“Take your time,” Kade said to her, shielding Zee from the wind.
“It’s the liquid that protects the trees,” she said after she got done coughing. “Not the metal. The liquid preserves the microclimate.”
“The metal got put on this thing for a reason,” I said, shuffling over to them.
“We won’t move it,” said Kade. “Not during the night.”
“We could get warm, Banyan. Out of the wind.” Zee’s face trembled inside her big purple hood. Her eyes big as fists. Kade reached an arm around her, trying to rub some heat into her, and even miserable as I was, seeing him touch my sister like that sparked something inside me. I mean, it looked a little too damn friendly, if you asked me.
“It’s too risky,” I said. “For all we know, Harvest’s troops are right behind us. We gotta keep moving.”
“She can’t keep moving.” I could hear the scowl on Kade’s face, like he was all out of patience. Like I should be cheering him on for bossing at me.
“He’s right, little man,” said a voice above us, and Crow was leaning down off the side of the tank towards me.
“Decided to wake up, did you?” I might have smiled at the sight of him, but my jaw was frozen stiff.
He peered about at the black sky and the dirty slush. “Where are the others?”
“Gone,” Zee whispered.
“All of them?” Crow said, and I saw he was shivering like we were. Made him look smaller, somehow, like he was being eaten away by the cold.
“Everyone,” I told him, and the word was like a splinter. Got worse the longer it sat.
Crow shut his eyes. Couldn’t look at me. “Some folks be precious, Banyan. But no folks be for keeping.”
I felt frosty tears on my cheeks, a sick, sad knot in my gut.
“The redhead’s right,” he went on. “The night’s too cold. I’m gonna die and so are you, and the trees won’t get nowhere if we all be dead.”
“You want to stop?” I asked him. “Make a shelter?”
“Not a want, it’s a need.”
“Fine,” I said, because I couldn’t risk losing him, too. “But you better drag your ass down here. We can’t lift off this steel shell with you sitting on top.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The snow began to fall. Hard and mazy. White flakes clouding the darkness, trickling inside our hoods and sneaking up the sleeves of our coats. We had to unclamp where the metal was paneled and latched beneath the tank, frozen hooks and fasteners connecting the protective steel cloak to the glass and sealing things tight. Took ages, working the right pieces loose, especially around the tank’s wheels. And when I stood back up, the snow was already half as high as the top of my boots, and coming down in a bright white spiral.
Zee kept clutching her chest and coughing, while me and Kade grappled with the metal box, working the shell upwards, the steel squeaking on the glass. As we unpeeled the tank, its lights spilled out, red and gold, glowing like a fire in the dark.
“Quickly now,” Kade said, because I was just standing there, staring through the glass at the sapling that grew from Pop’s mouth. What was left of my old man’s face was bent up as if he was looking straight at me. As if he still had eyes that could see.
“Banyan,” Zee said. “We have to get out of this cold.”
“Hold on,” I told her.
I inspected the glass, making sure it had not got too damaged in all the ruckus and sprung itself a major leak. That steel cloak had done its job, though. And this GenTech-grade glass had been built too hard to shatter. There was just the one crack in it, and the tank was still two-thirds full of liquid. The glass was real warm to the touch, too, like the tank was being heated. It was certainly a sophisticated machine. And I knew one day, if we were lucky, we’d get to lift those saplings out of this tank and watch them blowing in the wind, instead of floating in liquid. There were hinges on top where you could peel the glass open, and I tried to picture myself tugging the trees free.
“Anytime you feel like helping.” Kade was still wrestling with the steel box. So I went over and gave him a hand.
We got the thing upright, its opening facedown on the stamped-down snow, and the shell formed a decent shelter. All sealed up but hollow inside. It was just about big enough, too.
We had to lift up one corner so Zee could get Crow in there, dragging him through the snow. Then Kade slid in after them, and I took one last glance at the tank, the trees, then scooted in, too, the walls sealing tight around us.
We bunched up cowering against one another, huddling against the cold steel walls. And as the air got stale, we began to get warmer. Little by little, I felt my joints thaw, and my heart slowed down as my bones quit shaking.
“You think we might run out of air?” I asked.
Crow was out again, shut down already, curled up in a bulky ball. And I could hear Zee wheezing, bent crooked as she slept beside me.
Only Kade was still awake, his face just inches from mine.
“We could open that panel,” I said. “The one we used for looking in here.”
He was worried we’d lose too much heat, but once we popped the panel loose, it weren’t so bad. You could hear the gusts outside but not feel them. Snow puffed in on occasion, but not enough to freeze us out. And this way, if we were discovered out here, I figured at least we might hear Harvest’s troops coming. Though there’d not be much we could do about it.
I twisted my head back to watch the snow flurries through the opening. I could see the snow change from white to gold to red, and I sat that way for a long time, watching the glow from the tank, going over things in my mind, like I was hammering a nail into place.
“You awake?” I whispered, to see if anyone might answer.
“Try to sleep,” Zee said softly, her head at my shoulder.
I thought about what Kade had said about me being nicer to her, and if Harvest did find us in the night, I’d not likely get the chance again.
“You all right, sister?”
“The cold sits tight.” I heard her thump at her chest.
“Least it’s not dusty,” I said. As if there was some positive spin to be found.
Back on Promise Island, I’d told Zee I’d keep her safe, but now look at us. Freezing and lost, hunted and starving in this winter wasteland.
“You still think we should have given them up?” I asked her. “Handed the trees over?”
“It’s too late, Banyan.”
“I mean, if we had to do it over.”
“I know what you meant.”
“I miss her so bad.” I cupped my head with my gloved hands. “I miss her so bad, and I don’t know what to do.”
“I miss her, too.” Her voice was almost not there at all, and it surprised me to hear her say it. Made me think I didn’t know Zee even nearly enough. I mean, she was my sister, and I knew I should love her and take care of her, but we were so different. Hell, she’d never even known our old man.
And I wasn’t sure I could handle having someone else to look after. Hadn’t it been easier in those days of dust and metal, when I’d been roaming around all on my own?
“I miss my mom,” Zee whispered. “I know she wasn’t anything much like Alpha, but she still made me feel safer, you know?”
I didn’t know. I’d grown up with no mother. And Hina had just seemed strung out and vacant, when I’d traveled with her on the road.
“Even with Frost around,” Zee said, “I felt safer with her. And with Crow. He’d look out for me, when he could.”
“Right. The watcher.”