Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [40]
“Kyle, this is Karin. She—”
Kyle turned his back on her. His small body trembled. “I’m hungry,” he said.
I offered him some dried meat, but he shook his head. Tears streaked his face. “Not hungry for that.” He sat down in the snow.
I put the jerky back into my pocket; I had nothing else to offer him. This was no time to be a picky eater.
The snow fell harder. “We need to get him somewhere warm,” I told Karin. “Maybe we can find shelter among the cliffs.” A larger cave, nearer to the ground.
Karin nodded. The clouds were thick and dark, the day more than half done. I put my gloves back on. “Ready to walk?” I asked Kyle. His bleeding hand was already scabbing over again.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “No.”
“We have to walk, Kyle. There’s no other way. I’m sorry.”
Kyle looked up defiantly. “Carry me.”
Carrying him would slow us down. I was tired and my ankle hurt and I didn’t feel much like walking myself—I drew a deep breath. “Would piggyback do?”
Kyle sniffed and nodded. I bent down, and he climbed onto my back, wrapping his arms and legs around me so tightly they hurt. I grabbed my stick from the ground for balance as I stood and started walking, Karin by my side.
I glanced back just in time to see Kyle stick his tongue out at her.
“Kyle!” I gave Karin an apologetic look as he buried his head against my shoulder.
“It is all right. He has little reason to trust me, and reason enough for fear, given what he’s seen of my people.” Karin smiled sadly. “Fear can be a sort of protection, too. Allow him to trust his instincts. He’ll work this out for himself, given time. As, I believe, did you.”
I looked away, ashamed of how little I’d trusted her and Caleb when we’d first met.
“She’s mean,” Kyle whispered into my hair.
Karin laughed at that, a lighter sound. “I am a teacher. I’m accustomed to being told I am mean.”
The wind picked up. I rubbed Kyle’s bare hands with my gloved ones. He sniffled, and snot dripped down into my scarf. The snow took on an icy edge. I saw gaps among the stones, but none were large enough to shelter us.
Karin pointed ahead. I squinted—there. A dull sheen of metal in the distance. As we drew closer, I saw that it was an old truck from Before. The truck’s nose was half-buried in the dirt, past the front wheels, as if the earth had tried to swallow it whole during the War. The trailer was still good, though, the rust beneath the faded orange and white paint only beginning to break through the metal.
Kyle clung to me as Karin and I pushed the trailer door up. It creaked, and the oily old-car smell that made me think of Before wafted out. There were no wild animals living inside, just an empty metal shell about as tall as I was. A torn-up couch stood against one wall, its cushions gone. A few small, rusted cans were piled in one corner, and the words on them were from Before, too: Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Red Bull. A hole in one corner of the ceiling let the cold in, and bird droppings streaked the wall beneath it.
I carried Kyle inside, and Karin closed the door behind us. “When you can, Liza, we need to look at his back.”
I nodded. Like all raptors since the War, hawks had poison in their talons. At least, real hawks did; I didn’t know about a hawk that had started as a girl. I got Kyle onto the couch. He crawled into my lap, clinging still. Karin drew a pair of stones from her pack, the smaller of which glowed with orange light. She tapped the small stone against the larger one, and the larger one began to glow as well. Kyle’s eyes widened. He reached for the light, then pulled away and gave Karin a suspicious look. Karin set the larger stone down on the arm of the couch. Its light was warm, taking the edge off the cold around us. We wouldn’t have to waste time coaxing a fire from wet wood. Karin lit a second stone the same way. I remembered that there was a child in her town who could bring light to stones, too.
I unbuttoned Kyle’s coat. “Let’s take this off.”
“No.”
“Please, Kyle.”
Kyle bit his lip and looked up at me. “Will it hurt?”
“It might.” I couldn