Chapter Text
Louise dies on a Sunday afternoon.
She's picking leaves from the windowsill basil plant to garnish the soup, shifting her weight from one leg to the other as she sighs, disappointed that he has yet another note from a teacher complaining about late homework. Alex is just as upset; it's not like he wants to hand stuff in late. He never did in his last life, but sometimes his brain stops generating thoughts right as he's meant to work and nothing ends up on the page. It's maddening to remember what it was like to manage reading just fine now just... fail.
"We'll figure something out, honey," Louise says and is bisected by a creature that crashes through the kitchen window. Alex watches it happen as though on TV, sees the minute detail of the glittering shower of glass and the vibrant spray of blood. It's over in a moment that lasts a lifetime.
Her lower body thuds to the floor, guts spilling onto the wooden parquet. The upper half is swallowed. A horrifying wolflike woman with spectral saliva dripping from its mouth speaks in Louise's voice: "Don't worry. I'll help you clean this right up."
"Mom?"
It slips out, quiet, horrified, filled with the knowledge that she's gone but none of the understanding.
"You look pained," speaks the thing. "Come here and I'll kiss it better."
Alex is frozen at the kitchen table. Their house is a small, suburban two-story one that's split in half right down the middle to make rent manageable, situated on the outskirts of Milwaukee. Their neighbors are an elderly couple who are deaf enough not to have heard the crash. Fog hangs heavy outside. Nobody will hear if he screams.
Alex screams anyway.
It starts out high and terrified, ice spreading through his body, mind filling with so many thought they muddle into static and lock his limbs, but then the ice melts and fire spreads through him. The fear vanishes in a blink and he's left with reckless fury.
"You fucking bitch!" he shrieks and flings his scalding tomato soup at the creature. "You hideous punkass bastard!"
The soup splashes its face and the bowl shatters on the floor. It wails, head rearing back, burned eyes screwed shut. There is no hesitation. Before he knows it he throws himself forward, the knife used for cutting bread to go with the soup raised high. One of the paws strikes his leg when the monster flails, claws sinking through the jeans, but Alex barely feels the pain.
"Die die die die die die DIE-" He drags the serrated edge over its throat, hot black blood spurting onto his face, stabs, slashes again. The blood gets in one of his eyes and his vision turns strange and mottled as the creature shrieks. "Yeah it hurts you motherfucking shit! I'm gonna cut you up and burn you while you're still alive to watch-"
He barely recognizes his own voice, it's high yet low, warbling with too much emotion.
It kicks him in the chest and he goes flying. Skips once on the floor, tumbles into the wall, and forces himself back onto his feet. His heartbeat is a war drum, egging him on with adrenaline that burns like molten sugar. The world is all wrong. It has never been so sharp. It has never been so cruel.
"What'd you do that for?" it asks him, still in Louise's voice, and advances. "I'm going to have to punish you now, honey. It'll hurt. Oh yes, it'll hurt, because that's what boys like you deserve."
A shadow jumps through the broken window and throws a blade. It glints in the light before sinking deep into the monster's flank. Rather than bleed, it turns to ash around the wound and flakes into nothingness. The blood clears from the floor, from his clothes, from his face. It's like nothing ever happened. A bronze knife clatters to the parquet, nicking the wood.
"Hey," says the stranger. A boy around twelve, sandy blonde hair, lanky, straight nose. "Are you hurt?"
Alex breathes heavily. He feels no pain. He feels nothing at all.
Another person climbs in through the window, glass crunching underfoot. A girl with black hair, freckles, and electric blue eyes. She grimaces at the sight of Louise before spotting Alex at the other end of the room.
"Family of yours?" she asks, and some part of him registers that she's gentling her voice, but the words rub him the wrong way and, like a flint striker, ignite the embers of the burning haze that filled him moments before.
"Yeah, and you are?" he asks in a high, sharp voice.
Louise would hate it. The realization keeps him from throwing the knife at her face. What is happening? He's had outbursts before, but nothing like this. This is... consuming. Numbing. Too much.
"I'm Luke, and this is Thalia," says the boy, watching him carefully. "We're really, really sorry."
"Why? Why are you really, really sorry instead of just sorry? Why are you here? What's going on? What's with the guilt, eh?"
Because there is guilt. Half-hidden, half-dripping, melting snow sliding across their young little faces. The fire builds, a comforting whirl that deadens the loss and fear. Why would they be guilty if they aren't to blame? Why would they be here at all?
Alex's foot begins to bounce.
"-you hear me?" asks Luke, as though in a dream. "We really are sorry. We were passing by, running by, really and..."
He weighs his words, seeing something on Alex's face that makes him hesitate.
Thalia doesn't see it, and fills in: "The mormo was chasing us, we were heading to the forest to shake it, but it was catching up and we stopped to fight- we didn't know there'd be another demigod here."
Everything she said narrows into one thing and Alex nods.
"I see." He palms the bread knife. Louise's blood and innards become brighter the stranger and grayer the rest of the world becomes. "You led it here."
"That's not what-" begins Luke, shifting, at the same time that Thalia exclaims:
"Not on purpose!"
Her voice echoes in the room, the snap of a string, and Alex hurls the knife at her, a wave of energy roiling through him. Her eyes widen and she throws herself down, the knife embedding itself into the window frame.
"What the fuck-!"
He throws himself at Luke while she's busy picking herself up from the blood-slicked floor. They go down in a tangle of limbs, Alex screaming and kicking because he'll rip apart at the seams and become something worse if he doesn't.
"How dare you-" he growls, clawing at his face, "how dare you get her killed, how dare you-"
But for all that Luke is concerningly thin, he's all muscle and flips them quickly, pinning Alex to the floor with a forearm pressed against his throat.
"Stop!" he snaps, eyes wide, and presses down harder when Alex tries to rip his ear off. "Calm down!"
Alex's movements weaken as he runs out of air. The world blurs and the words leaving his mouth become indecipherable, nothing more than wounded whispers that tremble strangely in the air. I'm crying, he realizes as his free hand falls down limply.
Luke's eyes soften but he doesn't let up. "I know," he says. "I know."
Maybe it's all a dream. Maybe none of this is real. Maybe, if he dies, he'll wake up and Louise will take him ice-skating like she loves doing on Sundays. Black swims into his vision and everything tingles with cold sleep. It's a relief.
The pressure lifts. Alex gasps for air and hovers between consciousness and unconsciousness for a moment too long, a nauseating balance over a cliff into darkness, before he turns to his side and coughs. The spots recede, his limbs return. So does his mind.
"I-" he begins, but can't find the words around the lump in his throat. "I- I- she- it-"
The fire has vanished, leaving his chest an empty cavern. Nothing but ash and shadow and cracks. He closes his eyes and lets sobs wrack him.
"I'm sorry," comes Thalia's voice above him, and a hand rests on his shoulder.
Another joins hers, probably Luke, who squeezes his arm.
"I hate to bring it up, but there are more things out there. We need to move," he says eventually, and Alex draws a shuddering breath. Luke quickly adds: "Thalia and I. You don't have to. You've been left alone until now. Chances are nothing will notice you for a while longer, maybe ever. You don't- you could stay. Stay as in- go to family."
It's unclear who he's trying to convince. If Alex stays, tries to explain this to the police and gets sent to Montreal to live with his uncle, will that absolve some of their guilt? Because Alex's life will only have been ruined, not shredded? Does he even want Alex to come along when their first meeting is attempted murder?
He curls in on himself, clutching his chest like he can shove his hands into the gaping hole in his heart. It hurts. His body doesn't, but something else does. He's not sure he can ever go back to normal, even once the shock and loss fade into the past. The way his heart pulsed and golden-red focus surged through his body will never leave him. Even as he thinks of it the gleaming afterimage of it flashes through his body and he knows.
Something has changed.
How many will he get killed if he gives in and refuses to move from the floor?
"I can't stay, but I can't- I can't just go," he says hoarsely, eventually pushing himself upright. Breathing hurts. There'll be bruises on his throat for weeks, like someone tried to strangle him to death.
"You have to choose one of them," Thalia tells him, serious. "Take a moment, but no more. Then you decide."
She leaves through the window, careful not to cut herself on the glass. Luke stands as well.
"I'll shout in a minute," he says, and follows his friend out. The cold November breeze slips inside, carrying the scent of frost and fireplace smoke.
A bad time to go on the run, Alex thinks distantly. Maybe he should go to his relatives, they'd take him in, everything will be alright... But monsters are real and they probably don't care about borders. What would he do if Uncle Henry's head was eaten? Little Lisa's toddler body skewered?
It hurts to breathe just thinking about it.
Alex forces himself to look a Louise. Or, her waist and legs, haloed in red. He didn't know so much blood fit into half a person.
(Why didn't her upper part remain when the monster died? Surely it hadn't already digested her-)
Tears spring to his eyes again and he looks around in search for answers to questions he can't place.
"Mom?" he begins, voice as thin as it'd been when the monster first crashed through the window. But there's no way to finish that sentence.
"Time to go," Luke says, popping up by the window again.
For how long has Alex been staring at the body?
"One sec," he says, snapping out of it, and pulls a tablecloth from one of the shelves. It goes from cheerful yellow to red the instant he covers her with it, but it's better than nothing. I love you, he mouths to her. More yellow darkens in response.
Thalia appears next to Luke. They exchange glances, like they've just had a heated whispered discussion, before she speaks up:
"Do you have food?"
She's trying to sound steady, but there's a desperate pitch towards the end. It's not a question. It's a plea. Thinking of how thin Luke was, Alex notices the little things: the large eyes, thin fingers, pale lips...
He attacked them. They led a monster here. How hungry do they have to he to move past that so quickly? That's insane.
"Yeah," he says, and likes to think there is compassion somewhere beyond the void of shock. "Follow me."
They climb back through the window again. This time their luck runs out and Thalia cuts her hand, cursing far more vividly that he'd expect.
"There's a first aid kit in the kitchen, too," he tells her mechanically.
Luke raids the pantry while Thalia wraps her hand in bandages. Alex watches them move and tells himself none of this is real. It doesn't work. The smell of metal clings in his nostrils and a sharp ache is forming in his leg. It's more bruised than bloodied, but he should disinfect it. Monster germs can't be good.
"You should grab a jacket," Thalia says. He blinks at her. "Gloves and hats too, if you got any. Bring spares. Mine have holes in them."
"Uh, right. I'll get some."
He digs up all his winter stuff from the cupboard by the hallway, and it's not until one of Louise's scarves flutter down to his feet that he realizes part of him had been trying to come up with an explanation for her as to why he has to leave.
She will never ask.
He turns and finds himself face to face with the hallway mirror. A pale boy of eleven stares back, red haired and awkward, with dark blue eyes that he'd liked - until now, that is, because suddenly they're hollow and look more like bruises than flowers.
The neighbor's dog barks outside, the same dog he walks on a weekly basis, and he nearly sits down. If he sits down he won't stand up again. If he sits down he'll stare at the wall until either police or a monster finds him. If he sits down he will be here forever.
Luke is pouring the leftover tomato soup (redredred) into a thermos when he returns from the kitchen. Thalia stares wistfully at a framed picture of him and Louise camping, all smiles and summer tans, and quickly averts her eyes.
"Thanks," she mutters, picking the black mittens. "You- looked happy with her."
"We are happy."
She doesn't fully mask the flinch and instead grabs an apple from the sad fruit bowl before rushing away. The wind picks up outside. The house is cold by now, like it died along with Louise. It's not a big place, and all the furniture is second hand, but it still feels like watching a castle come to ruin.
(And whose fault is that-)
"You didn't put shoes on," Luke tells him, picking a blue hat with a puff ball.
Alex, wrapped in his warmest coat and his mom's scarf, glances down at his socks. They're patterned with bigfoots.
"Oh."
They leave not even a minute later, Luke pressing the bread knife into his hand after climbing out the window. His leg protested the movement.
"You'll need something made of bronze to kill for real. It'll be difficult with this, but it's better than nothing."
He nods numbly.
"Let's go," says Thalia impatiently. "We're losing time."
Instead of heading to the street, Luke cuts a path through the field behind the houses, heading straight for the forest. Frozen grass crunches with ever step.
"He's pretty good at getting around," Thalia tells Alex quietly. "It takes a lot to get lost if you're the son of the god of travelers."
He stares at her, uncomprehending. Realization dawns on her face.
"You really know nothing," she says, more resigned than anything. "That sucks ass."
Know what? he wants to ask, but doesn't. It won't matter if she tells him now. Nothing will stick and if it sticks the wrong way...
If he reacts the wrong way...
"You can have this," he goes for instead, handing over the raincoat. Luke has a proper jacket, but Thalia wards off the cold with what seems like two fleece jumpers pulled over each other. Warm, until the wind blows right through it. "It's pretty big. Mom bought it secondhand, for next year. Not that- Well, it should fit you."
"Are you saying I'm big?" she asks, cheeks mottling red.
"No, no, just that fleece is bulky."
She accepts, watching him warily. "Is this your apology?"
He stiffens.
"Fine, whatever," she huffs when he doesn't answer. "You only tried to kill me, psycho."
Alex looks away. He doesn't want to talk about it. Talking about it means thinking about it. Thinking about it means letting it into his mind and if it roots itself there he'll go insane.
"You're gonna get frostbite," he says instead, speeding up. "Pull your toque over your ears."
"Don't tell me what to do," she grumbles behind him, and the three of them vanish into the mist.
It still hurts to breathe.
.
The year is 1999. The hottest bands are Backstreet Boys and Nirvana, Chipotle is starting to gain traction, Clinton is president, and fax machines will never die. Snow falls from dirty white skies as the bus stops in Indianapolis. He fell in love with winter this life. They were short and wet in his previous one, but here they stretch on with white, scathing serenity. Are they ruined, now?
Maybe he should have figured this life was too good to be true. He hadn't even considered it that fantastic: Louise always worked overtime to support them, the ADHD and dyslexia fucked with his self-perception, and being kicked out of schools made him appreciate the simple privilege that was middle class mundanity from his past life. Unattainable here. The greatest tools reincarnation has given him is a school cheat code cancelled out by dyslexia and a strangely detailed understanding of Elvis Presley albums. Rebirth is already such a strange concept, maybe he should have suspected there might be magic around him? The old him hadn't engaged with fantasy or sci-fi, so could be there were signs aplenty and he missed them all.
"Food, water, and a camping stove," reminds Luke as they stare around them, taking in the Christmas decorations and busy passersby.
"I can get a stove, you guys get the rest," says Thalia confidently.
"Spare socks, too. Nothing worse than cold feet," adds Alex wisely and decides to ask the first kindly grandma-looking woman he can find for directions to a dollar store.
"Those too. Meet back here in an hour," Luke nods.
Everyone splits up. Alex is, privately, of the opinion that Luke should be stealing the stove instead of Thalia. She always manages to stand out one way or another. But there is no way of saying she's incapable of subtlety without her taking it the wrong way. They became friends in the two weeks they've travelled together, but he is still not trusted with one of the two precious celestial bronze knives, nor a recipient of her rare good faith. Half the time he understands, because their first impression of him was of some strange mental lapse into barbarism, the other half he thinks they're unfair. He knows they didn't actually lead the monster to his house, that it was a bad twist of fate, but sometimes, late at night with nothing and no one to distract his mind, he blames them again. If they hadn't existed Louise would still be alive.
(And if it's their existence that's the problem then-)
(Stop.)
He buys thick wooly socks for the last of his change because the owner is a sweet old lady he can't bear to steal from, and then unapologetically steals from the large supermarket chains. What's some missing bread, pears, and quiche to them?
Nobody glances twice at him as he ducks outside behind a family with vaguely red hair. His hands are shoved deep into pockets. The image of the quiche won't leave his mind. It'll be delicious even when cold.
There's even bacon in it. Meat! Real meat!
It took four days to get from Milwaukee to Chicago. Something stalked them in the woods, a terrifying experience that robbed him of sleep and his final shred of peace, because he hadn't been able to run the first two days, bruised leg throbbing with complaints. They lost it by wading down a freezing river, which led to Luke becoming sick. It took him three days to recover in the city, shivering on the couch of someone gone on a business trip and a pathetically empty fridge. From there they hiked and hitched rides to Indianapolis, an altogether bad time. The world isn't nearly as kind to children as he'd thought.
No strange, rage-filled outbursts.
Thank the gods.
(The fact that the gods are real... It's hard to wrap his head around. How does divinity work? How many of the stories are true? What god did Louise meet? How many other demigods are there? A thousand questions, none of which are posed. He is perceptive enough to sense it's a tender topic for the other two.)
Alex is the first to return to the bus station. Regional ones come and go while long-distance buses stay longer, soaking up people before ferrying them far, far away.
One headed to Toronto stops across the street. Alex stares.
It's not that he'll miss Milwaukee as such. He only moved there a year ago, since Louise found work as a translator. She probably only accepted it so they could get away from Montreal, where schools were reluctant to accept him. Being expelled thrice means they're not eager to take you in. Oh, does he miss Montreal. Their old apartment. The geriatric cat. The curtains. Friends. Uncle Henry and his wife and daughter. Louise in her ugly floral armchair, reading a trashy book. Louise picking him up after theatre classes. Louise pretending she's grabbing coffee with a friend when she's actually going on a date. She never wanted him to know about those because her bad track record with finding reliable men meant he might be disappointed when yet another potential father figure leaves his life.
The bus to Toronto is ever so vivid. There's probably heating inside. In Toronto he can sneak onto a train and get to Henry, who must be worried sick about him while having to arrange his sister's funeral. It'd been easy to decide to stay away from family in the moment, but being scared and hungry and cold and tired, tired like no kid should be, eats away at such noble resolve.
Luke and Thalia arrive not much later.
"We need to go," she says immediately, before he finishes congratulating her on actually procuring a camping stove. Paired with Luke's little tent they're basically real campers now.
"Uh, alright." He darts a wary look over her shoulder, in case she's followed. "What happened?"
"Someone saw- us," Luke says, which Alex translates to mean she is indeed not a great thief and Luke is too good of a friend to throw her under the bus.
They speed walk away from the station, trying their very best not to draw attention by breaking into a run.
"It was just a shop owner that saw you, though, right?" hisses Alex as they turn a corner and end up on a busy shopping street. "Not a monster?"
"Just a shop owner," promises Thalia, hiking up her backpack over her shoulder. "But he yelled. I ran. People saw. Lots of people saw."
He grits his teeth and keeps up. He's neither as tall as Luke nor as strong as Thalia and has been acutely aware of the fact that he slows them down this whole time. They were meant to stay here a few nights, try to find a shower and a place to do laundry. He hasn't washed his underwear in days. He might not have gross puberty sweat yet, but his hair is greasy and the less said about the state of his nails the better. It's tempting to whine about it, but he doesn't. Weak links can't snap about ruined plans.
They make their way from the central area and end up in a rundown block by sunset. Luke has a nose for these things, but he grows paler and more tired by the minute and Alex realizes it'll be up to himself and Thalia to find a place to sleep. It's harder than it looks, the world is full of locked doors and locked windows and people who believe themselves good but never act on it. Someone else can be kind. Someone else can open the door. Someone else can meet their eyes.
"Aww, man," groans Thalia when she steps on a loose stone of the sidewalk, splashing up cold water onto her leg.
Luke snorts and she aborts a movement to punch his arm just on time, catching sight of how drained he looks.
"Do you want me to carry that?" Alex asks him, nodding to the heavy backpack.
Luke shakes his head and keeps walking until eventually Thalia notices an entrance to the backyard of an apartment complex.
"There's a shed," she says, and Luke squints.
"You're right. Can't believe I missed that."
Alex and Thalia exchange looks; they can.
Luke makes short work of the shed's padlock. A bobby pin shouldn't possibly work that well, so godly skills might be playing a role too. The shed is dark and cold, but there is no wind and it's not strange moldy smells or, in fact, any kind of old humidity at all.
"There must be heating," deduces Alex, running his hand over archival boxes with old gardening magazines. "These would be water damaged otherwise."
"That explains why it's only cold, not freezing," says Luke slowly, reluctantly hopeful, while Thalia immediately begins to search for radiators.
The radiator turns out to be on at a low temperature, lukewarm to the touch but impossible to be turned on higher. Alex and Thalia decide Luke will be sleeping against the radiator. Luke, of course, objects. He doesn't need to be babied, he doesn't need to be told what to do, he doesn't need to get special treatment, etcetera etcetera etcetera.
"Besides, I'm the oldest," he finishes with great decisiveness, because at their age that's the ultimate argument.
Alex snorts and effectively breaks the make-believe ace. "So? We're two against one."
"Yeah, and I turn twelve too in, like, a week," adds Thalia hotly.
"Sure, but you act like you're eight," Luke retorts.
"And you like you're three!"
"That's not true-"
"That's not true," mimics Thalia, badly.
"You sound like an idiot!"
"You're the idiot-"
Alex shoots them a heated glare: "Will you two shut up?"
This makes him immediately unpopular and he's promptly reminded that he's the youngest here.
Eating, luckily, improves everyone's mood. A few bites and their shoulders sink down into soft lines. Alex, who knows he got at least old enough to drive a car and sneak sips of wine in his past life (which admittedly might not have been long, he suspects), is very glad for this and manages to cajole the others into having a few extra bites of food by pretending he's already had his third. He's mature and sensible like that, which he barely manages not to gloat about when they're done.
Exhaustion catches up quickly. It always feels wasteful to use drinking water for brushing teeth, but it has to be done, even if Thalia hates that their toothpaste has some weird strawberry flavor this time. Before long eyelids droop and it's time to decide night shifts.
"You don't get to keep watch tonight. You're gonna get sick again," Thalia snaps at Luke, wresting the dagger from him.
His protests are ignored. Thalia holds it out to Alex, hilt first, with a convincingly confident expression.
"If you throw this and lose it, you're dead," she says. "Use it for stabbing, not slashing. Slashing is for swords."
"Got it."
The knife is far heavier than he'd thought. He hopes his own expression is half as confident as hers. But for all that she isn't as good at picking up on feelings as he, he is absolutely the worst liar of the trio which rather gives her an advantage.
"I'll take the first watch," he offers, being more of an evening person than the others. "You get some rest."
Luke falls asleep immediately, tucked against the lukewarm radiator with their fleece quilt tucked over him and only camping mattress cushioning his thin body. An old sleeping bag was found in a tarp bag, which Thalia snuggles into on his other side. They look vulnerable in their sleep, faces lax with trust and exhaustion.
What am I doing? he asks himself, not for the first time, and settles in for a long watch.
The place has already being made their own: the table shifted a little to the right, a shelf used to dry their socks on, an old hat case used chair to sit on. The smell of quiche lingers. Up on a shelf is an old 1950s lamp he instantly becomes attached to: it would probably give a warm, homey glow. Will he ever not be tempted to stay at the hideouts? It's human nature to turn places into homes. It helps that it's a city; lots of people to muddle the demigod scent and lots of good food people throw out without a second thought.
The downside is casualties. What do monsters care if humans are in the way when they breathe fire or barrel down a shopping aisle?
How many Louises can happen?
He inspects the celestial bronze knife. It's longer than his forearm, made for an adult to use. Where did Luke get it? Alex asked him about home once, very tactfully at that, and received such a brisk non-answer that he adds it to the pile of unspoken things to navigate around.
"Luke wasn't happy home," Thalia told him at some point.
"What about you?" he'd had the gall to ask.
She didn't like the question and nearly sniped back with a "not all of us are as lucky as you" that she thankfully swallowed down halfway, raw guilt washing across her features which she quickly hid by turning around and asking Luke if he was sure about the direction they were headed.
Would the two of them be happier if their mothers were dead, instead of his?
He wouldn't know. If theirs were dead and his alive he's still be with her.
The wind intensifies, cutting itself in the eave and whipping snow against the cloudy old windowpane. The scabs on his legs from the mormo itch, dark lines amid fading bruises.
"Alex," he imagines he hears Louise say, a pale shadow in the winter flurries. "Alex, please."
The worst thing about keeping watch is the lonely silence. His thoughts catch up to him and all the emotions he stays ahead of creep back in, giggling as they slither up his skin and drip back into his skull through his ears. Despair is a big one. So is anger and denial. Helplessness trumps them all.
"Alex, it hurts," says his mother's voice as time turns into syrup and the night stretches into eternity. "If you'd plucked the basil leaves like I asked you to before lunch, I wouldn't have had to do it myself. I wouldn't have stood by the window."
"I didn't mean to forget," he whispers back.
"Just like with the homework?" she sighs, tired, tutting. "I know, honey. But you still did."
He looks out the little window just to be safe, but of course, nobody is there.
.
Luke grabs Alex's arm a two days' walk from Lexington. Their travels, as ever, are an ever fluctuating mix of warm, speedy train rides and long, cold forest treks. The latter has become a little easier now, though, with softer, rolling landscapes speckled with wet, heavy snow. They have a good vantage point on this hill.
"Look," he says, pointing towards the horizon. "It's raining."
Alex follows the finger and finds it to be true. Pale silken suggestions hang below dark clouds.
"It's no longer freezing," he realizes, breathing a sigh of relief that still leaves a puff of mist in front of his face.
"Nothing worse than winters in the north. We'll be in Charleston by new year's."
"Good." It's what they've been aiming for this whole time. "Why Charleston, anyway?"
Luke's head tilt is a wistful thing. It's how he looks when remembering something bittersweet. The best of his childhood memories always are, it seems.
"There were records with Charleston jazz and swing. It was always a good day when those were played."
"I see," nods Alex, refocusing on the distant rain clouds. It'll turn the earth into mud. Not everyone's jackets are waterproof. The tent is, but they still struggle to set it up properly sometimes. We should have stayed where the earth freezes and I know what to do. But Thalia hates the cold and Luke is single minded. "I always loved jazz. I like music that's quick and cheery."
Luke snorts into his scarf. "Jazz is so old."
"You're the one who wants to go to Charleston."
"That's- that's totally different," he splutters, elbowing him. "It's not for the music, it's just- just a good feeling about it! Ugh, you wouldn't get it."
Logic and reason is something that grows with age, and while Thalia and Luke have unusually high wisdom and intelligence for being preteens, they're nonetheless irrational twelve year olds who think saying something cool or confident is enough to be right. Thalia complains about how stupid girls are who wear pink lip gloss but then made Luke steal eyeliner for her as a birthday gift, which she now smears thickly beneath her eyes like a statement. Luke draws tattoos on himself with sharpies. Both collect Pokémon cards like they're worth gold.
Thalia re-emerges from the bushes she went to pee behind. "Alright, let's go."
Snow crunches underfoot whenever they walk in the shade, skeletal leaves and soft earth silences their steps whenever they walk in the weak sun. Trees reach for the sky like slender hands. It's beautiful. Even in the season of death and rebirth, it's beautiful. (Louise would love to hike here-) Descending the hill, brush rustles with robins and mice and squirrels searching for food. Nothing has chased them since Cincinnati and pillars of sunlight descend amid the clouds like divine spotlights.
Maybe literally, Alex reminds himself. There is a sun god, so these pillars of light could very well be a mirage of his temples.
He needs to get his hands on a mythology book. Luke knows plenty but he's the most private person Alex has ever met and Thalia thinks she knows far more than she actually does. They'd been halfway into a monster-owned restaurant before realizing their food was likely to be other customers - or maybe even themselves.
They make it over three hills before coming to a river. Everyone immediately becomes deadly serious, because that's what rivers demand. Ordinarily they seek bridges, but their tourist map of the region tells them they're far away from any roads and Luke feels no particular instinct in any direction, which means they must cross the old-fashioned way. Their last river nearly led to them losing all supplies, and Alex has inferred that Thalia nearly drowned half a year back.
"Naiads are meant to be helpful, but not that one, not at all," she muttered when he asked, rubbing her chest like she could still feel the burn for oxygen.
"I hate this," she says now, apprehensive. "Even dear old mommy knew better than to put me in the water."
"At least it's not the sea," comforts Luke uneasily. "We've been through worse, let's just get this over with."
Alex scans their surroundings and finds a place, only a minute downstream, where the river is a bit more narrow and two boulders jut out from the water with a tree leaning towards the first one, a series of smaller stones between them. This cheers everyone up since they don't have to get wet, but Alex's face falls the moment they reach the leaning tree.
"There are rapids," he says, pointing at a leaf ferrying quickly across the pebbles on the bottom. The surface is clear and still like a mirror, reflecting their drawn faces.
"Fuck a duck," says Thalia while Luke looks around for vines or anything else that can be used as rope. The forest is clammy and brown, the closest thing to vine is either the ghostly hanging moss or the thorny underbrush they do their best to avoid.
"We'll just have to be careful," says Luke.
Alex's eyes dart quickly between his two travel companions. He's always found them too pale and sharp, but the light bouncing off the water onto their faces make them even more so. They'll end up arguing about who goes first when everyone knows it should be Luke, he's light as feathers on his feet, and Alex feels a stab of annoyance when he's proven right. They bicker right away. It burrows into his heart like a needle and he cuffs Thalia over the back of her head before he's fully realized it.
"Don't be obnoxious, let him go first and test how steady the stones are."
She cuffs him right back, twice as hard, and his head itches with static when she glares. "Don't be such a jerk about it. You're way likelier to fall in than me."
A flush spreads high up his cheeks. He doesn't slow them down nearly as much as the first weeks, but he has yet to acquire Luke's feline grace or Thalia's raw athleticism. Let alone incredible tricks like tasering someone by touch, which Thalia did once and fried a strange wormlike creature sneaking up on them to ash. All he can do is stay alive and promise the ghost of Louise whispering in the back of his head that he won't ever be late or forgetful ever again.
(He's broken the promise thrice already. Once he was an hour late to their rendezvous point, having gotten lost, and twice he couldn't remember to check all the perimeter points. He didn't mean to. He didn't mean to.)
"Yeah, I know," he sighs with false confidence. "I can own up to that. Can you?"
This does the trick. Thalia is torn between proving herself as someone who can own up to things and someone who can jump across boulders. Luke, sending Alex a half-smile, quickly climbs into the leaning tree and crawls down the branch closest to the stones. They are located nearly halfway into the river, and the branch creaks ominously when he gets further out. The water is still and cold beneath him. Is it bad that Alex is as worried for Luke as he is for the tent strapped to Luke's backpack? It might be small, meant for one adult, but it's a large, unwieldy thing to move around with. It has saved their lives every night they've been outside. Just as Luke's certainty with directions and safe havens has. The two most important things, joined together.
Too risky, decides Alex and resolves to lug around the tent from now on.
Luke hangs from the branch for one awful moment before landing softly on the first boulder, which is nearly as tall as he.
"The big ones are dry on top!" he reports, sounding very young, and makes the first jump. It's a short one, downwards more than forwards, followed by three more that he's far more careful about: these stones are close to the water now, covered in moss husk that will be submerged during the spring floods. He nearly slips at one point but rights himself, and makes quick work of the last stones, which are flat and broad and bring him all the way to the other side.
"Careful with the smaller ones in the middle!" he shouts, hands cupping his mouth. "They're a bit slippery and I think one is loose!"
Alex loses a game of rock paper scissors and watches Thalia go next, swallowing down worried advice every time the branch creaks as she shuffles down it on her hands and knees. The drop onto the first boulder goes fine, and the next jump even better. Her confidence grows and, with a toss of her dark hair, she decides to take the three small stones in a leaping run. It's like watching a graceful deer - right until the third stone shifts to the side under her weight and Thalia loses her balance. She flails forward, latching onto the boulder in front of her, but not before one foot is dunked into the water. She curses loudly as she heaves herself onto the flat stone, but goes abruptly quiet when glancing back. The third stone has tipped over and vanished beneath the surface.
"I-" she begins, faltering, looking back at Alex.
"Just go!" he tells her with great control. "I'll make my way somehow!"
Conflict writhes over her face, ended by a nod and clenching her jaw. She makes it to the other side without issue.
The needle of anger burrows deeper, and he breathes in, holds it, and breathes out four times before the burn of it softens. It's not her fault that the stone is lose, just as she and Luke didn't actually lead the mormo to Louise. Leading implies intent, of which there was none. These things happen. They do. They do.
One thought churns into another, chased by the frayed nerves and exhaustion that comes from being on the run.
It strikes him then. How long will they be running for? Their entire lives? Is that a life worth living? One that will carry him beyond fifteen?
The breathing exercise is shot to hell and he heaves himself onto the leaning tree with a grunt. The bark is rough and damp. It'll stain his trousers. A twig catches on his backpack and holds him back before he manages to push past it. From up above it's clear the river is far deeper than he'd thought. He hates this. Fuck, how he hates this.
Breathe, he reminds himself, trying to focus on crawling safely towards the boulder instead of the thunder of his heartbeat.
The stone is slanted on the top but dry when he lowers himself onto it. The next stone is also dry, but only half as tall and wide, and lead to the three small stones. Well, two small stones, now. The water titters as it slides past, a gentle call behind which lies death. Louise made sure he can swim well, stressing that it's a life saving skill, but he also knows hypothermia kills and that swimming in cold water with a heavy backpack and clothes is...
Stop thinking about it.
Breathing out, he feels the shards of fear heat with the embers of his anger, and suddenly the thoughts stop writhing in his head. Adrenaline sings through him; he must cross, so he will. That's all there is to it.
Leaping down, the moss is soft beneath his foot but his balance is kept, and he leaps to the second stone. There he sees the third one, tipped on its uneven side but not more than a a foot beneath the surface. Nothing to be done about that.
Alex jumps, foot sinking into the water which bites like ice, but finds purchase against the stone and kicks off, propelling him towards the broad, flat boulder ahead-
And the stone falls from underneath him.
With not nearly as much momentum as Thalia, he doesn't make it to the boulder and plunges into the water.
The cold is clear and clean like liquor, burning his whole body. Shock freezes everything, then comes a perverse sweep of relief. It happened. No use worrying about might-be's when it's here. The fear, the uncertainty, it's all swept away.
The current is strong and stubborn, sweeping him along. He flails against it, clothes heavy and backpack feeling like it's full of dumbbells instead of a quilt and food, before coming to his senses. It's a miracle he kept his head above the water, gasping for air as he makes his cramping body swim towards the shore. Everything is heavy. The rocks on the bottom bump against his legs. Something wet and slimy wraps around his ankle and it might just be weeds, it might, but he knows with strange certainty that he'll die if he gets stuck and tears himself loose. Nothing tries to grab him again.
"-lex! Almost there!"
"Come on! You can-"
He becomes aware of Luke and Thalia shouting encouragement only when he knows he'll make it across. He's been swept a full minute's walk downstream when he suddenly finds purchase to crawl out of the water, pebbles smooth under his hands and mud smoother, seeping thick and dark between his fingers. Water pours from his clothes when he makes it to the other side, coughing, shaking. The cold waits for nobody and descends right away.
"Just stay there, you're okay now!" shouts Thalia, and he's vaguely aware of the two kids fighting through brush and mud to get to him.
I made it, he thinks, and his teeth begin to chatter.
I made it, he thinks, and feels his heartbeat pound against his ribs.
I made it, he thinks, and the heat of raging adrenaline cuts itself against the winter winds.
He hates this. He hates the mormo. He hates the blood that spilled out of Louise and the basil plant he'd failed to pick and the homework he'd forgotten. He hates that Uncle Henry mourns two when only one is dead. He hates Luke and Thalia for having been in Milwaukee. He hates himself for being weak, hates himself for being sloppy, hates himself for being unreliable, hates himself until the pain of it becomes a numbing whirlwind.
I made it, he thinks, and screams his rage so he doesn't cry.