The Rising

FOURTEEN

ASH WAS RIGHT. THE branch over the washrooms didn’t extend all the way—not before it tapered off too much for us to balance on. We’d have to get close enough, try to jump over the building and hope we didn’t thump down on the roof instead. I went first. The hard part of this was, well, the hard part—namely the ground at the end of the four-meter leap. I managed it, but pain still stabbed through my legs. I was safe, though, hidden on the other side of the small building.

Ash wasn’t quite so lucky. He wouldn’t go as far out on the branch as I had. I’m sure he’d say it’s because he was heavier, but I wasn’t wrong when I said he could be overly cautious. His jump was a few inches short, which meant he didn’t land on the roof, but his back did bump the edge. He hit the ground harder, too, and crouched there, teeth clenched as he inhaled and exhaled.

“You okay?” I whispered.

He glowered up at me.

“Hey, we’re where we wanted to be, right?” I tilted my head to listen. “No cries of alarm.”

He grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah. Now turn around and give me your shirt.”

“What?”

“We’re trading shirts. I was wearing this one the last time Antone saw me. Then we’re going to walk. From this far away, I’m hoping, if we are spotted, they won’t recognize me if I’m with you. You’re too small to be Daniel or Corey.”

He scowled. “Thanks.”

“It’s a fact, not an insult. Stop being so damned sensitive and take off your shirt.”

We switched tops with a remarkable lack of further muttering on his part. I tucked my long hair under it, so from a distance, it would look short. There were more trees in front of us—too widely spaced for us to climb through, but they cast plenty of shadowy shade. On the other side was a playground, then another parking lot. Lots of obstacles in both. My plan was for us to just walk out of the park, as casually as possible, using what cover we could.

It wasn’t a great plan, but if our sensitive hearing picked up a cry or approaching footfalls, we should have time to run. They wouldn’t use a tranq gun in a public park. Not with a scattering of parents and little kids over in the playground. Or so I hoped.

“Okay, now hold my hand,” I said.

Ash looked at me like I’d asked him to swallow live bugs.

“I’m your sister,” I said. “If I have cooties, they’re the same as yours.”

When he stuck out his hand, he looked like he was getting ready to arm wrestle. I took it, and he tensed, biceps flexing, stance widening.

I sighed. “I’m not going to throw you over my shoulder.”

He snorted, as if such a thing was beyond the realm of possibility. I was briefly tempted to show him otherwise. Instead, I wrapped my hand around his fist and we set out, a teenage couple strolling through the park.

We wandered, talking. Or I talked, to the point where another couple of guys passing by shot him sympathetic looks.

As we approached the playground, I whispered, “We’ll get behind that big slide structure, then hurry to the parking lot.”

He let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. We stepped into the park. A little girl stopped swinging to watch us. I smiled at her and she grinned back. When Ash looked over, the girl stopped smiling and jumped off to run to her mother.

“Can you try not to frighten small children?” I whispered.

He grunted and kicked up wood chips as we walked alongside the play structure, moving into the shade behind it. Only a quick dash to the parking lot, and—

I caught a movement to my left and looked to see someone standing about fifty meters away, by the edge of the woods. A teenage guy in a suit. Staring at us.

Brendan.

I’d forgotten about Brendan.

Could I make it to him? Just long enough to pass on a message?

What message? What could I possibly tell him in thirty seconds or less that wouldn’t just make matters worse?

Not even thirty seconds—two of the searchers were heading straight for him. Walking fast, as if they’d just realized they had a Salmon Creek kid on the loose.

I ripped my gaze from Brendan. He hadn’t recognized me. Couldn’t. Not from this distance. Not with Ash. Not when I was supposed to be—

“Maya?” Brendan called.

I didn’t look over. Ash did, then swore. He pulled his fist from my hand and grabbed my wrist instead, yanking me along as he broke into a jog.

“Maya!” Brendan yelled.

“What the hell are you doing?” I said, tripping as I tried to pull free from Ash’s grip.

“He can’t help you and I’m not letting you do something stupid—”

“Like breaking into a run and letting him know it really is me?”

He cursed as he realized his mistake and slowed.

“Too late now,” I muttered, grabbing his elbow. “Run!”

We raced into the parking lot as shouts and cries rang out behind us.

I didn’t hear Brendan’s voice again. I think they must have gotten to him, bustling him off before he was absolutely sure of what he’d seen. Who he’d seen. I hoped so. Really hoped so. I didn’t want to think what they’d do if he insisted that he’d spotted me.

We should have thought of that—what would happen if someone saw us and we couldn’t warn them to keep quiet? We were so desperate that I think Ash was right—we were being reckless, however hard we tried not to be.

We escaped the park. If you have enough of these encounters, eventually that’s all it comes down to. Was anyone captured? Anyone hurt? No and no. Then it’s not worthy of comment. We’d had a good enough lead on our pursuers, and by the time they got vehicles to come after us, we were gone.

We returned to Stanley Park. We’d left our bag of extra clothes and supplies hidden there. The guys would come back.

We returned around seven, after two hours on buses, transferring and retransferring just in case we were being followed. I expected the guys to be at our campsite when we returned. When they weren’t, we settled in to wait.

We’d been there for about thirty minutes in silence, which only added to the hours of silence since we’d escaped at the park. I’d tried several times on the bus to strike up conversation with Ash. It was met either with suspicion—what does it matter where I’ve lived?—or sarcasm—hobbies? sports? yeah, did I mention the varsity baseball and country club? By this point, I began to suspect “what’s your favorite color” would be seen as intrusive. So I stopped trying.

“What’s it like?” Ash said finally as we sat on the logs around our nonexistent campfire.

“Hmm?”

“Shifting into a mountain lion. What’s it feel like? Hurts like hell, I bet.”

When I didn’t answer in the next two seconds, his face darkened. “I was just curious. Skin-walkers are supposed to be extinct. Not a lot of people I can ask.”

“I was trying to decide how to describe it. I know you’re not happy to be here, Ash. I don’t know what you expected. Not me, that’s obvious. Maybe you’re pissed because you came all this way and I don’t seem grateful. I am. I really am. But I can’t figure out a way to show that without pissing you off all the more. You’ve got your back up and there’s no way I’m getting it down.”

“Do I?” His eyes narrowed. “Huh. Let me ask you this, Maya. In all these years, when you were growing up in your perfect town, with your perfect friends and your perfect parents, did you even think about me? Wonder where I was? Worry about me? Or were you just happy you didn’t need to share all that? Because I’ve been thinking about you for as long as I can remember. Asking our mother about you. Wondering what happened to you. So, yeah, I dropped everything to come up here. And you really don’t seem to give a shit.”

I took a deep breath and considered my words before speaking.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He tensed, waiting for more, waiting for the snap, the growl, the snarl. When I said he had his back up, I hadn’t meant that as a skin-walker jab. But now, when I looked at him, it was an apt description. His back was up, at least metaphorically. Fur bristling. Eyes glittering. Lip curled. Ready to bite my head off. When I didn’t respond in kind, he just sat there, tense and waiting.

“I didn’t know about you.” I spoke the words carefully, trying not to sound defensive. “I should have explained that better. I only found out a week ago that I had a brother. Rafe’s the one who told me, when he told me about being a skin-walker.”

Silence. Then, “Right.” More silence. He shifted on the log. “Makes sense. It’s not like she left a note with you.”

“No. She didn’t. But . . . after Rafe told me, I felt . . . guilty, I think. That I didn’t know about you. Like I should have remembered you.”

“We were only a few months old.”

I shrugged. “It feels as if I should have known. Like in stories where someone grows up feeling like something’s missing, then they discover they had a twin.”

Silence.

“When I found out, I did think of you. Maybe not as much as I should have. When I thought of you, I felt . . .” I searched for the right words. “I won’t say jealous, because I don’t remember our mother and mine is great—I wouldn’t trade her for anything. But it hurt, growing up knowing I’d been abandoned. Finding out there’d been two of us and I wasn’t the one she’d chosen? That really hurt.”

I sighed and stretched my legs. “I’m sorry. That was all I wanted to say. I didn’t want to make excuses, which is what I’m doing.” I looked over at him. “I am glad you came.”

He mumbled something and got to his feet. He walked away, and I wanted to go after him, but I knew it wasn’t that easy. One little discussion wasn’t going to make everything better. It wasn’t just about him feeling hurt and me feeling hurt. We were brother and sister—twins—and yet we were strangers. If it wasn’t for that blood tie, we’d probably have chosen to remain strangers. That hurt, too, but again, it couldn’t be fixed with a few words.

“You want dinner?” he said.

I shook my head. “I should stay for the guys. If you could pick me up something, though, I’d appreciate that.”

I was quick to pull out a twenty, so he wouldn’t think I was asking him to pay, but he still grumbled.

“Or I can run out for something after you get back,” I said.

“I’m not bitching because you asked me to grab you food, Maya. ’Course I will. But you shouldn’t stay here alone, not when it looks like they’ve nabbed your friends.”

That’s what I’d been thinking, of course. What I’d been trying very, very hard not to think, because if I did, I’d slide into a full-blown panic. When Ash put that fear into words, I stiffened.

He sighed. “Yeah, you don’t want to hear that. I’m not trying to make you feel bad. But if the Cabals have your friends, they might have gotten them to tell where they could find you.”

“They wouldn’t—”

“Let me try that again. They might have gotten Corey to tell them. Daniel wouldn’t rat you out unless they stuck red hot pins under his nails, and probably not even then.”

I glanced up at his face to see if he was being sarcastic. He wasn’t.

“You guys are tight,” he said. “Friends or whatever. But while Corey might be a good and loyal friend, he’s not made of the same stuff as you two. I’m not saying he’s a coward or anything. He’s just . . . They could talk him into it. Tell him lies and shit until he really thinks he’s saving your life by helping them find you.”

Corey wouldn’t be so quick to cave, but if they separated him from Daniel, he’d be uncertain, lost. He’d try hard to do the right thing, but eventually, they might be able to convince him that turning me in was the right thing. Especially if they knew I was with Ash. Corey hadn’t trusted him. It wouldn’t take much to convince him Ash was a traitor sent to turn me over to some even worse fate.

“I can leave a note,” I said. “We have a pen and paper in our bag.”

“Good. Just don’t tell them where we’re going.”

“Can I draw a map?”

Now it was his turn to look over, to see if I was serious. I smiled and he shook his head, but I caught a hint of a return smile there before he told me to hurry it up.