Chapter 4

They continued toward the mountains after the sun had begun its slow descent, but the journey was no longer the same as it had been that morning. Tina’s strength was leaving her in small, frightening increments, and she could feel it happening even though she refused to admit it aloud, because admitting weakness had always seemed to her like the first step toward surrender. The crude crutches struck the ground unevenly beneath her hands, her injured left leg remained suspended inside Thomas’s carefully constructed splint, and the wound in her side burned whenever she twisted her body to keep her balance. The strange sensations in both legs had not disappeared either; sometimes her right foot responded almost normally, while at other moments the movement came late and weak, and the left foot occasionally gave a faint twitch beneath the splint before becoming numb again. Thomas noticed every hesitation, every sudden tightening of her jaw, every pause that lasted a little longer than the one before it, and although he was too young to understand exactly what was happening inside her body, he had become very good at recognizing the moments when Tina was pretending to be stronger than she really was.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“No.”

Thomas looked at her for several seconds, studying her face with an expression of exaggerated seriousness that would have been amusing under different circumstances. He had already learned that Tina’s first answer was rarely the answer she actually meant when the question concerned pain, fear, hunger, or exhaustion, and the boy had begun to recognize the subtle signs that betrayed her even when her voice remained firm. Her shoulders had dropped slightly, her breathing had become shallow, and the fingers gripping the wooden crutch were trembling badly enough for the leather binding around the handle to make a faint rubbing sound against her palm.

“You are.”

Tina gave him an irritated glance, although she did not have enough strength left to make it convincing. “I said no.”

“You always say that.”

There was something so matter-of-fact about the boy’s observation that Tina almost laughed, but the effort of doing so made the wound in her side hurt sharply and forced her to close her eyes for a moment. She waited until the pain had receded before looking down at him, noticing that Thomas was watching her with the same worried expression he had worn since the arrow struck her.

“You’ve become very observant.”

“I have to be.”

The answer was simple, but it stayed with Tina.

Thomas had become observant because he had no choice. There was no adult beside them to decide when to stop, no doctor to examine Tina’s wounds, no horse to carry them, and no safe house waiting somewhere beyond the next ridge. Every decision had become a matter of survival, and the ten-year-old boy who had begun the journey terrified and helpless had slowly become Tina’s eyes, hands, and sometimes even her conscience. She hated the circumstances that had forced him into that role, because a child should never have been required to study the color of someone’s face to determine whether they were about to collapse, yet she could not deny the courage it required. Somewhere beneath the fear and confusion, Thomas had begun to understand that Tina’s stubbornness could not be trusted to tell the truth about how badly she was suffering.

They walked another hundred yards before Tina stopped. She leaned heavily against one crutch and closed her eyes, allowing her head to drop for a moment as she fought against a wave of dizziness that seemed to rise from somewhere deep inside her chest and spread outward through her exhausted body. Thomas immediately stepped closer and placed one hand against her arm, not pulling at her but simply making himself available in case her legs suddenly failed again. He looked at her face, then at the crude splint, then back at her face, as though comparing everything he could see with the things she had told him.

“Rest.”

“We don’t have time.”

“You need to rest.”

Tina opened her eyes and looked at him, and despite her exhaustion she found herself noticing how seriously he was taking the command. “You sound very much like an old woman,” she said, hoping the joke would make him stop worrying, but Thomas only frowned because he had not yet learned when Tina was using humor to hide fear.

“Is that bad?”

“Usually.”

“Then you should listen to me.”

Tina stared at him for several seconds before the corners of her mouth finally lifted. The smile was small and tired, but it was genuine, and Thomas seemed relieved simply to see it.

“All right,” she said. “Five minutes.”

They sat beneath a cluster of rocks, where a narrow strip of shade protected them from the declining sun. Tina lowered herself carefully, keeping her left leg elevated. Every movement required planning now, because the combination of the broken leg, the wound near her lower back, and the strange weakness affecting both legs meant that a simple change of position could suddenly become a dangerous struggle. Thomas watched the process closely, ready to help but careful not to interfere until Tina asked him to, because he had learned that she needed to preserve the feeling that she still possessed some control over her own body.

Once she was settled, Thomas checked the bandage around her side. There was more blood on the cloth than he liked, although the wound was no longer bleeding heavily, and he touched the edge of the dressing without disturbing it. Tina watched him work and wondered how a boy who had once been frightened to touch her could now calmly examine an injury on her side as though he had been doing it all his life.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Badly?”

“Badly.”

Thomas looked worried, and the expression was so open and sincere that Tina felt an unexpected tenderness toward him. He had no reason to want her to be well, at least none that could be explained by the original circumstances of their journey, yet every time she winced he reacted as though her pain had somehow become his responsibility.

“But you’ve had worse?”

Tina considered the question, remembering old injuries, old fights, and the many nights when she had awakened beside a dying fire with blood stiffening her clothes. “I’ve been shot before.”

Thomas’s eyes widened.

“How many times?”

“Twice.”

He looked genuinely impressed by the number, which made Tina wonder what sort of stories he had been told about people like her.

“That’s a lot.”

“Really?”

The boy smiled despite himself, and Tina found herself smiling too, although the smile faded when she looked across the desert and saw how far they still had to go.

When they finally started again, Tina’s movements had become noticeably slower. Her right leg trembled whenever she placed too much weight upon it, and the muscles in her arms burned from supporting herself on the crutches, while the muscles across her shoulders felt as though they had been stretched tight and left that way for hours. The desert seemed to have grown larger while they rested, the mountains farther away, the trail more uneven, and every stone beneath her right boot seemed deliberately placed to make her stumble. Thomas stayed beside her, one hand around her arm whenever the ground became difficult, while his other hand remained ready to catch the crutch if it slipped, and although Tina wanted to tell him that she could manage alone, she had already learned that pride was becoming an increasingly expensive luxury.

“Don’t let go,” Tina said suddenly.

Thomas looked up at her.

“I won’t.”

The answer came immediately, without hesitation, and the certainty in it touched something inside Tina that she did not want touched. She nodded and looked ahead again, pretending that the desert had suddenly become very interesting, because she did not want the boy to see how much comfort those two simple words had given her.

They continued for another hour.

Then Tina stumbled.

Thomas caught her.

“I’m all right,” she said immediately, straightening with visible effort as she tried to reclaim her balance before he could become too concerned.

“You almost fell.”

“But I didn’t.”

“You almost did.”

Tina leaned against him for several seconds before straightening, and she could feel the boy’s small arm straining beneath her weight. The realization embarrassed her, not because Thomas complained, but because he did not, and she knew that he was already carrying more responsibility than any child should have been asked to carry.

“You’re becoming argumentative.”

“You taught me.”

“I don’t remember doing that.”

“You argue about everything.”

Tina looked at him with faint amusement, and for a moment the pain receded behind the absurdity of the conversation. “Perhaps you are learning too quickly.”

They walked on.

The sky slowly turned orange, then rose-colored, then deep red above the distant mountains. Shadows stretched across the desert, making the rocks look like dark animals crouched beneath the fading light, while the temperature dropped enough for the sweat on Tina’s skin to become cool. Her breathing had become shallow, and she was beginning to feel a strange heaviness throughout her body, as though every muscle had been filled with sand. She tried to ignore it because she had spent too many years surviving by refusing to acknowledge the limits of her own body, but when she lifted the right crutch again her hand trembled so badly that the wooden shaft slipped from her palm.

Thomas caught it before it fell.

“Tina.”

“I’m fine.”

“You aren’t.”

She looked at him, and this time she did not have enough strength to pretend that she had not heard him.

The boy’s face was frightened now.