Steel came back to cave after about two hours. He had spent 20 minutes deciding whether to risk picking the berries that looked like blueberries, but could be something else. Steel didn’t want to fail at such a simple task. He had found some mint leaves and some strawberries after tripping right into them on his way back.
Steel had never had issues with direction. He thought maybe being magnetic made him know where north was or something like that. He wasn’t positive. It didn’t matter anyway. He couldn’t impress anyone with magnetism. Hey look, I can tell which way north is! I’m a human compass! His trick with Tide’s bracelet was pretty good though.
Steel still had some of the truck’s hood in his pocket. He didn’t want to mention it because Tide was probably still sore with him saving her. In Steel’s defense, he wasn’t thinking hey I’m going to save Tide so I can kill Coal or anything. His first reaction was just to protect Tide at all costs. Coal’s issue was a side effect.
When Steel saw the layer of ice covering the cave, he got a bad feeling. Dropping the plants, he rushed over. He had a shred of hope that Tide would be in the cave, but somehow he knew that wasn’t the case.
Coal was hammering the ice, punching it with his fists and running into it with his shoulder. He didn’t stop, even when Steel came up and tried to break it from the outside. He just kept fighting.
This guy is either completely insane or really motivated. Steel thought.
Steel grabbed the metal from his pocket. He formed it into a hand ax, like a giant, sharp, triangle and started hacking at the ice. It chipped off pretty fast but it still took a while to make a hole big enough for Coal to fit through.
“What’s going on?” Steel demanded. “Where’s Tide?”
Coal just looked at him with disgust and started racing down the ravine, to the center. Should’ve left him in the cave. He thought.
For someone who just got the worst of a car crash, Coal moved fast. He was limping, and still looked horrible, but he followed some tracks up the hill pretty far before stopping. Steel ran to catch up.
“Where is Tide?” he asked impatiently.
“They took her.” was the snarling reply.
Steel recoiled. Took her? How could they take her? Tide shouldn’t be in that place. No one should be in that place. He shoved the memories back.
“But they blew the facility up.” Steel managed.
“You really think they just had one place?” Coal retorted scornfully.
That is what Steel had thought, but he wasn’t going to admit it to Coal. He looked down at the tracks. Multiple large ones almost covered up the smaller ones. The formed imprint was easy to identify as Tide’s boots. They led away into the trees, disappearing out of sight.
Steel wanted to follow them. He wanted to chase those people down and beat them to a pulp for taking Tide. Clearly, Coal wanted to do the same. And Coal wasn’t going to be reasonable.
“You need to heal before we go looking for her.” Steel said, forcing the words out.
Coal turns around with a look of pure loathing on his face. “No.” The word had such cold force in it, Steel flinched.
Coal continued following the tracks. They ran along the edge of the ravine, like the way they had gotten here. Steel trailed along behind Coal, contemplating whether knocking him out and dragging Coal back would be worth it.
Coal kept going for a while. A surprisingly long time, considering his condition. Though he stumbled a lot, Coal had a kind of scary determination.
Then he lost his footing. Coal stepped on his bad foot, and tripped, right over the edge of the ravine.
Steel rushed forward. Shooting his hand out, he caught the back of Coals shirt. Steel heard rocks clatter down into the gorge as his feet skidded a bit. Steel grabbed Coal’s hand and pulled him up. Their eyes met and Steel saw Coal duck his head slightly. That coupled with the fact that he didn’t snap angrily at him made Steel understand that this was Coal’s hostile way of saying thank you. They both sat down, breathing hard.
“You need to heal before we go looking for her.” Steel repeated.
Coal nodded grudgingly.