I left Jade a letter, too, telling her where I’ve gone. She might have gotten it before you guys got this one. If so, I’m really worried about her. I think I might love her.
No, seriously.
Maybe when this is all over she’ll come find me, maybe not. I hope she does (P.S. Dylan, now I know what you were talking about, i.e., Faith). Either way I have a feeling she might try to come for me and get lost in the woods, so I’ve tagged her with a tracking device. It’s old tech to keep it off the grid, so you need to be within five miles of her location. But if she’s gone when you get this she couldn’t have gotten that far. Just use the old wifi protocols with the GPS setting on one of your Tablets and search for Lucy Pevensie. If she’s gone, you’ll find her.
How to close this thing out?
I’m going with ‘See you soon’ because ‘I’m trapped inside the Western State and we’ll never breathe the same air again’ is too messed up.
I bet I’ll figure a way out once we kick some ass.
Hawk
Faith and Dylan looked at each other in silence and understood they’d just been given an unintended gift.
“We can find Jade,” Faith said.
Dylan realized something else, equally as important: “And if we can find Jade, we can find Hotspur Chance and the Quinns.”
“He’s right, you know,” Faith said, standing as she stretched, arching her back like a cat waking from a dream. “We’d have tried to stop him. It’s better this way. Sad, but better.”
“If anyone can bust out of the Western State, it’s Hawk,” Dylan said as he folded up the letter and stuffed it back in the envelope. He stood and looked at Faith. There would always be something elusive about her, and it made him wonder whether he would ever completely win her heart. He hadn’t been honest with her at the start, because at the time he’d seen Faith as Meredith had seen her: a weapon in an ongoing struggle. Nothing more, nothing less. He regretted letting himself feel so cold, especially now that he’d fallen in love.
Faith tucked her head under his chin.
“Don’t pull away from me,” Dylan said, feeling the warmth of her body. “Don’t leave. I can’t do this without you.”
Faith knew this was not a request that had anything to do with Faith’s physical presence. There had been times in the past when she stopped trusting anyone. Times when she collapsed into herself and could not be found, even by Dylan.
“We need to bury them,” Faith said, tears soaking into Dylan’s black T-shirt. “And not with our minds. We need to put in the work this time. We need to feel the weight of a shovel in our hands.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Dylan agreed, and for a moment he choked on the words. He was having just as a hard a time as Faith was. “It’s impossible to imagine a world without Clooger in it, ya know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Faith said.
And so they found the tools they needed in one of the sheds and searched until they discovered the perfect spot. It was a bluff that looked over the far side of the mountain, to places neither of them had ever been and might not ever go. The lodge loomed behind them as the bodies rose into the air and landed at their feet, Dylan’s thoughts bringing them near.
The digging was hard work, just what Faith needed. She gritted her teeth and groaned with every stab of the earth until she was standing so far inside the hole she could barely see out. Sweat poured off her skin and down her face, mixing with the mud and the tears and the pain.
When they carefully moved the bodies into the double-wide burial space they’d made for Clooger and Carl, Faith vowed to leave her grief buried in the mountain until the real work was done.
“We’re going to finish what you started,” Faith said, the power in her voice returning as grief was being swept away, if only for a time. “And if it’s the last thing we do, we’re bringing Jade and Hawk back here. Count on it.”
An eagle flew overhead, shrieking into the sun.
“You were good men in a hard time,” Dylan said as he leaned hard on his shovel, catching his breath. Faith looked at Dylan, and she could tell he wanted to say more but couldn’t. He closed his eyes and dropped his head. If there were tears they were his own, and Faith didn’t try to stop them. She let the moment stand for what it was: a young man losing the closest thing he’d ever had to a father, with a long and difficult road still ahead.
They filled the hole they’d dug, a much faster task than making it, and stood before the soft earth with nothing left to do. The empty space with no task to complete hit Faith hard and her breath turned shallow. She swallowed back tears and stabbed the shovel into the ground, where it stood like a tombstone.
“So that’s it, then,” Faith said, her voice shaking with emotion. “They’re gone. They’re all gone. I’m running out of people Wade and Clara can take from me.”
Dylan was stooped over with his hands on his knees and he looked up, the sun blinding him from behind Faith’s head. What he saw there was a girl transformed. She was no longer the broken thing that had looked so beaten only an hour ago. The task had burned the sorrow out of her veins and the words she spoke were the last wisp of self-pity.
What remained was something Dylan had seen before, and he realized his mother had been right about Faith Daniels. When she was pushed too far, Faith knew how to push back like nobody else in the world.
“You ready?” she asked, her face awash with purpose and resolve as she wiped away a single tear.
“Yeah,” Dylan said, standing as the sweat ran down his chest and arms. “I’m ready.”
The force of Faith’s and Dylan’s will was about to carry them straight into the heart of the beast.
Chapter 7
Urban Cowboys
Faith and Dylan cleaned up and packed some basics in two packs: food, water, med kit, extra clothes. Faith went into Jade’s room and found the entire collection of Narnia books, lined up in a row on a small shelf next to her bed. There had been seven books at one time, but now there were only six. Faith took the one on the far left—The Magician’s Nephew—and stuffed it in her bag.
“Have you read them?” Dylan asked from the doorway where he stood.
Faith nodded yes, and they left the room together, walking down the hall toward the main entry.
“So you know about what order to read them in,” Dylan said as they arrived in the main hall where their last meeting had taken place. The fireplace was empty of life now, a vacant mouth of ashes and soot. “The Magician’s Nephew was written later than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but chronologically, The Magician’s Nephew comes first in the story.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Faith said, listening only sort of as she pushed open the door of the lodge and sun poured in. “But The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe still feels like the first one, don’t you think?”
“I guess so,” Dylan agreed. “Later on they moved it to the front, but when the books were first published about a hundred years ago, The Magician’s Nephew was nearer to the end.”
“You went through a Narnia phase, too?” Faith asked, happy that they’d found something new they had in common.
“I think I was ten,” he said, a bashful smile on his face. “I was a little bit obsessed. I used to draw maps and imagine myself wandering around in Narnia, having these incredible adventures. And I loved the idea of talking to animals like they did. Couldn’t get enough of it.”
“You know what would make a very nice tattoo?” Faith thought out loud. “That lamppost inside the forest, standing all alone, and under that, those famous C. S. Lewis words: Courage, Dear Heart.”
“Sounds like a good one,” Dylan agreed. “The passcode Hawk gave us—Lucy Pevensie?”
“She’s one of the main characters,” Faith finished Dylan’s thought.
Faith looked at her Tablet and set the name into the GPS settings. There was no return, as expected. Wade and Clara had taken Jade into the urban death trap of Portland, Oregon, down the far side of the mount
ain.
“Is Lucy alive at the end of the story?” Faith asked.
“Very much so,” Dylan said.
Faith nodded, taking this as a cosmic literary sign that they might succeed in their effort to get Jade back, even as she worried otherwise.
“We’re coming back here,” Faith said as she glanced back at the battered lodge behind her. Windows were broken out, and there was a snowplow tilted on its side and rammed into one corner of the building. A boulder had punched a wide hole into the tilted roof. Though it had been damaged by a violent battle, the lodge still felt like a sacred place.
“Kind of lonely up here now, know what I mean?” Dylan asked in a hushed tone. He was listening to the sounds all around him—the birds and the wind in the trees—and feeling, deep down, how empty the place was.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Faith said as she stared into a breeze and squinted her eyes. “It will feel right again when there are four of us.”
“We can find them,” Dylan said. “Let’s make it as hard as we can for them to find us.”
Any pulse activity had the risk of alerting Hotspur Chance, Wade, and Clara, especially since they were stationed in a hidden location so close to the mountain, so Faith and Dylan walked at a brisk pace, putting several miles behind them in under an hour. When they crossed a mountain stream they drained their water bottles and refilled, snacking on dried fruits and nuts.
“I miss home already,” Faith said, looking back up the mountain.
“It did kind of feel like home, didn’t it?” Dylan added. “It got under our skin quick. We’ll make it back.”
Faith kept thinking about the mountain peak with its sharp rocks and jagged spires, how it looked treacherous and striking.
“We should be able to cut the distance in half today and hopefully find the Koin Building by midday tomorrow,” Dylan said as he wiped his brow and sucked in a deep hit of mountain air.
“Sounds about right,” Faith agreed. She was feeling tired from all the digging and walking and emotional pummeling, but she didn’t want Dylan to see it. She’d go as long as he did, no questions asked.
At nightfall they camped at the base of the mountain, twenty-three miles behind them and a little more than that to go.
“Walking is overrated,” Faith said as she checked the Lucy GPS setting once more and got no return.
“I don’t know where you get your energy reserves,” Dylan said, flopping down in the grass with his limbs splayed out in every direction. “I’m on empty. Wiped out. Stick a fork in me.”
Faith sat down next to him and reclined with her head resting on his chest.
“You’re a lousy pillow,” Faith said, digging the side of her face into his shoulder. “Too much muscle, not enough fat.”
Dylan was already breathing heavily.
“Are you asleep?” Faith asked. She didn’t believe it until five seconds went by and Dylan didn’t answer. “You’re totally asleep.”
Faith was still a bundle of nerves even after all the walking and digging she’d filled her day with. She sat up and rifled through her bag until her hand touched The Magician’s Nephew. She took out the small paperback novel and held it at arm’s length. The light was fading, but she might be able to get in a chapter. Maybe it would carry her away from the worries of the day and remind her of better times.
She reread awhile about two children, a girl named Polly and a boy called Digory, who live in two row houses with an adjoining wall. They decide to explore the attic attaching the two houses and accidentally enter a study, where they find Digory’s uncle.
Faith read the part where Uncle Andrew persuades Polly to touch a magic yellow ring, sending her into a world beyond the forest. Digory would have to go into the world of Narnia and bring her back. There in the margin were some words, written in blue pen:
If I was Polly, Hawk would come and save me.
Jade had written in the margin, and this put a sad sort of smile on Faith’s face as she heard a slight sound in the underbrush a few yards away. The sound was close—too close—and she glanced at Dylan. He was in a deep sleep, and who knew what he might do if he woke suddenly? Faith stayed very still and then it struck her that they’d made a mistake: We didn’t bring any conventional weapons.
It hadn’t even crossed their minds to bring a gun or a knife or even a baseball bat, because they hadn’t needed weapons to protect themselves for a long time. They were human weapons, but without being able to use their pulses, their powers were limited.
The sound inched another step closer in the gloom of the forest at the bottom of the mountain.
Faith set the book down and quietly stood up. As she did so, a bear came into view, rocking as it walked under its massive weight.
“Dylan,” Faith said, kicking him in the side with just enough force for him to understand he had better wake up.
“What is it?” he said, groggy and half out of it as he sat up and wiped a hand across his face.
The bear moved closer and Faith thought about everything she’d been through. She could stay still and let the bear have its moment, show its dominance. But something had been quietly gnawing at her for hours and she thought this bear might be able to help her, so she moved toward the bear.
“Hey, whoa,” Dylan said, up on his feet in an instant and reaching out for Faith. “Let it pass. She’ll move off if we’re not a threat.”
Two cubs peeked out from behind the mother and Dylan changed his tune.
“Get your bag, Faith. We need to move.”
But Faith kept walking, steady and deliberate, until she stood within five feet of a thousand-pound animal with claws designed to rip things in two.
The grizzly stood, towering over Faith by several feet, and growled so low and loud it shook Faith’s bones.
“Turn around,” Faith said. “Go back up the mountain where you came from.”
The bear slapped Faith across the face, its claws ripping along her cheek and across her nose. The blow snapped Faith’s head hard to the left. It should have broken her neck, torn her face into shreds of flesh, but she turned back to the bear unharmed. Her second pulse was way too strong for a beast of this size.
The bear fell forward and pushed Faith to the ground, leveling all its weight onto her body. Its face drew within an inch of Faith’s and it roared. She felt the power of an incredible animal as it rocked her with blow after blow to the face. Faith had to be careful not to let too much in. Just a sliver, that’s all she needed. If the protection of her second pulse was measured in many miles, then she pulled the protective barrier it created back by an inch. She felt the last blow, felt her brain fire with pain, felt the claw as it sliced across her skin. She wondered what it had felt like for Carl and Clooger as the bullets pierced their skin. And she understood in a very small way what it must have been like to know their lives were coming to an end.
“You can’t really hurt me,” Faith said, putting the full force of her second pulse back into play. “I kind of wish you could. But you can’t.”
The bear stepped back and looked at her cubs, suddenly afraid of this unkillable thing it had encountered. Faith stood up and touched her face, but found no blood there.
“What are you doing, Faith?” Dylan asked as he came alongside her. The bear and its cubs moved away, deeper into the forest.
“Sometimes I need to experience a little pain in order to feel human again,” Faith said, putting an arm around Dylan’s side. “I’m fine. Let’s get some sleep.”
They lay in a spoon, Dylan’s arm wrapped around her, and she thought of the bear wandering off into the woods. She also thought of the yellow ring and where Polly had gone off to. As she finally fell asleep she felt sure that Polly and the bear had ended up in the same place, somewhere outside the wrecked world Faith had endured every day of her life.
The next morning as they walked farther away from the base of the mountain and nearer the urban sprawl of a fallen city, Faith kept looking over her should
er, searching for the bear. But she never saw it again, and as they approached what was left of downtown Portland, she knew she never would.
“Looks like all the bridges are out but that one,” Dylan said, squinting into the morning sun. A wide river stood between them and the hollowed-out downtown, huddled tight against the opposite side. Several bridges had once spanned the distance, but only one was intact now.
“GPS says it’s the Burnside Bridge,” Faith said, touching the screen to move the map from side to side. She pointed to a pinkish-colored building directly across the river. “That’s the Koin Building.”
“Still no sign of Jade?” Dylan asked as he knelt down and tied his boot.
“I’m a little surprised,” Faith said, shaking her head. “I really thought they’d be here.”
Portland was more than five miles across, but not by much. Either Hotspur Chance had decided the city was too risky and moved somewhere else, or he’d never been here to begin with. Either way it was probably some very bad news.
“Let’s get to the Koin Building and see if Hawk can help,” Dylan said. “We could fly over, swim, or take the bridge. What’s your poison?”
Faith smiled because she knew they couldn’t fly over the river without the risk of being detected, and swimming just seemed like a lot of work that would leave them cold and wet.
“Bridge,” they both said at once.
Dylan put an arm around Faith. “Great minds think alike.”
They reached the span twenty minutes later and found a slew of abandoned cars and buildings. Faith hated zeroed cities. They always seemed like zombie towns, at once sad and scary as hell. The bridge angled up gradually, cracked and strewn with old bicycles and pickup trucks and taxi cabs.
“It’s as if this stuff was put here on purpose,” Dylan said, noticing that some of the vehicles were turned up on their sides, creating a pathway of rubble they needed to crisscross through in order to pass. “Something doesn’t feel right.”