Ash and Cinder

13| Survivors

I don't remember the decision to move. The only thing inside me is instinct and a vague notion of where I'm going. I do my best to point myself in the right direction and stagger forward. Sharp pains shoot down my right leg from my knee with the slightest pressure. I slow down to ease the stabbing, but not too much.

Stab. Stab. Stab. Stab.

Like a knife that won't come free.

Stab. Stab. Stab. Stab.

The pain works its way up my pelvis, my spine, down my arms, sped on by exhaustion. I'm about to stop completely, to give my battered body a rest, when I spot a flash of ginger hair that could only belong to one person. Too numb to feel relief, I limp towards the bobbing head. The branch of a huge pine tree scrapes my raw skin as I push out of the way and enter a small clearing. Sky faces away from me.

"Bloody hell!" He jumps when I come up behind him, bolting to the other side of the clearing. He whips around to glare at me. "Don't do that!"

Elle is snuggled in his arms, her face shielded by his hand. His glare softens when he sees I'm alone. Elle squirms free of his grasp and flings herself across the clearing into my arm. Alive, safe, warm. I fold myself around her and lift her onto my hip. She throws her arms around my neck. I wish I could hug her back, but my other arm still persists on not being in its socket.

"Tengo miedo," she whispers in my ear.

"Está bien." I whisper back, burying my face in her tangled curls. "You're okay now."

She's alive, she's safe, she's warm. Around us the forest is still and silent, a pocket of calm after all the chaos. If I could hide inside this moment forever, I would.

"You're bleeding."

Mud from the fight cakes to my legs, mixed with red. Blood is splattered across my shirt and a quick swipe of my face comes away smeared with drying blood.

"No, I'm not bleeding, it's—" I catch myself, the rest of what I was about to say slithers out as a sigh. "It's not mine."

Not my blood. I wipe my palms on my shirt, but that doesn't accomplish much except smear red on my sweater.

"Where are the others? Where is Maverick?" Sky asks tentatively, almost as if he's afraid of my answer. I bite my tongue and shake my head, dropping my eyes to the forest floor. How do you put something like that into words?

He reaches for me, and I must flinch because Elle's grip tightens, and he stops, hands up.

"Want me to look at that arm, mate?"

Right, my arm. "Okay."

"Jacket off," he instructs. I set Elle down and peel the too-tight soldier's jacket off. It's sticky, reluctant to come free. One of the seams tears and finally it drops to the ground. Sky takes my limp wrist and lifts my arm, studying it. He circles me. Pushes my shoulder experimentally.

"I think I saw, I mean, I think Piper must've come down when he heard the commotion. I saw him when I went past, he was... they—they shot him," he says.

Another person dead.

His touch lingers on my shoulder, like the reality of it all is sinking in.

"Who's Piper?" Elle asks.

Sky makes a strangled noise. "Sorry," he says, "sorry for this, too." And he clunks my shoulder back in. The pain is brief and dull, a drop in the bucket. I flex my fingers while pins and needles scatter down them.

"Thanks."

"You right?"

"Hm?" I try to focus on him, on his question. I feel far away.

He shakes his head, "never mind."

We sit on the ground, Elle curling up in my lap. Her curly hair is a mass of tangles, so I set to work finger combing it. She's alive. I have to keep reminding myself, keep checking her pulse and her breathing, she's alive.

The moment of peace shatters when a twig snaps out in the forest. Both Skyelar and I are on our feet in a flash. Elle is bundled in my arms. She squeaks as I squeeze her too tight too fast, but that's the least of my worries. If there are soldiers nearby, I'm in no shape to fight them, and there's no telling where Sky's loyalty lies now that his friends are dead.

The same pine tree I brushed past rustles, a low-hanging bough bends, and Delilah staggers into our midst. Her hands are up, fingers curled into claws. When she realizes it's just us, she sighs and doubles over to rest her hands on her knees. She's panting like she ran a marathon, fresh blood mats her hair and blinds her left eye. There's too much to tell where the injury is. She doesn't question us, which means she must have seen the bodies on her way out.

"I killed him. The ublyudk that killed my husband," she says, and nothing else.

Elle wiggles out of my grip and walks over to Delilah. For the first time, I notice that she is barefoot. Of all things, she's missing shoes, the one article of clothing that I can't give her.

"Sígueme." She guides Delilah by the arm towards the sound of a burbling stream. I follow and dip my arms in the frigid water while Delilah crouches to rinse the blood from her hair and face and clean the wound it came from: a shallow slice on her crown.

When all the pink-tinted water has washed downstream, Delilah speaks again. "We can't stay here forever."

"Well, what are we bloody supposed to do? Wander?" Sky pops in from behind. His hand jerks agitatedly. The snap of his fingers hitting his palm echoes in the clearing. My heart speeds up to keep time with the sound.

"We could stay for the night" I suggest. It might be a selfish suggestion, motivated by the way everything is too fuzzy for me to recognize and how every part of me aches. Then again, if we stay, the soldiers could find us.

Delilah nods in agreement. "It's almost dark, and if King made it, he knows he's supposed to come here," she says. Right, Bakari, there's a chance that one more member of our group made it out alive. Delilah did, but she wasn't a half-step away from a heart attack.

Sky considers this for a moment, staring back the way we came from as if waiting for soldiers to come peeling out of the trees. He worries his lip and snaps his fingers but doesn't say anything.

"Unless they can control fire, there won't be enough soldiers for them to spare to come after us," Delilah adds. "The camp was in blazes by the time I got out."

Finally, that's enough for us all.

"Okay," Sky agrees.

We set up a camp in the clearing. I pull an armful of bushy pine branches from a tree as quietly as I can manage. They'll make half-decent bedding Better than the dirt, at least. It's getting warmer as spring grows on us, but the night will bring a chill, I layer them on the ground; two to lay on, and one exceptionally large one to crawl under.

"Okay, chica, vamos," I say, lifting the top branch. Elle loops her hand around Delilah's and pulls her along too. Her skin shifts in the pattern of the leaves under her feet, gold sparks in the corners of her eyes.

"What about those people?" she asks.

"I'll stay awake this time," I assure her.

"And fight them?"

"Yes, and fight them."

Satisfied, she crawls under the bough and motions for Delilah to follow her. Delilah does after only a moments' hesitation. Out of all of us, she seems the most convinced that the soldiers won't catch up tonight. Still, she pokes her head out and says, "I want second watch,"

The sun dips below the horizon, casting an orange glow on the trunks of the trees, and inky shadows dance along every surface. The breeze returns to tickle the tops of the trees, and the stream burbles soothingly. When the sun is set and a crescent moon has risen, Sky inches under the pine bough, and I prop myself against the nearest tree to keep lookout.