Page 4 of Tharn's Hunt
I crawl toward it. Dragging my mangled leg, I haul myself up the rock face one agonizing inch at a time. When I finally pull myself inside, the cool, dark air feels like heaven.
“Jus?” I croak, knowing it’s useless. My voice echoes back. I sound…desperate. Lost.
I collapse into the cool shade, ready to let the darkness take me. And that’s when I hear it.
Not voices. Not footsteps. Not the sound of my sister calling my name.
Pitter…patter.
I freeze before slowly lifting my head.
That soft, echoing drip might as well be a symphony. My body moves, harsh gasps of air grating past my throat as I crawl deeper into the darkness, following the sound like a lifeline. When my fingers finally brush against the slick stone and the shallow pool gathered there, I nearly sob.
I drink like a dying woman. Because that’s exactly what I am.
The water is cool and clean, a stark contrast to the fire spreading through my veins from the gash in my leg. It doesn't quench the fever, but it gives me a moment of gut-wrenching clarity.
I'm not going to make it out of here. But Justine might. Someone else might follow.
I have to leave a sign.A sign that there’s water.
The thought is a lightning bolt in the fog of my pain. It’s not a plan; it’s a compulsion.
Ignoring every screaming nerve in my body, I turn and drag myself back toward the blinding light of the cave entrance. Getting down the rock face is a controlled fall. Fiery agony that makes black spots dance in my vision.
Then I walk.
Or stumble. I don’t know. My brain is on fire, and my only thought is to put distance between the cave and the sign, to leave a trail someone might cross. Every step is a fresh wave of nausea. The landscape is a blurry, swimming mess of orange and purple. I have no idea how far I’ve gone—maybe a hundred yards, maybe a mile.
Finally, my legs give out for the last time. I collapse onto my knees in the open sand, the impact jarring through my whole body. This is it. This is the spot.
With a shaking hand, I drag my finger through the sand, carving the symbols that have bound me and my sister together our whole lives.
J + J
4 EVER
Tears mix with the dust on my face. My movements are clumsy, my hand barely obeying. I add the last vital piece ofinformation: a crude arrow pointing back in the vague direction I came from.
H2O →
It’s done. My last duty.
The journey back is a new kind of hell. It's a crawl. An inch-by-inch agony, my mind set on that dark smudge of the cave entrance, the only promise of shelter in this entire gods-forsaken world. I follow my own pathetic trail back, my body a dead weight I have to haul.
By the time I pull my broken body over the threshold and back into the cave's cool shade, there is nothing left. The last of my adrenaline vanishes, leaving only the deep, throbbing pain and the suffocating heat of the fever. I collapse near the water, unable to move another inch.
Back in the cave, I press a hand to my forehead. It’s damp, even though my throat is so dry it aches. My stomach churns, the edges of my vision blurring as the fever overtakes me. My limbs feel heavy, my breaths shallow, and the world tilts, slipping in and out of focus.
Time…slows.
When something shifts at the entrance of the cave, the sound is so faint I could have imagined it. My head rolls as I lift it, my heart pounding weakly in my chest.
There’s a shadow there.
“Jus?”
But the shadow is too tall. Too broad. Motionless as carved stone.
