Rise and Fall [[BEING MOVED TO ANOTHER ACCOUNT]]

Chapter Twelve

Twelve

                    The front car -our car- is a wreck, and there's no road for the second car anyways. It's covered by hot, twisted metal, and who knows how many dead bodies.

                    We decide to go on foot.

                    Victor takes the head of the precession, and Stefan takes the back. The way they walk, they look comfortable. This is what they’re good at. Their pale eyes scan the mist for recognizable shapes, and their forefingers are tight with a visible looseness on the triggers. Their silence is strong, and it gives comfort to the ones in the middle. We’re in good hands.

                    The mist hovers all around us. Absently, I shiver, and goose-bumps rise on my arms and the back of my neck. Our little unit has compacted. Even Victor and Stefan drift towards the center as they walk. None of us says it, but we’re scared. At least in the cars we were warm, and the mist was outside looking in.

                    Here, we’re cold, and the mist swallows us whole.

                    I quicken my stride, and fall into step beside Sasha, who presses into my side. Eager for warmth. “How far do you think it is?” I ask her. Shoving my hands deeper into the pockets of my sweatpants, and making mist of my own. It floats away from my mouth, and billows behind me.

                    A cloud on a leash.

                    Sasha folds the collar of her jacket up against the frigid breeze that bites her neck, and shrugs helplessly. “It’s maybe three hours from the Safe House, and I’m pretty sure we drove two. Which would leave one hour driving, but I don’t know how long that is on foot. And I don’t even know if it was even two hours. I didn’t think I’d have to keep track.”

                    She’s getting agitated, so I do the first thing that comes to mind. I reach for her hand. The warmth of my pocket still lingers in my palm, and I curl my fingers around hers. Hoping to ease her stress.

                    Her hand relaxes, and she leans her head against my shoulder for a moment. A silent thanks. As we walk, dead leaves crunch below us. Corpses prepped for the gathering frost. “We’ll get there,” I say. “You know where it is, right?”

                    She nods. “We’ll come to the wind tunnel eventually. The Winter House is on the other side.”              

                    I give her a perplexed look. “Wind tunnel?”

                    “The valley. It’s basically a wind tunnel. It has something to do with the placement of the mountains, and the direction of the weather fronts.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

She's confused, but I grin despite the circumstances. We're talking about the weather. How cliché.

                    "Hey guys?" Victor calls from up ahead. "I can't see a thing. We could be walking in circles for all I know. I say we just set up some sort of something here and sleep."

                    Too tired to resist, we nod and comply. Sinking where we stand into a sort of jumbled heap. I end up as a pillow for Sasha and Jacie. Sasha's head finds the spot on my chest that I've deemed HER spot, and she wraps her arms around mine.

                    Jacie rests against my thigh, and her curly brown hair creates a nest for her head. Stefan shivers, apart from the group, and I grab his arm. Pulling him in. He curls tentatively around Jacie's back, and relaxes when she lets him.