Chapter 23

This isn't a date.

He held the door open.

This is not a date.

Oh look, he pulled the chair out for you.

Not. A. Date.

He's smiling at you.

"This isn't a date."

The smile quickly drops off his face, but his eyes are bright.
"OK."

He slips off his leather jacket and drops it onto the back of his chair.

A waitress comes over with two menus while I slip my own jacket off. "Hello, what can I get you to drink?" She smiles at Aiden. She has long blonde hair and blue eyes and nails the color of blood. They are long enough to be used as daggers at yet I feel quite the opposite of threatened. I lean back in my chair and fold my arms and I watch her hands come to a rest on her hips. She leans forward, letting her features talk for her. Aiden looks down at the menu to see the choices.

"Water." He nods as if to say, always water.

"Sure you don't want anything...sweeter?" Her lips pucker slightly and I roll my eyes.

"We'll both have water." Her blue eyes focus sharply to mine and I raise my eyebrows. For two seconds our eyes lock. She flips her hair over the side of her shoulder. "Sure thing babe," She says to me then looks quickly at Aiden with a wink then walks away. My hands grip the edge of the table.

Aiden is innocently looking at his menu. I shake my head.

"Really?" I ask.

"What is it?" Aiden pears over the menu, his eyes are still bright.

"Please you didn't see Ms. Generic dumb blonde's attempts to seduce you?"

Aiden chuckles, I notice there's nervousness behind it though, like he hears the ice popping under his feet and a bad step could be disastrous. "I'm not blind," he says.

"Oh so you did see." I pick up the menu and stare at the letters, blocking Aiden from view. "Well, in that case I wish the two of you many fat babies and long happy years together." I'm just loud enough an old couple in the corner booth look over.

"Adie I'm not-"

"Here are your waters." I pull the menu closer to my face and stare the pictures. "Decide what you wanted?" I can just picture her leaning on the table batting her eyelashes. It takes everything I have not to fill her lungs with water or cause tears to pour out of her eyes.

I grip the menu.

Chill Adie, don't kill the blonde.

Aiden gives his order smoothly. I imagine him smiling back, maybe suggestively raising his eyebrows or placing a hand accidently near hers as she grabs his menu.

"What would you like, babe?" There is nothing in her tone that would ever suggest that we are buddies. It's meant as a jab.

I drop the menu onto the table and look her in the eye. "I would love a cheeseburger, a basket of fries, and a very large chocolate milkshake, doll."

She grabs the menu and smiles. "Sure thing babe."

Her hips sway suggestively as she walks away. I look at Aiden, and am surprised to see him smiling at me. "What?"

"You're very discrete."

"Go to hell."

"I will, as soon as I finish what I was saying before I was interrupted." He clears his throat, "I was going to say that I'm not into that type of girl. There is no challenge, no spark, and no mystery. So don't assume my feelings." My cheeks burn and he leans back in his chair and looks around. "Ah, well I'm going to assume that's the closest thing to hell they have around here. I'll be right back." He stands and walks to the men's bathroom.

Ten seconds later the waitress is back. "Your food will be right out." She looks towards the men's bathroom and says, "You and your boyfriend having trouble babe?"

"He's not my boyfriend."

"You an ex or a sister or something?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business."

She shrugs. "I have half a mind to follow him into that bathroom." She licks her lips quick, I almost don't catch it.

I lean forward. "Listen-" I look at her nametag, "-Carla, I could have you fired for your attitude towards us. And though that man whose name you don't even know is not my boyfriend, he is important to me. So you'll back off, and you will most definitely stop calling me babe."

She smiles like she finds something funny. "Listen babe. My daddy owns this restaurant. There is nothing you could say that would take this job from me. Besides, I'm not threatened easily."

Oh Carla, you have no idea.

I shake my head and pull the sleeve of my shirt back.

"See these Carla?"

The scars are like veins on my skin.

She looks.

She stares.

I nod. Yeah, that's right.

"Let me say one thing, they weren't accidents. Trust me. You're going to want to act like a decent human being when you speak to us next."

She swallows.

My vision flips. The sound of the blood pumping through her heart quickens radically. I smile and a bell from the kitchen chimes. "I believe that's our order."

She nods and steps away quickly, her eyes still locked on my forearm. I pull down my sleeve and she disappears into the kitchen. I look to the old couple in the corner, they didn't notice a thing.

"Everything alright?" Aiden returns to his seat and takes a sip of water.

I look at the kitchen door. "I think so."

The cheeseburger is covered in cheese and dripping grease. The fries are steaming and covered in salt, and the milkshake is beginning to melt along the edges of the metal cup when our food is places before us. It's the most delicious meal I've ever tasted.

The waitress doesn't linger, she is polite and disappears after she refills our waters. Aiden and I don't speak for a few minutes. We stuff our faces with the best food we'll probably ever eat for a very long time.

I take fries and dip them into the milkshake. Aiden tilts his head.

"What are you doing?"

"It's delicious."

"No, that's disgusting."

"Let me guess...you've never tried it."

"Of course not, I'm a regular human being."

"Ha, you forget who you're lying to." I push the milkshake towards him and then the basket of fries. "You aren't allowed to judge until you've tried it. After that, you can say whatever you want about my eating tastes." I tap my fingers against the table.

Aiden takes a fry, and scrunches his nose. "This is a waste of good fries."

I point to the milkshake.

He sighs and scoops some out with the fry and pops it into his mouth.

He chews. He swallows. He stares at me.

He says nothing. He picks up another fry and pauses. Then he dips it into the milkshake.

"I knew it." I hit the table. The old couple in the corner looks over then turns back.

"Yeah, alright, it's disgustingly delicious."

"That' doesn't even make sense."

"It doesn't have to."

Together we finish the fries and the milkshake. We pay for our bill and Aiden leaves a tip on the table. As we go to leave Carla says goodbye, I feel her eyes stabbing my shoulders as I walk out of the restaurant, but I don't care. My body will hate me in twenty minutes but I'm full, I'm alive. I'm free. I look at Aiden, I'm not alone.

By the time we make it back to the trucks hiding place the light is beginning to fail. "We should spend the night in the truck again."

I shake my head, "Bad idea. We don't have any sleeping bags or anything, we'll freeze before morning."

"It's better than trying to see in the dark and getting lost. We have our jackets, and we have our body heat. We'll survive. We can even turn the truck on every once in a while and get some heat flowing."

I'm still shaking my head. "We can get there, I know we can."

"Adie, we knew this would be a day and a half trip."

I can't shake the feeling. The desire to be at safe haven is overwhelming. What if someone discovered it while we were gone? What if the fire wasn't put out properly and the place burnt down? I need to get back, I have to.

"Listen Aiden I'm still in charge. I'm making it back tonight, with our without you." I start filling my pack with food.

Aiden sighs, "I'm coming with you."

Of course you are. He starts packing his bag. I stumble upon a few books. I lift one up. "What are these?"

He looks up. "I thought we might want something to do if we get stuck in the cabin. It's not like we have a television or anything."

"Oh, that's...thoughtful."

He nods and together we finish packing the bags. They are stuffed to the point that is it difficult to snap them shut. I swing mine onto my shoulders and am shocked at the weight. "Wow."

He nods. "I still say we wait until morning."

I shake my head. I'm not backing down. We're making back to safe haven tonight.

"Fine, let me put the branches back over the truck."

While I wait for Aiden to finish I adjust straps and try to distribute the weight throughout my body as best as I can. I'm not in as good of shape as Aiden. I put on weight and I'm healthier now than I was when under the care of the Handlers, but Aiden is fit. He's strong. I want to be strong.

"Let's go, we're wasting light." Aiden takes the lead first; we find our trail easily enough and follow it. Thirty minutes into the hike and I'm breathing hard and sweating. My legs feel like Jell-o and I can't seem to get enough air. Aiden is breathing hard, but he's handling better.

I refuse to admit I made a bad decision.

The light fails altogether an hour into our hike. The moon helps illuminate the snow and our trail isn't hard to follow, but it's dark. It's cold and we're not even halfway to safe haven.

"OK, fine. I was wrong. Happy?" I stop mid stride and rest my hands on my knees. I try to catch my breath.

"Not really," he says. "It would have been a lot nicer for you to admit it forty minutes ago when we still had a good chance to turn around."

I stand up, breathing hard. "Well it's too late now. So I'll take the lead for a while since you're so upset."

"I don't think that's a good idea. You're not strong enough."

I push him out of the way. "Watch me."

I am strong enough.

I am.

It doesn't take five minutes for something to go wrong.

Trees hang over the trail. Darkening our visibility greatly, it's hard to see but I push on, waiting for my eyes to adjust. My right foot catches on a small root, I step forward with my left to catch myself. I hit ice. The weight of the pack drives me forward faster and down harder.

I hear a snap of a branch.

I scream.

It wasn't a branch.

"Adie!"

Aiden unbuckles the pack and rolls me over. I cradle my wrist and fight against the wave of dizziness that threatens my vision. I lean away from him and puke. "Let me see."

"Don't touch it!" I shout, "Don't you dare."

"Damn it Adie." He grabs my chin. I look him in the eyes. In the darkness they look like midnight. "You have to let me help you."

I'm shaking violently. I've dealt with pain. I've experienced pain, so much pain. But this, they never broke my bones, they never went as far as too risk the performance of my body in the future. This is a different pain. It throbs through my body and into my skull like a headache but something entirely different at the same time. It presses against my eyes and churns my stomach. It's sharp and then it's not.

I can't feel my fingers.

I don't want to feel them.

Numb, I want to be numb.

I blink.

The darkness around me makes it easy, easy to remember the void, a place of ease and ignorance.

No pain.

No suffering.

No emotion.

"Hey, no you don't, Adie you need to stay with me." Tears stream down my face. Aiden wipes them away with his thumb, "Adie you're stronger now. Remember that. You can handle this. Don't leave me. We're going to safe haven remember? You have to get there again."

Wood smoke and pine.

Safe haven.

I nod.

Aiden breathes. "Good."

My vision flips. The world bursts with light.

"I can see it Aiden," I whisper.

"See what?"

"Safe haven." The snow against the peek, the rocks, the cabin, it's connected all over the mountains, all the way to me. I see everything at ones. It's the snow. What is snow but frozen water? I reach out. It comes to my call. Like powdered sugar lifted by a sneeze a layer of snow jumps from the ground and swirls down around us. Through the pain, I smile.

"We'll use the snow," I say. "That's how we'll get to safe haven."

"Adie?"

"The snow Aiden, open your eyes and look at it. Really look at it." I feel like I'm going to be sick again but I push the feeling back. I am strong enough. I am.

He does what I say and his mouth drops open. "It's beautiful."

"We'll use it," I say.

He nods. "We'll use it.

Aiden does the work. He breaths deep and evenly and he waves his hand over the snow. His body language tight and concentrated, it's obvious to see the different between him and I. He's been trained and refined. The snow swirls and builds under his control. He creates a sled of packed snow. He places the two bags onto it and then places me onto the bags.

I hold back the scream that wants to bubble out of my throat when he lifts me off the ground. I will not show my pain. It's my fault we're here. I will deal with my consequences. Aiden stands behind me. I hear his breathing slow. "Ready?" he asks.

"Yes."

The sled moves forward and Aiden walks behind. Breathing evenly, concentrating, and again, saving my life.