My feet slide and skid in the mud behind him, and the bones in my wrist click under the tightness of his grip, but he doesn’t let go. He’s making for the dark smudge of the river on the horizon, and as we grow nearer, the darkness resolves into trees, and I don’t even care that we’re returning to forest again, because trees means wood and wood means fire and fire means warmth and I think I’ve forgotten what that feels like.
I open my mouth to say something, but before I find any words, the roar of oncoming rain overtakes us and the sky comes crashing down on our heads.
Tarver is cursing, swearing like I’ve never heard him do. The sudden torrent of water pries my wrist from his grip, my skin slipping free like wet rubber, and I go crashing to the ground. I’m more surprised than hurt, because I can’t really feel my legs, and I didn’t realize they weren’t working.
He scoops me up and carries me the last few meters to the shelter of the trees bordering the river, then dumps me unceremoniously on the ground.
“Stay there,” he shouts, putting his face close to mine until I push him away, because he’s dripping on me. The sound of the water hurling itself at the canopy is almost as deafening as the roar of the rainstorm outside, but the branches are thick, and they keep most of the water off us.
He throws his pack to the ground and rummages until he pulls out the mechanic’s suit, and shoves it at me. “Put that on,” he orders, retrieving the jacket he gave me earlier. Then he’s leaving again, pulling his gun out of its holster as he goes.
The mechanic’s suit stays where he put it, resting half in my lap, half draped over my folded arms. I’m too cold to take off my dress, wet as it is. I press myself against the tree trunk and wait for him to come back. Whispers rise at the edge of my hearing, somehow distinct from the sound of the rain on the trees overhead. The voices are no longer crying, but I still can’t make out the words. I stretch out my shaking hand in front of me, pale, clammy, smeared with dirt. I never knew madness came with such a physical toll.
I don’t know how much time has passed before I wake up to find Tarver gently tapping at my cheeks. “I’m going to try to get a fire going,” he says, and I realize he’s not shouting anymore. The rain must have lessened a little. “Get your dress off.”
“Why, Major,” I find myself whispering. “I never.”
“Lord help me,” he says, but this time he’s rolling his eyes, and I know he’d be laughing if he were a bit less cold. That is a triumph far more satisfying than annoying him ever was. “Just do it, okay? No arguing with me this time. I promise not to look. Dry off with the blanket, then put on the mechanic’s suit.”
I take the blanket he thrusts at me, and lean on the tree as I get to my feet, stiff and cold. The voices have stopped, but I’m still shivering. I’m working at the knotted laces for a full five minutes before I realize that I haven’t taken this dress off in five days, the laces are soaked and waterlogged, and my hands are so cold I can barely make them curl around the strings.
“Tarver,” I whisper. “I need help.”
There’s a spark of heat left in me, because I feel my cheeks beginning to burn as he turns to me, confused. Understanding dawns as his eyes fall to where my hands are fumbling at the neckline of my dress.
Muttering something foul-sounding in a language I don’t recognize, he closes the distance between us again and directs me to warm my hands under my arms while he tries to unknot the laces. Eventually he’s forced to pull out his knife and saw through them while I look away and try to think of something else. The dress was already so far past saving anyway. This is just one more tiny casualty in the name of survival.
I had the delicate purple flower that he gave me on the plains tucked down my bodice, and as I peel away the remains of the dress, I find it crushed against my skin, almost beyond recognition. I’m forced to let it go, drop it in the mud.
What does it say about how I’ve changed that I feel more for the loss of one tiny flower than for the loss of the dress?
He turns away to start finding kindling that isn’t soaked through, careful to keep his back to me, and I let the dress fall to the ground. Leaving it where it is, I grab the blanket and wrap it around myself, gasping in the cold. I drop to my knees so that the blanket will cover more of me as I huddle.
A tiny flicker of orange against my closed lids prompts me to open them to see Tarver nurturing a fledgling fire so carefully that his hands are shaking with the effort.
The trees above us have thick, broad leaves, but even so, it’s raining so hard that some water finds its way through. I can’t quite stop the inarticulate sound of relief that he was still able to find enough dry wood to burn. He looks up at the sound, eyes flickering down when he sees me in the blanket, then jerking away.
I must not be as covered as I think I am. Clearly I’m warming up, because suddenly I actually care, and hunch more carefully into my cocoon.
“On with the mechanic’s suit, Miss LaRoux. You’ll be the height of fashion, I promise. Then give me the blanket so I can dry off as much as I can.”
That’s what finally convinces me to give up my claim to the blanket. He’s still dripping, forced to lean away from the fire as he works so that he doesn’t swamp it. We’ll never be completely dry with the rain that makes its way past the canopy, but damp is better than soaked. I get to my feet and let the blanket fall so I can shove my legs into the bottom half of the suit and zip it up. It’s made for a man, and I draw my arms inside the loose material to cradle them against my chest, letting the sleeves hang empty. The material’s so rough that when it comes time to move out, I’ll have to wear the dress underneath or risk rubbing my skin raw. But for now, it’s comparatively dry, and that’s enough.