned back and tucked a piece of hair away. The feeling of his fingertip across the shell of my ear, gentle as a whisper, sent goosebumps through my skin.
An unreadable expression crossed his face just as a trickle of dirt dropped onto his head. Devin flinched and tilted his head back to look up.
Neils stood overhead, pistol dangling at his side. Dirt smeared his cheek. Blood cut a line under his nostrils and upper lip. A dark feeling passed through me, and I imagined I’d just seen the last sight I’d ever have in this life.
“Well,” Neils drawled. “You aren’t very good at running, are you?”
22
Devin
Every heartbeat that thudded through my body after Ellie slapped me brought me farther from the hazy tunnel of hallucinations. Recollections slipped back in a mad rush, reorienting me in the moment until full consciousness returned.
Ellie.
Mountains.
Kimball.
Neils, the park ranger.
With a blink, I forced myself entirely back to the present.
Neils jumped off the embankment and straightened in front of us. My lips still burned with our kiss as I met his gaze. My heart with her words. They wrapped around me like a soothing balm and the quiet reassurance that everything would be all right. Even if we both died, I'd said it. She said it. I shoved Ellie behind me with new power.
I love you. I’ve always loved you.
Only the gun that an increasingly unstable Neils waved so carelessly could detract my thoughts from their track of utter disbelief. I reached back for Ellie’s hand. It slid in mine, and I gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze.
“So,” Neils drawled. “You two got wrapped up in something, didn’t you? Besides each other,” he tacked on with a tasteless smile.
“So did you," I replied with forced nonchalance.
Neils scoffed.
“Tell me about the drug," I said.
"My drug," he corrected immediately, as if he'd done this before. A flicker of uncertainty followed in his expression like he'd just betrayed too much.
"Yours? Impressive."
He eyed me warily. At first, I couldn’t tell whether he trusted the question or not. His eyes darted around, and I wondered if he thought I was stalling. Did I have someone on the way? Unlikely, considering how desperately we tried to get the bag. We wouldn’t have fought for the pack if we had someone to back us up.
His eyes moved quickly. This man appeared intelligent enough. If he claimed a drug, did that mean he made it? Had his job as a park ranger been a cover? A way to hide his addiction? Maybe he had some sort of hidden place out here in the mountains. People with that kind of evil drive did all kinds of weird things in secret.
Although I didn’t know why, I had a suspicion this guy didn't want to hide anymore. Why else would he correct me and claim it? Pixie dust had flown under the radar for several years now, only popping up here and there.
"I call it pixie dust,” he finally said. “Because it’s so pretty and pink.”
“You made it?”
He shrugged. “Found it. Experimented into it. I’m a chemist, it’s what I do. Whatever you want to call it. It's mine.”
"What is it?"
"It's a miracle.” A wide smile crossed his face. I inched closer to Ellie. “A modern marvel. Not only does it produce a lovely little high to make your day better, but it also gives you energy and a freakish strength for hours after ingestion. Who doesn't need that?”
“Perfect for anyone that you want to make you money in a fight?”
He smiled slowly. “Perfect for anyone.”
“Kimball included.”
A shadow passed over his eyes, like a sun crossing the cloud. “Kimball is now another unfortunate story. If he would’ve listened to me and stopped arguing, we might have worked through this. But he didn’t.” Neils’s lips tightened. “It’s his own fault that I had to kill him.”
Ellie tensed behind me.
“What about Steve?” I asked.
“Steve acquired some a few months ago, thanks to Kimball. Now, he'll do anything for it. At least . . ." Neils glanced above us, where he’d appeared like a ghost and jumped off the embankment. "I thought he would."
Ominous thought for Steve, but I had to consider him an unknown still. Kimball? Clearly out of the game. The other guy? Also an unknown, but unlikely to be an issue. If Neils kept talking, I'd keep asking. In the meantime, I had to cobble together some sort of plan that didn't involve a bullet in my chest and this maniac on the loose.
“So you make and sell pixie dust,” I pressed. “For fighters?”
“The creator of the drug only releases small amounts of it at a time,” he murmured. "It's basic supply and demand."
“And that’s you?”
His teeth sparkled when he smiled. “That is me.”
“He’s unhinged,” Ellie murmured, so low I could barely make it out. “He's speaking in the third person. We have to get out of here.”
I squeezed her hand again.
“It's hard to get a hold of,” Neils continued, "and the effects are powerful, so it sells for thousands of dollars per hit. Most people will do anything for more of it.” He frowned, then brightened. “I thought of calling this the Hungry Games, you know, instead of Survival Club."
"This?"
He gestured around us with a wave. "The fight. The cabin. The Hungry Games. Because these people get so hungry for another hit. Sounds less . . . ridiculous."
"People like Steve come to fight . . ."
"And their reward is a hoard of the stuff. So much pixie dust that, with the right skill," Neils shrugged again, as if to say what can I do? “one could make a hundred thousand dollars when they sold it. With the 70% kickback to me, I believe I could be a very rich man."
“Is that what you want?” I asked. “Money?”
“Power.”
“It’s the same, isn’t it?”
Neils laughed, but it rang dark and empty. Something I'd expect from a hollowed-out soul. He stepped off his dirt clod and took a step toward us. I sent him a warning glare, and he paused. I attempted to decipher whether or not I had the time to grab the gun and wrestle it from him. He must have seen the calculation in my gaze because he lifted the gun. I stared down the barrel for a full second before I lifted my hands.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. Panic filled me like smoke. Ellie, I thought. What terrible curse gave her to me minutes before I would lose her?
“Yes.” A stark expression crossed his face. “I do.”
A shot rang out.
Shrapnel in the muscle felt like hot acid. A busted shoulder felt like crushing despair. I expected a gunshot to the chest to feel like fire.
Instead, there was silence.
I opened my eyes. No bright white light waited. No pain ricocheted through my body. For a full five seconds, I felt nothing but Ellie as she trembled in my arms.
“Dev?” she whispered.
A moment passed before I realized that I hadn’t died, nor had I been shot. In the b
reath between the barrel staring down my eyes and the sound of a shot, I’d whirled around and covered Ellie with my body.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Yes."
Movement drew my eyes overhead. Steve stood at the top of the hill above us, a pistol in his hand. Blood drenched his right pectoral muscle. He breathed heavily. Sweat glistened on his face and dripped down his cheeks. His skin had a grayish tinge.
I glanced back. Neils lay on the ground, a hole torn halfway through his face.
“Don’t look,” I said to Ellie.
She gripped my shirt, her arms wrapped around my waist, and buried her face into my neck. I splayed my hands across her back to keep her close, then canted her so she couldn’t see the destructive mess that she’d once considered a friend.
Above us, Steve’s arm lowered. The gun dropped to the leaves and slipped out of his reach when it slid closer to me. He dropped to his knees with a grunt. His gaze lowered to mine. I’d seen that look before. The slow bleeding of life. The sucking, gasping breaths of the dying.
“Why?” I asked.
“You were both . . . kind.”
I paused. “I’m sorry, Steve. I’m sorry this happened to you.”
He dropped to his side with a groan. “I never wanted this. Never . . . asked for it. Now, it will be gone.”
Ellie buried her face in my head with a little cry. I tightened my hold on her and pressed a kiss into her hair. Steve had just saved our lives. Maybe he didn’t deserve accolades, because he’d played a part in this nightmare, but in the end, he’d done the right thing.
“Thank you,” I said.
His glassy eyes softened, then closed. Slowly, the desperate gasps ebbed. Ellie pulled herself so close she’d merged into me. I kissed the top of her head again, still shocked to have her fitted against me without death between us, and let out a slow breath.
“It’s over,” I whispered as I ran my fingers through her hair. The gesture was meant to soothe me. “It’s over.”
My mind raced with what to do next. First priority: locate the radio. Call for help. Find coordinates and give them. Get to the truck? No, stay here? See what the responder said, then do that. Wait for help to arrive. Hernandez, he’d come. Probably with another ranger. Maybe? The thoughts streamed through my mind one at a time until they nearly consumed me.