Page 85 of Rising

My fingers grazed over the tattoo on his knuckles, closing around them hesitantly, then releasing at the uncertainty. His hand locked around my own.

“I’m damaged, Amaia.” Pain brimmed the lines of his eyes. “There is no saving someone like me. No turning this around. After I destroyed The Compound, that was gonna be it for me. The last thing I did. But then there were children, laughing and playing.Being kids. The Kitchens, the normalcy of it all, the people there aren’t savages. Some type of moral code exists in Monterey that doesn’t exist anywhere I’ve been the last few years. And it reminded me of why Tiago had asked me to stay with him at St. Cloud. He’d felt that at the beginning, before my wife had gained a seat at the table, made her father ruthless. But your attitude, man …”

I shoved him playfully. “What about it?”

“It’s a fucking nightmare to deal with.” There was no harshness in his words. “But I decided that it might be worth sticking out. Seeing if what I saw around The Compound was bullshit or not, and if it wasn’t … maybe a fresh start wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

“You’re not the easiest person in the world to deal with either,” I chided.

“Yeah well,” he huffed, “I felt guilty. Like I was betraying Tiago by trying to start over, find happiness in the place responsible for his death. But one night I went for a stroll, couldn’t sleep. I thought I was hallucinating when I saw him. They look so alike. Identical doesn’t even cover it.”

My memory brought the night he was speaking forefront. I’d watched the interaction unfold and had been suspicious of it, accused him of lurking around in the fashion of a shady drug dealer. I feigned innocence, tilting my head letting him finish his story.

“I knew you saw me. Just wanted to hear you say so yourself that day.”

I gaped at him. “How—”

“How would Riley know?” he angled his head to meet my eye, and I nodded,fair point. “I remembered he’d spoken of a twin, never was able to get in touch with him that day the cell towers had come back up. Had assumed the worst since he’d been in LA when the bombs hit. It was too much of a coincidence, so I approached him, asked if he had a brother named Tiago. Monterey ain’t exactly close, but it’s not too far to be out of the question. He’d been out on a hiking trip in the Redwoods with some friends, and made their way down here after the war, rumor spreading about Monterey being stable. Took the news about Tiago as any brother would, had been hoping for the best, but deep down had felt the tether had been cut long ago. Tiago, had a little girl, made him a bracelet before she turned a few months in. I’ve carried it with me ever since he died, but felt right giving it to his brother. Could tell he needed it. The same way he knew to tell me that Tiago had sent me as a sign, a way to always keep each other close. He didn’t have much friends in life before all this, and I’d been his only friend after. Call it fate or a higher power, whatever. I just know he sent me here, for redemption or to keep his brother safe. I don’t know and I don’t care. I just know I’m here to make him proud. And killing you would hardly make the list.”

I rubbed my face, not caring about the dirt and grease that smeared as I took it all in. “That’s why you volunteered to come.”

“Partially, yes. I needed some sort of control in the situation, plus I really do know the land.” He gestured towards the lake and trees surrounding us. “And you.”

My heart stopped at the words. The silly, school girl flutters faltered as he added in, “Couldn’t trust someone in … your condition to wander out here with cowboy wonder, kill bill, and a girl who packs lingerie to sleep in on a two-thousand-mile journey and expect you to make it there alive.”

“Ha, couldn’t have that, could we?”

His eyes lowered, landing on my mouth before hovering over the rest of my body. My breath caught. I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling self-conscious in my filth under the weight of his stare.

“I’m glad he saved you,” he whispered.

His face was now less than an inch from mine. I lowered my head. Guilt consuming me at the mention of Jax.

Gravel crunched under a pair of boots, stopping just out of my peripheral, we jumped back, turning to the source.

“Uhhh … what’s going on?” Reina said, hair wrapped atop her head in a dirty towel she’d gotten from who knows where.

Amaia

It took sixteen days to cross through Wyoming. The landscape of Kemmerer changed dramatically by the time we arrived outside Moorcroft. What had started as gentle slopes gave way to steep and jagged mountain peaks, rising into the sky like jagged teeth. Reina had taken up the habit of healing us each night, the painful shin splints becoming unbearable around a thousand miles into the journey. The first six hundred on horseback were a breeze compared to the last five-hundred we’d covered on foot, with still nearly a thousand to go.

The air grew colder, and the sky darker earlier as we continued. Trudging through icy streams as the wind howled through the valleys and gorges, forcing us to huddle together for warmth, taking turns sleeping in the only tent made for three. We’d made four work, with one person claiming watch throughout the night. Everyone needed the rest for the miles we’d face the next day, night watch was done in two even shifts.

Between the crowded tent at night, and the exhaustion of constantly moving, dodging, and running throughout the day, we’d never spoken of what Reina had walked in on. It felt like a fever dream, and I’d started to believe it’d never truly happened with Reina never bringing it back up. After a few moments of awkward silence, she’d simply come to take a seat next to us at the fire, picking at her fish and engaging in polite conversation. Which had only made things more awkward. There was only so much polite conversation you could have with someone after being around them 24/7 for twenty-three days straight.

Alexiares volunteered to take first watch most nights, and the nights he didn’t Seth or I did, quickly falling into a natural schedule. As we pushed further into Wyoming, Seth and Reina had reminded us to keep our food away from camp at night when we’d slept. With only one person on watch, it wasn’t worth the risk of facing a bear. Seth had no elemental powers. Alexiares may burn or drown us in an attempt to turn the bear away. Moe’s katana would barely leave a paper cut, Reina’s arrow would do no good up close, and a gunshot would only draw attention direction.

The reminder had likely saved us a lot of trouble. A little over a month from the day we’d departed Monterey, a bear had ravaged through our food packs in the middle of the night. We’d placed them about four hundred feet away, and Moe had prayed for her life, holding her breath and hoping that whatever she’d heard rumbling in the darkness of the night wouldn’t come sniffing our way. It’d taken the last of our food. We were left with only the few pieces of nuts and dried fruits we’d each kept stored for emergencies in the packs we’d slept with at our sides. A local airport had been a lucky next stop, we’d found a few expired canned goods, two twinkies, and a pack of ramen. We couldn’t complain, it was better than nothing.

Things only became more difficult from there. We were hungry, cold, and tired. With little food, and the frigid air, anything that was available to hunt was too quick for even Seth to catch. We didn’t have the time to set up traps and wait it out. We tracked what we could, but couldn’t drift too far off our route. By the time we reached plains as far as the eye could see, it’d been decided that scavenging through small towns and homes we’d come across would be our smartest move. It would make for more dangerous travel, but we wouldn’t do much traveling if we were dead.

South Dakota tested the sanctity of our group. Hunger had taken its toll on us all. God forbid someone breathed too hard while walking, World War IV risked breaking out. The temperature had dropped below freezing. My fire magic warmed the blood in my veins, but my friends didn’t have the same luxury. Reina and Seth had grown up in worse, and could tolerate it to a certain extent, but Moe shivered, teeth clattering most waking hours, and those while she slept.

I wondered if Alexiares had enough control over his fire to warm himself too, though I doubted he did. It didn’t feel right asking, or even teasing him about it at this point. We’d moved from hating each other, to feeling responsible for the safety of the other, to now avoiding one-on-one interactions. He’d become distant, rigid and closed off again. His behavior of a soldier fulfilling his duty and no longer a friend. If what we’d had for that short time could be called that.

Around day forty-six, I asked myself when his friendship had started to matter, noticing the absence of his body from my side. When we’d shifted to squeezing into a singular tent, he’d made a point to sleep at the furthest point from me in the nights our sleeping hours aligned. Even if we were hunkered in an abandoned home, grateful for any mattresses that were usable and able to be dragged to a central room, he never ended up next to mine. We spoke only out of necessity and he was careful not to meet my eye.

Under normal circumstances, it’d be an awkward situation for anyone present, but our group was in shambles. Moe and Seth had been bickering back and forth parodying a married couple, trivial quirks, setting one another off. Him walking too fast; her walking too slow, the way she held her katana, him moving too much in his sleep.

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