The Big Game

by Sarah Jaune

  “That’s not something you see every day,” Ivy said from the seat next to him.

  “This is so cool,” Eli agreed as he grinned for what felt like the first time in weeks. Something in his stomach let go, just a little bit. He smiled at Ivy, noting her own smile and how it lit up her green eyes which were emerald in the morning light. “This is a good idea.”

  She started the jeep up and put it into drive. “We both need a break after what we just went through.”

  They drove on through the day, up higher into the mountains, until the trees had completely swallowed the car. They came into a clearing of burned, scarred earth that bore the signs of a fire. Here, though, green was starting to poke back through the ground, bringing new life to the torched earth. It was a sign of hope. After several more miles, they joined back up with the forests, and kept rising until the trees thinned out even further.

  “How far up do we have to go?” Eli asked her.

  “I have no idea,” Ivy admitted. “I think we’ll move into a valley next.”

  They did. They saw more buffalo, deer, and even a bear as they continued to drive around the winding, poorly maintained roads.

  “I think there is a big lodge in the middle,” Ivy said as she kept driving. “This is a no-man’s land that none of the zones really have a claim over, and the people who live here are basically on their own. We should be able to find a place to camp from there.”

  “There’s snow on those mountains,” Eli pointed towards some of the taller peaks. “It has to get really cold here.”

  Ivy kept driving. “We need a break. We can lose ourselves here for a bit until we’re ready to get back to life.”

  “It wasn’t even a dangerous rescue,” Eli grumbled, annoyed with himself because she was right. He needed a break.

  “I haven’t seen a baby that small, ever, and you just had to say goodbye to your siblings again,” Ivy said heavily as she slowed to turn at a sign that said, ‘Lodge This Way,’ with an arrow pointing to the right. “When we were in New Orleans a few months ago, we had a lot to do and we couldn’t think too closely on the why. We know the why, Eli. We may not have the specifics, but we know that Becca and Jonas needed out of that house.”

  “I should have gotten her out last April,” Eli said, giving voice to the thing that had really been bothering him.

  “If you’d done that, we’d never have made it out with Jonas,” Ivy retorted immediately. “Your father would have made sure that we’d never had the chance to get in. It was better this way. We saved both of them.”

  The unsaid truth hung between them. It was over now. Eli wouldn’t have any other siblings, not unless his father remarried, because his mother was dead.

  Ivy pulled up in front of a huge, old lodge made of dark lumber. “Stay put. I’m going to see if they have a map.”

  CHAPTER 7

  YELLOWSTONE

  After ten minutes with still no sign of Ivy, Eli pushed opened the door and stepped out of the jeep. The second his feet hit the gravel drive, Ivy opened the big door and exited with a short, stocky man in a plaid shirt and jeans who sported a full beard of dark brown hair. He was completely bald, which looked odd next to his hugely bushy beard. He stared at Eli with small, dark eyes that narrowed even further. “I don’t think you should go out there.”

  “We’ll be okay,” Ivy smiled at him. It was Ivy who had Eli forcing his shoulders to relax. She wasn’t worried about this man. Whatever look he was giving Eli, he hadn’t made her uncomfortable.

  “There are bears and wolves, plus those buffalo can be mean,” the man said as he came down the steps of the lodge to look Eli up and down. “Do you have a gun?”

  “We won’t need one,” Ivy said with a wave of her hand. “Thank you for this.”

  The man grunted and turned on his heels, stalking back into the big lodge. He slammed the door behind him.

  “What was that?” Eli wondered as he glanced sideways towards Ivy.

  “They have a hunter’s cabin that has a fireplace,” she explained as she passed him a scrap of paper with a crudely drawn map. “It’s near a stream where we can fish.”

  Eli gaped at her as she skirted around the jeep to hop into the driver’s seat. “They’re just going to let us use the cabin?”

  “I had one of the gold coins,” Ivy said as she stopped and faced off with him over the hood of the car. “I saved it from last time, just in case.”

  He remembered the gold coins that his foster father, Pablo, had given them just before they’d left to go to New Orleans. The coins could be traded anywhere in order to get information or to help them accomplish their mission as Pursuers. It didn’t seem right. Those gold coins were supposed to be used to get the kids out.

  “Listen,” she pleaded quietly, with eyes that seemed more sunken in than the day before. She looked exhausted. “I can’t go back home after what we just went through. I can’t go back and pretend that I didn’t see a two-year-old who isn’t talking yet because she’s too scared of everything around her. I need a break. You need a break. We take one, and when we get back, we’re good to go again if we need to. Maia told me to use the coins to get anything we needed. I feel no guilt over this, Eli. If we went back to Portland now, neither of us would be any use to anyone.”

  She was right, so he dropped down into his seat in the jeep, buckled his seatbelt, and stared at the map as he directed her along the four-mile drive to the cabin.

  “There are geysers around here somewhere,” Ivy said as she drove up a bumpy, dirt road that was rutted from runoff.

  They found one before they’d made it even another hundred feet. A huge fountain of water shot into the air, blasting hundreds of gallons of water towards the sky. They both watched in fascination as it continued on for over a minute before dying down into a pool in the cracked rocks.

  They kept on for another two miles before they reached a small cabin at the end of the road. It was a tiny structure, maybe ten foot square, with a pitched A-frame steel roof and timber joints filled with black pitch.

  “You get the couch,” Ivy grinned as she hopped out of the jeep and sprinted up to the cabin. Eli followed behind her with their backpacks and trailed along into the small cabin as Ivy flicked on a single light that dangled from the ceiling. Eli had to admit he was a little surprised that they had any light at all out here. It wasn’t much to look at, but there was a bed off behind a curtain to the right, a kitchen to the left, and mercifully, a long, squashy couch.

  Eli dumped his stuff by the door and handed Ivy’s bag over to her. “How long are we staying?”

  “Until I don’t feel like screaming in my sleep,” Ivy muttered as she walked around inspecting the sparse furnishings.

  He met her gaze and his concern must have been written all over his face, but she blushed and looked down at the floor. Ivy moved over to a tall cabinet set into the wall and opened the door, which creaked loudly with every inch it moved. Inside were fishing poles, hunting knives, and several other things that Eli didn’t know how to label.

  “You know we don’t actually need a pole, right?” Eli mused as he took the long, wooden stick that she held out to him. “You call the fish to you, and then I lift them from the water.”

  Ivy gave him a look, exactly the same kind of look that Maia gave Eli when he did or said something stupid. “That’s cheating.”

  “It’s efficient,” Eli retorted, but followed along behind her as she made for the door. Before leaving, Eli saw iron hooks shaped a lot like an ‘L’ nailed to the doorframe all the way up one side. He checked the other side, and saw another row that lined up with the first. Stacked neatly against the wall were thick, sturdy planks of wood. Immediately, Eli knew what they were for. With the door closed, they would be able to stick the wood in the iron slats and make it nearly impossible to get into the cabin from the outside.

  The question that floated through his brain spilled out his mouth. “Why would anyone want to lock themselves in like that?”<
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  “I think it’s for bears,” Ivy told him as she came back in to see what was keeping him. She pointed around the room. “There aren’t any windows.”

  That was an unsettling thought.

  They walked around the back of the cabin along a path that led down a steep hill towards the sound of running water. Before long, the path turned into a planked, raised walkway with railings. Shortly after, they found the water, but it wasn’t normal water.

  “What on earth is this?” Eli asked as he stared down into the smoking, fiery water below their feet. It hissed and spit small shoots of boiling liquid into the air, and a light fog hung over the water, giving it the nasty smell of bad eggs.

  “It’s part of the volcano,” Ivy told him as she sat down on the wooden walkway and stared upstream at the slowly meandering creek.

  Eli hesitated for a moment, then sat next to her, setting the fishing pole off to the side where it wouldn’t fall into the boiling river. “The volcano makes the rivers boil here?”

  “This isn’t really water,” Ivy said as she pointed towards the liquid. “It has water in it, but it’s something else. I don’t know what, exactly, but it isn’t water.”

  “It smells lovely,” he commented dryly as he stretched his legs out along the walkway and leaned back on his hands.

  She grinned for a moment, but it faded fast. “Your legs are getting really long.”

  Surprised, he stared at his legs and feet that often felt too big and clumsy. “Okay?” he said in confusion.

  Ivy scooted over next to him and extended her feet next to his. Her foot stopped at his lower shin. “You’re going to be towering over me soon.”

  Eli snorted. There was no way that was going to happen. He’d spent most of the year that he’d known Ivy looking eye to eye with her. “That’s not going to happen. I’m still really short.”

  “Just wait,” she said on a sigh as Ivy rested her head against his shoulder.

  He had to fight not to squirm. Eli had comforted Ivy when they’d been in the middle of bad storms. That was Ivy’s biggest fear, but she was slowly getting over it. He’d hugged her plenty of times, but this felt different. Maybe she felt different. He’d never seen her so melancholy. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I don’t know how to,” Ivy admitted.

  “You have to talk about it,” Eli reminded her, parroting what Maia had always said to him. “If you hold it in, it turns into anger or depression. It’s hard to get it out, but you have to.”

  She nodded as she moved her legs up. Ivy rested her head against her knees and hugged them close to her chest. “I looked at Becca and it was like looking at myself. It brought back so many awful memories of times with my mom. I keep thinking…” she let her voice trail off.

  Eli raised his hand to her back and hugged her. “You didn’t have anyone there with you to keep you sane, not like I did. I had Naomi, Beth, and best of all, Nanny Florence. I had an adult looking out for me.”

  He hadn’t consciously thought about it until that moment. Ivy had been completely alone with her crazy mother. Her father should have helped out.

  “It could be worse,” Ivy admitted as she held onto him. “I know it could be worse.”

  “Things could always be worse,” Eli agreed honestly. “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to grieve what you’ve lost, right? My mother was a nightmare, but I still had to let go of her now that she’s dead.”

  Ivy laughed softly, almost sadly. “You’ve gotten so smart over the last year, Eli.”

  “I try,” he grinned as he pressed a kiss to her temple. He didn’t even know why he did it, but she didn’t seem to care so he didn’t back off. He didn’t want to ruin the moment. “Do you remember that cabin we were stuck in back in the Boise Zone?”

  “I’m not likely to forget being kidnapped with you,” she reminded him dryly.

  Eli forced his feelings, which were definitely more towards contentment now, to stay with him. “You said to me that you weren’t sure anyone ever loved you.”

  Ivy went still next to him. “I remember,” she said in a hushed voice.

  “That’s where you came from, Ivy,” he said quietly. “You came from a place where you had to figure everything out on your own, without anyone around who really loved you and wanted the best for you. I think it’s amazing how far you’ve come.”

  The world around them had an orange haze, hanging in the clouds of steam, or fog. It was so thick in some places that it almost obscured the trees in the distance. It almost appeared as though the trees were floating in the clouds.

  Ivy was silent for a good ten minutes, and Eli didn’t interrupt. He kept his arm around her, even though his hand was beginning to go numb.

  “I’m starting to feel like I belong,” she said after a while. “I’m part of the misfit gang of kids who have escaped from the misery of having magical parents.”

  “It’s not all magical parents,” Eli pointed out reasonably. “Maia and Pablo are great. I’m sure that Cole is,” he paused to swallow down a lump in his throat, “is going to be great. He seemed really good with Becca and Jonas.”

  “He did,” Ivy agreed quickly. “I think he really cares about them, already. He’ll be a good dad.”

  The truth hung heavy over Eli’s head, almost like a hand was pushing down on him. “I miss them.” He didn’t just mean Becca and Jonas, although that was certainly part of it.

  Ivy sucked in her bottom lip and chewed on it. She reached out a tentative hand and laced their fingers together. “I know.”

  “If I don’t let myself feel it, it’s going to eat me from the inside out,” he said as he inhaled the stink and closed his eyes. His mind focused on the chirping of birds around him, and the hum of insects far off from this uninhabited water that flowed below them. “That’s what Maia always tells me, but I don’t think I really understood until now. I didn’t see that having some way to let those feelings out was what would keep me moving.”

  Eli opened his eyes and stared down at their joined hands. Calm. That was what he felt. He was absolutely at peace with where he was, despite what had happened in Chicago. Ivy always had that effect on him. “Do you remember how Coral said we were both closed off?”

  “I’m not likely to forget that,” Ivy said, bemused, as her green eyes met his. “There’s nothing like being told your heart is frozen shut.”

  “That isn’t what she said,” Eli said with a laugh. Coral’s magical gift was telepathy. She could read minds, and hearts. When they’d gone to see her in San Antonio a few months before, to check to see if she and her sisters were safe, Coral had explained that they were both closed off. “We’ve been through a lot, so we’re just not open to more hurts. It just reminded me of that, because she said we were both like a closed fist.”

  “You know what I find weird,” Ivy told him as she stared out at the swirling fog. “I find it strange that your twin sister made an attachment. Presumably she has the same hang ups that you do, but she’s still attached to Thane. I envy that.”

  He had no idea what to say to that. It left him feeling a little sick. “You… you like Thane?”

  Surprised, Ivy shook her head. “No! I meant that I envy that she has someone. She has the ability to connect with people, and I can’t. I don’t really trust people enough, except maybe you. I don’t like Thane like that. I just… well, it’s like you said.” Her shrug was just a bit too casual. “I’ve never had anyone love me, and I thought…”

  When she didn’t finish her sentence, he filled it in. “If you’re attached to someone, then they will love you.”

  Ivy shifted to the side, a bit away from him, so that he couldn’t see her face. “I’m being ridiculous. I probably don’t have an attachment, and even if I do, it’s like Coral told us. I’m closed off from that.”

  He didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. It was like a frog had crawled down his throat, leaving him unable to say anything. Eli squeezed her fingers a
nd stood, pulling her up to stand. “Come on, let’s go get some fish. Uh,” he looked down at the bubbling stream below them. “Not here, right?”

  Smiling a little, Ivy bent to pick up the fishing poles. “It’s over that way,” she told him as she pointed down through the mist. “It’s on the other side of those trees over there.”

  The moment they were away from the stream, he shivered as the cool air hit him. “It was warm back on that creek.”

  “It was,” Ivy agreed easily as she continued along the path, “but that air was slowly poisoning us, so I’m voting we don’t camp there tonight.”

  CHAPTER 8

  THE ALPHA