Silas (19 page)

* * *

Christa and I were on either side of
Milo, helping him walk through the woods. We went slow.

Even slower than we’d been
going earlier in the day.

I wish I could say that we
were quiet, but we weren’t. Not really.

It was impossible to be quiet when
struggling through the woods, dragging along a dying
man.

Milo was bleeding like
crazy. The blood had soaked into his clothes—wet from our dip in
the stream. They were red tinged and dripping.

Emmett went slowly as well, waiting for
us to catch up.

We took regular breaks, just like we
had in the morning.

As the afternoon wore on, the sun grew
hotter, and we took more breaks. Milo seemed to be getting
weaker.

I left Christa with him and ducked off
into the woods to take a leak. On my way back, I ran into
Emmett.

“
Hey,” I said. “What do you
think? You think we’re losing precious time by bringing Milo
along?”

“
He’s dying,” said Emmett.
“It won’t be long now.”

“
That’s what I’m saying,” I
said. “We’re bringing him along with us, and for what? He’s not
going to recover.”

He raised his eyebrows.
“Funny, Silas, you seemed pretty adamant that we bring him along
before.”

I sighed. “Well, I only said
that because of the girl. I don’t need to upset her any worse than
she already is.”

He shook his head. “You and
that girl don’t know each other very well, do you?”

“
Sure we do.”

“
You even really
together?”

“
Of course we are,” I
said.

“
Whatever.”

“
We are.”

He rubbed his forehead. “In
answer to your question, uh, I think if we just wait here for a
bit, he’ll probably pass. That would be less traumatic for him than
dying alone, I think. I don’t know. I’ve never died. If you were
dying, would you want to be left out in the woods
alone?”

“
I can’t die that way,” I
said. “I can’t die slow. I can only die one way, and that’s
fast.”

“
Well, if you could,” he
said.

Was that disapproval in his
voice? What the hell? This was a guy who’d shot his wife and her
lover in cold blood, and he was glaring at me like that? What gave
him the right?

“
Look, I’m only saying that
he’s holding us up.”

“
It’ll take the hunters a
while to get down over that cliff and across the stream,” he said.
“They’ll have to find some other way down. We’ve probably got a
little bit of time. I doubt it’ll hurt us to show Milo a little
human decency.”

Oh, fuck him. Way to make me out like
the bad guy.

Human decency, my ass.

I rolled my eyes and stalked
back in the direction of Christa and Milo.

Milo was propped up against a tree. His
body sagged. He looked exhausted.

Christa sat next to him,
biting her lip. She looked up when I approached. “I wish we had a
canteen or something. He might want some water.”

“
Doesn’t matter,” said
Milo.

She sucked in a breath. “Do
we need to get going?”

“
Nah,” I said. “Emmett
thinks we can rest for a little while longer.”

“
Oh, that’s good,” she said.
“I’m sure Milo could use it.” She tried to give him a smile, but it
came out a little strange and twisted.

“
Stop it, Christa,” Milo
mumbled. “I’m fading here. I know it. You know it. I won’t last
much longer.”

She swallowed. “Don’t say
things like that.” But her tone was weaker than it had been
before.

I surveyed her. Did she
really think that Milo was going to make it? It was pretty obvious
that he wasn’t. Was she trying to keep his spirits up? Her own? Was
it easier for her to think he might recover?

I turned away. Maybe she was
right. Maybe talking about it was cruel. Maybe lying to ourselves
was better.

A snarling sound emanated from a bush
to my left.

I whirled.

A whir of gray fur sprang out of the
bush, landing directly in front of Christa.

It looked like a dog, but it
crouched, menacing. It growled, baring its teeth.

I took a startled step back. What the
fuck was that?

The dog-thing snapped at me, then
turned towards Milo.

“
No!” yelled Christa. She
advanced on it, aiming a kick at its flank.

“
Christa!” I cried. What was
she doing, kicking a wild animal? That thing looked
dangerous.

But the kick connected and the
dog-thing whined.

It retreated immediately, darting back
into the undergrowth.

We were quiet for a minute, watching as
the branches of the trees trembled in its wake.

I went to her and grabbed
her by the shoulders. “What the hell?”

She shoved me off. “It was
after Milo. It must have smelled the blood.”

“
You don’t just kick
snarling… dog-things.”

“
Dog-things?” She gave me a
look, like I was an enormous idiot. “It was a coyote,
Silas.”

I folded my arms over my
chest. Coyotes? Weren’t they dangerous? “That doesn’t sound like
something you’re supposed to engage with, Christa.”

“
They almost never attack
humans,” she said. “They’re loners a lot of the times, not like
wolves. Thing probably weighed thirty-five pounds soaking wet.
They’re fluffy, so they look bigger, but they’re not much of a
threat.”

I raised my eyebrows. How did she know
this stuff?

“
I did a report on them
once,” she said.

Emmett appeared in our
little clearing, looking concerned. “What the hell
happened?”

“
Christa kicked a coyote,” I
said.

“
I was protecting Milo,” she
said.

Emmett raised his eyebrows.
“Is everyone okay?”

She nodded. “I scared it
off.”

“
How do we know its whole
pack isn’t going to, like, stalk us now?” I said. I was shaky and
still a little freaked, but I was processing that as
anger.

“
I told you, they’re
loners,” she said.

Emmett rubbed his forehead.
“Maybe we should try to be careful around wild animals,
huh?”

“
Thank you,” I said, glad he
was backing me up.

Christa glared at both of us, then sat
back down next to Milo.

* * *

We
’d
been sitting in the same spot for about an hour or so. I really
couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Even though I was freaked
out, I had to admit that I was glad of the time to rest. The four
of us crouched amongst the trees.

I watched Milo.

He’d been getting quieter
and quieter. Mostly, he stared out blankly at us, his breath coming
in shallow gasps.

I hated this. I hated
sitting here waiting for him to die like this. I didn’t want to
watch it.

Sure, I’d seen people die
before. I’d killed people before. But not like this. Not so…
slowly.

Milo shut his eyes.

Christa was holding his
hand. She looked up at me, her face contorted, like she was going
to start crying.

Fuck this.

I got up. I was going to
walk. I couldn’t watch this any longer.

“
Dark,” said
Milo.

I turned back to look at
him.

His eyes were wide open and
terrified. “It’s only dark.”

“
Shh,” said Christa. She
stroked his forehead soothingly. “Don’t tire yourself out. Save
your strength.”

Milo let out a loud, harsh
laugh. “I don’t have any strength. What are you talking about?
I’m
dying
here.”

“
You aren’t,” she
said.

“
I am.” Milo’s voice was
strained. “Bleeding out against this tree in the middle of nowhere.
And afterward, you guys are going to walk off and leave me and the
coyote will come back and eat what’s left of me.”

Tears sprang to Christa’s
eyes. “Stop it.”

“
Oh, am I upsetting
you?” he said sarcastically. “I’m sorry if it’s too much for you.
I’m sorry if I’m not taking my own
death
properly. I’m sorry I’m not
making you feel better about the fact that I’m
not going to exist
in a few
minutes.”

Christa snatched her hand away from
his. She was trembling.

“
Wait,” said Milo, his voice
breaking. “I’m sorry.” He reached for her. “Don’t let go of
me.”

Christa put a hand to her
mouth. Tears were streaming down her face. “Oh god.”

I pushed her out of the way.
I sat down next to Milo, and I grabbed his hand. “Hey, I’m here.
We’re all here.”

Milo fixed his gaze on me.
“I don’t want to die.”

I wanted to look away. I
didn’t have anything to say back to that.

He started crying. “It’s all
dark. I closed my eyes a minute ago, and I thought maybe, you know,
there would be a light. My old, dead grandma standing there with
her arms open, waiting for me. But there’s nothing
there.”

I gripped his hand tight.
“You don’t know that,” I whispered. “Maybe there is a
light.”

“
No,” he whispered.
“It’s just darkness. It’s cold, and it’s lonely. And it’s…
nothing
. And I don’t want
that. I don’t want to die.”

Fuck. What was I supposed to say to
him?

“
So don’t,” said Christa,
peering around me at him. “Don’t die. Just fight.”

Milo shook his head. He
laughed again. “I don’t have enough fight left. I don’t have enough
blood left.” He turned to her. His eyes pleaded with her. “Don’t
let me. Don’t let me go.”

“
Oh god,” she
said.

“
Please,” said Milo.
He looked back at me. “
Please
, don’t let
me—”

His eyes bulged.

His head slumped forward on his
chest.

I let go of his hand to
shake him. “Milo?”

No response.

I shook harder. “Milo, come
on.” I looked back at Emmett. “You ever see anyone do anything like
that before? In mid-sentence?”

But Emmett didn’t look at
me.

My chest felt tight.

Christa stood up. She
wrapped her arms around herself.

I turned back to Milo, who looked like
a bag of meat and bones.

I shuddered.

* * *

Christa was crying.

My eyes might have gotten a
little misty too, but I’d hidden it, wiping it away, swallowing
anything I might have felt. There was something about the way he’d
pleaded us that had gotten to me a little bit. I didn’t care what
it was exactly that Milo had done. He hadn’t deserved to die the
way he had. The guy had suffered. He’d been in agony.

We were standing over his
body, the three of us. It was late afternoon. Flies and insects
were already alighting on his remains, and they wouldn’t go away,
not even when Christa tried to shoo them.

“
We have to bury him or
something.” Christa looked at me, then at Emmett.

I looked at my shoes. “We
can’t. We need to get moving.”

Christa’s voice was shrill.
“He said that we would leave him to get eaten by the coyote, and we
can’t do that.”

I drew in breath, still not
looking at her. “Christa, we can’t.”

“
Why not?” she
said.

“
We don’t have time, for one
thing,” I said. “The hunters are going to find us again. We’ve been
sitting still for way too long.”

“
We can’t just leave him,”
she said.

“
How are we going to bury
him?” I said. “You see a shovel or something lying
around?”

“
Fuck you,” she said. “You
don’t care about anything, do you?”

“
He wanted to leave Milo
behind,” said Emmett.

I snapped my head up to look
at him. Why was he bringing that up? I’d specifically told him that
I didn’t want Christa to know that.

Her jaw dropped. “You
what?”

I sighed. “It was only that
I knew he was going to die, and you kept acting like he could pull
through or something. But it was obvious that he wasn’t going to
make it.”

“
I
knew
that,” she said. “But I wasn’t
going to tell him that. I wasn’t going to give up on him. You know,
when my mother got shot, Leigh was there, and she said we had to be
positive. And we were. And my mom’s just fine now. So, I
thought—”