by Sarah Jaune
“Okay,” he said since he lacked anything more useful. “We can do this, though. We can go get Pablo. You and I have been through a lot.”
Eli forced himself not to think about his dad being dead. Pablo wasn’t dead. Maia was sure he was alive, and that was good enough for him.
Ivy nodded, then pushed herself up to sitting. She studied the cave entrance again, but there was still no sign of Oliver.
“Listen, we’re going to be jerks,” Eli said as she glanced back to him. “That’s just how we are. Oliver and I give each other crap.”
Ivy let out a long, sad sigh as she twisted her hands together. “I know and I’m sorry. I’m on edge.”
“So tell Oliver that,” Eli prompted, then winced at his own stupidity. “Never mind, bad idea.”
“Oliver would handle that oh so well,” Ivy said dryly. “I shouldn’t have hit him.”
Eli laughed. “Of course you should have. I just wish I’d had my eyes open. I personally enjoy hitting him as often as I can get away with.”
They made a fire and ate beef jerky that Maia had packed for them along with bread and fruit. It wasn’t the best meal Eli had ever had, but it hit the spot. He was finally ready to move once dinner was over, but Ivy was nodding off as she stared into the fire. “Go to sleep,” he told her.
“I’m fine,” she lied as her head swayed in her exhaustion.
“You’ve been up for a whole twenty-four hours,” he reminded her. “Sleep.”
“Fine, I’ll try, but I’m not even tired,” she agreed as she pulled out a sweatshirt from her pack and put it on. Ivy curled up with her head on one of the backpacks and fell almost instantly to sleep.
“The fact that the two of you can sleep anywhere, boggles my mind,” Oliver said as he stared at Ivy. “I’m not going to get any sleep tonight. We’ll be sleeping on dirt.”
Eli shrugged. “You get used to it.”
“What was it like in the Sasquatch cave?” Oliver asked, and for once he didn’t sound antagonistic.
“It was nice, actually,” Eli answered honestly. “They had a bed of furs that were pretty comfortable, and they had this food that was pretty much the best thing I ever tasted. I still have no idea what it’s made from.”
Oliver shook his head. “I don’t envy you.”
Eli inclined his head towards Ivy. “Go easy on her, okay? Something’s wrong with the forest, maybe with the water around us, and it has put her on edge. We’ve had a really rough week already.”
Oliver’s dark brow rose. “Sticking up for Ivy? She doesn’t need you to defend her.”
He had to bite back his retort. “I didn’t say she did. How about give her a little space, or I’ll hold you down so she can beat you senseless.”
Oliver grinned at that. “She does have a mean right hook. I don’t want to get on her bad side. It’s impressive how far she’s come in the last year.”
This was Eli’s family. The important thing was how hard a person could hit.
They were all nuts, and Eli loved every minute of it.
CHAPTER 13
ANNOYING BROTHERS
“So,” Oliver said slowly as Eli stared into the flames of their small fire. “What’s up with you two?”
Eli glanced up sharply and stared at Oliver. His face glowed red in the light of the dancing flames, making the scars from his years of bad pimples fade on the surface of his round face. His eyes were a lighter shade of blue in the firelight, and they were fixed on Eli now. “Nothing. We’re friends. Why, are you interested in Ivy?”
Oliver shook his head as a slow grin crept over his mouth. He smiled and showed off his perfectly straight, white teeth. “She’s cute, in her own way, but not my type.”
Eli gritted his teeth and didn’t say anything. He didn’t even know how he felt about what Oliver had said.
“You act like more than friends.”
It caught him so off guard that he actually flinched. Eli turned to make sure that Ivy was still asleep before he answered. He didn’t owe Oliver much, especially nothing that might hurt Ivy, but he did want his brother to understand. “We’ve been through a lot together. We’ve saved each other’s lives more than once. We have a bond.”
“I’d have thought you two would be attached with how close you are, actually,” Oliver admitted. It was absolutely not what Eli had expected him to say, but before he could think of a response, Oliver went on. “It’s like Mom knowing when Dad gets hurt, or if he’s upset, she knows it. Same for Dad. He comes home and he knows immediately if Mom has had a bad day. You and Ivy,” he said as he inclined his head towards her. “You two do that.”
“We aren’t attached,” Eli said flatly. It took all he had just to say it without any inflection. He didn’t really want to be attached to Ivy. It wasn’t even something he’d thought about before, nor did he want to think about it now. “How’s it going with your girlfriend?”
“We broke up again,” Oliver said as he tossed a small twig into the fire. “She got upset about some stupid something. Once she’s done being mad, we’ll get back together.”
“You,” Eli said with the shake of his head, “are an ass. Why do girls like you?”
Oliver shrugged. “I’m a magnet, man. I think they sense my power.”
“Oh, daggers,” Eli couldn’t help the belly laugh as he bent over. “I’m going to bed. I can’t take any more of your crap. Pretty soon we’ll be swimming in it.”
Eli awoke the next morning feeling completely normal, but also alone in the cave.
“There aren’t any squirrels.”
He turned his head towards the entrance and saw Ivy slide into the cave. Her cheeks were flushed and there was a twig stuck in her hair. She pulled the knot down and the rope of hair dropped down to her waist.
He watched as she raked her fingers through her long hair, pulling out the twig and a stray leaf. It looked golden, just a little darker than fresh hay, in the early morning light.
“What?” Ivy paused to stare at him.
“Nothing,” he shook his head and sat up to stretch out from his long night on the dirt floor. “You two didn’t wake me.”
“We tried but you were out,” she told him. “There’s a stream about a mile away, in the right direction. I think we should go there and fish. We can eat then and save our rations.”
It didn’t work out how they wanted. The hike down to the stream was more of a slide on loose rocks. Several times Eli had to deflect boulders so that they didn’t end up flattened. All three of them were scratched and bruised by the time they hit the water.
Eli stared at the banks on the other side of the creek and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The high water mark, the place where the dirt was discolored from the water flow, was dried and flaking off. It was a good four feet higher than the current water level. “What is going on here?” Eli asked Ivy as he pointed to the other bank. “Is this a natural problem or your dad?”
“I don’t know,” she said blankly as she stared into the trees. “Let me see if I can call some fish to us.”
“This is going to be interesting,” Oliver said darkly as he sat down on a rock at the edge of the stream.
They did eventually eat, but it was on several tiny fish that were unevenly cooked over a small camp fire. They had pocket knives and lighters with them, which was all they needed to survive, but it wasn’t the same as cooking with a stove. Fish suspended on a stick over a fire took cooking to a whole other level.
“I keep wanting to look around for the wolves,” Eli admitted as he finished his last piece of charred fish.
When they didn’t say anything, he raised his gaze and saw Ivy and Oliver exchanging a look. “You tell him,” Oliver said after a moment.
She took a deep breath, then leveled her gaze with Eli. “The wolves are dead, Eli. You killed them all when you blasted the forest.”
Eli’s mind ground to a halt. He tried to process it, but nothing would sink in. “What?”
“There
were bodies towards the edge of the clearing,” she told him. “We passed a few. I thought you’d seen them.”
He shook his head and felt something in his chest tighten. He hadn’t meant to kill anyone or anything. Unbidden, his twin sister popped into his mind. Thane had told Eli that Beth would sometimes explode out with magic and be unaware that she’d done it. It troubled him more than he wanted to admit.
“You didn’t hurt us,” Ivy reminded him.
He flicked his gaze up to hers and saw a small smile. “With Beth, she accidentally hurts people that she doesn’t mean to. You haven’t done that.”
“Have you seen the bruises I have from him?” Oliver retorted as he rolled back his sleeve to show a purple bruise on his arm. “Oh wait, that was you, Ivy.”
Ivy hesitated, just a moment, then added, “Keep it up and I’ll give you another one.”
Oliver grinned, clearly pleased that she’d taken the bait. “Let’s get a move on.”
“We need to have a plan or we’ll be wandering around for a year,” Eli said as he started to pack his gear into his bag.
They walked for hours as night darkened around them and clouds rolled in.
“Is it going to rain?” Eli asked Ivy.
She nodded and kept her head down. He didn’t mention her fear of storms, and knew she was trying hard not to think about it. It didn’t thunder here in the Portland Zone often, and he could only hope it would be like that now.
“If we can’t find another cave we’re going to be soaked,” Oliver complained, then swore loudly as he stubbed his toe on a rock.
Ivy hugged herself and kept walking with her head down. Eli shot his brother a quelling look, silently warning him to keep his mouth shut, and stepped over to put an arm around her shoulders. She made like she was going to shrug him off, but when Oliver didn’t say anything, she stayed put. They kept walking until there was no light at all, not even from the moon which was hidden by the clouds.
Thunder rolled in the distance and Eli felt Ivy’s muscles tense under his hand. “It’s okay,” he reminded her so quietly that Oliver wouldn’t hear. “You can do this.”
“There!” Oliver pointed over to their right. “I see something.” He led the way, plodding through thick bushes until they came upon a hut.
“What the…” Eli stared in disbelief at the battered, wooden structure. “No one lives out here! This is the Overseer’s land.”
“Well someone must,” Oliver said as he knocked at the door and the sky was split by the forks of lightning. Ivy barely held back a whimper that only Eli could hear over the near immediate crack of thunder.
No one answered Oliver’s knock. “So… I’m going to break in,” his brother told them.
It didn’t even take that. Oliver pulled up the rough, metal latch and the door swung open. Eli pushed Ivy in ahead of him just as another bolt of lightning struck, followed a second later by the thunder.
“It’s close,” Oliver said unnecessarily as he shut and latched the door.
A moment later the rain let loose. Torrents of water fell in buckets on the roof of the hut, pattering and pelting the wood above them. Eli glanced up to see if he could spot anything of the roof that was only a few feet above him, but it was so dark that he couldn’t make out the beams. He didn’t feel any water dripping down on him, though.
“There was a fire in here recently,” Oliver said, interrupting Eli’s thoughts as yet another bolt filled the room for a moment with light.
What Eli saw in the sharp, dancing light, was Ivy’s pale face, and huge eyes staring in terror as she bit down hard on her lip. He went to her, drawn to her in her fear. He hugged her hard and pressed her face into his shoulder so she wouldn’t have to see the flashes of the lightning.
“I’m f-fine,” she stuttered into his shirt as her hands fisted into the material. “I’m fine. I’m just…”
“Fine,” he agreed as he held on tight. “Can you get a fire going, Oliver?”
“Sure, there’s extra kindling next to the pit,” Oliver said in a gentler voice than Eli had ever heard him use. “I think someone was here recently, though, Eli. It looks like this pit isn’t even a week old, and it’s built in the exact same way that Dad taught us to build a fire ring.”
The storm raged around him, but with the fire Ivy finally managed to sit on her own, close to the warmth it offered. The room was not much to look at. The floors were wood; which Eli was grateful for because he could hear the water flowing all around the cabin. It was a miracle that it hadn’t flowed in. The cabin was one small room, no bigger than ten square feet. It wasn’t square, though. It looked as though whoever had built it hadn’t had any idea how to build a building. The walls were bare, there was no kitchen, and only a single cot was slung off to one side. It probably wouldn’t be comfortable. It was a simple wooden frame with some sort of animal skin stretched over it for the person to lay on, but it was that or lying on the floor.
The fire pit was made exactly how Pablo had taught them, except for one detail. He’d placed a lot of sand down on the floor. Next, he’d topped it with several large, flat rocks. From there, he circled the whole thing with bigger rocks, and then built a small fire up from that. It was crude, but it worked to keep the floor from burning.
What caught Eli’s attention, though, was his brother’s reaction to Ivy’s fear. If forced to guess, he’d have assumed that Oliver would have teased Ivy for her fear. He was always teasing her, along with everyone else. Instead, the concerned look that Oliver was shooting Ivy’s way was more alarming to Eli than the storm itself. “Why don’t you sleep?” Eli offered to Ivy as he pointed to the corner where the cot stood.
“I can’t,” she whispered as she pulled her knees closer to her chest. “I can’t sleep until it’s over.”
A strained silence fell between them. Oliver broke it by saying, “I’m afraid of heights.”
Ivy turned her face towards him, with her chin still resting on her knees. The small light from the fire flickered in her eyes, turning them several colors all at once. “Really?”
Eli had known that, but he didn’t actually think Oliver was afraid. It was more like he was respectfully cautious when it came to falling a long way down.
“Yeah,” Oliver said without hesitation. He grinned as mischief filled his round cheeks. “Eli is afraid of snakes.”
Eli closed his eyes, willing himself not to explode. He foresaw where this was going. Before Ivy could admit she knew that, he played straight into Oliver’s game. “She doesn’t want to hear about that.”
Ivy opened her mouth, momentarily confused, then understanding caught. “He is?” she asked Oliver.
“Oh, yeah,” Oliver said happily, ready to rip Eli’s pride to shreds. “We camped in the desert a few times and he’d make our older brother, Naim, check his sleeping bag for snakes.”
“Shut up,” Eli growled as heat flooded his cheeks. Ivy smiled, though, a little pensively, but it was still a smile, so he didn’t punch Oliver. “I only asked him once, and I was ten!”
Oliver, who was on a roll now, crowed with laughter. “It was a lot more than once! We used to have to check everything to make sure there wasn’t a snake.”
“You’re lucky there isn’t a handy cliff I can drop you off of,” Eli assured him in annoyance.
Brothers… can’t live with them, can’t leave them tied up in a cabin. He’d once said he didn’t know what he’d do if he had to live with four sisters, but he was starting to think it might be more pleasant than this. It was nice, in a twisted way, that Oliver had taken Ivy’s mind off the storm, but it had cost him any bit of ego he’d had left. Admittedly, it hadn’t been much. Ivy had watched him throw up when he’d seen the snake in Yellowstone.
She reached out a hand for him, her cheek on her knees as she tilted her face sideways to study him. Eli took it and Oliver’s laughter died as the silence filled the cabin. Her cold fingers squeezed his once, then she rose and went over to the cot.
E
li and Oliver stared at the small fire, both unwilling to break the silence. The storm died around them, blown out as quickly as it had blown in. Eli went to check on Ivy and found her asleep, so he draped a sweatshirt over her shoulders and went back to sit with his brother.
“I didn’t understand before,” Oliver said in a low murmur after ten minutes of silence, save for the crack and pop of the fire.
“Understand what?” Eli asked him warily.
Oliver didn’t answer, though. He shook his head and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Why is she so afraid?”
“She was raised by a crazy woman, Ollie,” Eli said as he accidentally slipped and used Oliver’s childhood name. “I don’t have to fill in the blanks on that. You know what it can be like.”
