Wild Hearts

by Bridget Essex

  She's staring me down now, her jaw tight as she straightens.

  “Your mother wanted you to survive this,” she whispers to me then.

  Her voice has softened. It's not warm, but it's not as cold as it's been either, and that's a kind of warmth.

  My throat tightens. The ever-present pain beats along inside of me like a heart.

  “What do you know about my mother?”

  She glances up at me as she picks up the coat. This, too, she slides over her shoulders, draws it closed together in the front, begins to do up the snaps.

  “I know that she was killed. That she wanted to keep you safe from what killed her.”

  I stare at this woman. This stranger.

  I stare, and my heart, which has already suffered so much pain...I feel the depth of that pain growing. My breath is coming shallow as I reach up, press my palm over my heart. It does nothing to ease that hurt.

  Nothing ever will.

  But I stare at this woman, and there is a part of me, a small part, that wonders.

  Did she know my mother?

  “Ella Rivers.” The stranger growls my name, standing tall in the dead man's clothes as she considers me. Her eyes are narrowed, too blue, cold. “You are going to die if you don't come with me. Do you understand me?”

  She knows my name.

  It sounded strange, rising from her throat.

  “No,” I answer her quietly.

  The truth.

  She nods, her jaw tightening. “I don't want to force you to do anything. I just know that I didn't come all this way for nothing.” Her gaze flicks to the big convenience store windows, the snow swirling just outside.

  Her eyes narrow further.

  “I'm sorry,” she tells me, and then she shakes her head. “You're not ending up dead on my watch.”

  And then the slowness of the moment ends.

  The stranger darts forward, her shoulder hitting my stomach.

  And she's picked me up, one arm tight around my legs, me draping over her back because my body hasn't had time to react yet.

  That's when I smell the smoke.

  Chapter 5: Shadows

  I've never been carried like this, thrown over someone's shoulder. It's not comfortable. It's not great.

  It's actually pretty awful.

  But all of my attention is pushed to the fact that I smell smoke.

  In a gas station.

  Is it possible that, for whatever reason...this woman is telling the truth?

  Someone wants me dead?

  Me?

  What the hell did I ever do to anyone? I don't even think I've ever returned a library book late! That one time that I took a dime from the “take a penny, leave a penny” is something I still think about with a guilty conscience.

  But before I can get too self righteous about my situation, the reality of it is made that much realer when I see light in front of me.

  Well.

  Behind me.

  Behind us.

  The woman who just threw me over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes springs down the aisle, toward the back room of the convenience store.

  And just outside the convenience store window there's a little bit of light...

  The power is still out.

  So where the hell is that light coming from?

  I'm bounced around pretty unceremoniously on this woman's hard shoulder. She's muscular, but up here, balanced on her shoulder bone, she's also a little bony. My stomach has enough fluff where this isn't a huge problem, but it's still damn uncomfortable. I try to brace myself off her lower back, lift myself up, try to train my eyes on where the light is coming from, but then we're through the doorway and into the back room.

  It's as overcrowded and messy as you'd think a convenience store back room would be. The stranger wades through a pile of empty boxes, shoves aside a couple of old, stained plastic totes, and then she's at the back door.

  She mutters a few choice expletives under her breath.

  The smell of smoke is stronger out here.

  “I think they're behind the store, too.” She growls under her breath then pulls on my legs and sets me upright next to a leaning tower of used pizza boxes. “Lemme think.”

  I glance around. I can hardly see anything, but I can see something, which shouldn't be possible, especially back here.

  The light flickers. My eyes dilate, my nostrils flare.

  Fire.

  This building is on fire.

  I glance up at the woman, and she nods, her mouth downturned in a tight line. “Yeah, they're trying to smoke us out. They don't need you alive.”

  “Wait, what?” I gasp.

  She prowls back and forth in front of the door, one palm against it, head bowed, deep in thought.

  She does not answer me.

  Real, raw fear crawls up my esophagus. I feel like I'm going to be sick again, but the woman stops, puts her head to the side as she gazes at the metal door.

  “If I break it down...I doubt they'll be expecting that,” she wagers, her voice much too calm for the current situation. In fact, she's much too calm, but I find it strangely comforting.

  Yes, I only have her word to go on, but—and this is going to sound like I'm off my rocker, I know—I think I...trust her?

  A little.

  Not much.

  But even a little is enough in the current situation.

  “Yeah. I think I'm just gonna break down the door,” she says to the room at large, voice quiet, and when she glances over her shoulder at me, her mouth now sports a grim smile. “Hang on.”

  “To what?” I ask, but I'm a little too late.

  She picks up a set of sturdy metal shelves—about waist height—her hands tightening around the metal bars.

  And then she pummels them against the doorknob.

  Yes, the door is built of sturdy, thick metal, but it operates under the same laws of doors everywhere: it's got a lock, and once that lock is out of commission, it's going to open.

  And with one wham from the shelves, the lock is neatly decimated.

  The woman grabs me again, neatly tossing me over her shoulder again. I'm pretty curvy, not the lightest gal in the world, but she's acting like I'm a small, empty duffel bag. I don't even have time to protest: I'm in the air, and then I'm on her shoulder, and that's just the new way of things.

  She doesn't wait to see what's on the other side of that door.

  She shoves it open.

  And she begins to run.

  I can't see much. The roar and chill and whiteness of the storm envelopes us immediately. Back here, in the small alleyway behind the convenience store, I'd think we'd be a little sheltered from the storm. But it's become too strong.

  Too cold and far too strong.

  I can't see anything, I can't hear anything; the snow is a totality that consumes us. I squint, lift my head, try to see if I can make out where the fire is, if there even is a fire back here. But I can't see anything but the billowing snow, the icy sharpness of it slashing at the exposed skin of my face. It cuts against my nose, tries to enter me when I breathe, and I reach up, try to shield my face, but I've got to brace against her back if I'm not going to be tossed around like said duffel bag, so I can't do much of anything against the storm's onslaught.

  The roar of the storm is everywhere, but there's something else in there. I can just make it out, just the edges of it, but as the woman moves, it grows the slightest bit louder.

  Shouting.

  Someone—or, rather, several someones—are shouting.

  The woman does not stop. In fact, she picks up the pace. I'm bounced around on her shoulder so much that I feel like I'm getting punched in the stomach, and the air that's inside of me is shoved out with each step she takes, but this discomfort doesn't last long.

  She stops quickly, sets me down.

  My entire world is swirling. I can't really tell up from down apart from the whole gravity thing.

  I'm sick, disoriented, breathless.
/>
  “You've got to listen to me,” she shouts. I can just make out her face, close to mine. She's not wearing a hat, scarf, anything but the man's coat to shield her from the weather, but she doesn't look bothered by it.

  The little I can make out of her expression is...well. Fierce.

  Determined.

  “I'm listening,” I yell to her.

  “We can lose them in the storm, but you've got to move with me. Understand?”

  I nod.

  I don't know what else to do.

  I don't even know where I am.

  The world of normalcy, my normal neighborhood, is completely obscured by the storm. My whole world, the one I thought I knew, has transformed in the past half hour anyway: with the addition of the swirling, impenetrable snow, I could as well be on Mars.

  It's a pretty disconcerting feeling.

  She reaches out, and she takes my hand.

  I wasn't wearing gloves. Neither is she. When her palm connects with mine, I'm startled by the heat of her skin. She shouldn't be hot, she should be freezing.

  But, then again, I'm not that cold either.

  It's strange, but—in the maelstrom of snow, of a world so changed and unfamiliar—the sudden solidity of her touching me...it's comforting.

  Reassuring.

  Nothing else feels real right now.

  But she does.

  She's real.

  I'm touching her. She's solid.

  She's real.

  She doesn't say anything else. But the firm pressure of her hand pulls me into the billowing snow.

  And I follow her.

  She runs.

  There's pavement beneath my boots. The thud of our footfalls is something snatched away by the driving storm. I worry that there will suddenly be the step up of a sidewalk or something that will make me trip, but...no. There's only the street beneath our feet, and we run down it.

  I don't know how she does it. I've lived here all my life, and if anyone would know these streets, it'd be me, but with the storm, everything's turned around, and I can't make out anything. So how does she know to follow the streets, how does she keep moving ahead with such force, with no uncertainty?

  I follow her, mystified.

  I was already beat after walking so far tonight. Let's add to that the fact that I don't run, have never run, so even though I've got plenty of adrenaline, it can't keep me going forever. The exhaustion is settling through me in waves, profound and strong.

  We keep making turns. Right, right, right, left. At one point, I think she doubles back, but I can't be sure. Maybe it was just a sharp turn to the right.

  When I think I can't possibly take another step, when I think I'm going to collapse right then and there...

  That's when we stop.

  The snow swirls about us, a maelstrom of driving points. I don't know if you've ever been stuck in a blizzard, but there's something so unsettling about it. There's the fact that you can't see, literally can't see your hand in front of your face, but it takes all your other senses and screws with them, too. I can't hear anything other than the scream of the wind and snow, can't smell anything but the metallic pinch of winter.

  And there are the shadows, too.

  Yes, you can't see the hand in front of your face, but you can sort of make out the darkening of something in front of your eyes. That's what everything looks like in a snowstorm. A car becomes a hulking shadow, monstrous and unfamiliar. A building rises over you, a sinister creature.

  People look like ghosts.

  The woman takes my shoulders, draws me near, close enough to hear her shouting.

  “Ella, they're not letting up. Do you understand? They're still after us.”

  I shake my head. I want to ask her “how do you know? How can you tell?” I want to ask her a hell of a lot more than that. But exhaustion makes every word I speak impossibly hard.

  So I say nothing.

  I am a litany of questions and am too exhausted to voice them.

  But they thrum through me with my blood.

  How does she know my name?

  How did she know my mother?

  How is any of this happening?

  When I close my eyes I can still see the dead body.

  I'm shivering, shaking. I'm not cold. I'm just...numb.

  “Ella, we've got to go. They're coming,” she tells me.

  And it's within those words that I finally hear it.

  Emotion. True emotion.

  I straighten a little. I try to glimpse her features, but can't because of the snow.

  But I know I heard it.

  There's pain, in her words.

  Pain...and something else.

  A sliver of it, just a sliver, but I heard it.

  Kindness? Sympathy?

  Something warm.

  “I can't...go...another...step...” I tell her. My teeth are clattering together, but again, it's not because I'm cold.

  Is this because I'm in shock?

  I don't know. I don't.

  “Okay. I know. I know you're tired,” she says, and it's there, it's there: a soothing tone. Kindness. Softness.

  My knees feel like they're going to give in. Like I'm going to collapse.

  “You don't have to go much farther. But when we get there, you have to come with me. Okay?”

  I don't think about it. I'm too numb. I'm too tired.

  “Okay,” I tell her.

  She doesn't say anything in reply, but I see the shadow of her face, see her nod.

  She reaches out and takes my hand again.

  And we're moving.

  My feet are placed one in front of the other because I know that's how you walk, but I can't feel anything. Can't feel the ground beneath the soles of my boots, can't feel the relentless driving of the snow against the exposed skin of my face.

  All I can really feel is her hand in mine. Her tight grip, her palm, all of her pulling me forward.

  That's the only part of me that's conscious.

  It feels like we've been running in the whiteness of the winter for my entire life.

  It feels like there was no time before this.

  There was no other part of me than this, this running, this point of connection where her hand meets mine.

  But then, by some miracle...

  She stops again.

  She brings her face close. I can see her now, just a little, can make out her downcast eyes, her eyelashes, thick with snowflakes, against her cheeks, the slant of her mouth. In this monstrous storm, there's something so human about that, and my body pulls toward her.

  But she's not human. She's not.

  Maybe I dreamed that?

  Maybe...

  “Ella, let me help you,” she says, and then her arms are wrapped around me. I'm so tired that I fall against her, so exhausted that I slump in her arms and become boneless, weightless. I'm falling, falling, falling, but I'm not really.

  Because she's holding me.

  Holding me tight.

  She's not going to let go.

  “I've got you,” she says, and then I don't remember anything else.

  Just darkness.

  Chapter 6: Waking Up

  “...for Friday, we're expecting a high of ten degrees, low of—can you believe this, folks?—negative five. You know, I can't remember the last time...”

  My mouth is so dry, I can't even move my tongue. I groan a little, wince, feel an ache radiating from my thighs, my calves, the pain profound and powerful.

  Why do my legs hurt?

  And why the hell is there a radio on? I don't even have a radio in my apartment. I get the weather from an app on my phone. When was the last time I voluntarily listened to a radio?

  I groan again, reach up, rub at my eyes. Or, at least, try to. I can really only move one of my arms.

  The other one is pressed down by a heavy weight.

  I open my eyes.

  The first thing in my line of sight are curtains. They're this God-awful hunter green color, c
overed with little triangles of maroon. They look like motel curtains.

  Wait a minute...

  Are they motel curtains?

  Why the hell would they be motel curtains...?

  I raise my head a little: not much, only a little, but it still causes a bright sharpness of pain to blossom behind my eyes and across my forehead, a headache that seems intent on ending me.

  I soldier through it somehow, because the weight on my arm is actually really heavy.

  Not unbearable, not painful, but...unfamiliar.

  I turn, and I stare.

  I stop breathing.

  Wolf.

  There's a wolf lying alongside me on the bed.

  There's a wolf lying on my arm.

  It's enormous, longer than me when stretched out like this.

  And white, white as snow...

  Everything rushes back all at once.

  Do you ever wake up after something really, truly awful has happened, and you're kind of muzzy, still sleepy, and—for just a moment—you don't actually remember what happened. There's this vague sense of unease, of course, this little tremble in your belly, a quick thought that things are actually pretty bad.

  But you think: ah, no.

  I just had a bad dream.

  That's all.

  It was just a nightmare...

  But then the reality of everything comes back to you, all at once?

  And you feel like you're going to be sick?

  Yeah...that's me right about now.

  Actually, I really feel like I'm gonna be sick. I crush my teeth together, swallow, feel the dryness scraping on the back of my tongue, but I swallow again, and whether it's from stupid stubbornness or I'm actually that strong, I'm just not sure...

  (Let's be real, it's probably the stubbornness.)

  But I blessedly manage to not throw up.

  I lie there, stare at this wolf whose eyes are closed, who's breathing slowly, evenly, its face so very close to my own...

  It's sleeping.

  Or...rather...

  She's sleeping.

  I take a deep breath and let it out slowly through my nose.

  Okay, self. Am I really going to entertain the thought that this wolf, this animal, is actually the white-haired woman from the convenience store?