“It’s hot in here.”
“I’m not opposed to the idea of taking off our clothes.”
“Keep talking if you want to die.”
Even muffled through the tent, their argument is impossible not tooverhear. Fleur rolls her eyes, fighting back a grin. But then the tent falls silent. Awkward silent. The kind of silent I feel guilty listening to. Fleur looks uncomfortable, too. Too far away to make conversation, too alone with me not to. I think about moving closer, but that would just make things weird.
“It’s been a long day. You should go catch some z’s.” I get up and stoke the last of the embers. Then I grab my sleeping bag and spread it a comfortable distance from the fire.
Fleur rises. She looks at me over her shoulder with a sadness I can’t place as she slips inside her tent.
I open my sleeping bag and lie back on top of it, staring up through the canopy at a sky thick with stars. They glitter like snowflakes, and all I can think about is the way Fleur looked at me two nights ago by the pond, with the snow falling around her face. How she trusted me with a kiss. I wonder what she sees when she looks at me now.
I still feel it inside me, a tiny piece of Névé’s soul slithering like a smaze, the guilt lurking like a cold, dark cloud in the recesses of my mind. I don’t know who I am anymore.
A twig cracks. I open my eyes. Fleur’s standing over me with her sleeping bag under her arm. She unrolls it and lies down on her back beside me, lacing her warm fingers with mine. We lie for a long time staring up at the stars, until all the things I want to say build like a dam in my throat.
“Back at school, Professor Lyon made me read a story about a lion who fell in love with a girl.” I squeeze my eyes shut, struggling to get the words out. I tell her everything I remember: the manipulative father, the helpless girl, and the lovestruck lion who gave up his teeth because the girl’s father convinced the lion that he was too strong andthe girl was too fragile—that he might accidentally hurt her. That part hadn’t seemed important at the time, but suddenly I can’t stop thinking about it.
“Are you afraid of me?” A weight settles on my chest as I brace for her answer.
“No. I know why you did what you did. You did it to keep us together. Because you were scared we wouldn’t make it. I would have done the same. But if we’re going to be together, it should be because we want to be, not because we’re afraid we’re falling apart.” She turns her face to mine. Suddenly, I’m not sure we’re talking about the four of us anymore.
“I would never hurt you,” I whisper.
“I know.”
I swallow the yearning that rears up in me as she turns back to watch the stars. Her breath shudders. I ache to kiss her. To lose myself in the heat of her skin and her breath, but everything I want right now feels desperate and needful. Like I have to fix something, or regain control of what’s slipping through my fingers. To feel something other than the pain and fear and guilt I’m feeling now.
I lay my head back. Resist the urge to tell her I love her. That the one thing that terrifies me more than anything else in this world is losing her, because that need feels desperate, too.
Instead, I hold fast to her hand. Let her ground me as I shelter her from the darkness and the cold. This. This is what we’re running to. This is what we’re fighting for. For now, for tonight, forever, this is enough.
33
Cold Awakening
FLEUR
Jack’s voice is rough, hoarse from woodsmoke and the cold mountain air. “How’d you sleep?” he asks as I emerge from the tent. Neither of us fell asleep easily, both of us too keenly aware of the nearness of the other’s body, the wire-tight tension between us impossible to ignore. When we finally drifted off, Jack tossed and turned, his sleep fitful with nightmares, making him impossible to hold on to. Eventually, I retreated into the tent and slept the rest of the night alone.
“Okay,” I lie. “You?”
“Terrible.”
“Me too,” I confess with a weak smile. His sleeping bag’s already rolled up.
Julio and Amber tumble through their tent flap, leaning on each other as they slip their shoes on.
“Morning,” Julio says, radiating sunlight as he shrugs into his jacket.
Jack responds with a resentful grunt.
Amber’s smile is a little sheepish, her hair and clothes perfectly disheveled. She’s the embodiment of fire, wild red waves framing glowing cheeks, her cider-brown eyes bright and alive. The smile I return feels disingenuous.
I try and fail to smooth the snarls in my hair. “I should find a place to wash up.”
Julio points into the woods. “I smell fresh water about a hundred yards off. It runs to the east. Probably a creek.”
