Survival

Chapter 30- Find Him

They walked into the bedroom and a power bar led to eight different batteries on chargers and four that weren’t. Mischa smiled at the sight. “Did you take everything you could find?”

Quinton shrugged and let out a guilty grin. “Pretty much.”

She wanted to jump up and hug him, but stopped herself. Her emotions bounced around like a cheerleaders at a football game today; no good could come from trusting those impulses now. “Thank you, you have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Happy to help.”

“Which are the two that fit?”

Quinton knelt down and pulled two off their chargers. He placed them in Mischa’s hands with care and a gentle smile. “Give it a shot.”

His head tilted toward his night stand where among a couple of well worn books, the tracker sat. He must have checked the devices just before supper. Her eyes grazed the well worn spines of the books before grabbing the batteries. What do you bring when you know the world could end? She raised her eyebrow at Hugo’s Les Miserables and Orwell’s 1984. That certainly painted a different picture than the flirty computer geek she had first met. Gunnar could never be found near a book or a library. Book learning had never been his strong point; she knew that after trying to keep him from failing English and pre-cal.

Focus, Mischa! Find him. 

She slipped the first battery in and waited. The power button left the machine mute and dormant. She sighed, pulled the battery out and quickly replaced it with the other. It produced the same heartbreaking result. She wanted to throw to silly thing across the room. How could it have failed? This was her one shot at finding her friends again. Now she would never know nor would she see their wonderful faces again. She’d miss Gunnar’s smile, which only seemed to come out when her eyes rested on him. How could she live without Vita’s sweet yet sometimes temperamental nature? It was always the two girls taking on the world by storm, come what may, boys, tears, poor grades. This couldn’t be the end. 

Quinton came to her side as soon as the tears began to fall with a blanket and a box of tissues. She sat down on the floor against his metal bed frame. The blanket only scratched at her dry skin and placed comfort far from her grasp.

“This isn’t a dead end. I just have to figure out where the problem is, with the battery voltage or the actual tracker,” Quinton said. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Mischa wiped away a couple tears before she looked up at his big brown eyes. “Why would you do that?”

“Because this place is hard enough to live in when you want to be here. If there’s one thing you’ll need to make it through, it’s hope.”

“I- I, Quinton, you’re honestly too good to be true.” The way his eyes twinkled right now brought back flashes of past relationships like Danny. She needed to stop this before it got out of hand. “But I have to tell you, if you’re looking for any kind of romantic fling, you’re wasting your time.” She held her breath just waiting for the angry response, but it never came. He held his calm demeanour.

“That’s alright. I can tell you have unresolved issues from the disaster. Hell, I’m probably being naive thinking you’re looking for your ‘friend’. Like someone wouldn’t have swept you up already.”

“They’re two good friends of mine and they both mean a lot to me.”

Quinton nodded, almost smiling at her answer. Mischa let out a quick breath. She hadn’t outright lied. Gunnar wasn’t her boyfriend and they had never crossed the line to go beyond being friends. Fate had never been on their side between Gunnar’s mysterious life and her end of term assignments. If she saw him again, she would know if they were meant for something more. He was so easy to talk to, so removed from any drama that her and her friends went through. He had this air about him which made him seem far more knowledgeable than her peers, in different ways than she was used to.

“If you can get your hands on another tracker, I could test it and see what I can do about fixing the problem.”

“Of course.”

She went to get up, wondering if her luck could run strong two nights in a row. It was highly unlikely and her father was supposed to work late tonight. Her shoulders slumped as she realized it wouldn’t be possible.

“Do you want to stay for a bit? Navjot will be back soon and maybe we could play cards or something?” The tentative smile on his face tugged at the fact that her other option involved sitting in her apartment alone and probably bawling her eyes out.

“That sounds great.”