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We reach the side gate a few hours before dawn. If things back home are progressing as fast as Ravel said, there’s no time to waste.
Plus, I just so happen to have one other excellent reason to get out of town early today. Fake-winning a fixed challenge would hardly have been much better than for-real-losing it. Now that I’m running away from it, I can admit that even if, by some miracle, I managed to win that challenge on my own, it was never going to help me get back what I’ve lost. Issuing it was one of the dumbest things I’ve done, and that’s saying a lot
I’d have liked to steal one of the more stable and cargo-friendly four-wheelers, but it would never have fit through the side gate. Instead, we wheel a solar bike out the narrow door in the wall and take turns trying to toss the key back over after locking it. The bike is unwieldy and heavier than I expected. Forcing it down the straggling forest paths in the general direction of the main road is hard enough without the added (and futile) effort to be as quiet as possible.
Grace had said the elders would send a squad after us as soon as they figured out we’d gone—thus the point of creating as much chaos as possible at the challenge and, ideally, making sure they didn’t want to see our faces for a good long while. Looking back, I’m not sure that would have worked. Now we’ll never have to find out.
Hopefully Grace and Steph will just assume I’m off doing some last-minute panic training until it’s too late. But even if we’re careful, and lucky, we’re not likely to even manage as much as half a day’s head start. Not much margin for two city kids with a stolen map and only the barest idea of how to navigate. Just keeping the bike upright and pointed in the right direction is hard enough, even once we reach the relative smoothness of the main road.
At which point I insist on driving. Or piloting. Or whatever you call it.
It doesn’t go well at first, but neither we nor the bike break, and I figure it’s important to start as I mean to finish. Plus, even if there’s no way around spending the next few days being jolted and jittered to pieces on the back of this awful two-wheeled torture device, I don’t intend to be the one stuck wearing the backpack this time.
Ravel’s uncharacteristically compliant. I figure he’s happy to have gotten his way and be heading back to the city. Cadence sulks, unhappy we had to take her least favourite person in the world along for the ride, despite the fact that she’s the one who pointed out we needed him. If I can live with being stuck on a bike with him for the sake of our friends’ lives, she can suck it up. Apparently, she’s at least on board enough with the plan that she points out when our map’s upside down.
The bike’s lights don’t illuminate far enough ahead for me to feel comfortable rolling along much faster than walking pace in the dark, but we’ve cleared the trees by the time the sky starts to brighten. It’s actually a little easier to steer once we get going faster, though the poor condition of the road slows us back down in the worst stretches. I’m worried about monsters approaching without me noticing—I can’t exactly afford to take in the scenery while driving—but it’s not like there’s much I can do even if we do get attacked, so I refuse to surrender the front seat.
We’re weaving through crumbling switchbacks up a mountainside when the bike finally gives up.
“Why’d you stop?” Ravel rocks forward as if to nudge the bike back into motion.
“It needs to recharge.” I hop off and wait for him to realize I’m serious, then flip the charging panels out of the sides once he’s clear. “Shouldn’t take too long.”
He shrugs the pack off and starts rummaging. I yank it away, do some rummaging of my own, and hand him a single apple.
“That’s it?”
I grab one for myself and close up the pack. I’m amazed at how far we’ve managed to come already, but even so, if he hasn’t figured out how woefully undersupplied for a rescue mission we are, I’m not about to break it down for him.
Instead, I wander along the roadside, stretching my legs and examining the terrain: raw-edged rock, scrubby yellow-and-green bushes, wisps of long grass and dust, lots and lots of dust. A narrow thread of water weaves along the bottom of the canyon, too distant and shallow to be much of a threat.
It reminds me a little of where Ash fought the great battle of the turtle “monster” on the way up. It’s a lot funnier in hindsight.
I still keep to the middle of the road, wary of the rattlers Ash warned of. If only he were here, instead of—
“So,” Ravel strolls up, munching his apple. “Excited to get home?”
I take a big bite of mine and turn away.
“Yeah, me too. Not that all this nature isn’t nice.” He circles, trying to get in front of me. I pivot again. “Scenic. Not my style, but some might find it appealing. Romantic, even.”
Cadence snorts. I chomp my apple, the grit we kicked up on the bike squeaking between my teeth. Front seat comes with extra bug splatting and dirt eating. But when Ravel goes quiet, I peek over my shoulder. He’s just standing there, staring. Not at me, either. I squint along his line of sight, checking for signs of pursuit, but there’s nothing there. Just dusty plants, and rock, and sky.
“What are we doing out here?” His voice is a rough whisper. His eyes seem faded, nearly colourless in the brilliant sunlight; a lamp that shines brightest in the dark. Then he shakes off the moment and pulls on his usual mask of arrogance. “I don’t think nature agrees with you, flame. You look a wreck.”
I grunt, pivoting toward the bike to check its progress and hide the flush racing up my neck. We’re both dusty from the road—but that’s not what he means.
I’d refused to discuss it with Susan, but Cadence was all too happy to hash it out with her within earshot. They figured the stuff I’d been fed in Refuge had messed with my body, and now I’d been off it for a while, I was catching up with all the normal changes but at ten times the speed.
It almost makes me miss Noosh. It might’ve been bland, and frankly, disgusting, but it was better than greasy hair and angry-looking, painful skin and—and . . . other stuff.
“You’re a normal size for your age,” Cadence says primly. “And even that sad excuse for training you were doing was bound to put some muscle on.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“Uh huh.”
“What was that?” Ravel pops up on the other side of the bike.
I glare. “You don’t look so hot either, you know.”
He gasps and clutches his oversized, loaned shirt in mock horror. “Now, I know that can’t be true. No need to get defensive.”
I snap the charging panels back into the frame. “Pick up the pack. Time to go.”
***
THE CHARGE LASTS WELL into the night, but the fourth time I jolt off the road and have to wrestle the bike back, Ravel puts his foot down.
I’m too tired to argue. Too tired to peel myself off the bike, too. He more or less has to haul me down, at which point we realize we didn’t actually pack blankets or mats or anything useful for sleeping.
I lose track of time—slumping against the bike that, in turn, is propped against a tree while Ravel rifles through woefully inadequate supplies and curses—and find it again when the sun is suddenly overhead.
I’m sore, and stiff, and starving. Ravel’s curled around my feet with one arm slung across my calves and the other pillowed under his cheek.
He looks younger, vulnerable, without the armour of his layered ornamentation. The dark curves and angles of his tattoos look faded in the sunlight where they disappear under his shirt. His hair flops low on his forehead, his lashes deepening the bruised hollows under his eyes. He doesn’t look strong enough, big enough, mean enough to have done as much damage as I know him to have.
I scrunch my face and shake the sleep off, jerking my legs free. I stumble to my feet, dancing and stamping against the pins-and-needles. He moans and curls his arms over his face, snuggling into a ball.
Whatever. Let him sleep. I could use a minute to myself, anyway. That way, I’ll be fresh, and fed, and ready to scornfully prod him onto his feet and then the back of the bike before he’s awake enough to be annoying.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t remembered to flip out the bike’s charging units to catch that early morning sun before passing out, so we coast to a stop again late in the morning.
This time, we’re on the downslope, almost to a bridge when we run out of power. And I’m pretty sure that river isn’t empty.