Lost

Chapter 16

The sun had reached its highest point in the sky as she unscrewed the cap of her water bottle and dipped it into the river. She smiled lightly at her reflection, at the perfect braid Fisher had somehow managed to make in her tangled and somewhat matted hair.
Fisher slept sitting up, still leaning against the tree trunk, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly. Most of the Spares were the same, and she was going to allow them to sleep until the sun went down.
A nightmare had woken her from her sleep again. Sweat dripped down her face and her body shook violently. For the most part, she was able to shake the feelings of the dream away, but every time her eyes closed she caught flashes; Aeryn's blood staining the mud in the tunnels. Dell's bones. And for some reason, Nya, who she had barely talked to, joined her friends' horrifying nightly escapade into her unconsciousness.
She wished she could see each of them just one more time, but not in the way her nightmares presented them. How they really were in life. She missed Dell and the way her coppery hair shone like fire in the waning light of the sun. Her gleeful smile that showed itself more often than any other expression the girl ever mustered. And her wide silver eyes that were the complete opposite of Thora's.
She missed Aeryn and her whip smart comebacks, sometimes matching both her and Fisher's ability for sass. And the way she was always able to cheer Thora up with no more than a few comforting, heartfelt words.
It wasn't fair that they had to die and Thora often found herself wishing it were her. Wishing that she could have been the one to have been eaten alive by a swarm of ravenous bugs or bleeding out in the middle of a grime-filled tunnel. It would have saved her the suffering and guilt she now felt only because she made it. She was the one that survived.
Something touched her shoulder and she jumped forward, nearly falling into the river. She whipped around and breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw it was just Fisher, a cocky smirk plastered onto his face. He opened his mouth, somehow able to keep the smirk while doing so.
"Before you say anything," she interrupted before he had begun, "I wasn't the one who had drool running down my face a few seconds ago." A look flashed across his face that she couldn't quite make out before he hurriedly wiped at his mouth. She snickered, knowing that there wasn't really anything there, which caused him to glare at her.
"I was just going to say that you jumped so high it almost seemed like you were up to something." Her brain was up to something, she thought to herself bitterly. "That's a bad look," he said, sniffing once and stepping closer to her. His hands automatically went to her face. "What is it?"
She bit at her lip. "Nightmares," she squeaked out finally, ashamed of herself although she didn't know why. It wasn't like he'd never seen her like this before.
Fisher hummed bringing her into a hug. "Yeah, me too," he mumbled into her hair.
"How come you don't seem as affected by them as I do? You always seem so unbothered." Thora hated how childlike and whiny she sounded, but she couldn't take it back now.
"When you're the son of one of the most powerful people in the world you have to hide everything or else someone'll use that one moment of weakness to their advantage. Hold it over your head, taunting you, because they know you're eventually going to snap." His grip on her tightened, just slightly. "And they're going to be there when you do."
Thora felt her already broken and bruised heart fragment even farther at his words. As a kid, she had always imagined being the daughter of someone like the Imperial, being rich and famous from the minute you're born. But meeting Fisher- knowing Fisher- had skewered her image of the simple and easy life she had tucked in the back of her mind.
"I'm sorry," she said into his chest, at a loss for words.
Fisher's breath ruffled her hair as he let out a long sigh then stepped back, his eyes unfocused. "It doesn't matter now," he said gruffly, staring out at the water. "All that matters is we find a safe place for everyone."
She nodded stiffly, disliking the hardness that Fisher's demeanor had acquired all of a sudden. But he was right. Nothing from their past mattered anymore. Only the things to come mattered. Which meant she needed to stop thinking about her dead friends and focus on the ones that were still with her... and the ones on board the Albatross.
A branch cracking loudly snapped her from her thoughts. Her body froze, head swiveling slowly as she tried to gauge exactly where the sound had come from. She knew it was possible that the sound had just come from someone coming back from going to the bathroom, but the hairs standing up on the back of her neck said otherwise.
The bushes trembled right in front of her and without thinking she took a step forward. Fisher reached out, clamped her wrist and she turned toward him, eyes wide and questioning.
"I know you know we're being watched. There's no way I'm letting you go over there alone, Commander," he told her as if it were obvious. Biting her lip, eyebrows furrowed, she nodded. She had been totally ready to throw herself at whatever was crouched in the bushes, but she had to admit that when Fisher slipped his hand into hers, she found it comforting that she didn't have to go there alone.
They crept forward, feet feather-light on the forest floor.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled back the curtain of branches. The cold, dead eyes of Dominic stared back at her. She stumbled back blindly, nearly tripping over her own feet to get away from the body in the bushes.
The boy was even paler now than he had been in life, which led her to believe that he had been killed a little while ago, while she was asleep. His cold, blue eyes were glazed over. Three gashes had been sliced into his throat, so deep she could see the windpipe. It was fresh enough that the blood hadn't even dried. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep herself from vomiting.
"Holy shit," Fisher muttered under his breath, taking a step closer to the body, looking more shocked than disgusted. "How the hell didn't we hear this?" She shook her head, trying not to inhale too deeply in case he was starting to give off that pungent odor dead bodies release.
She blinked a few times, as if to make sure that the dead body in front of her was really there. It was.
"We have to go. Now." She tugged on his hand when he didn't move. "Come on. Whatever did this is gonna come back."
Fisher nodded thoughtfully, way too calm considering the current situation. "Yeah. Just... try not to make too much of a big deal about this, okay? We don't want people panicking." His voice was soft yet stern. She stepped back in shocked anger, lashing out at him before she could stop herself.
"Don't make a big deal? Dominic was murdered. For all we know, it could've been someone in our camp." She didn't know where the accusation was coming from, but even as she said it, she knew it wasn't true; they were being hunted. And for sport, it seemed, since, other than the gashes, the boy's body was completely intact.
Fisher said nothing to that, just shook his head. "Start waking people up." Without waiting for her to respond, he turned to follow his own instructions.
Thora suddenly felt silly. She was supposed to be the one in charge and yet she was letting Fisher order her around.
Shaking her head, she told herself that, if she wanted her relationship to work out, she did have to listen to him. Once in a while, she thought begrudgingly. They had gone through more in the past five months than most people had back on Earth in their entire lives. They needed to work together. Besides, she had already lost so many people- maybe even Kenji after what had happened to Aeryn- she couldn't bear to lose Fisher, too. He was too important to her.
She hated to admit it, even to herself, but she thought she might love him. Yes, he may make her yearn to push him straight off a cliff sometimes, but he understood her in ways not even Blake had.
Thora shook her head. She couldn't think about that at the moment. She had people to save. Her people.