Hidden Gem (The Travelers Book 1)

by Gaia Octavia

“Like how you picked me in that camp. How you saved me when you had no reason to.” I was searching his eyes, desperate to make him understand. “It feels like a miracle.”

  The words left my mouth on their own, bypassing my brain and any conscious thought on their way out. I hadn’t known those words existed until I heard myself speak them. But once I had, I knew that I meant every one of them.

  Jade’s eyes hardened but he didn’t look away. I suddenly had the urge to pull him in and press him against me, so he could feel every bit of the gratitude I felt throughout every cell in my body. It was as if Jade had somehow worked himself into my DNA and had changed me in ways that I didn’t understand. But I did no such thing, and the flash of vulnerability I had seen in his brilliant, blue eyes was quickly snuffed out as he took a step back.

  “We should find a place to camp.”

  I nodded and began following him once again, begging my body to let me continue without the unbearable agony that was coursing through every fiber of my being. It refused to grant my wish, but I still managed to keep up. After thirty minutes or so, I slammed into Jade’s grasp again, immediately starting to apologize and expecting him to ask another question. Before I could get a word out, Jade’s hand covered my mouth and his lips found my ear.

  “Stay still. Don’t make a sound,” he whispered.

  It was barely audible, even though he had said it less than an inch from my ear. I was confused, but I didn’t want to disappoint him again, so I stayed quiet. My pulse sped up as I began wondering if he’d spotted raiders in the forest around us. But as I looked around, I couldn’t see anything at all. I snuck a look at Jade and followed his unwavering line of sight, immediately wishing I hadn’t.

  About thirty feet ahead of us, the biggest constrictor I’d ever seen was wound around a tree’s thick branch that hung just above where our heads would have been had we kept walking. I hadn’t ever thought about constrictors climbing trees. I’d only seen them, though half the size of this one, in water. The dark green of its body was covered with a large, black diamond pattern, which ran from its head to the tip of its tail. The thickest part of its body was its middle–and it was thicker than the two of us put together–with its girth tapering off at both ends.

  Jade held me tightly, all his previous aversion to touch evaporating in the face of danger–in his protective stance between me and the massive constrictor. While we waited for what seemed like hours, my mouth going impossibly dry, his grip on me never faltered. When the constrictor finally began to move, it uncurled and lowered its head to the ground under the branch, the rest of its body following suit.

  Jade’s grip tightened on me and he didn’t have to use words for me to know it was a command to remain absolutely still. The constrictor moved away from us, heading towards the water we’d passed earlier, no doubt. Once it was finally out of sight, I let out a long, strangled breath and sagged into Jade’s arms. He waited for me to regain my footing but let go of me as soon as I did.

  “Fuck,” I breathed, “I never even knew they climbed trees.”

  “They usually don’t, but they sure can,” he said softly. “Gods, I fucking hate those things,” he said in one, long exhale. “I’m sorry I let us get so close before spotting it.”

  He looked genuinely upset, almost furious at himself as he said it.

  “Jade, I would be dead ten times over if it weren’t for you.” I stepped back, waiting for him to look at me. When he finally did, I continued. “You did good. Thank you.”

  After another hour of walking, we stopped by a small stream. The worry lines etched in Jade’s brow had softened after I had thanked him, and by the time we got to the stream, were almost completely gone. I wanted to smooth the last of them away with the pads of my fingers.

  “We can camp nearby for the night,” he said, bending to fill his skin with the cool, clear water.

  I knew he was cutting our time short because I’d obviously been struggling since the moment we’d left this morning. I nodded my head, ready to resume following him in silence, but he surprised me by turning and putting his arm around my shoulders.

  “Come on, Emit, let’s go get you settled.”

  ⸙

  As we ate, we continued to talk. Not about anything important, just about mundane things. But we were talking and that was something. Jade was in the middle of explaining how to spot areas to avoid in the woods, ones that were likely to contain the dens of various predators, when a drop of grease from the cooked meat he was chewing trailed down his bottom lip, poised to drop onto his shirt.

  Without thinking, I leaned in and used my thumb to wipe it off. But when I touched his lip, my thumb refused to move any further. It was a few moments before I realized that Jade had stopped talking and that I had yet to move my thumb. The air around us suddenly seemed to thicken and crackle. When my eyes met his, I finally came to my senses and jerked my hand back. The silence that hung between us stayed much longer than my thumb had.

  Finally, I looked at him. “I didn’t want it to drip on your shirt,” I explained stupidly.

  Jade didn’t say anything, but he put his meat down. By the feel of it, my face must have turned a brilliant shade of red. While I was pleased that he hadn’t shied from my touch, I was more than happy to join him in silence after that. A few minutes later, he surprised me again by asking me another question.

  “How did you keep that from the raiders?”

  I glance up at him, confused for a moment, before realizing he was talking about the woven fabric bag I was absently fiddling with. It hung from the waist of my pants and had been lying empty in my lap when I’d started worrying my fingers on it, trying to work out the confusing feelings that had been coursing through me since the moment I’d touched Jade’s unbelievably soft lip.

  “I had it tucked in a pocket when they took me. I guess they didn’t notice it was in there, since it was empty.”

  I was grateful that I hadn’t been wearing it on the supply belt I’d left my camp with that night. When Jade didn’t say anything else, I continued, despite my previous desire to retreat into silence.

  “Ma made it for me. She’s always making things. I never really had much use for it, but when I left that night, I grabbed it. Because even though I had been angry at her, I knew I would want something to remind me of her until I met back up with them.”

  Jade poked at the flames with a stick he’d picked up as he’d been setting the fire. He hadn’t left to set any traps when we got here. I wasn’t sure if it was because it was earlier than usual or because he was afraid to leave me by myself.

  I didn’t really want to know.

  “It means a lot to you.”

  It hadn’t been a question, but I nodded.

  I had grown pretty used to the fact that Jade never spoke about his past. While I wanted to get to know him, I couldn’t blame him either. I desperately wanted to keep him talking while I had the chance though, even if it was about me.

  “It’s the only thing I have left of her. Of my family.” I stopped there and set the bag back down by my side, painfully aware that I was on the verge of sounding like a fool again.

  “Before we left,” Jade said, continuing to poke at the fire, “I tried to find the necklace a raider tore from my mother when they took me.”

  He was quiet for a long time after that. But I just waited.

  “While he rarely joins the raids, the man is the first to take what he wants from the spoils before splitting them up amongst the raiding party leaders. I saw the necklace in his tent one night, a few years ago.” He stopped there, his eyes pressed closed as if he was trying not to remember the night in question. “I looked everywhere in his tent the day we left, but I couldn’t find it.”

  He opened his eyes, and while they were shiny in the firelight, there were no tears. I had known there wouldn’t be. “I took something of his instead. Something I knew meant a lot to him.”

  He reached into his boot and pulled out the small folding knif
e I’d already seen him use many times. As he began fingering it, his mouth pulled into what was almost a sneer. “It was the second thing I took that night that meant something to him.”

  It took me a moment to realize what he’d meant. He’d taken the knife, but more importantly, he’d taken himself.

  “He’ll never find you, Jade,” I said, knowing it was a promise I couldn’t keep.

  “He won’t ever take me alive.”

  I heard the conviction in his voice and it sent a shiver down my spine as I watched him begin rubbing his palm again. In that moment, there was one thing I was sure of more than anything else in the entire world–if the man ever did come, I would lay down my life if it meant that Jade could finally be free to live. It was the least I owed him. And the least he deserved.

  ⸙

  While we both usually fell asleep the moment our heads hit the mat, our shortened day ended with us lying down much earlier than usual. Despite my physical exhaustion and the excitement of the close call, I didn’t find sleep as easily as I thought I would. I was still awake when Jade returned from setting traps. Both of us were lying on our backs and staring up at the sky, having been lost in our own thoughts for quite some time, when the sound of Jade’s voice finally drew me from mine.

  His voice had been quiet, almost hesitant. But when I turned my head to be sure that he was speaking to me and hadn’t just drifted off–mumbling in his sleep as he sometimes did–I saw that while his eyes were fixed on the night sky above us, they were open and alert.

  “What do you dream of?”

  It took me a moment to respond. When I did, I told him the truth. “Food.”

  Jade rolled his head toward me and made a face.

  “What? I’m being serious.”

  He turned his gaze back on the stars, his head resting on the arm that was tucked behind it. I heard him sigh and I knew that he hadn’t been looking for the light answer I’d provided.

  “I don’t dream very often,” I offered, “but usually, when I do, I’m in front of one of Ma’s mouthwatering evening meals.”

  “Alone?” He pressed.

  I hesitated. I had purposefully kept the rest of my dream to myself. I knew from the sounds he made as he slept, which were becoming more and more pronounced each night, that whatever Jade dreamt of, it was far less pleasant than the memories that filled my dreams. Jade was strong, and his icy demeanor often had me thinking of him as my reluctant protector. However, he also had an air of incredible fragility. I only saw it from time to time because he did his best to hide it, and he hid it well.

  It had taken me days to notice it for the first time, and I only recognized it for what it was because he’d just woken up from a restless dream and he’d been crying in his sleep. The only time I ever saw emotion from him, other than annoyance, was when he slept. But as soon as he was awake, that cold, icy mask he wore would slam back into place. While I didn’t know exactly what he dreamt about, since it was something he hadn’t ever–would never–share with me, I had some idea. The thought of what he must have gone through in that camp for all of those years… It was something I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  I had seen him that first night in the camp, just after being left tied to a post without so much as a blanket or some water. And I had watched him. He’d been walking toward a large tent. Not far from where I had been, but far enough so that he hadn’t noticed me. At least not until the next day when he’d looked at me as if he were seeing a ghost. He was younger than the raiders I’d been forced to travel back to the camp with, but older than the group of boys who’d been taken by that same raiding party. At first, I thought that he was the son of the enormous man who’d followed him. But I’d grown up hearing the stories and knew that raiders didn’t have women or families in their camps; preferring instead to slake their lust on unwilling victims during their raids or on the young boys they captured to keep their raiding parties populated.

  When I saw the shift in Jade’s body as he got closer to the tent, I knew then that my original assumption had been dead wrong. Because as I watched, he collapsed in on himself, curling his shoulders and lowering his head until he almost seemed like a small child. Or a small target. He had hesitated at the entrance to the tent. It’d been so quick, I doubted the man behind him had even noticed. But I had. It was as if he’d had to push his body past a physical barrier between the inside of the tent and the rest of the world. As I’d watched, the man followed behind him, turning to lace up the entrance of the tent with an unmistakable look of evil anticipation. I had shut my eyes and cried. Not for the boy I hadn’t known, but for myself, who would soon be following in his footsteps.

  Jade turned his back to me, bringing me back to the present, and though I wanted to ask him what he dreamt of, I knew he wouldn’t answer. I steeled myself, deciding to give him the answer he had been looking for. Since it was the only thing I had to give him.

  “My Ma used to cook for the whole camp one night each week. Her vegetable garden had no rival, and neither does her cooking.”

  Jade’s body stiffened a bit while he listened.

  “Everyone would bring something, but Ma always took care of the main dish. We all enjoyed coming together and it made the whole camp feel like we were almost one big family.” I smirked at that, because while it had felt like we’d all been family, Sheena and I had certainly never felt like we were related.

  “When I dream of those meals, it’s with those people that I’m sharing it. Trading stories, telling jokes, fighting about one thing or another until we all end up laughing.” I sighed, remembering how right it had all felt. How safe. “I miss my family, but I miss my camp too. I miss them all.” I quickly wiped at the moisture in my eyes, in case Jade turned around, but he didn’t. I sighed, looking back up at the sky. Now, more than ever, I just wanted sleep to find me.

  “Someday, Emit,” Jade said softly, “you’ll find them again.”

  The way he’d said it had me rolling away from him as my tears returned, spilling over my cheeks in waves. He sounded so sure, as if it were an obvious truth, and I wished more than anything that I truly believed him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ⸙

  JADE

  It had been weeks since Emit or I had slept for more than a few hours at a time. I tried to clear my mind as my feet dragged themselves into place–one in front of the other–while we continued walking through the dense vegetation that seemed to have no end. It wasn’t that we hadn’t found comfortable enough places to set up camp. There was no reason we shouldn’t be sleeping well.

  Except for me.

  My nightmares had been getting worse ever since leaving the camp. I supposed it was because I was no longer mired in the waking nightmare that had been my life for the past eight years. So, when the darkness came each night, so did the memories of mine. For the past couple of weeks, I’d been waking up in various states of distress as Emit called to me, looking so exhausted that the guilt of constantly waking him up was beginning to weigh heavily on me. But I didn’t know how to make the nightmares stop. Because they weren’t just nightmares. They were memories. And I had eight years’ worth of memories to feed my dreams.

  Taking a drink from my waterskin, I noticed that it was already halfway empty. I was going to have to find running water soon, so we could fill up. I glanced behind me to see Emit looking just as miserable as I felt, focusing on the ground that lay before his feet as he followed my steps. I was so tired that it was starting to get to the point of being dangerous. If I was being honest with myself, it had passed that point days ago. And we’d already had one close call too many. In these woods, you needed your wits and concentration to avoid the many dangers that surrounded you at all times. But neither of us was willing to spend a day resting when we knew the man was trailing us.

  I still couldn’t believe that we’d made it out of that camp. Thank the gods for ale. While I’d never thought of actually doing so, I’d dreamt of escaping for years. I’d ha
d nowhere to go though, and the man had made sure to remind me every day that I belonged to him. Forever. Though I still didn’t quite understand why, something about the way Emit had looked at me as he’d been tied to that post had made me risk my life to get him away from there. Before he went through the same hell I’d been living for eight years.

  Well, to say I knew of no reason wasn’t quite true. While I didn’t understand all of it, the beauty of Emit’s face–at least the side that hadn’t been swollen and discolored–must have affected part of my decision. I had never seen a boy as beautiful as he was. It was how his hair complimented his green and gold eyes. Those eyes that bore into me whenever he looked at me. And how his skin, darker than my own, had looked as if it would feel as soft as a feather when touched.

  Which it did.

  “How ya doing, Emit?” I asked over my shoulder, more so to judge the distance between us than hear his answer.

  “Still alive,” he replied glumly.

  The guilt of being the reason Emit’s usually bright demeanor had vanished into the hell of pure exhaustion struck me again. Not only that, but we had arrived at yet another settlement the day before. When asking after his family, no one had been able to give us any news. Just the same old line about a new settlement way up north that was taking on camps. It was months away. Emit always got anxious when we came upon camps or settlements and was always upset when we failed to learn anything new. Add sleep deprivation on top of that and he hardly seemed himself anymore. He had been so quiet these past few days. The only time he seemed to come alive again was when he spoke about his family. He fiercely believed that his family was still alive, and that after a few months of him being gone, had probably continued their search for a settlement for the good of everyone they were responsible for in their camp.

  He told me there’d been eight other families in his camp who all followed his father as leader. My camp had been much smaller. There had only been five families, including mine, and neither of my parents had been the leader. But we’d been happy. I had felt safe. And my father, being the trapper, had started to teach me how to track, hunt, and catch food. So that one day, I too could pull my own weight and help provide for the camp.