Kristie Cook - Genesis

When she awoke, light streamed through the cracks in the grass hut’s west walls, indicating late afternoon. She glanced around to see Jordan hadn’t returned and her eyes drifted over to Father’s empty bedding and then away. She wasn’t ready to face it yet. She rose and stepped outside. And blinked.

How could the day still be so bright and beautiful after all that had happened? How could the birds sound so happy and the air smell so sweet when her heart felt heavy and tight in her chest? When loneliness like she’d never felt before weighed her down like a boulder tied to her neck? This world that was exactly the same, yet completely different to her, left her feeling disoriented. She no longer knew what to do with herself. There were chores to be done and food to gather, but everyday life seemed so irrelevant now. So she lay in the grass and stared at the sky, tears seeping down her temples and into her hair.

Thin clouds passed over, shadows grew as the sun fell lower in the west and still she lay there. The tears eventually dried, but she still felt so sad. So empty. So alone. A small voice in the back of her mind told her to get up, to go on with life as Father would want. But she couldn’t bring herself to move.

A crashing through the woods startled her to alertness. She shot upright and peered across the clearing. A large shadow moved within the trees, quickly coming closer. She thought of Jordan at first, but this figure was too large and too slow to be him. The wolf. Her heart picked up speed. She jumped to her feet. Then the figure emerged from the trees and she blew out a breath. It was her brother.

His body looked misshapen, however, and he moved as if weighed down by something heavy. As he came closer, she realized he had a man draped across his shoulders. She ran across the clearing toward them.

“Jordan, what happened?” she demanded as she neared them. Her brother’s face was smudged with dirt, but he appeared to be unharmed. The man he held, however, was covered in mud and blood.

“Wolf … man,” the man said and though it came out as a whisper, she recognized the voice.

“Niko?” she asked with disbelief.

His lids slowly lifted, revealing the familiar olive-green eyes. His entire face gnarled with pain but his eyes sparked as he seemed to recognize her. Then Jordan dropped him on the ground with a thud. Niko grunted and passed out.

“Jordan! He’s hurt.”

“He’s probably dead,” Jordan said, collapsing to the ground himself.

Cassandra dropped to her knees next to Niko. He still wore the torn chiton from yesterday, his muscular chest and torso exposed. Rather than the one superficial cut he’d had before, rows of long gashes covered his chest now, as if long claws had shredded his skin. Blood and pus gushed from the battle wound in his thigh. She pushed his sweat- and blood-matted hair from his neck and felt for his life signs. A heartbeat pulsed beneath her fingers.

“He’s still alive. We must get him inside.”

“He won’t be for long. Why bother?”

“Jordan!” Cassandra admonished. “How can you be so cruel?”

“Cruel? I risked my life for him and he doesn’t even have the decency to live long enough to explain.”

Her anger flared, but so did curiosity. “Explain what?”

“That wolf. It wasn’t normal, Cassandra. Too big and too intelligent. As if it weren’t entirely animal.”

“The wolf that chased me,” Cassandra murmured.

Jordan glared at Niko’s unconscious body. “And now we’ll know nothing more about it.”

“And what makes you think Niko knows anything?”

“He keeps muttering, ‘wolf’ and ‘man.’ He’s trying to say something but always falls unconscious before anything else comes out.”

Cassandra lifted her brows. “Well, he’s still alive. Even if you don’t have the decency to care for him as a human being, if you want answers, help me get him to the house.”

“You really believe you can save him?”

“I don’t know for certain, but I definitely can’t if we leave him out here. He won’t survive the chill of night. And what if that wolf returns?”

Jordan shook his head and then jerked it toward Niko. “He got a good slash at it with his sword just before he collapsed. Then the wolf saw me coming and ran away, probably to its death.”

“You didn’t make sure? You didn’t kill it yourself?”

When Jordan didn’t answer, Cassandra cut her eyes toward him. He shook his head, without further explanation. He hid something from her, she could tell, but she had more pressing issues to worry about. She lifted Niko’s arm and draped it over her shoulder.

“Well, if you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself.”

She hoped Niko remained unconscious because he would never understand how a woman half his weight could carry him. Jordan rolled his eyes and blew a frustrated grunt through his nose. Then he rose to his feet and lifted Niko’s limp body in his own arms.

When they entered the hut, Cassandra’s eyes immediately slid to Father’s empty bedding. But she just couldn’t disturb it. Not now. And not with a filthy, bloody stranger. She gestured to Jordan to lay Niko on her own bedding. With a patient to tend to and her brother nearby, the overwhelming loneliness disappeared. She went to work, cleaning Niko up and caring for his wounds.

Jordan collapsed into his own bedding and fell right to sleep. Cassandra stayed by Niko’s side throughout the night, though he remained unconscious the entire time. His skin flamed with fever and she rubbed water over his body to cool it. The herb treatments in his wounds kept turning black, gagging her with a bitter odor and requiring her to change them frequently. As his life signs became stronger, he slept more fitfully, tossing and thrashing, crying out and whispering, “Man-wolf.” But by the time the sun rose high in the sky, the herbs no longer turned black in his wounds, his skin no longer burned with intense fever and he settled into a calmer sleep.

Jordan finally awoke, barely glanced at Niko’s sleeping form and set out to hunt and gather fruit. He stayed away throughout the morning and into the afternoon. Niko never woke, never even stirred. Cassandra looked longingly at Father’s bed as the thought of a nap tugged at her barely coherent mind, but she was afraid to leave Niko’s side. His life signs remained weaker than normal and his skin still felt warm, but not as hot as he’d been through the night. She made herself stay awake until Jordan could relieve her. Surely he had enough compassion to keep an eye on the sick and injured man long enough for her to get a little rest. But when he returned, he had no interest in staying for long.

After they ate a meal of rabbit and berries, he asked her to go outside with him. Cassandra looked at Niko’s sleeping form and sighed. She didn’t want to leave him in case he woke, but anything she and Jordan had to discuss—their father, their belongings, their future—this stranger didn’t need to hear. She followed Jordan out the door and far into the clearing, which was turning gray in the fading light of dusk.

“We need to leave in the morning,” Jordan said as he turned around to face her.

She blinked at him. “Leave? Why?”

He’d just brought home a month’s worth of supplies. They would only need fresh food, easily found in the nearby woods and streams. Why did they need to go already? And did he actually plan to take her with him? This caught her by surprise, but the thought of leaving crushed her heart. This was the last place Father had been. The last place she’d ever feel his presence.

“I’m not leaving,” she said before Jordan could even explain his reasoning. “Not yet.”

“Don’t you want answers?”