Hitchhikers (16 page)

Kayla and I move apart guiltily. I sit up,
wrapping my buttonless shirt around myself. “This is my cousin,
Kayla,” I tell Candi.

“I’m sure she is.”

I can’t look either of them in the eye as
shame heats up my face. Instead I busy myself, putting on my
sweatshirt and jackets and gloves. Kayla reads my mind and begins
dressing and packing up as well.

We are a mile along on the cold road when
Kayla finally says, “It was time to leave that place, anyway.”

I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know
if she’s as ashamed as I am. What was I thinking last night? Kayla
is my cousin. My cousin. I kissed her. I…

Her hand slips into mine.

“This is meant to be,” she says. “It’s
everyone else who says it’s shameful. Not me. Not you.”

She means that if we both think it was okay,
then it was. But I’m not sure I do think it was okay. I was on a
high from fighting and I was cold and needed warmth.

Kayla’s hand slips from mine. “Besides, who
cares what some prostitute says, anyway? Like she’s got a strong
moral compass.”

At first I imagine Kayla has said this to
hurt me. My fists curl up inside my gloves. She doesn’t know, I
tell myself, forcing my fingers to straighten out. She doesn’t know
about all those nights I spent in the company of others. Of course,
I don’t remember most of those nights, and the only payment I ever
got for anything I did was money I stole on my way out the door, or
a shared meal, or a hot shower.

It’s much warmer out today than it was last
night. Still, it can’t be much more than twenty degrees out, and my
clothes are drafty. I follow Kayla without much thought. We’re
headed in a different direction than the way we went last night. We
aren’t following the trail of the wolves that attacked us. I can
smell that trail leading off into the northeast. A shudder runs
through me

chase hunt kill

but it fades quickly enough, although Kayla
turns to give a quizzical look. I don’t look at her but briefly,
and train my eyes on the snow-crusted ground.

(Kayla?)

(Yes?)

(Can you hear every thought I think?)

(…)

(I’ll take that as a yes?)

“No,” Kayla says without turning toward me.
“I can’t hear everything.”

Our boots crunch crunch in the snow. I walk
fast enough to catch up beside her.

“So what can’t you hear?”

She looks at me sideways. “It’s not like what
you think.”

“No? You can tell what I’m thinking right
now?”

“We’re not telepathic,” she explains. “We’re
linked.”

“That clears it up,” I mutter.

“We’re linked. You and I. This link… I’m not
entirely sure how it works. I can tell how you’re feeling, and
sometimes what you’re thinking, especially if you’re thinking it at
me.”

“Okay… so why is it just you and me who are
linked? Is it a pack thing?”

“Not exactly.”

And even though she doesn’t say it, I can
hear it:

(it’s a mate thing)

I fall back behind, and try not to broadcast
my thoughts to her, but since I don’t really know how not to
broadcast my thoughts I can’t be sure she isn’t hearing them. What
I’m thinking is

(mate? like sex?)

I flash back to the disgusted look on Candi’s
face, when she saw the two of us in bed together.

(is Kayla my mate? did I do this? could I
have stopped it?)

After a long time of walking and silence and
thinking, my thoughts turn from Kayla to the bigger problem. Why
did this other pack attack us? Why did Kayla stop me from chasing
them and killing every last one? I could have done it. I felt that
power in those short moments when I was a wolf and fully aware. It
would be been safer to kill all of them.

We stay on the road, near civilization, where
wolves are unlikely to attack. It is bitter cold and more than once
I think of how I could have a warm fur coat instead of these flimsy
layers of fabric. We walk all day, stopping only to relieve
ourselves and to share the rest of my sandwich from the night
before. At nightfall we step away from the road and dig ourselves a
hole in the snow. There is no shelter around for miles. The
landscape reeks of desolation.

Kayla and I haven’t had much conversation all
day, and our telepathy seems to have run dry as well. My mind feels
as blank as the sheets of snow covering the flatlands around us. In
the hole it is only marginally warmer and we curl into each other
for warmth. I breathe into her hair, which smells more of stale
sweat and cold than lilacs now. I can’t imagine the stink I must be
emitting.

The shivering sets in after only a few
minutes.

We cling tighter. I think

(wouldn’t this be better with a fur coat)

She sighs.

(maybe, but if we are wolves, surrounded by
clothes, and we are found, it could end badly for us)

The darkness is so complete that only the
cold pressing against my eyes tells me if they are open or shut. I
can’t imagine anyone finding us here, in the middle of nowhere.

Kayla’s breathing slows into a steady rhythm
against my neck. I realize that I am rubbing her neck, right where
her wound has healed into a tight white scab. I should have
protected her. Even as a wolf, I should have protected her.

I stay awake all night, trying to protect
her.

The next day on the road I am sluggish. It is
an effort to pick up my feet above drifts of snow. Midmorning, we
catch a ride. The driver is a woman with rough red cheeks and
flaming auburn hair under her cap. I have never been picked up by a
woman before. For some reason it makes me feel safe, and I lean
against the window and fall asleep within minutes in the heated
cab, my breath fogging the window.

“Daniel.” A rough shove at my shoulder. “This
is our stop.”

My eyes creak open. The sun is mostly gone;
it is late afternoon.

“Thanks,” I mumble to the driver, who gives
me a wry smile in return as I lurch out of the cab and back onto
the road. I squint around. Neon lights, rumbling motors, scents of
gasoline and fried foods.

Truck stop.

“Do we have any money for food?” I ask,
knowing we don’t.

Kayla just looks at me.

We start off down the road into the twilight.
My stomach growls and I hope Kayla doesn’t hear.
Her
stomach
isn’t growling. I feel like a failure at survival, despite the
three years I spent on my own.

Three days on the road like this. I can’t
sleep but fitfully, determined to somehow protect Kayla from
whatever lurks in the dark. My nose detects no trace of those other
wolves, yet my body refused to relax into sleep. Three days of
letting Kayla find food for me during the day–stealing from gas
station convenience stores, digging through dumpsters, scraping
leftovers from plates at a recently abandoned table at a diner one
night. A fistful of French fries, a half-eaten chicken tender and
the bun from a hamburger brought to me in a napkin, because I
couldn’t even muster the energy to walk in there. “You’re too
conspicuous, anyway,” Kayla told me. She meant I looked like
walking death, and the other diners might smell me coming.

Three days, and three long, cold nights.

On the fourth night I leave her.

This isn’t a good idea.

I tell myself this, but as I’m asleep on my
feet, I keep forgetting. This isn’t a good idea. This isn’t a good
idea.

I can’t stay with her. I’m not the hero she
wants me to be. I’m better off on my own. Kayla can take care of
herself. She was just fine when she caught up to me, back on that
country road in the late summer. Well-fed. Strong. Me, I was
half-starved and half-suicidal. Now we’re both half-starved, and
slowly freezing to death. I haven’t been able to feel my toes for
the past two nights, which I haven’t minded since it means my toes
haven’t felt cold.

She doesn’t trust me as a wolf, either. I
can’t blame her; I don’t trust myself as a wolf. Yet we both know
we’d be almost home by now if we traveled as wolves.

All my weaknesses are killing us.

In the flakes of snow pouring from the sky, I
shuffle through waist deep snow. I’m so tired that I’m not sure
which direction I’m traveling. Away. I’m headed away.

This is not a good idea.

Just a few miles more, a few yards, a few
feet. I can do this. I can disappear. Whatever hope Kayla is
hanging on my shoulders will disappear into the white. She’ll
realize she doesn’t need me as much as she thinks she does. She
won’t be able to follow my scent through the storm. She’ll be
forced to go on without me.

Trees. A meager forest. I move among the
branches, grateful for their cover. Maybe I can find a sheltered
spot to lie down. Sleep pushes on my eyelids and makes everything
feel like a bad dream. I’m falling, or maybe I chose to lie down
here. I hit the snow and it’s like icy feathers tickling my face.
Spread eagle in the snow, my eyes drift closed. Before the lights
go out, I think one last time,

(This is not a good idea.)

Something is tickling my face. It’s wet, and
dripping, and sliding down my cheeks and rolling into my ears. I
shake my head because opening my eyes seems like it might be too
much work. That’s when I realize I can’t feel half my face. It’s
buried in snow.

I open my eyes.

At first all I see is white, but after I push
my face away from the ground, I can see the sky, bright blue,
through the canopy of pine branches over my head. Snow is melting
and dripping into my face.

It’s a struggle to get up, pushing myself up
only to have the snow collapse beneath me. I try rolling once –
only once – the movement sends a spike of pain up my leg and leaves
me gasping for breath for a few moments.

I fell, I think. I vaguely remember falling.
My leg could have twisted or something and I might not have felt it
with the cold.

I manage to twist around to get a look at the
damage.

To say that it’s a little more serious than a
twisted ankle is an understatement.

There’s blood. Not much – not like when I
black out and become wolf – just a little on my pants and on the
snow around where the steel trap has clamped on my leg.

Back to face down. Breathe. Try not to vomit
into the snow.

(it looks like it’s almost severed my
leg)

I’m alone. Kayla is far behind now, and my
trail is buried under the snow. Could she hear me if I yelled?

(would something Other hear me?)

There’s nothing around but a blanket of
white, unless you could the trees all standing around, watching my
misery. Imagine if I had stuck with Kayla, her lugging me all the
way back to Montana with my busted leg. Better that I’m alone, I
suppose.

Options. There are always options. Maybe I’m
not some warrior hero, and maybe I’m not real good at taking care
of my well-being, but I managed to survive for three years. I can
survive this. I think.

First things first: I can’t do a whole hell
of a lot lying face down in the snow.

(this is gonna hurt like a bitch)

I don’t have a stick to put in my mouth like
they do in the movies to stop themselves from screaming or biting
off their tongues or whatever, but I have a scarf. I bite down.

Fast, or slow. One rip of pain, or a slow
burn with less probable damage. Maybe I’m stupid, but I’d rather
not tear my leg open to the bone

(if it isn’t already done)

by flopping over. I struggle to my knees. I
arc myself in a Twister-crazy move so my upper half is flipped but
I’m kind of supporting myself on my right leg and with my free arm
I’m struggling to twist the trap along with my leg. It sticks in
the snow and I have to rock it

pain pain pain

Finally it gives and flips and I collapse and
there’s still a giant howl of pain muffled by my scarf which echoes
a little bit.

I pant until I can breathe without
whimpering.

It takes a while. Hard to tell how long.
Maybe half an hour.

Now that I can sit up and see

(still looks gory as hell)

I try to think of how to get out of this. The
trap looks pretty strong. I’ve never tried to pry open a steel
trap, but this one’s got a good grip on my leg. I’d rather not work
at prying it open and then lose my grip and have it snap back on
and snap my leg off in the process. Plus, even if I got the trap
far enough open to get my leg out, I’m not entirely sure I can move
my leg. The foot part feels really numb.

All around me is white snow. Nothing to use
as a tool within arm’s reach. Nothing to eat. Nothing to drink. I
think of that family, the one that got trapped in their car in a
snowstorm. A father, a mother, and a baby. The mother kept the baby
alive by eating snow so she could breast feed. The baby lived. The
father lived. The mother died. The snow lowered her body
temperature so much that she froze to death.

So, I won’t eat the snow.

(but I’m so thirsty)

I don’t know how long I stare at my leg
caught in the trap. The sun has moved across the sky, the shadows
have shifted. I should feel cold, but I don’t. I’m numb. I lie down
and stare up at the clouds as they scroll across the sky.

When darkness falls, I allow myself to fall
asleep.

In the distance, someone is watching me. I
can feel their eyes on me. I can hear their breathing, heavy like
they’ve been running or hiking for a long time.

A heavy mist hangs in the air and coats my
skin with moisture. The storm is over and now the air is warm. I
struggle to sit up, having forgotten about my predicament. The pain
crashes over me and darkness follows in a deafening roar.