by Summer Lane
I toss the rifle into his arms.
He holds it awkwardly, frozen. I turn away from the fire and make my way back into the woods, stopping only when Spot says, “Thank you.” I cast him a final glance. He looks confused. “And my name’s Jack. This is Peter.”
I almost smile, but I’m too shell shocked.
“Cassidy,” I whisper.
And then I run.
At dawn, I literally skid to a halt and land on my butt under a tall redwood. I kind of lost all sense of direction running through the darkness, because my only priority all night was to run away from the trucks and the shots.
Where am I now? I could be at the North Pole for all I know.
I lay my head against the tree, pulling a water canteen out of my backpack with shaky hands. I’m not cold, I’m just exhausted. Probably slightly traumatized, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to check into group therapy when this all over, so I just swallow my anxiety and close my eyes.
When I open them again, it’s late morning. I must have slept for about three or four hours. Chilled, I force myself to eat some jerky and crackers. I have absolutely no appetite, but starvation isn’t going to earn me bonus points in the “staying alive” category, so I choke it down anyway.
When I get too cold, I get up and start walking. North? South? Which way am I going? I look at the sun, but that doesn’t help much. I can barely see the sky through the trees. On top of that, an icy wind starts cutting down the side of the mountain, just about freezing me to death.
And all I can think about is Peter and Jack. Are they still alive? How many people are like them? How many kids have been orphaned and hunted down for committing the simple crime of existing? And what about Bree? I look down at my left hand. Under the glove, I wasn’t able to get all the blood off my hand. It makes me sick to look at it.
So I don’t.
Instead I just continue to wander the forest, going nowhere. Completely lost. No matter which way I go, I can’t seem to find the main highway again. Every stick and patch of weeds looks exactly the same. I actually get dizzy from walking in so many circles.
Okay, so what is somebody supposed to do if they get lost?
1. Hug a tree.
2. Blow a whistle, if you have it.
3. Stay in the same place until somebody finds you.
4. Try to avoid angry bears and wasp nests.
The only problem is, nobody is going to be looking for me except for some rabid Omega soldiers, and I don’t want them to find me.
I’m so screwed.
When my dad and I drove up to the cabin every summer, we followed the main highway, veering off onto a lesser known mountain road until we blew it off altogether, hitting a dirt trail that climbed up the side of the mountain. It was virtually invisible to the outside world, but I knew the route by heart.
Now? Not so much. If only I had a compass with me. I’ve always been good with hiking and basic survival techniques, thanks to my dad, but I never really took the time to figure out which direction our cabin was.
Calm down, I tell myself. Just find the road and you’ll be okay.
Pumping fake confidence into my nervous system does me some good. At least it keeps me moving, anyway. I walk in a straight line for two hours, heading uphill. The side of the mountain is so steep that I have to dig my feet into the mountain at a parallel angle, literally climbing up on hands and knees. By the time I reach the top my muscles feel like they’re on fire.
Making matters even more fantastic, I’m left to look at yet another huge hill, more woods, more rocks, more fern. But no highway. I take a breather and skirt the bottom of the next incline, following a battered animal trail probably used by deer. I end up looking at a small boulder that looks suspiciously like one I just passed a couple of hours ago.
I bend to inspect the dirt, looking at the indents in the soft mud around the rock. There are footprints. Boot prints if we’re going to be technical about it. I study them closely, wondering for a split second if those are my footprints. Because if they are, I’m even more lost than I thought.
I compare the bottom of my shoe to the print in the mud, but it’s so faint that I can’t really tell. I hold my boot right over the print to compare sizes, hovering in place like a scared butterfly.
The shoe is a lot bigger than mine.
I pull my leg backward, spooked. The footprint is considerably fresh. It hasn’t even dried around the edges yet.
I look around the woods, every shadow seeming bigger and darker than it did five second ago. Am I being followed? Did some Omega creep track me through the night? Impossible. I would have heard them.
Wouldn’t I?
I cinch up my backpack and decide to solve this navigational issue once and for all. If someone is following me, I don’t want to find out who it is. I don’t have any weapons besides the knife Jeff gave me to defend myself.
What I know:
I’m lost. But I also know that the highway was running south to north when I was forced to make an unexpected pit stop by Bree and her brothers. If I travel that same direction again, I’ll eventually run into the highway, right? I can’t be more than ten miles away from the place I left Jack and Peter. The road has to be nearby.
I walk in a quick circle, looking over the trees. I find a cedar tree with some low-hanging branches and pull myself up. I keep climbing, scraping my palms against the sharp bark. I eventually drop my backpack to the ground because it’s a little too hard to maneuver the tree with a pack hanging off my shoulders.
I climb higher and higher, until my vertigo kicks in and glues my arms to the tree trunk. I’m up reallyhigh. So high that I can actually feel the tree moving with every gust of wind.
I hang onto the tree like a scared chipmunk, moving my gaze across the horizon. I can see over the bulk of the canopy of trees. The sky is darkened with clouds around the edges, and I’m pretty sure the high winds will move them over here faster than I want.
I can’t see the highway, of course, but I can see the sun. It’s about noon, which makes it easy for me to really tell which way East is. Once I figure that out, I’m able to find West, South and North. Awesome.
I start shimmying down, slipping a few times and catching myself on another branch. When I get to the bottom, I jump from the low branch and land on the ground in a crouch to keep from spraining my ankle.
“Now we’re in business,” I say out loud, grabbing my pack.
Crunch.
I roll my eyes, seriously tired of being ambushed. Suspicious sounds are starting to get annoying. I look around, seeing nobody, and start walking north. All I have to do is keep this course and I’ll eventually run into the highway — some highway — again. From there I can find the cabin.
Snap.
Okay. That was definitely something with a little weight behind it. More than a squirrel, anyway. I whirl around, taking a step backwards like I just got smacked in the chest. Someone’s out there.
Down the hill, a dark figure is creeping up the trail behind me. I stand there, motionless, just staring at the person. Whoever it is, he’s wearing black.
He could be anybody…mercenary orAT soldier.
I don’t stop to wave hello or throw a rock at his head. I just run — only this time I make sure I run North. Which, of course, means, I’ve got to climb the next hill I’ve been avoiding. It cuts up at an insane angle, making it almost a sheer cliff.
I get to work, digging my feet into the dirt and using trees, roots, rocks and the occasional sprout to pull myself up. And then I do something I regret: I look behind me. The black shirted maybe-AT-trooper is gaining. He’s not keeping his presence a secret, and it makes me wonder if he’s alone. Are there more of them back there? Did they figure out that it was me who fired those rounds at the guys trying to kill Peter and Jack?
Don’t think, climb!
I climb so fast that every muscle in my body simply refuses to move anymore. I guess running all night in sheer terror exhausts
your physical strength, because this would usually be no problem.
I slip on a bed of pine needles and slide on my hip down the hill about twenty feet. I push myself back up, panic starting to claw its way into my head.
“Cassidy!”
I turn around, shocked to hear somebody speak my name.
Peter?
Jack?
I slip again and slide back down like an idiot, catching my breath. The guy has a black bandana tied around his hooded head, decked out in black combat pants and boots. He’s got a heavy coat on, a rifle slung over his back.
“Chris?” I stutter.
He pulls his hood off, revealing a face I recognize — but it’s smeared with black paint and dirt. It is Chris, right?
“Who the hell else would it be?” He climbs the last few feet separating us and yanks me to my feet, throwing me against his chest. I grab his shoulders to keep from taking a sled ride to the bottom of the hill just as he presses a fierce kiss to my lips. I wrap my arms around his neck, threading my fingers through his hair. He pulls away suddenly and glares, hands gripping my hips so hard I think he’s leaving bruises.
“Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been about you?” he demands.
I touch my mouth, feeling some of his black camo paint rub off on my skin. I stare up at him, his beautiful green eyes flashing with totally not subtle anger.
“I had to go, Chris,” I say. “You know that.”
“I thought you were dead,” he says, holding me around the waist with one arm, his other hand cupping my cheek. His hands are wrapped up with strips of cloth. He looks like he’s been fighting some kind of war.
“Why would even think that?” I ask. “I can take care of myself.”
But while I’m talking, all I can think is:
Chris is here. With me.
Complete, utter relief floods me like a drug.
“I found a dead body a few miles back,” Chris says. “Omega was out in full force in the lower part of the mountains. They’re searching for campers in the hills. I thought maybe you were caught in the crossfire.”
I pale, realizing he must have found Bree.
“Did you find anybody else?” I whisper.
“No. Why?”
I shake my head.
“I was there,” I say.
Chris squeezes me tighter.
“I’ve been tracking you since you left,” he tells me, his thumb trailing down the side of my neck. “Why would you do that to me?”
“Do what?”
“Leave without saying goodbye.”
I sigh.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess I didn’t want to make you choose between me and your family.” There. I said it. Finally.
He looks shocked and then kisses me slowly, sending a shiver down my spine. Everything around us dissolves — the cold weather, the trees, the dirt. It’s just the two of us, and the only thing that matters is that he’s holding me, and I feel safe.
Completely safe.
“I think we already had this discussion,” he says, his voice soft. “You are apart of the family, now. So you should start acting like it.”
I lower my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I answer. “I just had to go before I lost my nerve.”
My lower lip wobbles a little, tears threatening to spill onto my cheeks. “Chris, the body you found,” I say. “I was with that girl when she died.”
His gaze narrows and a muscle ticks in his jaw.
“And you’re lost,” he states. “Tell me what happened.”
I nod, sinking down to the ground. Chris keeps his arms around me as we lean against the base of a tree. I snuggle into his warmth, so glad that I’m not alone anymore. Because believe me, when you’re completely alone in the woods, companionship is the most wonderful thing you can have.
I give him the whole story, leaving out no detail, and by the time I end my sad tale, I’m crying into his shirt over Bree’s death all over again.
“I didn’t even know her,” I choke. “But nobody deserves to die like that.”
“No, they don’t,” Chris agrees, weaving his fingers through my hair. Soothing me. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I tried to tell them,” I say, guilty. “But they wouldn’t listen.”
“Hey, look at me,” Chris says, tilting my chin up. “You went back and saved those kids’ lives when you could have kept running. You didn’t do anything wrong. Forget about this, okay?”
I nod slightly, Chris kissing the tip of my nose.
“You feel like moving?” he asks.
“Where are we going?”
“To your cabin. Or has there been a change of plans?”
I blink a few times. It honestly hadn’t crossed my mind that Chris was going to help me find my dad. I thought he would come here to try to drag me back to the Young farm.
“You’re coming with me?” I exclaim, a smile creeping across my face.
“Cassidy,” he whispers, taking my hands in his, “where else would I be?”
Chapter Thirteen
There’s something about tromping through the wilderness that really makes you feel good. It’s the kind of feeling you just can’t get if you’re walking down a sidewalk in LA or New York. It’s a feeling of absolute freedom. Plus, the lack of pollution might make it easier to breathe so you just naturally feel better.
Who knows?
Chris was able to find the highway in record time, making my navigational skills look worse than ever before. I asked him why he didn’t take the Hummer we stole from Omega in the Valley to find me, and he said he wouldn’t have been able to track me in a car.
I didn’t even bother to ask how he tracked me, anyway.
As we get higher, it gets colder. The air gets drier and I swear the elevation change makes me hungrier. Note: Hungrier than usual. Chris has got more supplies from his mother’s food cabinet in his backpack, which means my chances of starving to death are a little smaller than they were when I was on my own.
There are still no cars or signs of humans. There isn’t even any sign of evacuation. I guess there just aren’t very many people up here. Besides, how many people who live way back in the hills are even going to know about the EMP or the takeover? They could still be living so isolated from the outside world that they have no idea about the kind of crap that went down.
We cover about four miles. I just can’t go any farther. I’m exhausted. We reach some pine trees so there’s a place for us to camp off the road.
I curl up in a tight ball next to Chris. In this way I can siphon off his extra body heat and keep from turning into Frosty the Snowman during the night. Not to mention it makes me feel a lot safer holding onto him while we’re lying in the middle of a dark forest.
“You ever been camping before?” I ask.
“Yeah.” Chris shifts his arm underneath me, pulling me just a little tighter against his chest. No complaint here. “You?”
“No.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“But you and your dad have a cabin up here,” he says. “Haven’t you ever been up here before? To a campground?”
“Believe me, our cabin is pretty much the same thing as camping,” I reply, smiling. “The only difference is the roof and the mattresses. Other than that, it’s like sleeping outside.”
Chris nods, kind of a pointless gesture since it’s too dark to see anything.
“What are you going to do if he’s not there, Cassidy?” he asks after a long silence. I finger the zipper on his jacket, listening to the calm beat of his heart against my ear.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“You need to. We’re lucky that it’s a dry season,” he says. “But all it takes is one big storm to trap you somewhere. You need to decide if you’re going to stay there and wait for him, of if you would come back to the house with me.”
“Can’t I just decide when we get there?”
I ask.
He doesn’t answer, which is his way of saying, “You can, but you shouldn’t.”
So that’s what I decide to do. I’ll just wing it. I’ve never been one for laying out plans or plotting courses. I just ride the wave, so to speak, and go from there. My dad is exactly the same way, which makes me wonder what he’s been doing if I show up at the cabin and find out that he’s been there for a few weeks, waiting for me.
Depressing.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Chris says, changing his tune. He probably felt my heart rate speed up just thinking about making the decision. “It’ll work out.”
“Yeah,” I reply, unconvinced. “Sure it will.”
We actually sleep pretty well in the dirt until twilight, when everything is covered in a dusty gray light. Prime bear-roaming time. I wake up with a neck ache from being so tense sleeping in the cold. Chris seems unaffected.
That’s a Navy Seal for you. Oblivious to cold temperatures.
We eat a breakfast of biscuits and cured homemade jerky from Chris’s backpack. After that we saddle up (theoretically) and hit the road again.
The highway starts becoming windier the higher we climb. Chris says it smells like a winter storm, and the sky is now covered with thick, dark clouds.
Great. And I didn’t bring an umbrella.
Every once in a while the road will peek out of the trees and give us a great view of the landscaping below. Chris likes to walk right over to the side of the road and put his boot up on the guardrail. I, on the other hand, am way happier just staying as far away as possible from the thousand-foot cliff. Observing from a distance.
It’s better for me and my fear of heights this way.
My second day with Chris finds us about twelve miles closer to my cabin, and a lot deeper into the forest. There are still no signs of cars or humans, which is just fine with me. That means there won’t be any Omega creeps sniffing around.
We sleep off the road again, but instead of a bed of dirt we settle down on a bunch of bouncy — spikey — pine needles. It could be worse. I mean, I do get to sleep with my head on Chris’s chest all night long.
