Thin Air Page 0,21

it seemed likely. I felt a surge of interest at the idea of hot coffee.

And then I heard something. Not Lewis, I was pretty sure of that; Lewis had that woodsy thing going on, and this sounded too heavy-footed for him. Bear? Something worse, maybe? I swallowed the water in my mouth in a choking gulp, screwed the cap back on the bottle, and hastily stowed it in my pack as I surveyed the underbrush. The lead-gray light seemed to bleach color out of everything that wasn't already piled with snow, and all of a sudden the tent was looking quite cozy.

"Lewis?" I didn't say it loudly, because I felt stupid saying it at all. Obviously it wasn't Lewis. There was another confused flurry of sound from the underbrush. Bear, I thought. Definitely a bear. I am so dead.

And then the underbrush parted, shedding snow, and a small woman pitched face-forward into the drift. Her skin was a sickly white, and her hair was matted and tangled with leaves and twigs and...was that blood? And she was definitely underdressed for the weather in a hot-pink sweater and blue jeans...

It was the girl who'd attacked us before. Cherise. She wasn't looking so tough anymore. In fact, she wasn't looking good at all, and as I hesitated, staring at her, she moaned and rolled over on her side and pulled her knees in toward her chest. Her half-frozen hair, now caked with snow, was covering her face, but I could see that her eyes were open.

She blinked slowly. "Jo?" she whispered. "Jo, help. Please help me."

I wanted to. She looked pathetic, and she looked desperately in need...but I couldn't forget how she'd been earlier, when not even bullets could stop her. She certainly didn't look invulnerable anymore, though; she looked like she was in deep trouble.

The kind of trouble that kills you.

"Cherise," I said, testing out the name. She was either nodding or shuddering with the cold. I didn't come closer, but I slowly crouched down, at least indicating a willingness to hang around. "What happened?"

Lag time. A long, unresponsive second of it.

"D-d-d-d-don't know." Her teeth were chattering like castanets, and her lips were an eerie shade of blue in her pale, pale face. Her eyes were huge, and they were the color of her lips. "Kevin...I remember Kevin was...he was trying to..."

"Was trying to what?"

"Jo, I'm so cold, please!" She didn't seem to have heard me at all. Her voice was faint. Her shuddering was lessening, and I wasn't so sure that was a good thing. "Kevin was trying to show me how to fight the fire."

"What fire?"

Another lag, as if she had to wait for the words to circle the globe a couple of times before comprehending. "The one..." Cherise seemed confused by the question. "You know the one. The one they sent him to fight."

"They, who?"

She just stopped talking. Blinked at me, like she had no idea why I was being so cruel to her. And honestly, I was starting to wonder about that myself. She looked so helpless, so fragile, that I couldn't just leave her there. Not like some little match girl in the snow.

I looked around for Lewis, but he was a no-show, the fickle bastard. I could have used his ruthless practicality right now. Granted, he probably would have filled the poor kid full of bullet holes, but at least then she wouldn't have been my problem.

No sign of him. No sign of David, either. Just me, Cherise, and the falling snow.

"Hold on," I said. I might have sounded angry, but the truth was that I was scared. My heart was pounding hard, and I wished to hell that I knew the rules of this world, which didn't seem to be the world I expected. Or knew. Or had known. Or maybe I was just going crazy; that would explain a lot.

I shook that idea off and focused back on Cherise. "Can you get up?" I asked her. She nodded, or at least that was what I took the convulsive jerk of her head to be, and tried. She managed to get to her hands and knees, but seemed stuck at that point, trembling like some poor wounded bird. I stood up, reached down for her, then hesitated. If this was a trap...

Then you'll at least die with good intentions.

I sucked down a deep, cold breath, grabbed Cherise under her arm, and hauled her upright. It didn't take much effort, as small as she was.