“I don’t think eucalyptus oil will save you,” I grumble standing and closing my bag now half full with mint leaves. “You need real help. Help from a doctor.”
“We have Liam,” she says, groaning as she pushes off the ground and into a standing position.
I shake my head. Liam is not a real doctor. Before the crash, he studied aboriginal medicine and because of him we know where to find eucalyptus leaves, and that they can be crushed and steeped into oil. But plant knowledge isn’t going to help him deliver a baby.
“He’s not enough.”
Christa purses her lips together, and I know she is forcing herself not to yell at me. I know because I wear the same expression. It’s one we have learned from each other.
“Tanner and I have talked and we are ready to handle what comes our way.”
I am amazed at the ease in which she slips his name into our conversation. They are a we now, like Eli and his partner. Somehow they have evaded our rules. Somehow they have chosen love over survival. I don’t know whether to be angry or envious.
We walk back to camp in silence, passing others from our group along the way. Some are in the river, piercing fish with a quick thrust from a speer, while others gather berries from the bushes and trees that grow near the water. I can feel their eyes on us as we pass. Maybe others feel angry or envious. I don’t know because no one is dumb enough to say a bad thing about Christa or Tanner to Cade and I.
I spend the rest of the day trying to wrap my head around what the council’s vote means. We can’t form a group, but does that mean that Cade and I can’t go? There was a phrase my mother used to say. Sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness than permission. I understand her meaning now in a way I didn’t before. If we ask them to go, they could say no. If we leave while everyone is sleeping, we can come back with medical help before the baby is born. What can they do other than forgive us?
Tonight when no one is awake to monitor who speaks to who, I will go to Cade and demand that we go regardless of what the stones read.
I click three times, and he stirs. Without a word, he crawls out from the bed he shares with Tanner and follows me down to the river. It is not as still as it was the night before, a sign that somewhere further down its path the rains have already started. We don’t sit on the rock this time. Choosing instead to walk along the muddy shore. When we pass the spot where Christa and I picked mint this morning, it strikes me that we may never have another morning like that.
“What are you thinking?” I ask Cade, desperate to know that someone, anyone is as lost as I am.
He is never vulnerable though. So I am not surprised when he answers, “I’m thinking of a plan.”
“To leave?”
“To leave,” he replies.
The moon is enormous above us. Bright enough to lead us till daylight if we chose to leave tonight, but I know that Cade’s plan will not be to run away now. He is slow and methodical. Sometimes it frustrates me, but now his plans may be the only hope we have of saving her, so I don’t rush him. We walk longer before he speaks again.
“Tanner won’t come with me, even if you stay with Christa.”
“I’m not staying,”
He shakes his head frustrated with me. Under the moon he is all angles, a square jaw and sharp cheekbones, his nose a perfect slope.
“I can’t go alone, and I can’t go with you.”
“Maybe it is not up to you,” I argue.
Cade stops in the middle of the path and grasps my wrist with his hand. His touch is intended to be rough, but I am so hungry for contact that I melt into him, desperate to draw his body to mine and run my fingers along all those angles the moon is so intent on revealing. I turn to face him, tilting my chin up so that our eyes are forced to meet.
“This is why it can’t be you who goes with me,” he says, letting go of my wrist and stepping backward.
I let out an exasperated sigh. “You have no one else. Besides, no one cares more for Christa than I do.”
Cade folds his arms over his chest and stares out over the water. He knows I am right. Even if he doesn’t like it.
“And no one knows you better than I do,” I continue.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I can keep you balanced,” I try.
Cade laughs and begins walking again. “Balance isn’t what I need.”
“Isn’t it though?” I ask, swinging my arms at my sides to keep up with his brisk pace. “You get frustrated and you lose your temper. You can’t focus when you’re angry,”
“Are you trying to convince me to take you or just insulting me?”
“My point is, I can be the calm when you need it.”
“You could get hurt too. Have you thought of that?” His voice changes from angry to frightened. “You could get hurt or sick and then we might not ever make it back to Christa. Then I’d lose you both.”
And now I get it. He doesn’t want me to go because if I do, he has to admit how much he needs me. How much of him is tied up in us.
“I won’t slow you down. I won’t act foolish. We can protect each other.”
Cade pauses again, this time rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes as he considers my offer.
“Lena, I don’t want the responsibility of protecting you. You have to understand that.”
The thing is, I do understand. Because I feel exactly the same way that he does. If I lose him, I lose too much.
“I’m going with you,” I declare. “You can tell me not to, but I am going.”
We walk in silence, reaching the turnaround and heading back toward camp where we’re forced to pretend this conversation never happened..
When we near camp, Cade speaks. “If you come with me, you have to listen. If I give you a direction, it can’t be an argument.
Maintaining a calm expression, I nod my head, acting as if I am considering what he has just said, but inside, I am dancing. Inside my body and mind are coursing with the knowledge that Cade and I leaving camp together is more than just a chance to save Christa. It’s a chance to save us all. I don’t miss my old life. And I am not so foolish to think it will be waiting for me, but I do want to know what it would mean to be an adult woman without the rules of our group.
I promise Cade that I will listen and follow his instruction. But I have no intention of letting him chart our path. He wants the safest route with the least amount of change, and I want to leap head first into a new life.
Three
We know we have to leave at night and we know we have to do it while the moon is still full enough to carry us through the first long stretch. We aren’t positive that the group will send a search party, but if they do and they catch us, we risk exile without supplies. The only thing worse than being governed by the group’s rules and limitations is the fate that befalls those who are forced out. We have only ever exiled two people. A man who refused to follow group order and a woman who could not be trusted.
We don’t want to be like them. We want to help the group, we just have to disobey them this one time to do it. We are different than the exiles, or so we tell ourselves as we steal a knife, containers for food and water, one fishing spear and flint from our communal supply.