Broken Skies

He thinks for a moment before responding. “You don’t know that.”

His denial only increases my conviction and anger. My hands move into tight fists. Yes, I’ve tried to discount the dream too… but he doesn’t get to patronize me. “I do know it. Maybe it’s only a twin thing and not as sophisticated as your alien link thingy, but I do know.” I narrow my eyes, preparing the verbal barb that is itching to leave my tongue. “Isn’t that what you would have done? A little bit of torture before killing him?” His shoulders straighten and the muscles in his jaw pop. It’s my turn to be cruel. “Seems your friends like to cause a little pain. Maybe you’re just like them. And you called us savages.”

“If I’d known who he was then, I would’ve just killed him in the clearing.” His words are loud and rushed. They jumble together and it takes a moment for the truth of them to hit me. I step back, the air leaving my chest like he punched me. Lir rubs the back of his neck and looks away. “Before… that’s what I would have done before I knew you. The ones that took him, they’re not my friends, if anything they’re just as much my enemies as yours.” His head comes up. “Things have changed for me. I don’t plan on taking vengeance on your brother. To inspire such dedication and loyalty in you…he must be redeemable, there must be more to the story than I know.”

The confession shatters my anger and leaves me speechless. I settle for nodding in acknowledgment and then heading back into the woods, my wet braid swinging against my back. “Come on,” I call back over my shoulder. “We’ve got to get going.”

Lir’s feet pound up behind me and he falls into step beside me. Neither of us speaks.

A few minutes later, we’re scrambling across some rocks and I hear it, the unmistakable sound of a rattler. It must feel threatened so it’s not hiding in one of the crevices, it’s somewhere where it was frightened by us. My eyes scan the rock bed, looking for a variation in the pattern, something that sticks out. I find the snake about a foot to Lir’s left.

He keeps walking despite my stilled frame. I throw out an arm to stop him and he turns with both his body and his feet, bringing his foot even closer to the snake. Almost in slow motion the snake rears back to strike and I yank Lir by his shirt toward me. His body bowls me over and I fall to my back, legs extended right into the path of the snake’s strike.

* * * * * * *

My breath hisses in through my teeth when Lir places the ragged piece of his shirt against my leg. Pain radiates up from the wound, the pressure building until I want to scream. A drop of sweat traces down the side of my face and falls onto my shoulder.

“What do I do?” Lir’s voice pounds in my ears, his tone frantic.

“Let it bleed,” I say. “And get my knife.”

Lir pulls my knife from his boot and wipes it on his shirt before handing it to me. The steel is cold against my leg as I run it up the seam of my jeans, parting the leg up to my mid thigh. I hack off the now loose jean leg and cut a strip from it. The strip I tie around my calf, just above the bite, not too tight, just enough to get my finger underneath. The blood is slowing, so I wipe the wound with the wet cloth.

We’re out in the open and that just won’t do. Even though rattlers don’t always inject venom when they bite, the burning sensation traveling up my leg and the slight swelling already forming around the wound leave no doubt. There was venom in that bite and it’s bad.

“Help me up. We have to find shelter. Now.”

He pulls me to my feet and I sling an arm over his shoulder. With a slow hopping movement, avoiding putting much weight on the bitten leg, we struggle through the forest. My eyes scan constantly for someplace, anyplace that might be safe for the next day, maybe two.

Dad was bitten by a rattler once, when I was ten. He was alone hunting in the forest and stumbled back to the cabin and fell into bed. The brief instructions he was able to get out before he went completely delirious weren’t very comforting. I did the best I could, but his leg still swelled and he tossed and turned for two days before coming back to himself. He was strong enough to fight off the venom, now I have to be too.

Each step sends a shot of agony throughout my body. I ca

“Put me down. Find a cave. Someplace safe and then come back.” I grit my teeth as another blaze of pain shoots up my leg.

Lir’s receding back wavers in my vision, joining the tree trunks in a dizzying dance. Closing my eyes doesn’t help. Colors blaze behind them, pulsing with the pain in my leg. The waist band of my jeans grows tighter, pressing into my flesh. My leg is swelling worse and I need to get the pants off while I can. My hands shake as I use the knife to cut the pant leg the rest of the way. Chills wrack my body and my limbs jerk against the ground. There’s no way I can hold the knife steady enough to cut them the rest of the way. I clench my teeth to keep my yells in. No point in alerting anyone who may be around that I’m here. That I’m injured. That I’m helpless.

Fear follows the chills, seeping into my bones slowly. Is it real fear or the start of delirium? Helpless. Helpless. The word chokes me and leaves me gasping for breath. My racing heart beats a steady cadence of terror and pain.

Minutes… or hours?… later, a tall form separates from the trees and approaches me. The sunset behind it shines on reddish hair and my heart jumps. “Jace?”

No. The colors change again and it’s just green with golden sunlight pouring around it. Lir. When he gets closer, the gold in his hair shines and for a moment I just watch the sunbeams coming from him. Then my heart beats again and another searing pain travels up my leg.

The pain coils in my stomach and I lean over and vomit into the bushes until my stomach can’t push anything else out. My back continues to heave and Lir leans toward me. At first, I flinch away, not sure I want the golden light to touch me, but it’s okay. His hand rubs my back until I’m shaking with the exertion of dry heaving and collapsing back to the ground.

“Jax,” he says. “There’s a cabin ahead. Can you make it?”

I nod, not trusting my mouth to form the right words. He helps me to my feet. If my body wasn’t a constant throbbing pain right now, all the wavy colors would be pretty.

“Where’d Jace go?”

“Huh?”

He is playing dumb, but I know I saw Jace. “Where’d you hide him?”

“You aren’t making any sense,” says Lir.

I stop walking, swaying on my feet a little. “He was here.”

“No,” he says. “He wasn’t. Remember…uh, they took him.” He pulls my arm over his shoulder. “Come on.”

Just like that the cold heat of fear is back, turning my stomach to mush and speeding up my heart. “They… aliens…. You, you’re an alien… you took him!”

“No I didn’t.”

I pound on his chest with my fist. “Give him back!” The tears come now, the wet soldiers of fear and pain. Heat radiates up my leg and I stumble forward. Lir catches me and presses me against his chest. I continue to beat ineffectually at him with my fists.

“It’s not much further, come on.” My arm follows him, but the rest of me stills. My wobbly feet won’t hold me. The ground is shifting and I can’t find a place to walk.

Lir is too far away. He’s leaving me behind. Alone. “No! Don’t leave me here alone,” I yell. “I don’t want to be alone.”

He’s in front of me again. Pulling my chin up to look at him. Green seas float on his face and I lose myself in them, drifting away from my throbbing body. Can I lie down now? Good idea. But I can’t. Lir scoops up my legs and cradles my body in front of him and then he’s moving through the forest and the trees are blurring around me.

Seconds later I’m in a bed, the musty sheets cool against my skin. No, that’s not right. They’re hot. I kick them off. My skin is too tight and it’s going to pop. I’m alone and I have no pants. No, not alone… Screaming. Is that me? Shaking. That is me. Crying. That’s me too.