When I see Eli again, it feels like a dream. Like something my mind would fabricate, only for it to poof away in a blink of an eye. So I don’t blink because I want to pretend a little longer.

I watch with strange apathy as this dream version of Eli shouts my name. He pulls down his scarf and lifts his goggles. The sheer, unbridled desperation in his eyes sends a chill down my spine. He looks around the prison bars and gives them a hardy shake. Then attacks the rest of the room, tossing anything not nailed down, searching for something. He races out of the room and I hold my breath. One moment passes and then another, and I blink. He’s still gone. My vision blurs. Why must my mind be so cruel? It could have kept him around a little longer this time.

I blink again. Eli steps back through the door with a giant sledgehammer in hand. He’s back? My body starts to tremble. I’m scared to say his name, to acknowledge him in that way because if I let myself hope just one more time, I think it will be the death of me. Whatever fight I have left will disappear and I’ll give in to the darkness, close my eyes, and surrender to the cold claws that are ever trying to surround me.

The sledgehammer hits the bars of my prison window.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

The bars bend a little more with every powerful whack and the frame around it shivers. When he has sufficiently punished the metal the frame loosens and Eli rips it away. He climbs through, rushing over to me. His hot hands flutter from my shoulders to my neck, and now they cup my face. He’s saying something but I just stare. Never have my hallucinations felt like this—felt so real.

I blink once. Then twice. He is still here. I feel wetness streaming down my cheeks before I realize my body is reaching for him. My hands quiver but when my fingers touch his skin, something inside me breaks.

He is real. This is real.

“Eli?”

He pulls me into him and I cling like a leaf amid a hurricane. A few sobs escape my throat as I melt into his chest. His body is hard but warm and real.

I’m not sure how long we stay that way, but then his arms shift and I feel the whoosh of air as I float over the floor in his arms. Past the bent bars and down the long hallway. Exhaustion pulls at my eyelids, but I resist, clenching the collar of his shirt. If I fall asleep now, who’s to say I won’t wake up trapped back in that cell? This all feels too good to be real.

I listen to Eli’s heartbeat. It is deep and strong and constant, lulling me into a quiet place. Time jumps forward, or maybe I pass out, but the next thing I know, he is setting me down beside a campfire. I am glad for its warmth because I feel so cold. Cold in my bones. But then he stands to go and a sudden fear takes hold of my mind. He cannot go. I grip his shirt tighter.

“No,” is all I can manage. My voice is barely above a whisper.

“I know, I’m sorry. I’ll be right here, okay?” He carefully pries my fingers away.

I see the panic in his eyes. Hear it in his voice. He rips through the packs on the horses holding all our stuff, tossing things everywhere until he finds a black kettle. He stokes the fire and adds more wood, setting the kettle with water over it. He takes a bird, a duck by the looks of it, and cleans it. Then the whole thing goes into the boiling water.

Strangely, I am not hungry. I know I should be. I should be starving. Maybe I am. But I think my body gave up. I stopped waking up in the middle of the night, but I don’t sleep either. My mind exists somewhere in between. I close my eyes, but when I do, Eli is there beside me, shaking me awake.

He is scared. Maybe he thinks I’ll fall asleep and not wake up. Maybe I should be scared too, but I’m not. Not anymore, because he’s here. He kneels beside me and I feel an arm prop me up from behind. Warm liquid invades my mouth and I cough, spluttering it everywhere.

“Drink, please, Natasha.”

I do. The warm broth goes down smoothly. But I only get a few small mouthfuls before he pulls away. It’s been so long since I’ve tasted food. Or tasted anything for that matter besides my dusty tongue against the roof of my mouth. I reach for more but Eli puts the bowl out of reach.

“Not too much. We need to take it slow.”

His eyes hold fear. What is he scared of? I don’t know, but I can hardly fight him, so I close my eyes instead. My insides grow warmer like they are waking up from a long slumber. I can still taste the broth on my tongue and it tastes like a dream.

Stolen novel; please report.

I find Eli’s hand and hold it tight as he sits beside where I lie. He is here. The exhaustion from long-awaited peace catches up with me and my mind drifts into sweet oblivion.

When I wake, Eli is still beside me. His hand around mine. I want to cry. It’s not my imagination playing tricks. He is here and I am with him. He gives me more broth, but again just enough to whet my appetite. My mind is clearer now; the continual fog is lifting. I have energy, even if sitting up leaves me breathless.

After a few days, I graduate from broth to soup with actual pieces of meat in it. The fatty duck is delicious and I want more. My hunger returned full force and nothing will satiate it, but Eli still limits me to the smallest of portions.

Days pass and I begin to feel the grime covering me. It’s been so long since I’ve bathed and I want to get clean. I need to. I pretend to sleep, waiting until Eli disappears to go hunt. He is never gone long so I must be quick.

It shocks me how difficult it is to simply stand. I have to use the tree at my back to pull myself up and even then I feel like I ran a marathon. The stream is twenty feet away. I should be able to handle that. But as I reach it I collapse to the forest floor and sit there for a bit catching my breath. This might be harder than I thought.

I lean over the water, reaching out to splash my face but stop to stare in horror at the alien in the reflection. This isn’t me. It can’t be. It is thin and gaunt. Sunken eyes, skinny neck, and a chest where I can count every one of my ribs. My shirt hangs loosely like skin off a rotting carcass. For the first time, I see my hands. Really see them. They look like skeletons and my elbows jut out like daggers. There is no substance, no muscle, nothing but bone and skin.

So this is why Eli was so scared. I would be too. I am now. Drops of liquid fall, rippling the reflection. Tears. They escape on their own. I think they are more from shock than sadness. And maybe disgust. This can’t be me.

The sound of thumping feet makes me turn. Eli bursts through the brush. When his eyes settle on me, I see relief. He comes over and we sit together in silence.

“I almost died, didn’t I?”

Something about speaking the words out loud breaks me. A sob escapes and then another. Eli is here. Close. His arms wrap around my frame and his shirt grows damp beneath my cheek. He says nothing and for once, I’m grateful for his silence.

After exhausting what energy I have left Eli carries me back to camp, setting me down on the pile of pelts that have become my home these last several days.

He moves to leave but I grab the tail of his shirt. “Don’t go.”

His brows shoot up in surprise but he promptly settles down beside me without a word. I lean against him, letting my head rest on his chest, and close my eyes to the sound of his heartbeat. His warm breath feathers down my neck as he places a gentle arm around my shoulders, running his thumb lightly up and down.

“I need to ask you something,” I say.

His heartbeat speeds up beneath my ear. The steady rise and fall of his chest grows shallow. He is scared of something. So am I. But I want to stop running. The fear that once felt all-consuming is muted. Distant. And now I want to face it.

“I need to know. Did you kill a man named Ivan? Did you—”

My voice wavers, betraying me. A ball of emotion wedged into my throat, cutting off my ability to swallow. He pulls away, hands on my shoulders as his round eyes meet mine in disbelief.

“You thought…all this time, that’s what you’ve been thinking?”

I just look at him in a silent reply.

“No.” His brows arch up, pinching together in the middle. “No, it is nothing like that. I knew a man named Ivan once, but last I saw of him, he was alive and well.” His thumbs wipe the wetness away from my cheeks. “Things went very badly and it is a time in my life I try hard to forget.”

Alive. Ivan is alive. Or at least, he still could be. He is as alive as he was before all this started. Relief floods me like the sight of land to a castaway. I could laugh if I had the strength.

But Eli’s eyes never leave me. His face is pale. His hands—clammy and cold.

“Are you going to ask me about him?” he asks.

His fear remains, not budging an inch. I can see it clear as day. And somewhere, regret.

“No.”

Keep your secrets Eli. I’ll wait until you’re ready. The man you knew could very well have been my brother or he could be someone else entirely. Ivan is not too obscure a name after all. The chances of them being the same person is actually quite slim. I can see that now. And even if the man you knew was my brother, it changes nothing. I will still find Ivan, my Ivan.

I rest my head back on his chest and close my eyes. “But I would like to hear about your sister. That is, if you want to share.”

“My sister?” He glances down at me, brows raised in surprise before looking back up. “Of course.”

She sounds like a wonder the way Eli describes her. Kind, smart, funny and eternally patient. With their parents often gone and over a ten year gap between them, she often acted as a second mother. I can tell he looked up to her and still does in many ways. Memories of those we love only dim if we let them. I can tell his sister still shines brightly in his mind.

Eli’s hands move as he talks, his voice rising and falling then speeding up at times as he reminisces of the past. He always seemed so quiet. So solemn. But right now all I hear is a little kid excited to share something precious.

“I wish I could thank her,” I whisper between sleepy breaths. “I would tell her she did a wonderful job as your sister.”

Exhaustion unwinds the edges of my mind and I feel myself begin to drift off just as something soft presses against the top of my head. Soft like a kiss.