by Jade White
Amelia hummed slowly, tapping her lower lip with one finger in a parody of thoughtfulness. “Well,” she began after a moment, “we would probably both fit better on your bed than on your couch. It would just be practical, really.”
“A very good point,” Aibek agreed.
And then Amelia yelped in surprise when he sat up and got to his feet, lifting her in a bridal carry as he stood. Her arms flew up to latch around his neck, and the words, “I swear to god, if you drop me—” were already pouring from her mouth before the brief trek was finished and she was being deposited on the bed, her complaint unfinished.
Amelia stretched her arms over her head, her fingers brushing the headboard, and then she went limp on the bed. Aibek prodded her over to one side, freeing up enough space that he could lie down without squashing her.
Amelia turned onto her side and squirmed backwards until her back met Aibek’s front, and he slung an arm over her middle. Soon enough, she could hear his breathing evening out with sleep, and she let it lull her away from the land of the waking.
If she dreamed about anything that night, she couldn’t remember it, and Aibek was calm and quiet against her back from the time he nodded off until dawn broke the next morning. A lot could be said for the benefits of wearing each other out. Even so, Amelia refused to be budged from bed until a full two hours after Aibek woke up.
CHAPTER FIVE
“So, what happens after all that?” Amelia wondered, finally awake and sprawled over most of Aibek’s bed like she owned it. He didn’t seem to mind particularly much, so she wasn’t inclined to feel badly about it.
“What do you want to happen after all that?” he asked, in the time honored tradition of answering a difficult question with an equally difficult question.
Her feelings for him were…muddled. She knew she liked him. She enjoyed his company, she found him charming, she thought he was sweet, and he was something like her knight in shining armor. Whether or not she loved him, though, was a harder question to answer. She supposed she didn’t need to know the answer to that immediately, though.
Shrugging awkwardly from where she was lying, she answered, “I wouldn’t mind if it happened again.”
“Neither would I,” Aibek admitted in return, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Amelia hummed thoughtfully and slowly sat up, drawing her legs in to curl them beneath her. Kneeling on the mattress, she leaned over to kiss him. She meant for it to just be a brief peck on the lips, until he leaned into it, one hand lifting to cup the back of her neck and to shift the angle of their faces to deepen the kiss.
Soon enough, their hands began to wander, their fingers drifting over bare skin until they fell onto the mattress, legs tangling together. Eventually, they would need to leave and rejoin the rest of the family—not the rest of the world, since Amelia wasn’t entirely convinced that the rest of the world still existed off the mountain—but they had time before that had to happen.
In the meantime, they used the bed properly, making up for their failure to even make it to the bed the previous night.
When at last they rejoined the family in the kitchen, they were both in remarkably high spirits, and Faina looked at them with enough amusement that it was clear that she had some ideas about what had happened, even if she had no plans on actually asking.
*
The mountain continued to be quiet. Oppressively quiet, in fact. The lions were still lurking in their camps, not doing anything but unavoidably there. There was no way to forget that they were there and no way to simply sequester themselves away. The freezer was nearly out of meat, and as cats, none of them could afford to go without it for particularly long. Shopping was an option, but it would still involve trekking down the mountain, and with the weather not dying down, it was unlikely the car would be up for the drive.
Sezim volunteered to go hunting three days after the fight, and Anara was quick to volunteer to go with her. They had all learned a lesson about venturing out unaccompanied.
Once they got down the incline, they were quick to notice that things were…off. Something was dead, the stench drifting on the frosty wind and making everything seem even more distant and oppressive. Anara and Sezim followed the smell, though they slowed warily when they came to large, feline tracks in the snow. They did not abandon the search, but they went at it from angles, hoping to stay out of sight and free to flee if they ran into trouble.
They did find a lion, but it was no danger. They found the body of a lion, cold and frozen, stretched out and almost entirely buried in the snow. Sezim’s hackles rose and she growled, and that was all the confirmation Anara needed that it was the lion who had attacked Aibek and the twins. Evidently, the three of them had managed to do quite a bit of damage before fleeing. Just based on how frozen the body was, Anara had to assume that he hadn’t lived for particularly long after the fight.
Her thoughts darted back to how much blood Aibek had been covered in when the three of them had stumbled into the den that day and how little of it had been his. She snapped back to herself quickly, though, when Sezim began busily piling more snow over the body, and Anara began to help. It wasn’t a sight they wanted any random hikers to stumble over. True, hikers and campers were rare that time of year, but being lax was not going to do them any favors.
She wished they could get rid of it a bit more thoroughly. It was frozen through, though. Just prying it out of the ice would be difficult enough, and there was no way they would be able to move it. So for the time being, they settled for simply burying it until it was its very own snowdrift.
Anara’s nerves rose after that. The mountain had been stuck in a miniature cold war between her family and the lions for days at that point. Who was to say that killing one wouldn’t finally set everything in motion?
Sezim knocked a shoulder against Anara as she passed, venturing onward once again and breaking Anara out of her thoughts with hardly a backwards glance. Shaking her head, Anara bounded after her younger sister. They still needed to get their hunting done, after all.
They trotted through the snow in silence, and when they spotted a pair of chamois steadily climbing the rocks, they took quick advantage of it. Before long, both of the chamois were dead, one from being bodily flung down the rocks by Anara and bashing its head in, and one from having Sezim’s teeth embedded into its throat like barbed wire. They dragged their kills home carefully, their eyes and ears open and alert for anything that might try to catch them unaware.
*
“The conquering heroes return!” Amelia declared as Sezim burst through the front door and into the den, Anara following her in at a more sedate pace. “Catch anything good?”
“We’re good for a while,” Sezim confirmed pleasantly. “It’s in the butcher shed.”
Amelia blinked at her, bemused.
“A shed behind the trees,” Anara clarified, gesturing in a vaguely leftward direction. “Beside the freezer shed, which at this time of year is just a reinforced shed without power.”
“Beka and I will head out later to do the actual butchering in a bit,” Sezim added cheerfully, bouncing on her feet like she was going to a theme park. Amelia couldn’t really see the appeal, but she had grown up with a butcher’s shop within walking distance.
*
“So, the lion that attacked us is dead,” Sezim informed the kitchen without any preamble, once the chamois duo had been butchered and stored. Amelia’s, Serik’s, and Aibek’s heads all shot up in unison, and Faina dropped the pan she was scrubbing into the sink. “We found the body while we were hunting,” Sezim added, carrying on blithely. “I recognized him. He was frozen solid, so I guess it happened pretty quickly after that fight.” She hefted herself up to sit on the counter, crossing one knee over the other. “We couldn’t move it or anything—it was way too heavy—but we buried it, and after a couple days’ freeze, it should be ages before it gets discovered.”
“Does that mean something’s actually going to happen finally?
” Serik asked slowly, after a moment to process the words. He looked at Aibek expectantly as he asked.
“It is possible,” Aibek replied, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and shrugging. “But I do not actually know why they have not done anything, so I cannot actually guarantee an answer.”
Really, ‘the stalemate might end’ was comforting. As long as things ended, one way or another. The tension was going to give them all heart attacks eventually.
*
The days continued to pass, and the mountain remained quiet, and it remained blanketed in the stench of the lions as they still insisted on lingering while refusing to make their move.
“What do they even want?” Sezim groaned emphatically as she scrubbed a plate clean in the kitchen sink with near violent intent. “I mean, they want Amelia for whatever reason, I know that. But are they ever actually going to do something, or are they just going to camp and play house for the rest of forever?”
“They might be waiting for the weather to turn,” Aibek suggested, his tone thoughtful. “They do not know this sort of area, so they could be under the impression that the weather will eventually get milder. They may not know that it will get far worse before then.”
“So we could surprise them,” Amelia suggested. “Let a bit of true winter into their camps.”
Aibek cocked his head to one side in thought, his fingers drumming absentmindedly against his thighs. “We could do that,” he acknowledged slowly. “We could go tonight,” he added, and he looked like there was a plan forming in his head. “Anara and Sezim were just running all over the mountain, so it will be hard to smell us coming. If we turn off their heat, there is a possibility the cold will do them in by morning.”
“And if we ransack the camp,” Amelia added, “then even if the cold doesn’t do its job, it will still be one hell of an inconvenience. Eight lions in two camps? Not a great arrangement.”
“Why not just hit all the camps?” Sezim asked, leaning back on her hands on the counter. “Just get it all out of the way all at once.”
“Because the longer we are out there, the more likely we are to be caught, and the less likely anything is to actually succeed,” Aibek returned blandly. “Slow and steady wins the race, in this case.”
Sezim huffed out a breath and slumped back onto her forearms. “The logic is sound, but I still think it sucks,” she groused, and it was immediately followed by a yelp as Anara picked her up and moved her off of the counter, setting her down on her feet on the floor.
“We eat there,” Anara reminded her. “If you need to lounge around like a French girl that badly, go sit in the den and do it on the actual couch.”
Rolling her eyes, Sezim slouched into the hallway and into the den.
*
As afternoon shifted to evening, the weather took a turn for the worse, and for once, Amelia was excited by the prospect of snow. It fell down in curtains, blanketing everything and making it so that when she peered out the window, she could hardly see four inches past the glass.
“The worst of the storm will likely dissipate by the time we leave tonight,” Aibek mused, peering out of the open front door. When he pulled his head back inside, his hair had been almost entirely covered in snow. He brushed it off, his short hair clumping together in damp spikes. “So we should have minimal trouble getting to the nearest camp, and—what are you doing?”
Snickering, Amelia reached up, running a hand over his hair to spike it up even more. “Sorry, am I distracting you?” she wondered as she crooked her fingers to drag her nails against his scalp. He made a low noise, satisfied and mildly irritated at the same time.
Sezim threw a pillow at them from the couch. “Go do that somewhere else.”
“‘Throw pillow’ is not supposed to be taken that literally,” Aibek returned, though he did duck out from beneath Amelia’s hand. Instead, he curled his fingers around hers and drew her in to kiss her, his other hand curling over her hip as she stood up on her toes.
Sezim groaned, picked up a pillow, and dropped it over her face. “I’m gone,” she announced, her voice muffled by fabric and stuffing. “That’s it. I’m gone from this world. I’ve had enough. Too much.”
“Mom!” Serik called, not even bothering to look up from his tablet. “Sezim’s being melodramatic and trying to smother herself!”
Faina’s voice drifted from the kitchen. “Tell her we’ll miss her.”
The kiss broke as Amelia started laughing.
She meant to ask about that night. She wanted to go with them all when they went to deal with the camp. She was tired of being left behind, even if it was for her own safety. Because really, she could only stay inside for so long before she went crazy.
She supposed she could always just show up with them that night. Just decide to tag along and refuse to be turned back. She wasn’t even sure if she was expecting an argument or not, but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
*
Amelia got to help. Finally. To say she had been going a bit stir crazy was an understatement. True, she wasn’t going particularly far—the nearest camp wasn’t even far enough for her to worry about the cold, or else she suspected Aibek would have argued with her arrival and she wouldn’t have been helping—but it was still far enough for her cabin fever to dissipate. She even got a chance to stretch her legs, stretched out at a sprint as she bolted down the rocky incline. Maybe not her best idea, but she managed not to break an ankle, it made her stop buzzing with the need to bolt, and she caught Aibek staring at her with clear interest at the bottom of the slope, so she considered it a risk worth taking.
The trip to the nearest camp was cold, even more so in the pitch black, but Amelia was happy enough to be out and about that she hardly noticed the cold. As they all approached the campsite, though, the good cheer began to ebb. Just a few yards away, three lions were sleeping. If they slipped up and woke the lions up, then things could take a very bad turn very quickly.
They started with the easiest things first. It was easy to yank the cords that plugged the heaters into the generator. It was easy to heave the generator away and cover it in snow and branches and any other debris they could find. By the time the lions found it in the morning, it would likely be unusable.
Whether it was found by the lions in the tent in front of them or by the lions in one of the other two camps was another story. If all went well, then the lions in the tent in front of them would get very cold during the night and not wake up. It was possible, though, that they had a very nice tent that offered enough insulation that, while they would wake up cold, they would in fact wake up.
Frankly, Amelia was not fond of that idea. She disapproved rather strongly of being stalked and hunted like she was on a game reserve, and considering one of them had already tried to kill Aibek, Sezim, and Serik, Amelia wasn’t feeling particularly inclined to be lenient.
Amelia wandered back to Aibek’s side, pressing herself against him and leeching his warmth for a moment, before she turned her attention to the tent once again. She padded toward it carefully, her steps light, just in case the lions within managed to hear her over the wind or smell her over the nearby reek of their dead companion. Delicately, she lifted one paw just enough to drag a claw along the bottom of the tent, separating the fabric where the wall of the tent joined to the bottom. She dragged her claw along, rending the seam for roughly a foot before she scampered away again. It would let in a very impressive draft, while simultaneously rendering any insulation the tent may have had useless.
She trotted back to Aibek’s side and pressed herself close again. Lightly, he nudged the top of his head under her chin and then jerked his head back toward the incline, the motion brief but expectant. Amelia bumped her forehead against his cheek before nodding in agreement. She turned and began to bound back through the snow. When she heard the snow crunching behind her, she peered over her shoulder to see Serik following her back. Ah, of course. The buddy system was still in play.
; Getting back up the slope was less fun than getting down it. Serik gave her a boost every so often, very casually, utterly avoiding drawing attention to the fact that Amelia needed a helpful shoulder now and then. She appreciated the thought.
Once she was back in the den, Serik sat on the porch as Amelia hurriedly dug through the mountain of discarded clothing and got dressed. Afterward, she rapped her knuckles on the door to let him know he could come in, before she fled into the kitchen to give him his own privacy while he dressed.
Faina was sitting at the counter, sipping a cup of tea and paging through a book that looked like it had been read at least a hundred times.
“How did it go?” she asked, glancing up as Amelia began to fight with the coffee maker.
“Pretty well, I think,” Amelia offered. “We unplugged the heaters and trashed the generators, and I split open the tent. Even if they wake up and mosey over to one of the other camps, at least they’re going to be delightfully inconvenienced.” She turned the coffee maker on and leaned on the island. “When I headed back, it didn’t seem like there were any signs of them waking up.”
