“They might see it and find us and shoot us,” she said. “But if we don’t have a fire, we will die.”
“I vote for not dying, personally,” said Aidan.
Bob snorted, almost involuntarily. He inclined his head slightly.
“Lighter,” Emily said to Bob, still holding out her hand.
He hesitated. She could see the thoughts behind his eyes. It was his only leverage, after all.
She rolled her eyes.
He gave her the lighter.
“Cigarette,” she said.
“Oh,” he said. “Didn’t realize you…”
But she didn’t want to smoke it—actually, she kind of did, it had been a shitty day, but that wasn’t the point of asking for it. She didn’t want to use up lighter fluid, was all. She lit the cigarette he handed her and took a deep drag; blew the smoke up her makeshift chimney, where it mingled with the stars above.
Then she held the glowing red cherry of it to the moss and leaves, until they caught; she let Bob take a drag, then moved the cigarette to the moss again, and repeated until the tinder was crackling—and then she felt the familiar rush as flame leaped from the pile like a miracle. Like a magic trick, like a genie, like none of those things at all, like only itself, hungry for stuff to make into flame and smoke, and the bigger sticks and twigs started to burn too.
She had been thinking about drinking water. She’d seen a concave stone, and wondered about using it as a sort of bowl, putting it by the fire for snow to melt in it. But the stone would get hot, and each time they’d have to cool it before they could hold it and drink from it, and you needed six liters of snow for every liter of water.
The only solution—or the only solution she could think of at that moment—was her boots. They were good ones; leather, waterproof. Her dad was big on the importance of reliable footwear. She usually hated that.
Anyway. It was going to taste gross, and she’d have to dry the boots after, or get frostbite, but it was all she had.
She took the boots off, keeping her socked feet close to the fire. She had cleared the snow from the ground under the shelter, so she crawled to the edge and packed the white stuff into her boots and then set them down by the fire, almost in the fire, as close as she dared.
“You can’t be ser—” began Bob.
“Yes, I am,” she said.
He pulled a face, then nodded.
A bootful of snow equaled a toeful of water, as she’d expected, and by the time she’d done it again and again and Aidan had drunk—first, she made sure of it; water was as important to him as it was to anyone—and she and Bob, they were all heavy-lidded with sleep.
“No food tonight,” she said. “We’ll deal with that tomorrow.” Even though she was hungry. Even though her stomach was a twisting beast within her.
“But first…,” said Bob slowly. “You were going to…tell me what those men wanted. What’s…happening.”
Shit.
She took a breath, psyching herself up. She glanced at Aidan, but his face was blank.
Oh, thanks for the help, she thought.
Then she turned back to Bob, and his eyelids were fluttering, and he keeled very softly to the side, leaning against Aidan, and was asleep.
The man’s breath came gentle and slow.
Emily felt a loosening inside her. Ridiculous, really: she was still going to have to tell him tomorrow.
But, then, anything could happen between now and tomorrow. She watched him, and Aidan too, until Aidan’s eyes closed also, and his breathing too went soft and easy.
She closed her own eyes, but the flames were still there. Flames against a wall of metal. Miss Brady dragging her by the arm, away from the building as it went up. The wail of a wail of a wail of a siren—that going-nowhere repetition of it; insistent. And another too, sirens weaving into each other, both fire trucks in the tiny town.
And new things: the burst of blood from Bob’s arm, spritzed into the icy air by the bullet. The shriek of the man she’d shot in the leg.
She sighed, and stood—moving to the edge of the shelter, near the entrance.
She went through some simple stretches. Hamstring, calf, thighs. Lunges and reaches. She needed more room to move. She stood in the opening, looked out. A light snow was falling. She imagined herself in the clearing just outside, turning in the snow, dancing. Warming herself up. But her boots were still drying by the fire, and anyway, she hadn’t danced in a year.
When she turned back, she saw Aidan sitting up, looking at her expectantly.
“Go on,” he said.
“No.”
“For me. I’ve never seen you do it.”
She looked down at him, sighed, put on a serious face, and did a perfect arabesque in the doorway. He clapped and laughed, and she bowed.
“More,” he said.
“No. Really, no.” The sadness had crept in, like cold. The sadness that she didn’t get to do it anymore, to dance with Jeremy, to be lifted by him into the air, as if she might fly.
Aidan nodded. “OK.” They were speaking quietly—Bob was snoring. Aidan stood, careful not to disturb Bob as he moved, and raised his arms—then did his own arabesque, veering off balance; then holding it still.
This time Emily laughed.
Then she saw Aidan give a little shiver, the fire’s warmth now fading. Was that pain in her chest love? She supposed it was.
She pulled him close, put her arms around him. She hadn’t known, until he’d arrived, that she had always wanted him. Always wanted someone to love, to protect. Always.
“Are you scared?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“Really?”
He closed his eyes. “Why would I be?” he said. “You’re with me.”
He trusts me, she thought. It warmed her, everywhere, but at the same time it speared her heart with ice.
What if she couldn’t save him?
What if she could—and he was gone, and she would never see him again?
Whatever happened, something would be taken from her.
She closed her eyes. She wasn’t going to sleep—they could sleep, but not her. She needed to listen out for the men who would be coming after them.
CHAPTER 12
EMILY WAS IN the studio, on the springy wooden floor. She was dancing with Jeremy. Swan Lake.
They were alone, the lights low, night pressing dark at the windows. Practicing; always practicing. So that their movements would be perfect, so that their pain and tiredness would translate into grace.