Chapter 21: Never Say Goodbye

The rain falling on Lily's face did nothing to put out the fires. The smell of burnt flesh took her straight back to Omaha.

Numb fear rushed in with all the insidiousness of a flash flood. "Michael?"

At first she thought she'd imagined the faint response, but it came again. Lily broke into a halting run.

He'd dragged himself behind a building and sat slumped against the wall; he tried to get up when he saw her, but fell back with a groan.

"I'm so sorry," Lily gasped, dropping to her knees. Her hands shook as she touched his charred shirt, the cloth crumbling away under her fingers. "I couldn’t…oh.”

Bright red burns mottled Michael's shoulder, his arm, and his side, angry and blistered and shining. His blood was on her hands. It was on the wall, on the grass…

“Oh,” she said again. “No— don’t look at it. Don’t. I need to get my…”

Her pack. Most of their medical supplies had been in her pack, the pack she'd carried up onto the roof with her. The pack that hadn't come back down.

Lily wanted to scream.

Michael touched her knee. His eyes were already glassy with shock. “Are you hurt?”

"Don't worry about me." She pawed through his gear for a medkit, finding only gauze and a canteen. Michael hissed as she emptied it over the burn sites. Her hands shook too much to unwrap the gauze.

"Lily, you're bleeding." His voice grew quieter with each word.

"I'm fine. Let me work." Infection was sure to follow if the blisters burst, but the antibiotics had all been in her bag. Lily applied loose gauze over as much of the burned area as she could and sat back on her heels.

"Can you walk?” She lay her palm against his cheek. "Michael, open your eyes. Can you walk?"

His eyelids dragged open. "Where?"

"Into that building. I'm going to help you, just put your arm around my shoulders." His choked cry of pain cut into her like a knife as she hauled him up. "Lean on me. It's all right. Just lean…"

Inside the last intact building, a shed with a blown-out door, the walls were hung with ancient meters and fuseboxes. Decades of dead leaves drifted in the corners, half-covering the bones of some unfortunate animal.

Lily eased Michael down, fighting panic. He inhaled like his chest weighed a ton and exhaled in a rush. His face was white, her palms were red.

He raised his good hand like it outweighed the earth and dropped it on her arm. “Bleeding."

"It's nothing. I'm fine." It couldn’t be that bad, she didn’t remember getting hit. “Stay awake, ok?”

Too late. His head fell sideways and his grip went slack; the pulse under his jaw was thready and weak.

He wasn't a stranger bleeding out in the snow by the side of the road anymore. She couldn't let him die. Judging by the wagon tracks the road was still in use. It had to lead to help. They’d go in the morning.

Lily struggled out of her bloody coat and torn shirt, sucking air through her teeth as the cloth pulled at the wound.

At least a dozen pieces of shrapnel peppered her side, black and vicious. She bit into her shoulder and dug the largest pieces out with her little folding knife, but the rest were too small, too deep, too…

Too much. It wasn't fair. It was too much.

—

Rain had smothered the fires outside by the time Michael came to, but a different fire burned under his skin.

"It's dark," he mumbled, as Lily checked his bandages.

“You’ve been asleep. We'll stay here until morning.” So far the fever was the only sign of infection. Maybe he would be all right. The flames couldn’t have touched him directly, it must have just been the heat…

He fought visibly to stay conscious. “You ok?”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” She hesitated, then lay her palm against his forehead. Hot and dry. He needed water, medicine…

“I didn’t thank you,” he murmured.

She pushed her fingers into his hair. It was soft and fine and his skin was so, so hot. “What?”

“In the beginning.” He struggled to focus on her. “I never thanked you.”

Lily felt a terrible pressure like a scream or a storm building in her throat. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about that.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, eyes drifting shut. “Thank you.”

He let out a long breath and went still, and for one nauseating moment she thought—

But no; a pulse beat beneath the awful furnace heat of his skin. He breathed, he lived. Lily curled onto her uninjured side with a whimper and lay her hand on his chest, over his heart. Pain radiated from her ribs, shooting out tendrils like roots, but she stayed there unmoving until she heard birdsong.

—

Michael was unconscious before he hit the ground.

They hadn't made much progress since leaving the ruins, and Lily didn't know how much farther she could carry him. The road had faded around the edges, blurred by roots and thick underbrush; there were no more tracks and the trees were ancient.

She fell to one knee, shaking Michael's shoulder and calling his name. His face was flushed and he burned.

“I need you to get up,” she urged. “Come on."

This had worked the last four times he collapsed. Each time he'd nodded and leaned on her a little more heavily, never making a sound, and they’d taken the trail one step at a time, slower and slower, until he fell again. It always worked. He always got up.

This time he didn't move. His eyes stayed shut. There was a hard pause between each exhale and the next inhale.

"Michael. Michael--" Frustrated, terrified, Lily grabbed the front of his shirt and barked, "Operative 74! On your feet!”

He sat up so fast his head nearly collided with hers, his fever-glazed eyes wide with fear. Confusion followed.Then betrayal.

"No," he said. "Why did you…"

Lily was too exhausted to feel guilt. Her whole side throbbed in time with her heartbeat. "Get up. Come on."

“Don’t,” Michael murmured as she threw his arm around her shoulders. “Don't call me that."

"Sorry," Lily said, gathering her feet beneath her. "I'm sorry. Let's go, count of three."

Her legs were on fire. Her back ached. After a few false starts they were both up, Michael leaning so heavily against her that Lily was almost bent double.

He shivered despite the fever and his breath came in gasps. By midday his shirt was soaked through with sweat and blood, and so was hers. There were no more bandages.

A tree overhung the trail a few yards ahead. It might as well have been at the summit of a mountain.

They stopped to breathe after each step. Finally, a lifetime later, they reached the tree. Lily tried to set him down gently, but the muscles in her leaden arms wouldn't respond. He hit the ground hard and she collapsed next to him.

“I’m done,” he breathed, so quiet she had to lean in close to catch it.

"Don't say that. You'll be ok." She was a good liar, but this one choked her. “You have to stay with me.”

His fingers twitched and tightened around hers. Like vultures, her thoughts wheeled in a dull spiral. If only she could rip her heart out and discard it.

Above them the sky was a clean, unfair blue, marred by one little wisp of cloud…

No. That wasn't a cloud. It was blowing in the faint breeze, but it was--

"Smoke," Lily breathed. Hope pounded in her chest. “I see smoke.”

It could be help. It could be more trouble. Or, worst of all, he might close his eyes while she was gone and she'd come back to find—

With great effort, Michael lifted his head. "Go."

“I’m not leaving you here.”

"Go," he stressed.

It looked close. The wind had changed and she could smell it now. How far — a mile? More? Over bad terrain, with an untrustworthy leg…

"Promise me you'll stay awake," she said. "Swear it."

Michael nodded, holding onto her hand even as she stood up.

“Don’t die.” She helped him lean against the tree. "I'm coming back."

Before she could lose her nerve, Lily hobbled out onto the trail.

—

Fear was a powerful motivator and Lily was used to pain, but if she’d been able to run in the first place she wouldn’t have to run now. They would’ve escaped the Crawler. Michael would be walking next to her.

So slow. She tried to use a familiar breathing pattern but her exhalations sounded more like sobs. When she pushed herself her leg buckled and she fell, scraping her palms.

Behind her he was dying, alone.

The rhythmic thuds of chopping wood echoed through the trees. She heard faint laughter. A shout. Lily lengthened her stride, biting her tongue until she tasted copper.

She sprawled headlong into a clearing.

A fire smoked cheerfully. Massive horses rested beneath a crooked pine beside a neat pyramid of fresh-hewn logs. Two men and a woman stared at her in identical shock.

Lily’s legs gave out. “Healer. Please.”

"What is this?" The dark-haired woman reached for her axe. "Some Blightland trick?"

"No, she's speaking." The younger man was broad-shouldered and nut brown, built like a tree. "What happened? Is that your blood?”

This last was addressed to Lily. He had a friendly, open face, and she turned to him in desperation. “He’s dying. Please, please help me.”

"Sounds like a trick," the second man muttered. He was a bit older, thin, nervous-looking.

"No! Please, I—”

The younger man made a calming motion. "It's all right. We're going to help."

“Luke, you can't be serious!”

“Ethan. Ride back and tell them we're coming. Alana, with me.”

“Thank you," Lily gasped, finally gaining her feet again. Luke, the young man, steadied her arm. It didn't matter. She clenched her teeth and watched Ethan mount up.

How long had she been gone? “Is one of you a healer? A doctor? Are you…"

“There’s one in town," Luke promised.

Alana led the other two horses over. "You better be sure, Luke," she said darkly, clutching her axe. “All that smoke...”

Luke's pleasant face hardened. "She’s unarmed and she can't stand.”

“Could be an ambush waiting. Think about that.”

Lily was too exhausted to defend herself or follow the rest of the argument. The only thing in the world that mattered was currently dying under an oak tree.

Getting back took a century. It took a few minutes. She slid off the horse before it stopped moving, prompting a startled exclamation from Luke.

Michael was as she'd left him. Exactly as she’d left him. When she crouched and touched his shoulder he didn't move, didn't lift his head or open his eyes. Didn’t breathe. He had no pulse and she was dying too.

“Don’t,” Lily whispered. “Please don't.”

Behind her, Luke cleared his throat. "I'm sorry," he began, but Lily just shook her head, pushing the hair off Michael's forehead with her fingertip. Not cold yet.

"We can make arrangements for…”

Luke’s words faded as a deafening roar built in Lily's head. Arrangements. Yes. She’d have to tell them not to bury him. He wouldn’t want to be underground.

At the end her mother’s hand had felt like a bundle of twigs in a leather pouch, the skin cold and dry. But she’d almost made it, so Michael’s hand was still warm. Lily held it between her own. Tack jingled and throats were cleared behind her.

She felt something under her fingers. Then she touched his neck and felt it beneath his jaw, too.

"Michael? Michael, can you hear me? Come on." She held his head up. “Michael! Michael, please, wake up…"

His eyelids flickered, then opened.

"Hey," she whispered, as he focused on her. The weak pulse beneath her fingers beat a little faster.

Michael's eyes slid past her. "Cavalry's here.”

Then his eyes rolled up and he slumped forward. Lily caught him and held him tight, pressing her face into his shoulder.

Work still to do.

"Help me get him up," she ordered, lifting her head. "I'll ride with him and follow you back to your settlement."

Luke stepped forward. "Let me take him. He's dead weight, you'll both be dragged off."

Lily's first impulse was to flat-out refuse, but she was in no position to argue. "Watch his side," she relented. "His right side, there."

It took all three of them to get Michael onto the horse.

"The town is about three miles from here," Alana said, helping Lily up behind her. Her tone had softened. "We'll go as quick as we can."

Lily couldn't take her eyes off the lead horse as they rode, constantly craning her neck around Alana's broad shoulders.

Everything would be all right.

She kept repeating that to herself until the horse picked up its ears and lengthened its stride, smelling home.

The town clustered at the tip of a long lake the color of newly cast iron. She'd expected a hunting camp, or a tent city, but Lily counted a few dozen buildings of grey wood, roofed with rust-speckled corrugated metal. Above it all rose the purple-blue shadows of mountains, capped with white.

They passed through open gates in a tall wooden palisade and trotted down a broad main street, through a large square, and up to a two-level clapboard building with a healer's cross painted in neat white lines. Gulls perched on the rooftrees, squalling.

An elderly woman, upright and clear eyed, strode down the low front steps. She clapped her hands and the people trailing her scrambled down to the horses with a stretcher, lowering Michael onto it, carrying him into the building.

Lily followed, caught up in a growing throng. The building had an odor to it, a hospital smell; sickness and blood, buried by harsh soap. She bit her tongue until she tasted blood.

They set the stretcher down in a cool whitewashed room. She tried frantically to see, to push through the curious, muttering onlookers, but her strength was about gone.

The healer drew her aside. Her bright eyes looked Lily up and down, taking in her bloodstained shirt with a professional frown. “What’s your name?”

She couldn’t look away from the veins in the woman’s weathered hands. “Lily.”

A woman in a white shift removed stained bandages from Michael’s side. He wasn’t moving.

“And what’s his,” the healer pressed, gently.

“Michael.” Her mouth was dry. A cold sweat prickled the back of her neck.

“Lily, I’m Doctor Burnett. I’m going to take good care of Michael. Right now I need you to go with Poppy.”

“No, I can’t—” She lurched forward, and the floor rose up to meet her in a rush of black.