The Savage Wild

by Roxie Noir

  Whatever this is, it’s more complicated.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Imogen

  We reach the tree line before full dark, trudging through the spindly, twisted trees at the very edge of it and quickly plunging down into the tall, full-grown pines. The needles are springy underfoot, the snow considerably lighter here, the wind a shadow of what it was out in the open.

  I’m relieved in a way I don’t entirely understand, like the trees around us give me comfort. The forest at least feels familiar, and without speaking, we both find a divot in the ground, next to some rocks and protected by a small stand of cedars. It’s covered with pine needles, and we both kick away pinecones without speaking, then sit, the depression just fitting the two of us.

  “I don’t know if I can ever stand again,” I admit after a long time spent staring ahead of us, into the dark. “I think my bones have melted into slush.”

  Wilder doesn’t say anything, just smiles, grabs the MREs out of our packs. I watch as he pours water into the heater, sticks the MREs in, puts the whole thing back into the box. It’s another cool survival thing I’ve read about but never actually seen in person, and it surprises me how easily Wilder does it all. He doesn’t even have to read the instructions.

  “Do you eat these a lot?” I finally ask.

  “Not if I can help it,” he says.

  “You’re good at making them,” I say, and Wilder just laughs in the near-dark. It was a dumb thing to say, but my brain feels melted along with my bones, so I just laugh too, eat the food when it’s ready, don’t say much of anything else.

  And quietly, to myself, I wonder if I’m falling for it again. Even though out here, there’s no one else to impress, no one who’ll laugh if I’m humiliated, I’m still suspicious of Wilder’s niceness.

  Of course I am. I’m human. I learn from my mistakes.

  Once upon a time, ten years ago, when I was younger and dumber and just plain inexperienced, I let Wilder Flint get to me. I still wish I hadn’t, but after lots of therapy, introspection, and most importantly, after not seeing him for a decade, I’ve forgiven myself for that oversight.

  People are rarely insightful at seventeen. Sure, I knew it was wrong to do what we did while he had a girlfriend. I was stupid to believe him when he said that she was his official girlfriend because his dad wanted him to be Prom King — possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, in retrospect — but I’ve forgiven myself for all that.

  I made bad choices. I moved on.

  But damn if it’s not kind of working again. Even in the snowy alpine tundra, smack dab in the middle of nowhere, with survival anything but guaranteed, Wilder’s charming. It’s a slightly different charm — he’s rougher, his eyes are different, he handles himself in a grown, masculine way that he didn’t before — but it’s still charm and I’m still falling for it.

  No. Not falling for it. I’m just being slightly nicer for now, while it’s the two of us, and if by some miracle we make it out alive I don’t even have to talk to him again.

  We finish dinner without saying much, crunch up the leftover packaging into tight balls and shove them back into our packs. I drink the last of my water, and Wilder drinks almost the last of his. We haven’t come across a stream or anything yet, but it’s obvious that we’re heading toward one sooner or later, so I try not to worry.

  Not that it works. Running out of water sends up one of those signal flags in the back of my mind that just waves, constantly, catches my attention again any time I try to look away.

  Wilder catches me staring at my empty water bottle, nods downhill.

  “There’s water down below,” he says. “And I’ve got some left if you need, plus we can melt snow.”

  I should say thank you, but I don’t.

  “That’s incredibly energy-inefficient,” I say, looking around us. “It takes far more heat to convert frozen water to liquid than you gain from having the water you’ve melted in your body. Not that there are calories in water, but it’s necessary for—”

  Wilder’s just looking at me, and I stop talking. I swallow, licking my dry lips, and even though it’s too dark for him to see I can feel my face warm up because I’m still anxious about the water and explaining to a grown man that it doesn’t have any calories.

  “You know what I mean,” I finish lamely.

  “Do you mean that expending energy not to get dehydrated in the wilderness is probably worth some extra energy?” he asks, his voice slow and teasing.

  I wish he’d stop looking at me. I wish I’d stop feeling awkward and seventeen when he did.

  “Right, that’s what I meant,” I say.

  “Thought so.”

  There’s nothing left to do but pull the few extra layers we’ve got — mainly the parachute and two tarps, but better than nothing — out of our bags, huddle together under them, and then stare up at the sky, trying to fall asleep.

  It takes minutes for Wilder’s breathing to even out, getting slower and deeper. It’s soothing and hypnotic, and I’m jealous as hell because despite my best attempts, I’m freezing cold and my mind is racing.

  I’m out of water, I’m with Wilder, we’re in the middle of nowhere, I’m out of water, what if the rescuers are looking for us right now, will they find our footsteps? Will they follow them? Will they lose us on the boulder scramble, not be able to figure out which way we went?

  Why’s Wilder being nice to me? Was that flight attendant his girlfriend?

  I’m out of water. What if he’s wrong and there isn’t water somewhere nearby?

  But is she his girlfriend? Does Wilder have a girlfriend?

  Why do I keep wondering that?

  Ten Years Earlier

  We’re in a conference room at the Granite Springs Resort and Spa, and I’m sitting cross-legged in the middle of an enormous mahogany table, the fully illustrated steps of mitosis spread around me.

  It’s mid-November in Solaris, the low season. There’s not enough snow yet for ski season to be in full swing, and though within a month all the resorts will be filled with people coming for winter holidays, they’re not here yet so we had our choice of rooms to use for studying.

  Wilder set it up, obviously. If I set up our study locations, we’d be at my parents’ kitchen table with my mom making us tea every ten minutes and my dad shouting the answers to Jeopardy in the next room.

  “All right,” Wilder says, leaning over the edge of the beautiful table, hair flopping in front of his blue-green eyes as he studies the handouts I made. “Mitosis is the process of cell division.”

  “Right,” I say.

  So far, so good. We’ve got a test tomorrow, and I think I’ll do okay — though I could spend another hour studying, why not — but Wilder called my house and begged me to come help him study.

  He’s hard to say no to. Even though he’s just my lab partner, even though he only wants my help passing bio, there’s something magnetic about him. Something that makes me smile at the dumb stuff he does in lab and that makes me trek across town in the half-dark to a huge resort where the front desk staff gives me the side-eye when I walk in.

  Something that makes me think thoughts about Wilder that I shouldn’t think because I know better. Even if he weren’t going with Melissa Hedder, it’s not like I’d be next on his list.

  “Phase one,” he announces, jabbing a finger at a sheet of paper. “Prophase. Phase two, metaphase.”

  “Yes and yes,” I say as he grabs the sheets and lines them up. There’s way, way more to it than this, but it’s a good start.

  “Three is anaphase, and four is telephase,” he says, lining those up too. “And after that comes cytokinesis, and then there are two cells where there used to be one and both cells can just chill for a while.”

  He looks at me, a half-smirk-half-smile on his face, and despite myself I smile back, pushing my hair back, tugging my black long-sleeve shirt down in the back just in case I’m showing skin.

  “They don’t rea
lly chill,” I say, and Wilder just laughs.

  “Okay,” he says, and climbs onto the table to sit next to me. “Now you want to know what happens during each of these, right?”

  “I mean, I know what happens,” I point out, pushing my glasses up my nose with my left hand. “You’re the one who wanted to study, so yeah, I guess you should tell me more about them.”

  Why’s he sitting next to me? He never does this.

  And why am I babbling on like the world’s most literal dork?

  He reaches across to touch the prophase sheet, and his forearms brushes against my knee.

  My heart nearly leaps out of my chest, and I hold my breath.

  “Step one,” he says. “This is when the… what’s it called, shit. The metanucleic spindle? Starts to capture chromosomes and the nucleolus disappears.”

  His forearm brushes my knee again, tan against the alabaster-pale skin peeking through the holes I’ve torn in both knees of my jeans.

  Say something, I tell myself. Correct him, it’s the mitotic spindle, Jesus Christ, Imogen you’re just sitting here like some sort of idiot because the boy you’ve got a crush on touched you by accident, get a grip on yourself—

  “You cool?” Wilder asks, and now he’s looking at me.

  His hand pulls back, settles on my shoulder, and I force myself to smile at him, even though I think I might be sweating a little.

  “Totally cool,” I say, in the least-cool possible way. “It’s actually the mitotic spindle.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean that you’re okay, not about the spindle,” he says.

  My spine feels like poured concrete, like if I move it might crumble into pieces, but I nod anyway.

  “Imogen,” he murmurs. “What are you so nervous about?”

  I shake my head, but I can’t shake his eyes, boring into mine like two lasers, blasting through my corneas and looking directly into my brain.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just seem jumpy.”

  I swallow, my mind going blank with nerves.

  He can’t do this. He won’t, you’re really getting the wrong idea about this, there’s no way Wilder Flint likes you this way—

  “Your face is really close to mine,” I blurt out.

  Then I turn bright red. Then I hold my breath, because I can’t believe I just said that out loud and oh my god what is wrong with me.

  He leans back on one hand, a smile forming around his mouth, though his face doesn’t get much further away from mine.

  “Huh,” he says, the smile moving to his eyes. “Weird. You mind?”

  I open my mouth, then close it. Then open it.

  “No?” I say, my voice barely more than a squeak.

  HE’S PUTTING THE MOVES ON YOU. FOR REAL, THIS IS HAPPENING, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON. HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND AND EVERYTHING—

  Wilder kisses me, his mouth warm and soft.

  I don’t move. For a long moment I’m perfectly still in shock, just sitting on this table cross-legged while his face is pressing against mine, nauseatingly unsure what you’re supposed to do when the hottest guy in the entire school kisses you out of nowhere while you thought you were studying for biology class.

  His mouth moves against mine, his head tilting.

  Suddenly instinct or something kicks in. My eyes slam shut, and I kiss him back, tilting my head, and then he’s got my head in his hand and his fingers are in my hair and I’m leaning forward, into the kiss, my teeth awkwardly against his lip and his mouth opens and his tongue is there.

  I’m thinking that’s his tongue oh shit oh shit, but I touch it with my own, exploring him and being explored and then they tangle together and my hand goes around his neck without me even meaning to do it.

  The kiss feels like it lasts forever, and when we finally pull apart we’re still both on the conference table, in the middle of a bunch of papers about cellular reproduction but I’m completely and absolutely sure that we’re done talking about mitosis for the night.

  “Take your glasses off,” Wilder murmurs, and I realize his hand is still in my hair.

  I do it, everything more than six inches away instantly going blurry, my heart thumping so hard against my ribcage I’m positive he can hear it as he brings his face to mine again and we kiss more, longer, a million hormones woken and raging at once.

  He must have broken up with Melissa, I think.

  I wonder if he did it for me. They must have broken up recently, I haven’t heard anything, but it’s not like I would.

  We make out until I have to go home before curfew, hair wild and lips practically bruised, still not quite sure what just happened other than oh shit Wilder Flint likes me. Kissing is all we do, but the longer it goes on the more I think about other stuff. Other places his hands could go, other places our bodies could go.

  It’s not my first kiss, but it’s the first time someone’s kissed me like that.

  Even as I’m standing, shoving my biology handouts back into my backpack, stumbling through some monologue about how I have to get home because of curfew, I’m hoping it won’t be the last.

  Wilder doesn’t say much while I blather on, but when I’m finished he’s got my glasses in one hand.

  He hops off the table, opens them. I’m perfectly still as he slides them onto my face and suddenly he comes into crystal-clear view, the same cocky smile-grin-smirk expression on his face that I developed a crush on in the first place.

  “Thanks,” I whisper.

  “If I fail tomorrow, you’ll help me study for the make up test, right?” he says, voice low and laconic as he leans back against the table. I’m too bowled over to notice the presumption there that of course I’ll keep helping him, of course I’ll do this again.

  “Sure,” I say, and he smiles.

  My toes tingle, and I grab onto the straps of my backpack for dear life, then walk for the door like a robot, no idea how I’m supposed to act now that I’ve done French kissing.

  But just as I reach for the doorknob, Wilder grabs my arm.

  “Wait,” he says, pulling me back, spinning me so my backpack is crushed between the wall and my body.

  He kisses me again, hard and urgent and this time our bodies are pressed together. Even though my coat I can feel his warmth, his urgency, and it’s like he takes a flamethrower to a pile of dry kindling deep inside me. I have to fight the urge to wrap my legs around his thick frame, rub myself against him.

  I don’t even know what exactly I want from Wilder, but in this instant, I know it’s something I’ve never felt before, something that just came roaring alive.

  Then it’s over. I fix my crooked glasses, breathing hard.

  “Good luck on the test,” Wilder says.

  “You too,” I whisper, and I’m already out three minutes past curfew so I run through the door and practically sprint home.

  Present Day

  Wilder sits bolt upright, the rustle of his layers of coats and the parachute over top of us the only sounds in the dead-quiet night. I only realize that we were snuggled together when his absence leaves a cold space on my back.

  “What is it?” I whisper, rolling onto my back, pine needles crunching under me, looking at Wilder’s ramrod-straight spine.

  He doesn’t answer. I feel like I just barely went to sleep after lying awake for hours, and now Wilder’s panicking over something, which instantly makes me worry that he’s heard something dangerous, some new reason we’re going to die here besides hypothermia, dehydration, starvation, or falling off a cliff.

  I stare at the stars glimmering between tree branches, listening intently, holding my breath.

  There’s nothing. I strain my ears harder.

  Avalanche? I wonder.

  Something prowling? Airplane? Helicopter?

  Are we getting rescued?

  Then I hear it, off in the distance: a long, thin, solitary howl that wraps an icy hand around my heart and squeezes. Another answers
it, then another.

  “Wolves,” Wilder whispers.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Wilder

  It howls again. This time it’s more than one wolf, I’m pretty certain, two or three of them in tandem. That’s a pack.

  There’s not a great chance of fighting off one wolf, but it’s been done. I’ve heard stories.

  Two? Three? No fucking way.

  Another howl answers the first and I swallow, my mouth dry. This one sounds like it’s from the other side of the valley, to our left and not our right, and my blood runs cold.

  Colder. Every single part of me is already cold, but I’ve been cold for a couple of days now and I’m starting to get used to it.

  Next to me, Imogen sits up, squinting and blinking, listening carefully.

  The first wolf howls again, the sound clear and sharp in the cold night, and I just watch our breath puff in front of our face and disappear as the sound fades.

  “We have to go,” I say, shoving myself to my feet and offering my hand. “Come on.”

  She just looks at me, squinting because she hasn’t got her glasses on.

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re in wolf territory,” I tell her, thinking it’s fucking obvious. “Those aren’t coyotes.’’

  “I know they’re not coyotes,” she says, disdain in her voice.

  “Then what the fuck are you waiting for?”

  Imogen starts patting the ground around herself, like she’s looking for something. She’s wearing her big black parka, a hat, gloves, and snow pants, so the pale oval of her face is all I can really see in the half-moonlight.

  “Wolves aren’t interested in humans,” she says, still feeling the ground around her.

  “The fuck they’re not.”

  She looks up at me, squinting vaguely because she can’t see, but somehow, she still manages to look like she’s about to talk down to me.