To keep myself occupied and my mind off the never-ending and sweltering sand, I play with the sand. Of course I’m not stopping to build sand castles or anything, but with each step the sand makes this strange dry, squishy sound and I like it. So each time I step, I wiggle my foot around so it makes the sound again and again.
Asher startles me when he chuckles. I gape at him. “What?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
But I’m not letting him get away with that, especially since it’s the first Asher thing he’s done in hours. I slide in front of him, turning to walk backward.
“What’s so funny?”
“You.”
His dimple flashes when he grins at me, and a little bubble of relief floats into me, but I pretend to frown. “Me? What’s so funny about me?”
“You’re like a little kid bouncing around and playing in the sand. It’s funny.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“Ah! But you are little.” He taps my nose. “And you should probably turn around before you trip over something—”
Of course at that moment, my foot finds the only hole in the entire desert and my ankle catches, which causes me to fall hard onto my butt. Asher, unable to stop in time, follows suit and lands on top of me, pinning me to the ground underneath him.
A sharp pain shoots up my leg, but it ends as soon as my foot is free of the hole. Laughing, I try to sit up, but Asher’s too busy trying to see if he hurt me and we end up bumping heads.
“I’m so sorry,” we say together, and then just sit there laughing and rubbing our heads.
It’s probably more the hysterical kind of laughter than anything else, but it feels good to laugh, even if it’s only for a minute.
He smiles down at me and I smile back up at him, but something in his expression changes and he stares down at me so intensely, I stop laughing. I shouldn’t be here, like this, I think and quickly slide out from underneath him. I clear my throat. “We should probably keep going.” I turn away so I’m not looking at him.
After a minute he stands, but he doesn’t hold out a hand for me this time and I’m sure we’re back to silent Asher. With a sigh, I push myself to my feet on my own.
We keep going like that until the sun starts to lower in the west, leaving only a reddish pink sky and some violet clouds. The temperature starts dropping considerably the further the sun lowers.
“Any idea where we are?” I ask him when I realize we might be stuck in the desert with those dog beasts and no way to beat them this time. No way to outrun them. And no supplies or a way to keep warm through the night.
“No,” he says, “but I don’t think we have long. Those trees over there look familiar to me. See that tree in the front? The one that looks all twisty, like one tree is wrapped around the other? My father and I would stop there to rest every time we came this way.”
I glance to where he’s gesturing, and shiver. It’s almost like the woods we stayed in the first night. “We’re not going to go through there, are we?”
“Afraid so. No other way.” He pats my arm as if to soothe my fears. Although he doesn’t look very happy about our only option either.
I swallow. “But what about those birds?”
“They sleep at night, so if we go as far as we can tonight—hopefully getting on the other side of those trees—then wake up early, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about them.”
“Are you sure?”
He looks down and at me, his eyes meeting mine. “No. I wish I was, but I’m not.”
I can’t help but compare Asher to Gavin in this moment. If Gavin were here, he would reassure me, even if he had to bend the truth. Asher always tells me how it is—always. Asher trusts me to be able to handle the truth. Even if it’s bad. I like that. A lot. I’d much rather have the truth than have something sugar-coated to spare my “delicate” feelings.
To pay him back for his trust in me, I shrug and step forward. “Are you coming? Or are you going to stand there all day?”
We get to the tree line just as the sun is setting. I listen for the sound of wings, but the only sounds are crickets and the wind teasing the scrub oak leaves. As we walk, I wonder how the trees are getting water. Surely there has to be something nearby to keep them all hydrated and alive. I try not to spend too much time thinking about it. It’s a waste of energy that should and could be spent on getting out of the small forest alive and well. But every time I lick my chapped lips, I’m reminded of exactly how dehydrated I am.
It’s hard to tell when the sun actually sets, because the woods are so dark. The chill of the night is obvious though. My wheeze, which was easier to ignore in the heat of the day, sounds too loud in the tree-covered night. I worry I might cover up the sound of approaching animals, or worse yet, attract them to us.
“Maybe we should stop for the night.”
“We have to keep going. Just a little bit longer, until we get to the tree line. If there are vulture-hawks, I want to be able to run into the light quickly.”
“What about those beast-dogs?”
“The coyotes?” He continues before I can answer. “They are nocturnal, so let’s try to stay quiet and move as quickly as possible.”
I swallow at the lump in my throat, but do as he recommends. Hours later, when I’m continuing on nothing more than willpower alone, I hear Asher say, “Just a little further,” for what feels like the thousandth time, but this time there’s excitement in his voice.
I look up and gasp when I see the orange-black horizon of the rising sun just past the trees.
“Tree line,” I whisper and dart forward to it, ignoring the aches and pains that cover my body.
Asher is close behind and we both make the same awed noise when we see the towers of buildings reaching up into the sky in the distance. It’s probably less than five kilometers away.
“Come on!” I giggle, and tug on his arm. “We’re almost there.”
He allows himself to be pulled across the small plains before we get to a large body of water. A few hundred meters in is an island, where Rushlake city waits. There’s a red footbridge that leads across the water to the island city with its huge buildings that sparkle and scrape the sky.
I trudge onto the bridge, nearly weeping at the thought of being so close. To sitting. To water. There’s a guard station on the other side that I keep my eyes fixed on. I only have to make it that much farther, I am certain of it. But even these last fifty meters can’t be easy. In my hurry, my foot catches on one of the loose planks and I crash onto the ground. I’m so exhausted I find it almost impossible to push myself up, but I finally manage, my legs shaking with the effort. The muscles in my jaw ache with thirst. I’m dizzy with it. There is water on the other side of this blasted bridge and I will crawl to it if I have to.
I take a determined step, but my energy is finished. My legs buckle, and I have a moment of thinking I might just have to crawl, when Asher swoops me up in his arms. He carries me across the rickety bridge, chest heaving with the effort. My stomach summersaults when the bridge sways wildly under his feet, but he keeps me held fast.
At the far end, two bored guards wait. Neither of them offers to help Asher, even when we’re well within shouting distance. In fact, neither of them moves until we’re at their station, and then it’s only to demand to see our visa. Asher sets me on my feet to get out the letter from his father. The guard takes his time, inspecting each word as if he has just learned to read. I take the chance to study our surroundings. The guards’ outpost is just a tiny wood building, not much bigger than the guard and his partner. It’s set off to the side of a concrete platform, which has steps leading down to one of those large asphalt paths that were in the abandoned city.