Page 26 of The Bleeding Woods

We hike south for three hours, never leaving the safety of the road and never daring to strike up another conversation.

Jade is quiet, save for the occasional cough or curse-ridden complaint.

Grayson gnaws on a granola bar as the sun peaks overhead.

My appetite refuses to return with the image of Joey’s bloodless digestive tract hanging to the ground.

“Jade.” Grayson’s voice risks an echo. “Did you, um . . . did you tell Clara about your program?” He’s desperate to pop our pustule of tension.

“No.”

“Oh. Well, Clara . . . Jade got into one of the top criminology programs in the country.”

I steal a glance at my sister. “Congratulations.” Another olive branch, and an apology for how I’d picked a fight this morning. “What got you into criminology?”

She whirls around to flick a finished cigarette at my feet.

“Tracking down the EHKI made me good at it. In fact, I’d like to offer my detective skills right now to confirm that this little trek is getting us nowhere.

Joey’s a smart kid. If he wasn’t picked up by some miraculous taxicab, he went back to the Hummer to wait for us. ”

My mouth turns to metal. I taste blood, my blood, because I’ve gnawed a gash into the center of my tongue.

“You have a point. I’m just worried he might be lost,” says Grayson, rocking back and forth on his rubber soles. “I know I’m being paranoid, but could we walk for a bit more? Just in case?”

“We shouldn’t be wasting our energy like this.”

Grayson’s eyes turn to ice. “Wasting?”

“Don’t take it personally, Warner. I’m just saying, we’re running on limited supplies now. We have to preserve—”

“Looking for my little brother is not a waste of energy,” he seethes.

Suddenly, I’m worried he’ll start a fight far worse than the one I’d sparked earlier.

He marches up to Jade with a scowl he’s never shown me.

It’s an expression I’ve never seen on his face before.

Usually, Grayson is the pinnacle of gentleness, of practiced and perfected composure.

Right now, he looks ready to begin a street boxing career.

Jade doesn’t shy away. She puffs out her chest and stands with the confidence of someone several feet taller than her adversary. Grayson’s taller by a landslide, but Jade’s been thoroughly trained.

“I know you’re a long way from caring about the people who matter, Jade, but would it kill you to show just a smidge of emotional awareness?” Even his insults sound stolen from a textbook.

“Would it kill you to stay out of my business?” she hisses back.

“We’ve been friends since we were kids. At this point, your business is mine by default. That’s especially true when it involves Joey, and ignorant, brainless things like what you just said.”

“You’re asking for it, Warner.”

“Then deliver on it, Lovecroft.”

I step in between them before higher reasoning has a say.

Standing at the heart of no-man’s-land, I can only hope I’m enough to halt this war.

“Please, no more fighting. We’re hungry, we’re tired, we’re confused, and we need .

. . well, I don’t know what we need, but it isn’t this.

Come on, let’s hike for a bit more. Then we’ll go back to the car. ”

Jade huffs like a bull before a red tarp.

I look up at her. Suddenly, my eyes don’t belong to twenty-four-year-old Clara.

Eyes from long ago, long before, make an appearance I don’t curate consciously.

Caught in this transitory trance, I’m just her little sister again.

I’m begging her to stop pulling Lindsey Gonzalez’s braids for ruining my art project.

I’m imploring she put down the bat with Richard Collins’s name on it.

I don’t want her to spill blood today—not for me, not for anyone.

She stares, seemingly caught in the same memory spiral. The breath she pulls in is hitched and complicated. It lodges at the center of her windpipe. Her eyes water ever so slightly in response.

Mine do the same.

Just as quickly as it opened, our portal of past selves closes.

Jade bulldozes past Grayson and me to head back for the Hummer.

We exchange breathless glances, then take to following in her footsteps.

I copy her strides, like I did back in grade school.

It’s more difficult to place myself back in the present moment.

It’s difficult to reunite with a reality where we still hate each other so much.

Our walk north takes three hours, four minutes, and five days, all at the same time.

The forest feels like a nebula excused from the laws of physics.

No matter how far we travel, we never reach our destination.

The Hummer is too large and artificial against the wooded backdrop to miss, but we never pass it.

“Someone towed it!” Jade rages, directing every bit of hunger and frustration at a moss-coated rock on the ground. “Someone came and towed it, and we weren’t here!”

“Calm down.” Grayson raises his palms, the pacifist in him revived. “You were right. Joey probably found his way to service, called someone, and met them back at the car. They came, we weren’t here, and he went with them to get more help. This is good. Now we can relax.”

“Relax? It’s almost nightfall. We have no food, no water, no shelter, no Joey, and no way to contact anyone. Our only hope is a search party, and considering the size of this forest, it’s going to take them a while.”

“I still have a few granola bars on me, and if we can find a running stream, I can build a fire and purify the water. The smoke will also alert whoever is looking for us of our location.”

“When did you become an expert on survival?”

Grayson stares, searching for words. Dismissing him, Jade kicks a nearby stump, applying enough force to uproot it.

The roots look like outstretched fingers made skeletal by the forces of decay.

The poor things crumble under her boots as she stomps on them, viciously releasing hours of pent-up frustration.

I refuse to speak. If I insinuate that Jasper had something to do with this, they’ll both think I’m descending further into madness.

If I bring up Joey, Grayson will insist he’s fine.

Knowing he’s not fine is a burden I have to carry, along with the burden of knowing the last of my pills were stashed in the trunk of the vanished vehicle.

“Jade, stop it.” As though the darkening sky had summoned it, a yawn seizes Grayson’s lips. “It’s decided. We’re finding some water, building a fire, and setting up camp.”

“Now we’re camping? You’re crazier than she is if you think I’m sleeping in the dirt tonight.”

“I just figured we should find a safe place to settle, but if you’re that dirt-averse, you can sleep standing up.”

Leaving no room for dispute, Grayson steps off the road.

The surrounding branches claw for him. I try not to think of Joey and how his body might be hanging overhead at any moment.

It takes another hour of hiking for the trickling sound of water to pierce the wind-whipped bellows of the encroaching night.

The tiniest stream moves like liquid starlight at the base of a dipping chasm of rock.

“There we go.” Grayson pushes a breath through his nose, relief clouding his exhausted eyes. “We’ll set up down there. Watch your step.”

Watchful steps are required to keep from slipping down the small valley. My fingernails sting as I use them to grapple down its sloping sides. Jade pays no mind to her knees when, as though to assert dominance, she leaps down and lands like a superhero fallen from the sky.

The stream is weak, but the mere sight of water heightens the arid sensation on my tongue.

I curse myself for dry swallowing my pill this morning.

I curse myself for leaving that plastic pouch behind.

Grayson removes his jacket, finds a hanging bundle of bramble, and throws the brown leather garment over it.

A makeshift tent. Now clothed in only a black T-shirt, he shivers against the nighttime breeze.

“You should keep your jacket on,” I suggest, allowing my knees to buckle onto the frigid granite floor. They tingle, irrepressibly desperate for rest.

“I’m all right. The fire will help.”

He turns, reaching up to rip a few dry branches off the nearest trees.

They are smaller down here, as though growing through the cracks in the bedrock had left them deprived.

I gather a few twigs off the floor and present them to Grayson organized by size.

Jade pulls out her lighter, twirling it between her fingers, watching as the dwindling supply of fluid bounces within.

The kindling refuses to ignite at Grayson’s command. He spins the serrated wheel until his thumb is red and raw. Spark after spark, failure after failure, the three of us gather all but warmth.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Jade snips.

“Want me to try?” I offer.

With a quiet grunt, he surrenders the lighter. I barely touch the ignitor before our tiny pyramid of wood becomes an inferno. Before the flames manifest in familiar orange hues, they burn pure scarlet. Jasper leaves a spectral kiss on the nape of my neck.

For you, my Clara.

The fire is a small but worthy one. The leaves we feed it produce a considerable amount of smoke, and the blaze itself throws enough heat to ward off the chill of autumn incoming.

Jade watches it dance, savoring her ration of a chocolate chip granola bar.

Grayson boils a cup’s worth of water in a serendipitously curved rock.

I keep my eyes on the trees, looking for structures too humanoid to be made of bark.

“I hate this,” says Jade.

“I couldn’t tell,” Grayson retorts with a sarcastic bite.

“Stop talking to me like I’m a child.”

“Stop picking fights like one.”

She pauses, staring at him with eyes that burn brighter than our tiny inferno. Then something in her gaze softens, and her tone shifts right along with it. “Do you really think Joey is safe?”