Page 56 of Wild Child
"Ellie. Here. You're real?"
He reached out with a shaky hand and I paused. The moment his fingertips touched my face, he sucked in a sharp breath.
"You're not afraid," he whispered. "You're not saying goodbye?"
"Never."
Something in my fierce whisper seemed to bring him back to himself. He blinked several times, then shook his head. His gaze darted around, encompassed the night, then dropped to his left shoulder. The fingers on that arm opened and closed.
"Dev?"
"I'm okay." It came out firm. "Sorry, I . . ."
"You okay? Does your head hurt?"
"Fine." He swallowed and shook his head again. A grimace crossed his face, but the haziness left his gaze. "Yeah. It hurts. I'm fine. You're brilliant. You . . . the fire?"
"Yeah."
"Let's keep going."
I steered us toward the old creek bed. Spindly bushes, dry and cracked from the heat, loomed on either side of us. Rocks littered what used to be the stream, but held no water now. It would be easier to navigate in the moonlight than the bracken, at least until the canyon walls opened up. When I glanced back, light from the fire brightened the rock walls in the canyon. It had to be spreading.
Stupid,I thought. My plan had been desperateandstupid. This place would go up like a tinderbox . . . but a fire like that would also get resources here fast. If Neils were still in the area, he'd see the flames and investigate. He'd have a radio to report it, too. At least, that's what I told myself. The thought of burning up my own forest was too much to think about.
Devin, I thought.Think about home.
With a deep breath, I forced my thoughts back to the moment. Relief that we'd gotten away gave me a moment of hope, but there was no time to mull over the victory. We had a fire and six drug-addled pursuers to evade. With any luck, Kimball had caught on fire or his shoes had been destroyed. The others would be disoriented, at best. Maybe they'd even try to put the fire out, or just get away. Whatever they did, scattering seemed most likely.
And that gave us a chance.
"Dev," I said through a heavy breath. "We're going to get out of here, okay?"
"Got it."
"That's our sole focus right now. We need to get out of this canyon in case the fire spreads. If we cut back to the south once we're out, there's a creek with water and a trail that we can follow down the mountain. We'll be miles from the car and I have no idea where my pack ended up, but at least we can get onto an open road. It'll be safer to walk near it. Maybe we can flag someone down."
He nodded vaguely, and somehow I could tell that he attempted to work it out in his mind. With every step, he grimaced. His body had to ache after the battering ram of a man slammed into him several times. How he'd held his own, I'd never know. A trickle of blood appeared at the end of his nostril, staining the skin red.
The sound of my plan in the night comforted me, so I kept speaking. "We'll take a break in a little bit, okay? I think we can get out of this in forty-five minutes if we push hard. Once we're on the other side of that stream, we can relax for a little bit."
"I'm with you, E."
Despite my terror, my heart thrilled. The voice, the nickname, the words. All of them were frommyDevin. I pushed away every other thought. Ignored the possibility that Kimball could be on our heels. Of what they'd do to me if they found me, because I'd made sure that the spot where they'd dropped their precious bricks of pixie dust had also gone up in flames. Devin was in no position to stand against them again.
Instead, I focused on us moving through the forest.
Together.
* * *
Moonlight hung overhead as we hobbled through the woods. Time seemed to pass in weird stretches.
The farther we moved south from the canyon, the stranger the night seemed. Darkness loomed everywhere. Branches caught my hair. Thehootof an owl and the shuffle of feathers sounded overhead. I did my best to ignore all of it and focus on our goal, but we slowed when the distance out of the canyon was greater than expected. Mountains had always been tricky. Tonight, they were downright deadly.
By the time we shuffled free of the looming rock walls, I almost collapsed.
When I turned back, a dancing light lingered in the black smudge of the forest. The fire seemed to have calmed. The still night without a hint of wind, and the cool moisture palpable on my skin, worked in our favor. The heat faded enough at night that I doubted the fire would advance now. Neils would have time to phone it in. Likely, they'd get a smokejumper crew out here if it flared back up.
