GREN

I am dying.

The thought floats through my head as I awaken. Faint morning light trickles into the lean-to. My limbs are heavy and everything aches, and when I try to stand, I feel weak and helpless. Nearby, Willa is curled up, her mouth slack with sleep. She clutches a now-stiff bloody fur that I have vague memories of her using to bathe me. She must have fallen asleep while tending to me. I do not awaken her, doing my best to get to my feet.

If I cannot walk, I am dead for certain. Worse than my own death, I will take Willa with me, and that cannot be borne.

I need to get her to safety.

I manage to get to a low crouch, panting, and blink rapidly to shake the dizziness from my head. I am weak from blood loss, but there is more, I think. I feel overwarm and achy, as if I stand in a swamp instead of on a wintry planet. I stretch, and I can feel my fur sticking to the dried blood oozing out of my many wounds. Willa has tried to cover the best of them—I am bundled in tied bits of leather up and down my arms and thighs, and it looks as if she has destroyed layers of her own clothing to protect me. Foolish female. This is not good. She needs warmth and layers to protect her naked skin. She does not have fur to protect her. I touch one wrapping that aches like a sore tooth, and pain shoots up my arm.

Infected.

I will be dead in days, then.

At least I have had Willa’s kindness and friendship. I touch her cheek gently, thinking of how freely she has given me her touches. No male was ever so lucky. With my dying strength, I must get her to safety so she does not die with me. “Willa,” I murmur.

She jerks awake, her eyes flying open. There are dark hollows under them and her lips are pale. “Oh! Gren! You’re awake!”

“Come,” I tell her, wishing I had the words to say that we must journey on. That I must take her back to the beach, to the others that can tend to her. They did not treat her as a slave, after all. She will be safe there.

“Lidwn,” Willa tells me, her hands fluttering over me. “Urhrt.”

I point—my arm is so heavy that the movement feels incredibly slow—out at the snow. “Come.”

“Wht?” Her jaw drops and she scrambles to her feet, sputtering a wealth of words I cannot follow.

I know she is upset. She thinks I will kill myself if I walk outside. Perhaps I will. Walking anywhere feels like the greatest task I have ever undertaken, but Willa must be brought back to the others if I am to die. This world has no med-bay, no surgical machines to fix wounds, no stims to charge failing organs into new life. I am tired and I am weak, but I will do this for her. She gave up the others for me—I would give up my life for her. There is no question. So I begin to dismantle the lean-to even as she trails after me, uttering protests in her odd language.

“Gren!” she finally calls. “Plz.”

I can hear the upset in her voice. I turn—even turning feels like a challenge—and look at her sad eyes, full of water. She does not understand. I reach up and cup her cheek, though it takes an absurd amount of strength. “Willa. Fraaaand?”

“Friend,” she agrees, her expression troubled.

“Come,” I tell her, and lean heavily on her spear as I drag the leather lean-to down to the ground. We will take apart our camp, and then I will find a scent trail from the others and lead her back to them.

WILLA

I can’t get Gren to rest.

He refuses every time I ask, even though every step seems to be hard-won. Gone is the boundless strength of the man that carried me and all of our goods through hip-high snow without a problem. I carry our pack now, and Gren leans heavily on the spear. Every so often he sways, and then I support him for the next few steps, until he gets his balance again. He’s silent, putting one foot in front of the other and constantly sniffing the air as if looking for a particular scent.

He wants to go somewhere. And because I can’t stop him, I go along with him. I’m tired, hungry—I haven’t eaten since he got hurt—and more than anything, I want Gren to put his big, strong arms around me and hold me close. I really, really want a hug. But none of that is possible right now, so I stay at his side, doing my best to be strong and capable as he plods forward, endlessly.

We leave the cliffs behind, heading into what feels like a valley, and then back up an even steeper slope. The walking becomes difficult, the paths rocky, and the climb so slanted that even my uninjured legs struggle with every step. Gren continues relentlessly forward, though. Every once in a while, he’ll pause to catch his breath, then he’ll say “Come” and keep going.

So I go with him. I won’t leave his side, even though I worry he’s killing himself.

Then again, this might be a custom of his people when they’re dying, though the thought chokes me with grief and I want to scream at the unfairness of it. In the next moment, I tell myself that he’s not dying. He’s not. He’s just leading us both safely out of the way of more of the snowcats, and that’s what he keeps sniffing for.

“Please don’t die,” I whisper to him, and I want to reach out and touch his fur, but his wounds still seep and I’m afraid to hurt him. So I keep my hands to myself, and my fears to myself, and if I want to scream and scream, well, I keep that in, too. Gren needs me as his friend right now, and by golly, I am gonna do it.

The suns start to go down and I feel a hint of panic as the temperature drops and the world begins to turn a grayish purple with twilight. We’re high up, the paths winding along the side of an even steeper cliff than before. The rocks here are icy, and where they’re not, they’re loose and it’s like stepping on slippery gravel as we move forward. “Can we go another way, Gren? There’s nowhere to set a tent up around here.”

He growls something under his breath and lifts his arm half-heartedly, trying to gesture at something. Then he stops, panting.

“Gren?” I move to his side as he hunches over, catching his breath. I touch him on the one spot on his shoulder that doesn’t seem to be torn up, and I’m shocked at how hot he feels. Not his normal toasty warm, but feverishly warm. He’s sick. His cootie isn’t taking care of any bacteria that might have gotten into his cuts. “You’re not well, Gren,” I tell him, trying not to choke on the grief rising in my throat. This is how it started with my brother, Isaiah. Just a fever, and then days later, he was in the hospital, then dead from meningitis.

There’s no hospital here. We’re all alone.

And things were never the same after Isaiah died. They went to hell and never came back. Mama got hooked on drugs. Daddy left. Uncle Dick moved in.

“Please,” I whisper to anyone that’s listening. I’d deal with a hundred Uncle Dicks if it would save Gren.

He pants for breath, and I see the hair on his head is clinging to his dark, thick brow with sweat. He tries to gesture up the slope once more, then his arm flops back down to his side, his strength nearly gone.

“It’s all right,” I tell him. “If you want to go up there, we’ll go up there.” I point where he pointed, and nod. “Come.”

“Come,” he agrees, and struggles to his feet, the effort so difficult that it brings tears to my eyes. I fight them back and slip myself under one arm. Normally I’d be too short to support him, but he’s so hunched with pain that I fit perfectly under his shoulder and let him lean on my strength.

“Willa, no,” he manages. His words are slurring.

“Willa yes,” I tell him. “Come.” And I take a slow step forward. “I’m not leaving you, friend.”

He groans, leaning heavily on the spear. “Blessurhart,” he mumbles.

“What?” I’m shocked to hear it, and then a hysterical laugh bubbles up in my throat. He must have heard me say it a few times and is parroting it back to me. I guess the context is pretty clear, but it’s so insane and yet perfect that I can’t stop laughing. “I love you, Gren, you know that?”

And then I sober, because I realize it’s true. I’m falling in love with the guy and he’s killing himself to go up this stupid cliff path. But then he leans heavily on me again and I draw every bit of strength that I have to support him and move forward, picking my steps carefully as we continue up.

A few minutes later, I see it.

There’s a reason why Gren has pushed so hard to come up here.

There’s a fucking cave.

We’re saved. Glory, hallelujah.