The woods are quiet and I look over expecting Lir to still be sleeping. He’s not there. “Lir?” I call out, but there’s no response.

He left? I thought we’d gotten somewhere last night, at least a tentative truce, a mutual reliance on each other, but I guess not. One of these days I will learn my lesson about being kind to people who don’t deserve it. Hopefully it’s the same day I learn the lesson about how to figure out who does deserve it.

Stupid alien. No, stupid me for taking him at his word. I broke him out of jail and this is how he repays me? By ditching me when we’ve barely gotten started? My plan, crappy as it is, will not work without Lir’s help to get me into the city. I’ve got to find him. Unused to the forest and somewhat injured, he couldn’t have gotten very far.

I pull on my boots and I’m into the trees in minutes. I scan the area, looking for the signs of his passage. A broken branch points me in the right direction and it isn’t long before I find a footprint.

I creep through the woods, carefully placing my feet so not to disturb the quiet. I’m not good with people, but I know the woods and I know how to move through the forest in near silence. A few minutes later, I hear a curse and scramble up a tree to get a better view. About twenty feet from my perch is Lir sitting on a fallen log. His face is pale and sweaty. He runs his hands through his hair and stands up, turning in a circle and looking panicked. He curses again and kicks the log.

My hands catches my giggle, but not quickly enough. He freezes, moving only his eyes around, searching out the source of the noise.

“Jax?” He scans the area around him. “Is that you?” When I don’t respond, he starts walking in my direction. “Who’s out there?”

I wait until he is practically underneath me before dropping out of the tree and landing on the ground behind him. He spins around, his eyes wide.

“Where were you going, Lir?”

Redness floods his face. “I needed to relieve myself,” he says to his shoes. “I got lost.”

I want to believe him, but should I? “You must have snuck away awfully quietly.”

“I did not want to wake you.” He’s still talking to his shoes, but he looks up and smiles sheepishly at me.

Whether he’s telling the truth or not, he must realize now that I was right when I told him he’d need me, that he can’t make it back on his own. “I’m sure you would have eventually wandered around in a circle and found your way back,” I say

“I suppose so,” he says. “But thank you for finding me anyway.”

We head back to our makeshift campsite and pack up. Rather, Lir tries to just stuff everything back in the pack and I roll my eyes and end up packing for both of us. You can’t just shove stuff in. It has to be folded and fit together, otherwise it just won’t work. He offers to carry the satchel as well as his pack, but I refuse. I’m holding on to the map. Lack of survival skills or not, he might still have a sense of direction.

Once everything is put away and my knife is back in its hilt in my boot, we set off; me, gauging direction by the angle of the sun, and Lir following along behind me.

Hours and miles later, I’m wiping my forehead with the back of my hand. The sun is high in the sky and even in the shade of the woods, it’s hot. I pause, waiting for Lir to catch up. His pace has been steady, but he’s obviously not used to hiking. He’s only about ten feet behind me now, but the distance has gotten bigger as the day has gone on. He hasn’t complained, just kept walking even though I’ve made a point of sending branches zinging back to hit him and not warning him about spider webs. That’ll teach him to try and sneak off. Or maybe I’m just being mean. Then again, maybe I was wrong to distrust him this morning.

What do they do in that city anyway? Doesn’t look like exercising is on their agenda. Or maybe it has something to do with the malfunctioning cuff. “What exactly does it do?” I ask out loud.

“Huh?” Lir stops beside me. His breath is coming a bit faster than normal and his hair has curled up even more with sweat and humidity, making the green in it stick out even more.

“The kitu? What does it do?” I ask. Jace is always telling me that I need to work on my people skills, that people can’t always follow what I’m saying when I only verbalize half of what I’m thinking. It’s never bothered me. Why would it? The only person I see on a regular basis is Jace. I guess I’ve always taken for granted the fact that he almost always knows exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe it’s a twin thing.

Lir narrows his eyes and edges back slightly. “Why do you want to know?”

The sharpness of the words startles me until I realize he must think I’m trying to interrogate him or something. I shrug. “I don’t really know much about you guys and, well, I’m curious. Kind of an annoying trait of mine actually. If I hadn’t been so set on getting a glimpse of an alien, Jace wouldn’t have gotten taken.”

“Why are you so interested? Most humans…are not very fond of us.”

I snort. “That’s true. Humans resent you for coming to our planet and then ignoring us, not even offering to help with our problems. I’m sure you guys have problems of your own though.” I glance at him and he nods. “Most even blame you for the Collapse, but I don’t know how you could be to blame for something that happened decades before you arrived…I’m not most people though.”

Lir smiles. “I am beginning to see that.” He motions for me to follow him and sits down on a log. I perch next to him. He stares at me with his brow furrowed before starting to talk. “The kitu is mostly a communication device. It allows us to link to each other and interact, but it can also boost my strength, allow me to move faster for a brief period of time, enhance my vision…” He stops and then shrugs. “I am not sure how they work.”

“So they’re like a physiological crutch?” Lir tilts his head to the side and gives me a strange look. I continue to be sure I’ve gotten it right. “It must link into your bio-mechanical and chemical functions or something. Either you have specialized functions that have developed to help you control the link or somehow the cuff must link directly into your biology. Perhaps even altering your basic make-up to allow you to use it.”

“That sounds about right,” says Lir, both eyebrows up in surprise. “How do you know so much about biology?”

“My dad taught me. He was a scientist, you know… before.” I push back the wisps of hair that have escaped my braid and stand up.

“Your dad sounds like an intelligent man.”

“He was.” I look away and sigh before straightening my shoulders and changing the subject. “I don’t think we should try to travel too much farther today. It will be dark before long and I’d like to try to set a few snares,” I say, smiling. “Fresh rabbit is so much better than dried.”

Lir’s eyes sparkle when he returns my smile. “I’m sure you could make a great meal out of anything.”

After that, Lir keeps pace with me, though that might have more to do with me actually being nicer to him than anything else. I point out various features of the forest and explain some of my navigation methods. He seems particularly interested when I start going over the edible plants and how to find water. It gives me a small thrill to have him focused so intently on me and I end up smiling and joking more than I normally would. That worries me. Lir laughs more too. I like the sound and that downright terrifies me. I shouldn’t be getting attached. I shouldn’t be enjoying his company. Even so, the air feels clearer now, like we’ve moved past a simple truce and into some sort of friendship.

* * * * * * *

The night brings with it a drop in the temperature and a new sense of hopelessness to me. We huddle close to the small fire I built, a rabbit roasting on a stick across it. Every time the fire sizzles, my stomach rumbles. We ate only a little bread and some berries I found for lunch. The food I packed is already running low. I set five snares, but only caught one small rabbit. It will have to do.