The Big Game

by Sarah Jaune

  “I think they’re attached,” Oliver said bluntly.

  “If they were attached, we’d already know,” Pablo retorted. “They would already know. That’s not something that happens later, but let’s focus on you. No,” he said, forestalling Oliver. “This is about you. You sound jealous. Do you have feelings for Ivy?”

  “What? No!” Oliver denied immediately. He sounded sincere, too. “Eli… he… he’s good at this.”

  Pablo let out a sigh. “No, he’s not good with girls. He’s good with people. He thinks first about treating others how he wants to be treated. He’s not a selfish person.”

  “I’m selfish,” Oliver replied flatly.

  “You can be,” Dad agreed gently. “If you were nicer, you’d have better results. But the fact is that you also went through serious neglect. You weren’t given the care as a baby that most families give. I don’t know why they hired the nanny they did for you, because she was terrible. We’ve been over this, though. You can choose to let that continue to define you, or you can choose to be better. I think your ex-girlfriend would appreciate it if you treated her better. I think she deserves it.”

  Ivy sighed deeply and shifted a little closer to Eli.

  “You’ve said before that the rules don’t seem to apply to Eli and Ivy,” Oliver said, changing the topic. Again. Eli wasn’t surprised.

  The birds began to sing in the crisp, dew-drenched morning air all around them.

  Pablo didn’t reply for almost a minute. “I’m wondering about that as well, but if it’s the case, there is no point in pushing it. If you can’t be nice to Eli, then try to be extra considerate of Ivy. When you hurt Eli, you hurt her.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Oliver grumbled. Eli heard him stomp off. A moment later, Pablo walked away as well.

  It was only then that Eli pulled his eyes open, and he saw the golden hair filling his vision. Ivy had her face pressed against his neck, and somehow, in the middle of the night, he’d put both arms around her. He didn’t remember any of it. He had been so tired that he hadn’t dreamed anything. The last time she’d slept on his arm, his whole hand had been numb, but as he carefully moved his fingers, he found that they were fine. He put his hand on her back and closed his eyes.

  He dropped off again moments later.

  It was Ivy who woke him this time. “Eli…” her soft whisper broke into his sleep as he felt her fingers prod lightly at his chest.

  “Mhmm,” he yawned as he opened his eyes and loosened his arms. When she didn’t move, he didn’t either.

  Finally, she said, “I’m starving.”

  He hadn’t realized it, but he was as well. “We should eat.”

  They still didn’t move.

  “I’m afraid my dad will be at the lake.”

  The words sounded like they were forced from her, pulled painfully from the secret depths of her heart. He held her tightly and wished he knew what to say.

  “He won’t even know who I am,” she said in a hollow voice. “He’ll have no idea unless I use my magic.”

  “He’s not worth this,” Eli reminded her forcefully. “He’s just a jerk, Ivy. He’s the loser who didn’t take care of you like he should have.”

  “I know you’re right,” Ivy agreed hesitantly. “I want to say something else, but then I remember that your father was even worse than mine, and I’d be telling you as much if the roles were reversed. I am struggling to let it go.”

  “If he’s there,” Eli told her, “I will hold him down so you can punch him as many times as you like.”

  She laughed then and the sound filled his heart like drinking a warm cup of milk. It was good. It was solid. It was real. It made him smile.

  “Eli,” Pablo called to him. “You really need to get up now. The bear is here.”

  CHAPTER 25

  THE BEAR

  He didn’t exactly spring to his feet, since his arms were tangled up with Ivy, but neither did he dawdle. The moment he was up, he walked quickly over to his dad who was pointing into the woods. For a minute, Eli didn’t see anything. He waited. Pablo would know if there was a bear, and all he needed to do was wait to see what would happen.

  It came, a giant brown bear, with small, sharp eyes. The Sasquatch around them shifted, ready to pounce.

  “Hold,” Pablo said, spitting out the order. “Eli can send it off without touching it. We do not need to be hurt right now.”

  “Sure,” Eli said mildly as he watched the bear take a step forward. “Yeah, let’s let the runt of the group handle the thousand-pound bear. No biggie.”

  Oliver laughed, nervously.

  It took another step forward and Eli held up his hand, stopping it with an invisible wall of magic. He kept pressure on the bear until its paws began to slip backward in the muddy earth.

  It growled in annoyance and tried to swipe at the air, as though he could claw through the magic. Eli pushed again, and again. Finally, it huffed out a breath that left a small vapor cloud in the air, and turned away to run off.

  “There is something not quite right about that bear,” Pablo said thoughtfully. “It doesn’t smell right or something. I’m not sure what.”

  Eli only heard part of what his dad said, because a low buzzing had taken up residence in his ears. He stumbled and turned to find Ivy eating something with one hand and holding out food to him in another. He let out a sigh of relief and shoved the wad of meat into his mouth.

  They continued on just as soon as Eli and Ivy had finished stuffing themselves. This close to the lake, the game was more plentiful, and the Sasquatch had even found bushes with edible berries. It was nicer than Eli could explain to finally be eating something else besides meat.

  They left for the last short slog to the lake as soon as they were done eating. Eli felt a hundred times better than he had the night before, except for one thing: Ivy was still nervous. Her anxiety leaked through him like battery acid on the skin. He kept stealing glances at her face, but she kept her features ruthlessly blank.

  They hit the northeast corner of the lake without running into anyone, which didn’t surprise them since Pablo said that everyone was south of the lake. What they did find was the water feed for one of the lakes, and it was down to a small trickle now.

  “That’s all you,” Eli said to Ivy as he pointed it out. “Good job.”

  He watched as her shoulders came back and her head straitened. Finally, she appeared ready to take on what they needed to. “You and me for this next part.”

  “What?” Eli asked, baffled.

  “We’re going to sneak around the lake and try to figure out how to weaken it,” she said evenly. “We can’t do that with a big group, and we don’t need them for protection.”

  Pablo didn’t love the idea, but he saw the value in it. “Let’s say we split up. How and when are we going to meet after?”

  “Sundown,” Eli suggested, “back here. If one of us isn’t back shortly after sundown, then the other will know there is a problem.”

  Pablo nodded thoughtfully. “You work on the lake, and we’ll work on the people.”

  They split up with Eli and Ivy taking the long way around to the bottom of the lake, going to the north, while the others headed south. They didn’t talk much for the first thirty minutes, and Eli found himself studying the woods around him. There was something about them that didn’t feel quite right to him. It was almost like they were being watched. He didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  “Eli?” Ivy’s voice interrupted his musing. “Were you awake this morning when your dad was talking to Oliver?”

  He tried to swallow at the lump that had suddenly lodged itself in his throat. “Yeah,” he admitted reluctantly. “Well, kind of. I fell right back to sleep when they left, so I wasn’t exactly awake. I didn’t think you were.”

  “I had been for a bit before you woke,” she told him quietly. “You had your hand in my hair, and it felt weird.”

  “Sorry,” Eli mumbled as he sho
ved his hands in his pockets and kept his eyes on the ground where he was walking.

  “I didn’t say it was a bad weird, just weird,” she promised as she pulled at his arm. She linked their fingers as soon as she had them free from his pocket. “I went back to sleep, too, but I’m…”

  He stole a glance at her and saw her cheeks were a little tinged pink. “What?”

  “I like this better,” she told him honestly. “I didn’t like getting back with people in Redmond and suddenly it was like there was a wall between us. I don’t know why we did that, but we both did.”

  Eli didn’t know either, and then it hit him so fast that it was like being punched in the gut. “I didn’t want people to think we were more than friends.”

  Ivy nodded thoughtfully. “I think that makes sense, and I agree. There’s a lot of pressure that I didn’t need. You don’t need it either. It’s easy this way. I think I was protecting our friendship, like if we weren’t careful, we’d lose it.”

  “You aren’t going to lose me,” he reminded her as he squeezed her hand.

  She nodded thoughtfully and they kept walking. “We’re nearly to the third river’s path. It’s the most westward river that I diverted.”

  “So the one we passed before was the really big river that accidentally sent down a wall of water?”

  “Yeah,” she confirmed as she pointed to the mud hole that appeared ten feet in front of them. “Be prepared to get filthy again.”

  Eli refused, point blank, to walk through it. He grabbed a huge fallen log and dumped it across the muck. He bowed dramatically. “After you.”

  Ivy shook her head. “You first, I insist.”

  Shrugging, Eli hopped up and waited until Ivy had climbed up behind him. They made it halfway across before she lost her balance. Eli grabbed ahold of her, and her momentum sent them tumbling down to the disgusting muck.

  They didn’t land in it. In fact, the only part that did hit the mud were the loose ends of Ivy’s long hair. Eli stared at the mud, then gazed down the lengths of their bodies which were hovering about a foot above the riverbed.

  “Now that was a neat trick,” Ivy said earnestly. “Can you get us back up?”

  Eli concentrated and pushed them back over to the log. They scrambled up and sat for a moment, staring at each other.

  Ivy’s hair was wild and tangled, and he reached over to pull the mud from the ends of her ponytail.

  “First thing when we get back,” Ivy said as she wound her hair back up into a bun, “I am taking a shower and cutting off my hair.”

  “Oh,” Eli muttered as he thought about all her hair. On the one hand, it was progress because she’d kept it long for her father. On the other hand, Eli liked her hair. He didn’t really want her to cut it. But, it was her hair, and he had no say in it.

  “What?” Ivy demanded as they stood to continue walking across the log.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s good that you’re ready to let it go.”

  “But…” she said as she poked a finger into the middle of his back. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Eli weighed whether it was better to tell her that he liked her hair long, or to let it go. He decided that he’d probably like her hair when it was short, too, and it still wasn’t his hair. He opened his mouth to respond when a growl sounded from their right.

  He spun and found the bear charging straight for them. Eli instinctively flung up his hands and threw the bear backwards into a tree. It staggered for a bit, then righted itself and studied them.

  “A bear shouldn’t do this,” Ivy squeaked.

  He didn’t take his eyes from the bear. “I won’t let it hurt you.”

  “I’m not worried about it hurting me,” she retorted. “I’m worried you’re going to have to kill it. I know how much you’d hate that.”

  Something warm, and maybe a little embarrassing, flooded through him as her words sunk in. She was right, and Eli needed an idea for how to get this bear to leave them alone.

  He needed a major scare. “Okay,” he said quietly as the bear lumbered around and started slowly towards them. “Stay right behind me, Ivy. I need you to make sure you don’t move.”

  She sidestepped behind him and was close enough that he felt her body heat soaking into his t-shirt.

  Eli took a deep breath and pulled up all of the loose dirt, twigs, and small rocks from around the clearing. The bear started in surprise, freezing in its tracks as it stared around at the spectacle of floating debris. With a loud bellow Eli flung all of the dirt and rocks away from him, pelting everything around them. Loud pings, bangs, and crashes sounded as trees and large boulders were hit from the shockwave. The bear got dirt straight in the face and up its nose. It howled and turned immediately to run away.

  Ivy dropped her head against the middle of his back and grabbed hold of his waist as she laughed. “If that bear comes back, there is no hope for it! It has to think it just had a major hallucination.”

  Eli watched it fade into the trees and grinned. But the grin slowly faded. They still had work to do.

  So far Eli hadn’t seen a place to weaken the lake. “How big is this lake?”

  “Too big,” Ivy said as she stepped over a log and her shoe sank into the mud. She tried to pull her foot out and couldn’t. Her green eyes met his. “This isn’t good.”

  “Okay,” Eli said and tried not to grimace as he scouted around for a dry patch to step on. He ended up leaning over the log so that it held him up while he stuck his hands in the mud along Ivy’s leg. He felt down with his fingers and cupped a hand around the bottom of her shoe. “Ready?” he asked and gave a tug. For a second the suction of the mud wouldn’t give, but then her foot popped out, unbalancing her. Ivy grabbed a chunk of his hair as she fell on him, knocking the wind out of him.

  “Oh daggers, Eli!” she cried as she scooted off him and bent to examine his hair. “I’m so sorry!”

  His only response was a wheeze as the breath couldn’t fill his lungs.

  “I am a menace,” Ivy muttered as she smoothed a hand over his cheek, cupping it. She moved her face to his until they were eye to eye. “Breathe,” she ordered him. “In,” she said as she demonstrated, “and out. Again. Focus on me. My eyes, Eli. Ready? Breathe.”

  She kept it up, keeping her voice even and soothing, until a spasm wracked his body and the sweet air flooded through his lungs.

  Ivy sighed in relief and sat back on her heels. “We are never going to make it at this rate. I’d say go on without me, but you can’t.”

  Eli coughed and shook his head. “Come on,” he gasped. She stood and helped him to his feet. Together, they walked around the mud pit and continued on around the lake.

  They did manage to reach the bottom before lunchtime, but only just. It also became very obvious how the lake had been created.

  It was a dam of monumental proportions. This dam was so huge that it had a road over it, and there were tire tracks across the concrete that told them that a truck had been over it recently.

  “This isn’t good,” Eli said as they surveyed the dam from the trees.

  “They built the dam between those two mountains and turned this valley into a lake,” Ivy said with annoyance. “It’s what a beaver would do, except beavers aren’t selfish, mean, useless—”

  Eli hugged her and cut the words off. She held on for a long moment, then pointed to the dam. “It’s concrete. I’m not going to be able to do much with that. I could run the water over the top of it, but they could just fill it back up again, and I’d run out of energy long before I was finished.”

  He had an idea, but it was a stupid one. Still, stupid ideas were better than no ideas. “Have you seen anyone?”

  “Not yet,” she said as she glanced around them. “It’s possible that our other group has all of the people tied up right now.”

  “If they do, then we’re in good shape,” he said as he squinted around. “When they build these things, they stick metal rods in the concrete. I
’ve seen them do that.”

  Ivy’s puzzled look told him she had no idea what he was talking about.

  Eli pointed around them. “What I’m wondering is if there are any scraps of the metal rods left from the build.”

  “Why do you want to make it stronger?” she asked curiously. Then her mouth dropped open, and a grin graced her lips. “You don’t want to make it stronger. You want to poke holes in it.”