Silence follows my speech, my heart pounding as I try to catch my breath. I know he’ll go back to thinking I’m mad. Any moment and he’ll open his mouth to dismiss me as always.
But instead he just says softly, “If these whispers were trying to make me hurt, they managed it pretty well.”
We sit for a time in silence. I can feel Tarver’s warmth next to me, a finger’s width away. Despite the comfort of his presence, my skin prickles with the unmistakable feeling that we’re being watched. I don’t ask him if he feels it too—the tension in his body says it clearly enough. The whispers are out there, and even though they’re quiet now, we both know we’re not alone.
After a time he gets to his feet and offers me a hand, and we make our way back to the campfire. I add a few of the meager bits of deadwood I was able to collect, and we settle in. He puts his arm around my shoulders, encouraging me to lean in against him. The distance that had grown between us has vanished, and I’m more than willing to comply. We sink into the quiet together.
My eyelids are drooping when his voice, barely more than a rumble against my cheek, rouses me.
“You shouldn’t feel guilty about the people on the pod. There were plenty of pods for everyone. You had no way of knowing what was about to happen.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I say, my chest constricting, but perhaps not quite as tightly as before. “But ours is the one that survived.”
“Well, whether it’s the only one or not, I’m glad I ended up in it with you.”
I snort, a sound I never used to make. “Major, please. I know an outright fabrication when I hear one. I’m the last person you’d want to have with you here.”
“Think again, Miss LaRoux.” His voice is calm, earnest. I know him well enough to recognize when he’s lying, and he isn’t. “If you hadn’t been on that escape pod when it jammed, I wouldn’t be here at all.”
He shifts, causing me to lift my head, and I find him looking at me, his face only an inch from mine.
I feel my face starting to burn, and I look away first. I can only hope that he dismisses the redness as heat from the fire.
“If only Swann was here,” I say briskly. “She’d have killed that cat thing with her bare hands. Or Simon, he’s the one that taught me about electronics, he was—” My voice cuts out. I don’t think I’ve said his name out loud in nearly two years. “He was a boy I knew,” I finish lamely.
I can still feel his eyes on me. “I think I’ll take the girl I know, thanks.”
By now the sun has vanished and the stars have come out, a scattering of light across the sky. I fix my eyes on them, grateful for something to look at that isn’t the soldier with his arm around me. I never realized how unfamiliar the stars could seem until now.
“If it’s true, then we know we’re not mad,” I say, keeping my eyes on the sky.
“And if it’s true, we know we’re not alone.” He, however, sounds more troubled than relieved.
“The whispers haven’t hurt us so far. I just think they don’t know how to reach us except by showing us what’s in our thoughts.”
“If they’re trying to communicate,” Tarver murmurs, curling his hand around my arm, possessive enough to keep my face burning, “then the question is, what are they trying so hard to say?”
“This water bottle you gave me is empty.”
“Indeed. I’ll send for another. In the meantime, what were your goals when you reached the crash site?”
“Supplies. Safety.”
“Rescue?”
“We hadn’t seen a single flyover. I wasn’t confident of rescue.”
“Did you discuss that with Miss LaRoux?”
“No. We were tired. We just concentrated on the basics.”
“What were the basics?”
“We were almost out of food, and she was quite pleased to find a change of clothes.”
TWENTY-THREE
TARVER
IN THE MORNING, THE SILENCE BETWEEN US is gentle, broken by our puffing and panting as we scramble down the snowy mountainside, our breath clouding the air. My throat’s rough and my mouth’s dry—it takes too much energy to melt snow in our mouths, and the cold leaves our stomachs cramping. The canteen’s at the forefront of my mind. Losing the Gleidel would have been less of a blow.
I squeeze through a gap between two rocks, and before I turn back to help Lilac through, I glance down to make sure my feet are planted firmly—and there it is. A military canteen. It’s in flawless condition, khaki sides smooth and unmarked. As though it just came off the production line.
I reach down, half expecting my hand to go straight through it, but my fingers connect with solid metal—it’s real. When I flip it over, my stomach lurches. My initials are there, engraved by my own hand, impossible to re-create—and yet the dents and scuffs have been erased. The canteen is as flawless as the day I got it. I pull out the stopper, and there’s the filtration system sitting in place, clear water just below. A shiver starts between my shoulder blades and runs down my spine.
We left my canteen behind in the cave, crushed under rock and snow. And now, as though we willed it into existence, here lies a replacement directly in our path. No, not just a replacement—this is the same canteen.
“Tarver?” It’s Lilac, trying to look past me at what stopped me short. I step aside to let her through, but it takes her a moment to spot the canteen. When she does, her blue eyes widen, and she nearly falls the rest of the way through the gap. I wrap both arms around her. We pause for a moment with her tucked against me, holding still.