My heart sinks when I see the helicopter. We haven't walked as far as we had coming up here because there was another large, relatively flat area for a very skilled pilot to land. And low and behold, there's a chopper waiting to take me to my doom.
"Tide!" Izila cries, coming up from behind the cockpit. "How nice to see you again." I give her the death glare but she just smiles broadly. "We have to stop meeting up like this."
The Coal clone's hand is right next to my arm. I can feel the heat already. He wants me to fight, so he can have a reason to kill me. How pleasant.
I take a step towards Izila. "What do you want now? World domination?"
"Oh, don't be silly." Izila cackles. "That's so mundane. It's you that I want."
"Why does everybody want me?" I demand, trying to stall. "What makes me so special?"
Izila tilts her head mockingly. "You really want to know, don't you? Curiosity killed the cat, they say."
"Well, I'm going to die anyway so why not?"
"What makes you think I'm going to kill you?" she drones, and suddenly I get the cold feeling that she can do things to me that are much worse than death. Izila lifts the ends of her animal fur coat, and steps over the piles of snow to come closer. "Oh yes, I have many things planned for you. You see, I'm a bit curious myself. Your powers are some of the strongest I've ever seen, and I want to know why."
I back away as she comes within a foot of me. "How do you know I'm going to cooperate?" I challenge.
"I have my ways." She observes her nails lazily. They're painted blood red, long and pointed like claws. She looks up at me. "You're wasting time. Get in the helicopter."
Anytime now would be great for someone to notice the clone...
"Go on," Izila hurries me along. "Are you scared?"
"No." I raise my head. "But you should be."
"Is that a threat?"
"It might be. Depends on how you look at it."
Izila narrows her eyes. "Get in the helicopter." she says coldly, "Now."
I take one last look around. Still no one in sight. Here goes nothing.
I whip around, kicking the Coal clone, and raise a pile of snow in the air. I throw it in little ice chunks at Izila but she's gone. My eyes flick nervously to the side.
The clone scrambles to his feet and I duck away from a blast of fire. I drill a handful of snow in his face but then cold hands snatch my wrists, yanking them behind my back.
"You shouldn't have done that." Izila hisses in my ear, dragging me into the helicopter.
"On the contrary," I growl back. "It felt really good to beat the pulp out of your little minion."
The Coal clone sends me a death look. I smile sweetly at him in return. Izila drops me to the floor, tying my hands to a bar going across the seats and the Coal clone stands guard as she climbs into the cockpit leaving the door open.
Which allows me to see a figure sprinting down the path and skid to stop, watching as the chopper begins to lift off the ground.
They start taking a running jump at the helicopter, and my mouth falls open. They can't seriously think they're going to make it, right?
Wrong.
I try not to watch them so the Coal clone doesn't suspect anything. I lose sight of them and then suddenly I hear a thump. The clone whips his head towards the noise. I see hands trying to pull a body up onto the helicopter and then I lash out, kicking the clone's shin as hard as I can. He falls, and I hear a painful crack as his head hits something metal, collapsing to the floor unconscious. I tug on the rope, but it's tied tightly.
I watch carefully as the person pulls themselves up, and then suddenly Coal - the real one - is asking me if I'm okay. I blink rapidly; just making sure it's him.
"Tide," he asks again. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." I breathe out, filled with relief. Coal finishes untying me and I instantly wrap him in a hug. "Thank you." I whisper.
"Anytime," he says back simply.
I pull away, and then frown as I see a long gash across his cheek that's still bleeding a tiny bit. "How'd you get this?" I ask, touching the cut gingerly, brushing off the blood. I stop midway, realizing what I'm doing. My fingers seem cold against his warm skin. Coal locks eyes with me, startled by the gesture. I'm pretty sure my cheeks are red, but I don't move my hand, and he doesn't pull away. "How'd you get this?" I ask again, but I almost don't want him to answer because that would require him to move.
He looks away quickly. "Um..."
"Who did you incinerate this time?"
He looks belligerent. "I didn't incinerate anyone!"
"Okay, who did you 'not incinerate'?"
He stays quiet.
"Was it the clone?"
"No."
"Good, she's mine." I say and half his mouth goes up in a small smile. "So, who was it?"
Coal avoids eye contact. "Caelum..." he mumbles out eventually. If I wasn't so close to him, I wouldn't have even heard it.
"Ah, thank god." I grin. "He put me here."
Coal blinks in surprise. Then his eyes narrow and his fists clench. "I'll kill him..." he growls.
Abruptly, the helicopter lurches right. We start heading down at an alarming rate. I rush to the cockpit and see the door open, and a parachute fading into the snow. Izila must have jumped out while we were talking. I swear and look at the controls. There's about a million of them and I have no idea how to use them.
Coal comes up next to me. "You know how to fly a helicopter?"
"Not a clue." I reply.
I turn to get a parachute and another string of curses leave my mouth. The clone has apparently woken up, has jumped, and has taken the only other available parachute.
I slide to the side as the helicopter starts a steeper descent. I leap back into the seat and start randomly pushing buttons as Coal tries to level us out. I flick a switch and the headlights go on. Totally useless. Another one on and our fall slows a tiny bit, but we're still careening towards a mountain side.
"We're not going to make it!" I shout over the wind.
"Chances of survival are in fact dwindling..." Coal replies, but he still pulls harder on the control stick. The helicopter rocks over a gust of wind. "We have to jump!" he says. "The snow might break our fall if we get away from the helicopter!"
"That sounds just crazy enough to work!" I shout back.
"Ready?" Coal holds the door frame to keep from being sucked out.
"Nope."
"On my count." he squints against the snow. "One..."
The helicopter is falling faster, verging on a tail spin.
"Two..."
I hold my breath, I'm not sure why. Maybe to keep from screaming. I can't do this, I'd rather stay in the chopper and die that way. No way am I jumping.
"Three!" As if reading my thoughts Coal turns, grabbing my arm, and pulls me out the door.
I yelp out of shock, and then it turns to a continuous shriek as we plummet to the ground. I'm pulled from Coal, and I curl into a tight ball even though it makes me go faster. I just want to block out the sound of wind ripping past my ears. I never want to hear it again.
Suddenly I'm plowing through the snow, tumbling down the slope of a mountain with terrifying speed. My scream is muffled as I get pushed deeper into the whiteness. I'm not sure I'm breathing because my chest hurts. I don't seem to be slowing down much, but then I slam into something hard, and my vision goes black for a second.
I blink away the spots in my eyes. I raise my head out of the pile of snow and gasp in a breath. I catch sight of Coal doing the same thing a couple hundred feet away from me and I lift my arms in victory.
"We're alive!" I shout, voice bouncing off the peaks.
And then the avalanche comes.
There's a moment of dead silence but then growing quickly louder is a rumbling, rising into a thundering roar as snow cascades down the mountain, right in our direction. I scream and cover my face, the wave of snow splitting around me. It takes a full minute for the noise to stop and the snow to settle enough for me to blink my eyes open.
I crawl out of the hole I'm in and look around. The entire mountainside is covered in a whole new layer of snow, easily seven feet deep. There's a very cold feeling in my core that has nothing to do with the below freezing temperatures.
"Coal!" I call, trying to keep my voice hushed. "Coal, where are you?"
I don't hear anything, not even a muffled shout in reply. I start frantically wading through the snow to where I last saw him. How could I be so selfish? All I thought about was saving myself - I completely forgot about Coal. Fear and worry gnaw at my insides.
I sift through the snow but find nothing. Then I trip over something and fall face first into a snow bank. I turn, digging deeper and see a leg that connects with a body that is Coal. I yank him out of the snow and shake him.
"Coal!" I say as loud as I dare. "Coal, wake up! You need to get warmer."
I pull him closer, worrying because he's stone cold. After a moment I see the faint rise and fall of his chest, and his eyes open slowly.
"What? No kiss this time?" he asks, weakly smirking.
I glare at him, cheeks red. "You're going to have to try harder than that." I say dryly, and he gives a short laugh, trying to get up but I won't let him. "Oh, no you don't. You're freezing." I shift so we're side by side. "Can you use your powers?"
He shakes his head after concentrating a moment. He's losing energy fast. It's like the cold sucks it right out of him. I frown, because we're in the middle of the Himalayas with no one to help us and I'm not much warmer.
I search the snow for the helicopter, but it's buried in snow. I glance at Coal, worry increasing. He's gone from shivering to shaking with cold. He's visibly fading, falling asleep. I freeze a cave of ice over us, trying to shield out the wind, but it doesn't help much.
"Coal, stay awake," I nudge him. "You're getting hypothermia."
He nods slightly, but doesn't move.
"Coal!" I snap. He's losing body heat more than twice as fast as a normal person. "Coal, I swear, if you don't stay awake, I'll kill you."
"Well, that's...nice to...know." Even when freezing, he still manages to be sarcastic. His eyes start to close, and I can see his breathing slowing down. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was happy.
"Coal stay awake." I'm pleading with him now. "C'mon, stay with me. Please."
His eyelids flutter closed further, but he mumbles out: "Can't...tired."
"I don't care if you're tired!" I exclaim. "Stay. Awake."
He ignores me, or doesn't hear.
I rub my temples, drawing a blank as to what to do. Since he's not helping, I resort to talking to myself. "Well Tide, face it." I say to myself. "You have no idea where to start. And you can't kiss him this time." I add snidely, sardonic even when talking to my own self.
Coal's eyes snap open. "What?"
"Oh, so now you listen?" I look down at him, almost at the point of kissing him as a last option. Then I get an idea.
I grab his shoulders, turning him to face me, and then yank him up by his collar so our faces are so close I can see the tiny gold flecks in his eyes. I haven't been this close to anyone, let alone a guy I've kissed twice, and suddenly I'm at a loss for words, forgetting what I was doing. It's when I feel my own heart racing that I remember the purpose of this.
I drop my grip on his shirt and pull him into a hug, making sure the heat is returning to his body. I can feel his heart pounding as hard as my own and for some reason it makes me smile.
"Did I miss something?" Coal asks, really confused. "Black out or anything like that?"
"I needed to get your heart rate up." I explain, letting go and falling back against the snow, shoulder to shoulder with Coal. He's silent, seeming almost dazed.
"Well that was a mean way to do it." he mutters eventually.
"But your heart rate is, in fact, up."
"So is yours." He points out.
I'm left tongue tied at that one because it's true. It's also true that I didn't exactly hate being that close to him. I sink lower in the snow, annoyed by this revelation.
"Flippers," Coal says slowly like I'm a three year old. "Is there something you're not telling me?"
It's like he can read my mind. God, I hate that.
"Nothing." I say briskly. "No."
He looks doubtful. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure!" I snap, and then lower my voice. "I am positive." I sit up and quickly rub my shoulders, changing the subject. "We should make a signal, something to tell the others we're here so they can find us."
I stand and walk into the light snow. The mountainside is dark, stars and moon covered by clouds. The flakes sting my exposed skin, biting at my cheeks and making me squint. What sort of signal should I leave? A big one, that's for sure.
"What are -" Coal comes out behind me and something kicks its way out.
I make a noise like a frustrated growl, and then snow explodes up from the ground. The flakes swirl into a tower, and then freeze as a huge pole. I raise my hands, following the movement, and frost climbs its way up to the top, bursting out into a huge snowflake pattern in the sky, spreading out to make a giant flower with sharp, angry ice spikes intermingled with soft, lacy frost patterns.
I stare up at my work with clenched teeth. Coal whistles. "Jeez, where did that come from?"
I turn and smile tightly at him. "Sometimes, when you can't say something in words, you have to let it out a different way." I spin on my heels, barely keeping balance, and duck back under the helicopter wreckage.
Coal mutters something and follows me. "What about Izila and the clone?"
When he's inside the little overhang, I freeze a wall to block anyone from busting in. It comes up a little faster than necessary, making the roof shudder. Coal raises an eyebrow but says nothing, sitting down and yawning.
"I'll take first watch." I offer. Coal glances at me, and I can tell he's about to argue. "I've slept all day because of Stella. Take a rest already." He nods unwillingly at my logic and leans his head back, letting out a heavy breath that comes out in a thick puff.
I look at him. As I suspected, he was really tired and he's asleep within five minutes. His unwillingness makes me realize that he never falls asleep until everyone else has. I find myself observing again how innocent he looks.
I inch closer, slowly as not to wake him, and smile to myself. His chiseled features are rounded out more to look younger and lighter. Without his eyes constantly scanning the room cautiously he seems relaxed. Occasionally he murmurs quietly and shifts a little bit, but it's obviously not a nightmare so he doesn't wake up. It's really cute, how he talks in his sleep.
Suddenly, I snap my eyes open. I must've fallen asleep for an hour or two. I've fallen against Coal - it's the warmth that put me to sleep in the first place - and I don't want to move. I keep my eyes on the ice wall, listening for anything unusual, but all I hear is Coal's even breathing. My eyelids feel heavy and I yawn.
"It's my turn Flippers, you can rest now." Coal says quietly, even though no one can hear us.
I blink a few times to seem like I tried, but I nuzzle into his chest and nod. I open my eyes though, realizing what I just did, and how completely natural it felt. It surprises me, but I can't say that I don't like it.
And it seems Coal feels the same away because he doesn't move me.
I sigh, happy for once, breathing in the faint trace of baking brownies on his chest. He inevitably smells like smoke, but it's the good kind of smoke, the kind from a fire you roast marshmallows over. It makes me feel like I'm camping. It also makes me forget that we're alone in the Himalayas for the time being, so I curl into his chest, pushing my head into his shoulder. My hands grip the fabric of his shirt at the bottom like a security blanket of sorts. I can feel Coal's smile, and it makes me smile as well.