Erin Bowman: Frozen

“I didn’t. Not even when I saw them walking around town, crying and coughing. Their skin peeled. Their eyes went yellow. Some of them got on their horses and left. Most went to the church and prayed. I watched them all from my window, but I kept it closed, just like Mama told me to. I didn’t touch the window until it was silent, and when it was, I pushed it open and climbed out.

“Everyone that stayed was dead. Mama was in bed. I wanted to bury her, because I know that’s what you’re supposed to do, but I wasn’t strong enough to move her. The only ones I could manage were the small ones. The babies. And Sophie. I buried Sophie, too.”

He keeps talking, about how he lived off canned fruit and chicken eggs. How he melted snow for water and gathered clothes and blankets from other houses to keep warm. How he goes back to his house only once each day to record a nick on his bedpost, but never lingers because of the smell of decay. I don’t understand how someone so young can go through so much alone.

“Rusty and I stay in Mr. Bennett’s house because it’s empty,” Aiden explains. “I’m running out of food, though. And it’s getting hard to feed all the chickens and horses—most are sick or dying. Are you going to leave me here? In the morning?”

“Of course not,” Emma says, but no one else speaks up. Bree has this pained look on her face and I know she’s thinking the same thing I am: An eight-year-old boy is going to slow us down.

Owen runs a hand over his head and gazes at the fire. “We’re on a strict schedule.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“It’s not like I want this, Emma, but we have to average around twenty miles a day. There’s no way he’ll keep up with us.”

“So you’re just going to leave him here?” She’s almost shouting now. “You can’t! We can put him on a horse if pace is your concern.” My father remains quiet, refuses to make eye contact. Emma turns to me. “Tell him, Gray. Please. If anyone can talk sense into him it’s you.”

She looks even more desperate than she did when I found out about her and Craw, when she apologized to me again and again and again. I wonder if siding with her now will make our conversations come easier. They’ve been forced at best, even when we’ve been trying so hard.

But my father is right. We still have another two weeks of travel before we reach Bone Harbor, a small town that sits along a stretch of ocean cutting north through nearly half the country. A boat is waiting to ferry us closer to Group A while simultaneously keeping us out of the Order’s eye. Without the boat, there’s a domed city we’d have to pass near. Haven , I think Clipper called it. Either way, Aiden will slow us drastically.

I glance at the boy and his face is hopeful in the firelight, his eyes as wide as Emma’s. I don’t want to let either of them down.

“If we leave him, we’re as good as letting him starve to death,” I say to my father.

He sighs, rubs his forehead. “You’re right. You’re both right.” He looks at Aiden for a long while. Exhales again. Then finally: “You can come, but only until we find somewhere safer, a place you can settle with the living.”

“Oh, thank you,” Aiden exclaims. “Thank you! Can I bring Rusty, too?”

“Why not? It will be good to have a dog around. They’re clever creatures, good judges of character, fantastic on watch.”

Sammy frowns. “Sir, I’m honored you think so highly of me, but I’m a little offended you’ve mistaken me for a dog.”

The group dissolves into laughter.

“Bed,” Owen orders. “Everyone. Now. Breakfast is at first light and then we’re moving again.”

TONIGHT I HAVE SECOND WATCH,which means I might actually get a decent night of uninterrupted sleep. We rotate the order and it’s the middle shifts that are the worst—I never feel rested the following day.

Outside it is cold and gusty. I have the woodworking shop at my back, blocking most of the wind, and Rusty at my side, keeping me company. He’s a good guard dog, just as my father suspected. Twice he hears something before I do, his ears perking up, and both times it is nothing but a raccoon coming to feast on the dead.

I watch the minutes go by on a wristwatch that Clipper says runs on “solar power.” He walks with it strapped to the outside of his pack each day, allowing the sun to warm its face so that it can tell time throughout each evening. When my hour’s up, I head back inside, where everyone is cramped around the makeshift fire pit, fast asleep. I find Bo, who always follows me on watch, and shake him awake. He grumbles, pulls on his jacket, and heads out.

I creep around the fire and slide into my sleeping bag. Bree is on one side of me, my father on the other.

Despite being properly warm for the first time in ages, I can’t fall asleep. In the darkness of the woodshop, all my doubts seem magnified. Group A seems so far away still, and Blaine farther behind with each day of hiking.

Bree rolls over, nudges into me for extra warmth. I can feel her pulse even with the sleeping bags between us. I smile, close my eyes, and suddenly sleep is easy.

The sound of Rusty barking jolts me awake. My father scrambles for the door, Sammy and Xavier trailing him. A moment later there is shouting outside and I know something is very wrong.

I grapple for my gear, but can’t find one of my boots and end up being the last person to sprint outside. It’s maybe an hour before dawn, still dark enough that it’s difficult to see. I can make out several things in the bouncing beams of flashlights: Rusty, still barking like mad, and Aiden trying to restrain him; my father, surrounded by the rest of the group, shouting; and two strangers, one of whom has a gun to the other’s head.

The hostage is young and lean and has a look on his face that appears more vicious than terrified. The other man is Blaine.

I skid to a stop. “How did you . . . Who is . . .” I have a million questions and they’re all overlapping to the point that I can no longer get my mouth to work.

“Hey, Gray,” Blaine says, beaming in my direction.

Sammy jerks his rifle at the hostage. “What the hell is going on? Someone better start talking or I’m putting bullets in you both.”

Rusty barks savagely.

“The only person you want to put bullets in is this rat,” Blaine says, pushing his handgun more firmly against the stranger’s head.

“No one is putting bullets in anyone,” my father yells. “Blaine, lower your weapon.”

My brother grits his teeth. “Can’t do that, Pa.”

“Why’s that?”

Rusty yelps and lunges against his rope.

“Because this piece of scum will attack us the second I do.”

“It’s not true,” the stranger says. “I wouldn’t—”

Blaine strikes him across the back of the head with his gun. “You lying piece of filth!”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Blaine so angry, so furious. It makes me fear the stranger he’s holding more than I’ve feared anyone in my life.

Rusty keeps barking.

“Will someone shut up that dog?” my father snaps.

Emma grabs Aiden and helps him guide Rusty back to the woodshop, glancing fearfully over her shoulder as they leave. My father stares at Blaine and the stranger for a moment longer, eyes narrowed, then pulls his rifle up so fast I barely see it happen.

Blaine yanks the stranger in front of him as a shield. “What are you doing?”

“What any captain would do when two men walk into his camp without explanation: I’m protecting my team. You have to understand that this looks very odd, Blaine.”

My brother stays sheltered behind his hostage’s shoulder. “I left headquarters just three days after you did,” he explains, “right around when one of our own got taken into Order custody. Ryder wanted to put Elijah on your tail, just in case the Order extracted mission details from our man and decided to send one of their own after you. Basically, Ryder wanted to send a Rebel shadow for the possible Order shadow.