Fallen from Grace

by Merry Farmer

  The afternoon trek somehow moved faster. The last traces of clouds blew away and the sun shone down on pristine white snow. It was blinding. They had to keep their hoods pulled far down over their faces, only glancing up now and then to make sure they were still heading in the right direction. Each time they crested one of the hills leading toward Kutrosky’s old camp Stacey would tuck in her poles and ski down into the next valley.

  “It’s actually a ton of fun,” she told him when he caught up with her after the fifth or sixth hill. They were getting close to their goal but he’d lost track of the distance they’d traveled. “You should try it sometime.”

  “No thank you.”

  “You could use some fun, Danny. You can’t be a martyr forever.”

  He stopped and turned on her, pushing back his hood so he could scowl at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Stacey pushed back her hood as well, squinting in the light. “Come on. Don’t be a dick. Everybody knows you blame yourself for Grace leaving and you’ve become a total tool because of it.”

  He wanted to argue. He wanted to rage at her and defend himself.

  Instead he deflated to sullenness. “I blame myself because it was my fault. She was angry with me. With me and with Carrie.”

  “Yeah, that much was obvious.” Stacey crossed her arms, poles sticking out to the sides.

  He frowned. “It was all Carrie’s doing. I had no intention of ever telling Grace the truth.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “We could have lived in peace for the rest of our lives,” he said, even though that was a lie too. Kinn’s demand that Grace share his bed in exchange for labor to build the cabins was proof of that. “She probably hates me now,” he finished, shoulders dropping.

  “I seriously doubt it.”

  He stopped and blinked at Stacey. She jammed her poles into the snow with a huff.

  “Come on, Danny. So what if Grace is pissed the hell off at you. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to knock Gil on his ass for being a douche. But I still love him. And I’d bet anything Grace still loves you, no matter what you did. She never cared who you were in the first place. She defended you all the time, even when people tried to warn her off you. Not every girl out there can have a geneticist for a boyfriend and still walk down the halls of The Terra Project with a smile on her face and a spring in her step. You don’t lose that over one fight.”

  It was true. So true it stung. She’d risked the career she’d trained for, all for him, and in return he’d let her down, let her walk into Kinn’s trap. He hadn’t even tried to storm over the river to fight for her. At the time, he didn’t think he could.

  “I don’t want to talk about this.” He pulled his hood back over his face and started forward again.

  “Personally, I think that’s your problem.” Stacey kept on him as she glided by his side. “Our tribe is a bunch of freakin’ intellectuals, but no one is a psychologist. If anyone ever cares to ask me, I think we should all be talking about what happened and what we’re going through a lot more. Especially you.”

  He rolled his eyes but refused to comment.

  “Breakups suck,” she went on. “Particularly when you’re stuck on a virgin moon with assholes like Brian Kutrosky and Kinn wandering in the woods reenacting World War III.”

  He tried to pick up his pace as he climbed the next hill in a feeble attempt to get away from her.

  “I know you know that we all talk behind your back about Grace,” she kept up her brutal monolog. “We wonder why the hell you never tried to go after her.”

  “Shut up, Stacey,” he muttered, sick to his stomach.

  “Yeah, this whole self-flagellation aspect of your attitude problem is glaringly obvious. To all of us. Let me tell you, if it wasn’t for all those pretty stories Heather tells about how much more advanced and awesome Kinn’s camp is than ours, we probably would have mutinied on your ass and gone to get her ourselves.”

  “You really need to stop talking now.”

  “No, I don’t,” she insisted. “Now’s the time I need to start talking. We’re way the hell out in the middle of the frigid ass-crack side of nowhere with no idea how long it’s gonna be January, and we’ve got a leader who is the polar opposite of fearless. Pardon my pun.”

  He stopped and whipped his hood back to glare at her again. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  “You’re a fucking coward,” she told him without an ounce of pity. “You’re a cock-sucking, pants-pissing, bug-eyed, lily-livered coward, Daniel Thorne, and you know it.”

  They stared at each other in silence. The wind slithered down the hill past them, curling drifts of snow in the valley.

  “I am carrying a gun, you know,” he answered her accusations with stiff, quiet sarcasm.

  “Danny, I have three sheep and that necklace Gil made for me from river stones bet on you to off yourself before the snow melts.”

  Danny jerked, blinking. “You bet on whether I’d kill myself?”

  “Yep,” she answered with a hard nod. “Everyone’s in on it. Gotta fill those long winter nights somehow.”

  More silence. Branches cracked far behind them in the forest as snow and wind proved too much for them. Crystalline wisps of snow danced across the barren drifts. His own people thought he would take the easy way out.

  “I’m going to find Grace.”

  If it had only been half true before it was the complete truth now.

  “Well shit, Danny.” Stacey smiled. “If I’d known it would be so easy to harass your ass into doing the right thing, I would have called you a cock-sucker months ago.”

  He glared at her, tugged his hood tight over his head, and slogged on up the hill.

  Kutrosky’s old camp waited at the bottom of the next slope. Like their first camp, it was barely more than a field of white broken by occasional lumps and skeletons of crude structures reaching up through the snow. Even the deep gorge Kutrosky’s people had dug their caves into was filled with whiteness. The thick winter silence added to the feeling of death that set his teeth on edge. The valley had the hollow feeling of abandonment.

  After Grace’s flight across the river, he had followed Kinn’s soldiers back to the edge of the forest and watched the short, vicious battle between Kinn and Kutrosky’s men. The battle had ended the lives of three badly needed men. He could still hear the crack of bullets and shouts of fury and pain. He had stood inside the line of trees and watched each man go down, blood flowing, life extinguished, generations of descendants lost forever.

  He’d stood there and watched when Grace would have charged into the fray shouting for them all to stop. Maybe he was a coward.

  “Hey, look!” Stacey nudged his shoulder, drawing his attention to what was left of the large central structure constructed from the remnants of an emergency ship. It had been Kutrosky’s headquarters.

  Part of the structure had been dug out of the snow. The metal roof had been cleared and the wide, charred remains of a fire formed a black circle on top. The snow around it had been churned, as if someone had been walking all through the area. The valley wasn’t so abandoned after all. Danny felt for the gun at his waist, the bullets in his pocket, adrenaline pumping.

  They started down the hill toward the structure, cautiously, so as not to alert any lingering enemies. As they drew near, a shuffling shape in thick furs came around the side. Danny’s heart shot to his throat and he fumbled for the gun.

  “Wait,” Stacey waved him off. “Look. Hey!” she shouted and picked up speed to intercept the figure as another one followed around the corner.

  The two figures pushed back their hoods. Jonah and Heather.

  The twisted pile of hope and dread that had shortened Danny’s breath collapsed into frustrated despair. Kutrosky would have to wait for another day. So would Grace.

  “What are you two doing here?” He jogged toward them as best he could in snowshoes.

  “Danny!” Jonah greeted him with
a surprised blink as he came near enough to be recognized. “I thought you were back at the camp.”

  “We’re on a secret mission,” Stacey answered for him. He turned and glared at her.

  “Secret mission?” Heather’s voice and eyebrows shot up. “How come I wasn’t invited?”

  “What are you doing out here?” Danny ignored the women’s levity and grilled Jonah.

  “Beth sent us to investigate the wreck.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “About half an hour ago,” Jonah shrugged.

  They must have taken a more direct route. “What have you found?”

  “Not much. Someone besides us was here, though. Whoever that was is gone now. The fire is cold, so they must have been gone for a while. They didn’t leave much behind.”

  “Nothing inside?”

  “Nothing obvious. We haven’t had a chance to take a long look yet.”

  Danny nodded and walked past them to the entrance to the structure. It had been cleared somewhat and he was able to slide down the drifted snow to the cold interior. Jonah or Heather had lit a few torches already. In the dim light he could make out overturned chairs, scattered plastic crates that had contained supplies from the emergency ship, and a spindle like the ones the women in Kutrosky’s camp had used to make yarn last summer. Two packs belonging to Jonah and Heather sat on the floor in the middle of the room.

  “We figure we’ll have to spend the night here,” Jonah explained as the others joined him. “It’s already almost evening and there’s not enough time to make it home before the sun and the temperature go down.”

  Eyes still scanning the room, Danny hummed his consent. They should search the room for the beacon or any sign of it.

  As quickly as the notion came to him he dismissed it. Kutrosky wouldn’t have left something so important behind. After the battle he and those of his followers who hadn’t been killed or taken off by Kinn’s soldiers fled over the next hill carrying everything they could. Enough of the women had defected to Kinn’s side or been snatched by the soldiers that Kinn had ordered a sudden and swift retreat. He’d gotten what he wanted all along. The battle itself had lasted less than half an hour, and when that time was up the camp was deserted.

  Danny turned and headed back outside without talking to the others. The snow around the structure was marked with what could have been dozens of sets of snowshoe footprints. He followed several sets, squinting in the harsh glare of sunset on snow. They circled around but few radiated away from the central structure. Those were the ones that interested him. He held his breath, tracing along one track in particular. The prints were weak and fresh powder had blown over them in some places. A second set of what could have been ski ruts with animal prints running parallel to them also marked the snow. They led distinctly away from the camp, heading toward the woods, toward the bridge.

  “Did you come in from the forest?” Danny fought to keep the hope out of his voice when Jonah and Heather scrambled up to his side.

  “No,” Jonah answered. “We came over the hill. But I saw those tracks.”

  “Do you think some of Kinn’s guys came to check out the smoke too?” Heather asked.

  Danny’s heart pounded in his chest. It was Grace. It had to be Grace. It was about as unlikely as Kutrosky leaving his beacon in the snow for the squirrels to play with, but he wanted it to be Grace. He wanted her to have been there less than a day ago. So close. He pulled his hood tighter around his neck and started forward along the track.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where do you think you’re going?” Stacey stopped him, grabbing his arm and threatening to yank him off-balance again.

  He shook her off and spun to face her. “You called me a cock-sucker. Where the hell do you think I’m going?”

  “Ha ha, very funny,” Stacey grabbed his arm again and pulled him back. “Don’t be an idiot. It’s too late in the day and you have no idea what’s on the other side of the river.”

  “The other side of the river?” Jonah glanced between the two.

  “You called him a what?” Heather laughed.

  “It’s not funny, twerp,” Stacy snapped at Heather. She turned to Danny. “I know that look in your eyes. I want you to do this, Danny, but you gotta do it the smart way.”

  He hated that she had a point.

  “Let’s go inside and insulate for the night. We get warm, get some rest, eat something. Then we figure out how to do this smart.”

  “What are we doing?” Heather bounced eagerly to his side.

  Danny let out a breath. It would have been better for all of them if they’d let him do this alone. “We’re going over the river to find Grace.”

  Chapter Three – Enemies

  The night was spent in awkward silence. A fire was kept burning in the center of the dilapidated structure, but the four of them still huddled together under their furs to share warmth. It was oddly intimate, in spite of being a casual necessity that most of them didn’t blink an eye at after months of freeze. For Danny, it was as uncomfortable as bathing in a crowd. The last time he had slept with another person pressed against him was with Grace.

  When he awoke to a feminine arm draped over his middle from behind, his senses shot to alert. It took his sleep-fogged brain, his racing heart, and other awkward parts of him a moment to register that it was Heather’s arm, not Grace’s. He twisted out of the embrace and inched toward the dying fire.

  “Is it morning already?” Heather’s groggy voice followed him.

  “Almost. Go back to sleep if you want to,” he murmured without turning to look at her.

  They had left extra fuel beside the fire the night before, anticipating a chilly dawn. He added a few logs, arranging them to catch quickly, feigning focus on the simple task so he wouldn’t have to talk.

  Heather shifted out of the cocoon of furs and crawled to the fire. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, then ran her hands briskly over her arms to fight off the cold. Newly awake, her hair a long tangle of brown framing her pale face, she looked every inch her age. Not even the slight pregnant bump of her belly could make her seem like more than a girl freshly out of childhood.

  “Are you hungry?” Danny asked, reaching for his backpack. “I brought a few things.”

  She nodded. “So did we. Jonah likes to prepare for everything. ‘Don’t take any chances, Sweetie’ he always says.” She made a face that shaved off even more years.

  In spite of himself, Danny smiled. “He’s right, you know. You take far too many chances as it is.”

  She flared with indignation. Then she shrugged and accepted the strip of jerky he handed to her. “Everybody always says I take too many chances. Jonah, you, Kinn, my dad. But I get shit done.”

  Danny shrugged. There was no point in disagreeing with her. He had other things to think about, like how to convince Kinn’s guards to let him cross the river. He stared at the fire, chewing on a tough strip of dried meat. Kinn had laid down the law in no uncertain terms that no one was to cross to his side. Even with all the snow, Danny wasn’t fool enough to believe they wouldn’t meet resistance. They were in no condition to fight their way across. Caution and stealth were in order.

  “Danny?” Heather’s small voice pulled him out of his thoughts. He turned to find her watching him with anxious eyes.

  “What?”

  She swallowed what she was chewing. “Where are we really going?”

  “Across the river to find Grace,” he answered, staring into the fire again.

  She imitated his stance, watching the fire with him, biting her lip. “Are you mad at her?” He faced her with a frown. “You know, for leaving and going with Kinn?”

  “No.”

  “So then why are you carrying a gun?”

  “I’m not….” He stopped himself. “How do you know I’m carrying a gun?”

  She shrugged. “I smacked my hand against it in the middle of the night.”

  “Heather.” His frown deepened and color rose up his face. �
��What was your hand doing anywhere near my waist last night?”

  To his surprise, she erupted into a peal of laughter. “Ew! Gross! I was not trying to feel you up or anything. That would be like grabbing my dad’s package.”

  A hot wave of embarrassment poured through him as she continued to laugh. He squirmed in his place. She leaned into him, jabbing him with her elbow.

  “Besides, I’ve got Jonah for all that.” Her smug grin stretched from ear to ear. “I should probably thank you for him.”

  “Thank me?” A strange burr of emotion caught in his chest, worming its way up to his throat and pushing away the awkwardness.

  “Yeah. I know you had something to do with it.”

  “With what?”

  “Come on, Danny. Don’t play dumb.” She grinned and bumped his shoulder. “With Jonah apologizing for everything on the transport ship, with him taking care of me the way he does. He’s been real sweet since we got back together. He says we have to look out for each other, keep each other alive. Kinn never would have let it happen, you know. If stuff doesn’t fit into the way he thinks it should be, then it doesn’t happen.”

  He arched an eyebrow at her. “You give me too much credit. I wasn’t trying to reunite star-crossed lovers. Jonah wasn’t getting over his friend Peter’s death fast enough. I told him to keep you out of trouble because you’re headstrong and reckless and far too clever for your own good.”

  She giggled and blushed as though he’d complimented her. Damn him if it didn’t make him smile. Few people but Grace had ever laughed at him or elbow-jabbed him like a friend. Few had ever treated him as an equal.

  He sucked in a breath and rolled his eyes as he adjusted one of the logs in the fire. God help him, he was equals with a sixteen-year-old spitfire. The irony of it dropped to his gut. He was equal with Heather. She hadn’t been a part of The Terra Project either. They were both outsiders.