“Of course, August. I mean, if you want to. It’s still pretty dangerous out there, right?”
He nods and looks ahead into the tunnel again. Then he gently closes the driver’s door and walks around the truck. I lean over and open the passenger door for him.
“Hop in.”
He hesitates at the door. I realize I have never seen him sitting down. He has kneeled and sat back on his heels, but I’ve never seen him sit, either on the floor or on a chair. Also, he’s very tall. I’m not sure he’ll fit. He leans his head in, and I hear him take a deep breath. I breathe in too and notice that the cab smells like cigarettes and beer. Not my favorite smell, but I’ll take it rather than leave it.
But August, who lived with the smell of me dying for a week, apparently prefers not to. He closes the door, steps back, and deftly hops into the bed of the truck, squatting among the gas canisters.
I roll my window down and lean out to look at him.
“Are you sure?” He nods and clicks off his flashlight as I start the engine, swiping the two wires against each other. It purrs beautifully, and the headlights glow in front of us, lighting up the wet tunnel, the way out, and the thoughts in my head that swirl like a blizzard.
I’m almost there. I’m going back to Topher, to other humans, to somewhere safe, somewhere August will leave me behind and we’ll never see each other again. I focus on the road, pressing my lips together so that last thought won’t tear me apart.
AUGUST
She drives until her head begins to nod down, when the dark of the next day is already approaching. Now that we are away from the city, I think it’s safe to travel by day. Safer even, because I could see the transports in the sky even if they were flying silent. So far we have been unmolested, but I can’t count on that continuing.
We park the vehicle under the cover of some trees as the light fades. She is quiet, subdued. The time she spent under the tree where we broke our journey earlier today is weighing heavily on her, though I’m not sure I understand why. She kneeled there in the snow and cried a little. I stood off to the side, not wanting to intrude. I think it’s possible that her boy is buried under the ground there. The humans bury their dead sometimes, like seeds that they expect to grow into something else, a flower or a tree. As though burying them will change their destiny. It’s sad and kind of funny to me. I left Sixth where she fell because . . . well, because I couldn’t stand to look at her anymore.
Dandelion sits in the truck until I have built a fire. It is dangerously cold, and I think it’s worth the risk that the smoke will be seen. This kind of cold can kill humans, I know. I’ve seen it. I could keep her warm, just by being close to her, but she doesn’t care for closeness, not with me anyway. She sits opposite me, the heat of the fire distorting her pretty face. I dig out a can of some kind of food from my pack. She eats without comment, then curls up and goes to sleep.
I wish she would talk to me again, like in the tunnel when she asked me about my life and shared things from hers. It bothered me, the things she asked and the things she said, but it was better than this silence. When she sleeps, I feel alone and bound at the same time. I’m both with and without. With and without her, with and without my own people. With and without Sixth. With and without a reason to keep living.
But her questions unnerve me too. The things she wanted to know about our darts, our plans, that I couldn’t quite answer. And she spoke of me loving Sixth as though that was a normal thing for someone like me. She wants to know who and what I am, wants me to tell her, but I think she knows more about that than I do.
Tomorrow we will reach our destination and all this will be over. I’ll be on my own again. There is no going back this time.
My mind drifts in and out of focus. I think of noting the location of her refuge and reporting it back to the high ranks. I know that’s wrong, but it seems to fit. It’s the right thing to think, even though I would never, I could never betray Dandelion like that. I think of tearing my breathing tube out. I think of following her back to her people and hoping they . . . what? Like me? Accept me? Tolerate me as she does? I think of darting her as she sleeps and then wandering off into the snow until I find something to jump off or somewhere to sit and think. The dread of my last moment with her has so infused me in sludge right now, I can barely string two thoughts together. But at least they’re my thoughts. The hum of directives is a faint memory. If they changed, if there were new directives, I would never know. I have given myself new directives anyway. Save the life of this human. That’s what matters.
I tuck the cans of food she rejected back into the pack. As I reorganize things, I find a slim book and discover, remember rather, that I can read. “The Raven,” this book is called.
Ah, right, that’s her name. Raven. It does not suit her. Dandelion suits her much better. It’s not just her prettiness, or her cloud of sunny hair. She reminds me of the bright little flowers that grew everywhere during the summer, unbowed by the destruction my people wrought. It was as though they refused to be conquered. But I suppose ravens are like that too. And humans. This human in particular.
I read the raven book, then read it again. Why do humans read things like this? Are they masochists in love with pain? I have to resist the urge to throw it into the fire, so miserable it makes me. I wonder if there is a written thing on this planet that is sadder.
Slipping my hand into her pocket as she sleeps, I unfold the letter that inflamed her so much her body wafted with endorphins. It is not mine to read—I know this somehow, this rule of privacy that the humans treasure so much. It is not part of my culture—we don’t have secrets—but I understand it anyway. This doesn’t stop me from reading the letter from the boy who shot me, Topher. The boy who loves Dandelion. The one she loves back, though I’m not sure she knows it.
My head starts to hurt as I read. We are low, for me. The altimeter on my sleeve reads 2,000 feet, about 500 feet lower than is healthy. Soon my muscles and bones will ache too. Eventually, probably, I will die, gasping for breath, blood drowning my lungs. I think that’s what happens. Maybe Sixth explained this to me once.
The letter transfixes me. I can’t stop reading it, and I find it is sadder than the raven book. I don’t think after reading it countless times that he loves her as much as I do, but to her, I suppose that doesn’t matter. I would never have stopped searching though, if I were him. I would never have left her side. That other one in the stadium would have to have killed me first before he touched her. This Topher is stupid and weak like all human men. I could crush him like a snail on a rock and eat his remains.
We’ve been told not to eat human remains, although some ignore that advice. Personally, I keep away from humans dead or alive. Except Dandelion. I can’t keep away from her.
When I turn to her, she is looking at me, her face a mask of horror. I still have the letter in my hand.
“Give that back!” she says, sitting up. The fire blazes in her eyes. “That’s mine!”
I don’t know why I do it. I’m so hurt and angry at that moment, for no good reason either. She doesn’t belong to me. We are not bound together as Sixth and I were. She owes me nothing. She has promised me nothing. Nothing is what I deserve.
I throw the letter into the fire.
“No!” she cries. I grab her wrists before she can dive after it. The fire consumes the paper quickly, in a flash of flame and smoke. She flicks her wrists back and away.
There follows a silence so deep and long that I’m genuinely afraid she will kill me with the knife I gave her. I burn, I burn so hot that I plunge my hands into the deep snow beside me. Finally, she speaks, her voice low and cracked and swollen with fury.
“You . . . despicable . . . horrible . . . MONSTER!”
I nod. Yes. Yes. She’s right. She’s absolutely right.
“How could you do that?”
I’ve made her cry again. I hate myself so much right now, if throwing myself into the fire would help, I would do it.
<
br /> “I might never see him again,” she sobs. I turn away and shield my eyes with my hands. “Look at me! Look at me!”
Sorry. Sorry. Forever sorry.
“Stop saying that! You can’t do horrible things and expect to be forgiven because you say you’re sorry. You have to stop doing horrible things. Stop ruining things. Stop hurting me.”
I hit myself in the chest.
Please, please, please. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
“Shut up!” she screams, although I have not made any noise. I stand and walk into the trees, away from her. The smell of pine needles gives me a few blissful seconds and I forget why she’s angry, but then she yells after me.
“I might never see him again! He could be dead!”
I keep walking, winding in and out of the trunks and branches, until the glow of the fire is just a speck in the distance. She doesn’t follow or call after me. I could keep going. She’ll be safe enough, out here, in the middle of nowhere. At any rate, if my people took her in an hour or a day, or if she froze or starved or was eaten by a wolf, I would never know. I could pretend forever that she was still alive. That we might be together again. I could dream like that boy Topher does. Like she does. She dreams of being with him again. She says his name as she sleeps.
I burned his letter to her. Why did I do it?
I’m a monster. How could I do that? I want her to be happy. That can never be while I’m around. I wish I could make a hot bath for her again, or find her some of that sweet food she liked so much. But I can give her only one thing that will make her happy. I can bring her safely back to the human boy. I can do this. I will do this. My head is now pounding so hard I can barely focus my eyes as I turn and trudge back to her, back to the fire. She sits, her arms wrapped around her legs, staring into the flames.
Say something.
“What do you want me to say?”
I kneel down on one knee across from her and tuck another log into the fire. She looks away. I reach over the fire and lift her chin, so she’s looking at me.
I promise you will see Topher again.
She repeats the sign for “promise,” like an arrow over the mouth. “I don’t know what that means.”
How can I explain a promise? In our signs it means something more like “I will obey” or “I will succeed,” but I know to the humans it means something different. It is less formal, more personal, coming from a warmer place; and it implies something about a shared future. How I know this is a mystery.
Good words. Forever.
“Good speak? Like truth? Promise? Why would I believe a promise from you?” Shaking her head, she lies down by the fire again, pulling the blanket over herself. “If we do ever find Topher, there’s a very good chance he’ll kill you. That’s my promise.”
Topher can try, I think. Maybe I’ll let him.
I promise to try to not fight back, when he comes after me.
RAVEN
There are two types of silences with August. There is the silence inherent in the fact that he doesn’t talk. The everyday silence that almost achieves companionability at times. The silence that has never scared or unnerved me, never felt like punishment or perversion, that feels natural. It feels like he is offering as much as he can, hiding nothing, and it is almost enough.
Then there is this kind of silence—the silence that hangs over me like a sentence of solitary confinement. When looking at him feels like spying. When despite his size he seems to shrink down to near invisibility, when he turns his head away from me, away from the rising sun, away from his shadow in the snow. This kind of silence would make a grave seem lively.
His remorse is impressive, as always. And for a moment on waking, when I see that he has roused me by poking my foot with a long stick, I wonder what it’s for. Then I remember the letter and the flames. At least he didn’t burn the map, I tell myself. Topher will write other notes.
He kicks snow on the smoking embers of the fire and slings the packs into the cab of the truck. As I unravel myself from the blanket, stretching and struggling to my feet, he stares down the dirt road back the way we came, then off into the trees in the other direction.
I go now, he signs as I approach.
I look into the trees and visualize him walking slowly through the snow, headed nowhere, forever, or until the land runs out, or he runs out. Maybe he could reach the Arctic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, the Pacific. I wonder if he can swim.
“Don’t go,” I say. I feel the words “We have more time” forming in my throat. Why would I say that though? I stare back at the remains of the fire, Topher’s letter now dust among the charred wood and ashes. I know why August burned it. He thinks he loves me. He’s jealous. I should be angry, furious, but instead I’m just sad. “Come with me, August,” I say. “It’s okay.”
Yes?
God. What I am going to do with him?
He crouches in the back as I drive and drive, his rifle in one hand, the other hand gripping the edge of the flatbed. The going is infuriatingly slow over icy roads piled with snowdrifts. We stop to refuel with our last canister when, by the map, which I’ve been carefully marking with a red pencil I found in the truck, I estimate we are still more than a hundred miles away.
“We might run out of gas,” I say.
Walk, he says, shrugging.
“It could be far.”
I’ll carry you.
I turn away so he can’t see the smile on my face. Stupid alien robot thing. It’s so hard to stay mad at him.
As I feared, the fuel runs out in a wide treeless expanse of flat white nothing. The truck coughs and rattles, and I say a silent prayer, though I know it’s useless. The engine sputters, and I feel tears in the corners of my eyes, not knowing how close we are or how far. After we roll to a stop, I unfold the map and stare at it in my lap until the rocking tells me August has climbed out of the back. He taps on the window. Still staring at the map, I roll it down.
Behind him, in the white, there are no landmarks, no features to indicate or even suggest where we are. The last part of the map is represented by a ten-mile winding, swirling road that I remember made me quite ill when we drove out an eternity ago. We have been driving along a straight, wide highway since dawn. No sign of winding roads. None of the turnoffs looked right. But maybe I missed it. I slam my hands into the steering wheel in frustration, over and over, harder and harder until August reaches through the window and grabs my hands, stilling them. Holding them. Gently at first but then squeezing them until they start to hurt. He releases me as soon as I pull away.
Promise, he signs.
I’d like to tell him to shove his promise up his ass, but what would that accomplish? Instead, I open the door and step out into the snow. It’s much warmer than I expected, though it is overcast. My watch tells me it’s midafternoon. We have a couple of hours of sunlight left at most. I’m not sure whether to camp here in the truck for the night or keep walking, in the hopes that we find some shelter or cover before dark. With no idea how far we have to go, it’s hard to make a call like that, but August seems to have his own ideas. He scoops the larger pack from the cab and slings it over his shoulder, turning to look at me expectantly.
Carry?
I sniff back a laugh. “I think I’ll walk, thank you.”
He simply lays his left hand on my right shoulder, turning me gently and nudging me forward along the road. Then we’re walking again. Minutes later he pulls me to a stop and tugs my hood, scarf, and cap up over my hair, tucking away the puffs of errant curls escaping from the twists as he does so.
“Do I look like you now?” I say, holding my arms out for inspection.
He turns his head to the side appraisingly. Prettier, he signs, making the “pretty” sign while lifting his hand above his head. Despite the cool wind, my face burns as I turn and walk away. After a few seconds his hand drops down on my shoulder as soft as a butterfly. We trudge down the sparkling ice road. I imagine from the sky we must look like two d
etermined beetles or ants, vainly searching for home. I hope that from the sky we look like two Nahx, doing whatever it is Nahx do.
An hour passes, the flat white giving way to sparse trees, then thicker forest on either side of the road. He stops and makes me drink from a bottle that he has kept tucked into his armor somehow. The water is so warm it’s like flavorless tea. After another hour he hands me a packet of dry Asian noodles, which he knows I love. I munch them gratefully as we walk.
Another hour later the light changes, the air changes, and it begins to snow. Fat, ripe snowflakes drift down, quieting the wind, absorbing the sounds of our footsteps until it feels like we are walking in the silent vacuum of space, with stars tumbling around us. A sudden lightness settles on me, and I walk ten paces before I realize August has taken his hand off my shoulder.
I look back to see him standing next to the pack, with his arms out wide, face turned to the sky, feather snowflakes drifting down onto him. It’s almost as though he is worshipping. Though I feel like an intruder, I can’t help but watch. His shoulders rise and fall with deep grumbling breaths. After long minutes he slowly lowers himself onto his knees and presses his hands into the fresh snow. Now I really am intruding. As I turn, something zips past my ear and lands in the snow ahead of me. A snowball.
Behind me Augusts kneels primly, innocently, his snow-dusted hands folded in front. He raises them as if to say, What?
“I see. Is that how it’s going to be, then?” I crouch down and form a snowball. The temperature is warm enough for the snow to be nice and sticky, and soon I have a good, round projectile. August doesn’t even flinch as I send it sailing three feet to the left of him. As I stoop to pack another snowball, he pulls one out of the snow and sends it flying precisely. I turn and it disintegrates on my back.
I launch a counterstrike. This one flies about ten feet over his head. Now August is laughing at me, tipping his head back and shaking.
“Oh yeah?” I say, gathering a handful of snow. “How about a point-blank attack?” I run at him before he has a chance to clamber to his feet and mash the snow into his head. As he tries to escape, I swing my leg, sweeping his feet out from under him. He falls backward into the snow.
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