Ash and Cinder

15| Headstones

Nobody says it, but it takes longer to build a fire without Piper. Delilah strikes the flint at least a dozen times before a weak spark catches on the kindling. Even then, the fire is little more than smoke and a thin orange outline spreading towards the edges of the pile. The fog pressing in doesn't lend itself to a healthy fire. Delilah puffs on the smoking bundle while Skyelar and I try to skin a squirrel he caught. Delilah is the first to voice the concern we all have.

"What do we do now?"

The question lingers in the air above our heads. Yesterday morning, the answer would have been simpler. Yesterday morning we had seven fighters, we had a plan, sort of, and we had a leader. Today, everything is different.

Nobody answers. I stare at Elle. She's lost in the folds of the sweater. She's managed to tuck her knees up inside the billowy fabric, and she sits with the hood up and her hair falling like a curtain over her face. She keeps her gaze leveled at the fire, but I know she's eavesdropping. Her fingers ripple with the colors of the flames, laced with shades of skin that aren't hers. Delilah's and Sky's in places, but most often Maverick's.

I push my glasses up and run my fingers through my hair. My hand comes away greasy and my hair stays standing up on its own. Turning back to the squirrel in Sky's hands. He holds it up by its tail and pulls a face. We haven't been very successful with skinning it. A jagged river rock isn't exactly a perfect tool.

"We can't beat them, we barely escaped last night when there were... more of us," I say. Elle finally looks up from the fire. Her skin has settled down. A red flush paints her cheeks but that's from her fever, and her gaze looks unsteady. A trickle of sweat runs down the side of her face.

"The buggers will probably have search parties out," Sky adds, tugging on the maimed squirrel tail.

"Delilah?"

She looks uneasy.

"I don't know." She lifts a shoulder and drops it in resignation.

Sky jumps to his feet.

"More squirrels," he says before darting off.

I get up as well, and kick around the edge of the clearing. Somewhere along here are the remnants of Anushka's supplies. We should have dug them up last night, but we were all too dazed and exhausted to remember. I've gathered most of it by the time Sky returns.

There's a knife, a firestarter kit, and a canteen with a tiny bottle of iodine clattering inside of it. There's also a miniature first aid kit, which Delilah promptly puts to use.

Through much trepidation and determination, she tweezes every last splinter out of Sky's palms and, not without protest on his part, soaks all of the teensy entry punctures with disinfectant. She raises an eyebrow when she sees the state of my hands, but she doesn't comment when she picks shards of rock as well as wood splinters out of my split knuckles. In return, I make her let me clean and bandage the cut on her crown. I also check her for a concussion, though she insists that she's fine.

Included in the first aid kit is the best thing of the entire load; a nearly full bottle of Tylenol. I take it and skim the label. I'm pleasantly surprised to find that there is an English translation on one side. It states that the medicine can be used for fever. Perfect, I'll give a pill to Elle when she wakes up. I check the label again. It's adult, extra strength. Okay, so maybe I'll only let her have half a pill.

I unscrew the cap and shake four of the red oblong pills into my waiting palm.

"Bit much, don't you think?" Sky comments from his place by the fire, he has a couple of dead squirrels and a questionable rodent-like creature by his side.