I couldn’t remember waking up, but did remember dragging Gabe for some time, until the prickling weight of the rising sun brought panic into my head. Sun and vampires didn’t mix. Except for Roman and Matthew, apparently. I had to get him to a safe place. The frozen ground wouldn’t yield to my paws no matter how hard I dug. If I buried him, he’d be safe from the sun, safe from predators, safe from me.
Blood tainted the dirt as I dug, and I knew it had to be mine, but the small hole grew only marginally. Gabe had stopped bleeding hours ago. Even when I dragged him, he no longer left a metallic-scented trail. I’d stopped more than a handful of times just to cry over him, though as a lynx it was little more than a terrible mewing.
The prickling tension of the soon to rise sun increased like ants crawling across my skin. I really began to panic, digging until I had to struggle out of the hole. Even then it was nowhere large enough to protect him from the coming daylight.
I had to laugh at my silliness. Gabe would have laughed too. I was an earth witch, wasn’t I? What was a little dirt?
I licked his face, put my paws to the earth, and commanded the ground to cradle him deeply. The dirt moved, parting like I was Moses and it was the Red Sea. He sank gently into its embrace as softly as quicksand. I sat on his chest, watching his face as the ground overtook him. More than once the ground flowed up over my paws, and I’d wait until it was mid-leg to bounce out. I wanted to stay with him forever but couldn’t find the strength to just sit down and die beside him.
When he had finally vanished into the ground, I lay down on his grave and slept for a while. I let the sun bake me awake and then examined the spot to ensure he was safely out of its reach. After the sun set again, I finally left him in search of warmth as the temperature dropped.
Time passed quickly. I knew how to find him again by the lay of the trees. The Earth kept telling me he was safe, though my heart hurt more the farther I got from him. I had to talk myself out of going back several times. My body needed warmth and food.
Get warm. Find food. I imagined the voice was Gabe’s, still trying to care for me even though he was gone. It kept me moving, though I longed to return to his grave and just lie down eternally with him.
I’d been running for days as a lynx, somewhere between completely being an animal and being a human. I avoided roads and towns, all the while feeling the pain pressing at me, urging me to run. There were times I couldn’t even remember what I was running from. Was Matthew still out there? Roman? The Dominion? A bear? My lynx brain couldn’t keep up and the human side of me kept trying to retreat. The memory of Gabe telling me he loved me just before his heart stopped replayed nonstop in my head.
I love you.
I missed him so bad. Only Gabe got me. I longed for him to appear through the trees like he did so many times on new moon nights while I played. He always followed at a distance, though he gave me meat and rubbed my fur if I let him close enough.
The cold descended with a vengeance. I shivered despite my heavy fur coat. No animals lingered outside but me, so even if I wanted to eat, there was nothing. I needed food for energy and heat, but my stomach knotted with the idea of swallowing anything.
Get warm. Find food.
His voice was so strong. Just like he’d always been. His smile always radiated warmth right to my core. I stumbled, tripping over my numbing feet and slid several feet in the snow. I was so tired I just lay there, nose to the cold white powder, back to the icy wind.
I love you, Sei. Get up. Find food. Get warm.
The freezing wind stung my lungs as I sucked in a deep breath and struggled to my feet. The cold whipped around me like a ghost on my heels. I sniffed for any sign of prey, the need for food becoming insistent. Nothing near. I sighed and kept moving. Perhaps I’d come across a rabbit or squirrel or even a fat mouse ready for the winter. Something, anything to ease the growing well of emptiness in my gut.
The darkness crept up around me, fading the sky from blue to pinks to navy with bright pinpricks. I came to a creek, mostly frozen over from the cold snap, open in some areas and snowdrifts covering others. I took a sip from the icy depths to slake my thirst. The chill filled me from the inside out now. I sighed.
Get warm. Find food. Just a little farther.
I followed the creek for a while, letting the meandering ways of it take some of the weight off my shoulders. It gave me direction. Lots of animals stayed near water and I hoped to find something to eat. Or maybe an old abandoned burrow to hide until the cold dissipated.
Coyotes howled in the distance. That was not prey; to them I was prey. My quest for food turned to a flight of terror as I scented them on the wind. I hurried to cross the creek. Three-fourths of the way the ice began to crack beneath my paws. I froze, watching the break spread and hearing the shattering glass sound of thin ice fall from the trees. I darted across the last expanse, praying to reach the shore, but the ice broke just feet from my destination. Cold water poured over my head, stealing my breath. I floundered, briefly recalling another life struggling against the water as hard as I. Paws flailing, silent scream roaring from my lips, the shocking cold dragged me under.
The current swept me under the ice and snow. I floated by, marveling how I could see the moon from below the thin layers. It was beautiful, like a dark kaleidoscope of stars. Gabe would have found it beautiful and I was sure Jamie would have known the names of all the constellations. I let the current rock me to and fro, a gentle sway like a cold cradle blowing in the wind.
I closed my eyes for what I was certain would be the last time. No! Get up. The voice screamed so loud inside my head I flinched. Earth magic poured from me. I willed it to take me as it needed—thought perhaps my pending death was releasing it so it could use my body to fuel whatever growth of life would be next. But instead of the Earth wrapping me up beneath the water’s icy flow, it shoved me upward, a great hand of mud and sand. I crashed through the barrier of ice and snow, tumbling several feet to dry land, heaving water and choking on the bile of once again evading death. Wasn’t I meant to be with Gabe?
Again darkness took me.
Get up, Seiran. Wake up. You need to move.
There was no snooze alarm on the Gabe voice in my head. I opened my eyes and staggered to my feet, sore and tired, surprised to still be alive. Unless this was some sort of hell. Though I never imagined hell would be so damn cold.
Get warm. Find food.
I approached an old farmhouse tired, cold, and utterly defeated, but willing to do whatever it took to keep him in my head.
When I finally lay in a borrowed bed—human—wrapped in a musty flannel shirt, my only hope was that, when I did sleep, I’d dream of Gabe, and maybe I wouldn’t wake up.