Dreamscape: Saving Alex (27 page)

When he did slow, allowing me to catch up, I
barely recognized him. Dark circles dominated his face, and he could barely
keep his eyes open.

“Arrow, you need sleep. We should stop,” I said,
looking around at the overgrown forest around us.

“No, we can’t stop. I can sleep while we ride. I
just wanted to make sure you knew the way before I dozed off. The horses should
guide us straight along the path, but if they stray, just bring them back. We
take this path to the base of the mountain. You can wake me there.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

“Come here.” He pulled his horse next to mine and
kissed my forehead. “Stop worrying. This is the easy part of our journey.”

With that, he closed his eyes and slumped forward
in his saddle.

I rode beside him, watching the tightness around
his eyes disappear.

I settled back into the saddle and kept a safe
distance behind his horse as it led us along the trail. We moved at a slower
pace, but that didn’t bother me. The rhythm of the chirping birds guided our
steps. The synchronicity of it all put me at ease. Maybe this was what Arrow
had meant about the joy of adventure.

All my doubts
couldn’t be erased though, and in the back of my mind, I worried about more
than the battle ahead.
I had given myself to this cause and to Arrow’s
people willingly, but
the more invested I
became, the more painful the end would be. I looked over at Arrow’s peaceful
face and sighed. Complications that I’d never imagined clamped my heart.

As the hours stretched out, the forest slowly
changed. The dark green leaves lightened with sprinkles of snow, and its dense
foliage opened to meadows and flatlands as we approached the mountains. Sharp
crags replaced the lush vegetation, and the dusty trail choked out the few
wildflowers that had tried to bloom.

“Whoa.” I slowed my horse and tightened my
ponytail. The trail ended, but when I looked over at Arrow, he still slept. The
horses stopped at the junction, sniffing the ground for the sparse remains of
withered grass. A twisted tree marked the intersection, and weathered signs
hung haphazardly from the gnarled limbs. Faded paint identified a dozen
forgotten paths. I didn’t recognize any of the names.

“Arrow,” I said, shaking his leg. “We’re here.”

“Hmmm,” he mumbled, opening his eyes.

I smiled and poked his leg. “We’re here.”

“Already?” He sat up and looked around, disoriented.

“Well, you’ve been asleep for more than a few
hours. Which way do we go, left or right?” I reached into my bag and threw him
a roll.

He caught it with a smile. “We go straight.”

“You want us to go through there?” I asked,
nodding at the darkened canyon nestled between the two towering mountains.

“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to take the
shortcut.” He smirked, taking a bite of the roll.

“To the castle, not to my death,” I said, feeling
the oppression of the dark canyon settle over me.

The sinuous path up the mountain gave way to a
steep and treacherous route. Sharp drop-offs edged the sides of the trail, if
you could even call it a trail. Slippery roots entangled our steps as trees
crept closer, shrinking the path to a single-file road.

Arrow led the way, pulling his horse up and over
the spindly roots. As the trees crowded together, the ground turned into a web
of roots, each limb knotting around the other. My gaze didn’t leave the ground,
afraid of the inevitable slip ready to send me over the edge. There were
countless ways to die in Lockhorn, and I feared my own clumsiness topped the
list.

“I’m not so sure about this anymore,” I said, my
voice quivering as my grip tightened around the reins.

He took one look at my pale face and white
knuckles and slowed his gait. “As long as we stay on the trail and are careful,
we should make it through the mountains and Shadow Alley without a problem.”

“Shadow Alley?” The name sent shivers down my
spine.

“There are reasons people don’t take this path,
Alex, and it has nothing to do with how steep the trail is. This is just a
small part of what we’re going to face. Shadow Alley is a place I didn’t want
to show you. Almost nothing is, from this point on.”

I nodded and bit my lip. I had to suck it up.
Arrow had chosen this path at my insistence, and I had to accept these
unknowns. No matter how much they made my skin prickle.

I kicked my horse
and followed him up the steep trail. The wool cloak barely kept the
cold
out, and my breath mixed with the fog, clouding my
vision as we went higher. Icicles broke when I hugged the interior side of the
trail. Crystal daggers clung to the ragged edges of the cliffs.

Then we breached
the fog barrier and stepped out into sunlight.

“How is this
possible?” I gasped. The air shimmered, birds flittered around us, and trees
swayed gently in the breeze.

“
Anything
is possible when you rise above the storm.”

“But this—”

“I
s spectacular.”

“I thought you said
there wouldn’t be anything beautiful up here.” I swiveled from side to side,
taking in every angle of the panorama.

“I said almost.
Nothing is ever complete darkness. Beauty always finds a way through. Sometimes
when you least expect it.” He dismounted and walked to my side, patiently
waiting as I unhooked my legs from the saddle and tethers.

I nodded, unable to
find any words to adequately express what I felt. Beautiful seemed too small a
word to capture the grandeur around us.

Streams of sunlight
broke through the clouds, casting their rays on the falling flakes at a perfect
angle to make each piece glitter. Gusts of wind altered the snow’s slow
descent, making it swirl until it coated the trees. A weighed-down branch
tipped over, dropping the snow in a cluster and snapping back into position.

Stretching my hand
out, I ached to catch the snowflakes. The frosted crystals landed, hesitating a
moment before melting. Another snowflake collected on my hand and then another,
until my hands burned red and a pile of snow built up along my cloaked arm.

Arrow watched, amused,
as I stuck out my tongue on impulse. “Are you done playing?”

“Never,” I said,
leaning my head back, feeling the cold prickles of snow speckle my face.

“I don’t know what
to do with you.” He shook his head, hiding under his cloak.

“That’s part of the
adventure, right?” I winked and went back to catching snow.

He took that
opportunity to let the horses rest, and once I had caught enough flakes to
satisfy me, we watched the snow fall to the ground in silence. Unlike the
silence I had subjected my mom to for the past month, this was pleasant,
like
the world didn’t want to breathe and break the
beauty
. It was a comfortable moment where speech came second
to experience. Those didn’t occur often, but the longer I was with Arrow, the
more of them I seemed to have.

“I could stay here
forever.” I reached for one of the icicles dangling off the branch above us and
missed, pulling a branch and a puff of snow
down
on top of me.

“It’s tempting. You
still need to be careful though. They’re
beautiful
but dangerous.” He pulled me to his chest and out of
the way as a bigger branch gave way beneath the weight of the snow. Ice chunks
sprayed outward, and glassy shards dropped where I had stood.

“How did you
know
it was going to fall?” I asked, liking the way his
arm wound around my waist.

“I’ve become
pretty
familiar with things that are both
beautiful
and dangerous.” His heart sped up beneath my palm.

“That’s a good
thing,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder.

We didn’t talk. We
no longer needed to, content to marvel at the falling snow as we walked. The
silence echoed around us, only broken by the soft shuffling of the horses and
our own feet.

Being this close
felt right, and I was tired of hiding behind the excuse that I was afraid. I
couldn’t deny the feelings surging through my body.
Every inch of me trembled at the thoughts running
through my head. Thoughts I had never had. Never felt. Was this what love was
supposed to be like? Anything I’d felt before seemed small, insignificant,
almost laughable in comparison.

I bit my lip, looking at him. How would I even
begin? I had been afraid for too long. I thought about my regrets, moments in
the past when I hadn’t acted. If I had simply talked to my parents, the anxiety
of moving might have been calmed, or if I had really listened to Brian, maybe I
would have realized long before that I deserved better. Apprehension and
anticipation clawed for a way out.

“Arrow,” I said,
surprised my voice was strong. Quiet, but steady.

“Yes?”

“I, u
h
, I
think
I’m
falling—”

“I’m falling too.”
He tilted my chin up. The look in his eyes twisted my insides. He leaned
forward to meet me, and I closed my eyes.

A loud crack
sounded, jolting my eyes open. The ground shifted beneath me, and then smaller
cracks popped in sequence, like dominoes falling, each movement propelling the
next.

“Oh crap. Arrow,
I’m falling!”

The ground between
us gave way. My fingers slipped through Arrow’s, catching the edges of the
falling icicles. I hit the ground with a thud, pressing into the soft ledge of
snow below. Ice crystals scratched my hands, digging into me as they reflected
the light into rainbows.
Beautiful
,
dangerous, painful.

I pulled the ice
shards from my hands, thankful that I’d missed the large chunks glistening by
my head. Arrow looked
down
at me, his forehead
scrunched up as he leaned over the edge.

“I’m fine,” I
yelled before he could ask.

My hands burned
bright red as I clambered up the soft ledge. I tucked them under the cuffs of
my sleeve and warmed them with my breath. The climb back up the trail went
slowly as I tested each step, cringing as the snow crunched beneath my weight.

Thundering echoes
shook the icicles clutching the cliffs. I closed my eyes and hugged the
interior wall. When I opened them, I saw Arrow’s leather boots, darkened from
the saturating snow, and his outstretched hand.

“Are you hurt?” he
asked, looking me up and
down
. “You have
to stop scaring me
like
that. I can’t
lose you.”

I nodded, not
trusting my voice.

We stood an inch apart, my eyes searching his
face. “Arrow, I…”

“Me too,” he said, leaning towards me.

The heat from his hands warmed my back,
possessively pulling me closer. A fleeting shudder rippled through me as the
snow melted under my shirt, lost under the heat of Arrow’s embrace. My fingers
wound around his hair, pulling him closer. I eagerly kissed him, letting
everything around me disappear.

He pulled away slowly, tracing the outline of my
jaw. My lips parted in anticipation. When nothing happened, I opened my eyes
and saw the sadness in his.
The
haunted
look
on his face chiseled away at my heart. He pulled his hand away and dropped his
gaze to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” he
whispered. “I was wrong. We can’t do this.”

“What is it?” I asked, alarmed. “What did I do?”

“It’s nothing that you did. But I can feel it now.
It’s different than before. You believe, don’t you?”

“Believe what, about all of this? Yes! Yes, I do.
What’s wrong with that?” I asked, reaching out for him.

“Because seeing you fall like that, I finally
realized that I’m going to lose you. Whatever I want, whatever you want, it
can’t happen. It’s like you said before, none of this is real.” He avoided my
hand and turned to walk back up the trail.

“No, no, no,” I said, following him, twisting him
around. “You can’t just walk away from me like that and say this is done. I
don’t understand why we can’t be together.”

“Because this isn’t real,” he said.

“Yes it is!”

“Maybe what we feel now, but there’s no future in
it, in us. You don’t belong here.”

“But what about that kiss?” I asked. “You can’t
tell me you don’t feel it or that everything you’ve said isn’t true.”

“It can’t be,” he said.

I turned away and clenched my jaw before tears
could fall and stared at the ground where he had thrown my heart. I swallowed
hard, releasing my tears, and turned to face him.

His hair fell over his eyes, covering but not
hiding his obvious longing. The hollowness of his words echoed in my head. They
were nothing more than a preventative bandage. And even though I knew my heart
would shatter when it ended, not letting it happen at all would be more
painful.

I stepped forward and took his hand. He met my
gaze, confused.

“But we can’t,” he said.

I covered his lips with my fingers. “I don’t want
to lose this chance.”

“But we have no future,” he said. I saw the fight
in him dwindling.

I felt his hesitation and conflicting emotions. In
my mind, Melody’s warnings against hurting him echoed. “I know, but I love
you.” I whispered.

He gave in, cupping my face in his hands. “All
right, Alex,” he whispered. “I don’t need a future. I want now.”

“Now,” I said, leaving no room for protest. I rose
onto my tiptoes and hooked my hand around his neck, pulling him close.

He met my kiss with his own, pressing me against
the mountain wall. Snow melted behind me, but I hardly noticed anything except
his cold fingers holding me close, keeping my legs from giving way beneath me.