We're looking across the river at Windsor. The Ambassador Bridge is buzzing with activity, but we don't get into the traffic. Instead, the three of us stand outside the van, waiting for the Tunnel Bus to arrive.
"Thanks," he replies. "I'm glad I could help you guys."
He pulls Hilde into a hug, and over his shoulder I see her face wrinkled and scrunched up in annoyance. I laugh, and Wade pulls away from Hilde to give me the same bear hug. When he pulls away, I lean up and kiss him on the cheek.
"Be safe getting home," I say.
"I will." The bus lumbers down the street near our parking space. "I believe that's your bus, Wan."
We take our seats. As the bus takes off, Hilde hands me a manila envelope filled with documents we printed at a public library. Wade waves at us as we leave, and I wave back. I try to conquer that aching feeling of loneliness as he shrinks in the distance. Hilde's right about the risks that come with letting Wade tag along, but I'll still miss the hell out of that guy. The bus pulls away from him and my life as Raven Wanda Dufort. I flip open the folder when the bus dips underneath the river and into the tunnels. In the low light, I can read them just fine.
As we exit the tunnel, I've read and reread my documents enough times to fully embody my new identity. The city of Windsor is a hell of a lot cleaner than Detroit, with all different kinds of people milling about at the checkpoint. We'll blend in just fine here, and that's if we stay near the cities, which I doubt Hilde's willing to do after my fuckup in LA.
"So," I ask Hilde as we depart from the bus, "where to now?"
Her answer doesn't come immediately. I follow her past troops of Canadian border police and into a rental car hut. There, she uses our money to buy us another station wagon. Before we leave, she picks up an atlas of the country and pays off the saleswoman to keep quiet about seeing us, the same as Youngstown.
We're on the four-oh-one soon, riding along Lake St. Clair, when Hilde hands me the atlas. The first line drawn is from Windsor to a puny town called Alder, about a thousand kilometers north. It'll take us the rest of the day to get there, but I think that's the point. We need to put as much distance between us and the States as possible.
We speed past fields of wind turbines and solar panels, past occasional thickets of pine trees. Stuck in traffic on these narrow country roads, Hilde starts to quiz me on my new identity.
"What's your name?"
"Taliya Higgins."
"Where are you from?"
"Montreal."
"What are you doing in Alder?"
"My grandmother and I are going back to my parents' First Nations."
"You don't live with your parents?"
"No, they're usually stationed at the border, so I live with my grandma in Montreal."
"What tribe are you from?"
"Chippewa."
"Your hair's rather light for a Chippewa."
"My mom's parents were from Germany."
Hilde runs over this with me for a few more klicks until I finally say, "I know the drill, alright?"
"Throw it away to me in a conversation," she replies sternly, "if you're so prepared."
"I'm Taliya, but you can call me Tali for short. I—"
"Don't add the 'for short' unless it's the end of a conversation or they ask," Hilde interrupts. "It's just like with the name 'Raven.' Nobody is going to assume you go by 'Ray' unless you tell them."
"Got it." I start over. "I'm Taliya. I'm from Montreal, but my parents have a place near my tribe's First Nations. My dad is Chippewa and my mom is German. I'm currently enrolled in an online tutorial program, so I can basically have school anywhere."
"You could just say you're homeschooled, you know."
"But that's so fucking lame, Hilde."
"It's a good cover."
I sigh and sink into the car seat, stretching my arms over my head until they touch the ceiling liner. "Alright. I'm Taliya Higgins and I'm homeschooled. Please come back to my house and look at my rock collection!"
Hilde actually chuckles at my joke. It's the first time I've heard her laugh in nearly a year. I can't help but laugh quietly. The smile on my face doesn't fade immediately like it used to.
"Okay, explain your education how you want," she says. "Just don't relate it to your prnocītā. Raven is dead, remember?"
"Um, yeah," I scoff. "Jeez, Hilde, that's pretty dark."
"You said it."
"I did?"
She glances at me. "Yes, when I found you the precinct."
"Oh."
We ride in silence. When the sun sets the cliffs alight with scarlet, I start to feel an uncomfortable tension against my leg. It digs from underneath my jeans into my skin, conjuring up memories of that night, not so long ago.
The comics I stole from the library when we went to print our documents, still tucked in the side of my pant leg. I pull the two volumes free as subtly as I can, watching Hilde through my peripheral vision. Her eyes are still glued to the road. The title on both reads The Walking Dead. Right when I start flipping through pages, Hilde asks, "Where'd you get that?"
"Uh," I say, "back at the library."
She bites the inside of her cheek, clenching her jaw tightly as she prepares to reprimand me.
"I didn't finish this comic and they had like twenty of them in stock," I reply. "People steal stuff from the library all the time. Besides, I got them past the sensors, no problem."
"You used your telekinesis in public?"
"No, TK doesn't even work on electronic devices. I'm not that stupid, Hilde."
"Then how did you get it out?"
"There's this little hum that those sensors make when they're reading info between one another. It's pretty obvious what you're listening to when you focus. When I used that lateral repulsion thing from my Terric, it just went out. Walked right through."
Hilde cocks a thin eyebrow at me. "Not bad," she says, turning back to the road. "But still, you can't steal from places we're leaving. What's the rule we have about taking stuff?"
"We never leave a paper trail," I sigh. "I know, I just knew we probably weren't going to be seeing any people for a while, so..."
I trail off, knowing that my excuses are falling on cold, deaf, crystalline ears, far too stubborn to listen to what they've already decided is bullshit.
"You want something to entertain you?" Hilde finally asks.
"I don't want war to be my only way of life," I reply.
"Have you tried writing?"
I snort at the idea. Wade used to write really crappy poetry in the sand about surfing. He thought that keeping ideas saved up was the most toxic way of living, that putting them into the world and letting it wash away, join a greater whole, was so much more liberating.
What a dumbass.
"It's something to think about, at least," Hilde suggests. "A decade from now, after we've won this war and are preparing to return home, it would be good to have chronicled what we went through. You could be that chronicler."
"I thought I was supposed to be the One who protected the Eight." I suck my teeth when Hilde takes a deep, frustrated breath. "I'll think about it."
We ride across a bridge to merge from the 400 to Highway 637. Cliffs stand tall on either side of us, topped with massive pine trees. At this time of night, we're the only car on the road. Posts and ropes replace the cliffs the farther west we go, their intent to keep local wildlife away from the road. For good reason, too. With my enhanced sight, every now and then I'll see the hunting flight of an owl or the twisted crown of a stag running alongside us as we drive by.
Hilde pulls off the road just before it slopes uphill, into the mountains. Dense pines surround us on all sides. The dirt road before us is so abyssal that even the high beams fail to penetrate far down the path. Then, squat between a vast lake and the shadow of a mountain, sits a mailbox that reads in faded lettering: 27 MAKWA RD NORTH.
"There it is," Hilde says, pulling into the icy driveway. "Alder is ten klicks east of here."
Hilde takes the key out of the ignition. Without the heat and the hum of the engine, it's dead silent.
Silent and cold.
"You ready?"
I breathe out, a thick cloud materializing before me. "It's fucking cold, but yeah."
After nearly eight hours of driving, we finally step outside. My legs stretch for the first time since Windsor, my shoes cracking the thin ice that coats the drive. I stop, taken aback by the scenery around me. The house is one story high, modern build. Half of the façade is glass, fenced in with wooden boards that encircle the whole rectangular structure. The roof is flat, probably concrete or steel like the rest of it. Out here, in the middle of a snowy field, this kind of house is out of place, like some sort of pod dropped out of a spaceship and landed here.
"What made you pick this place?" I ask. "It's not really our style."
"We haven't been this deep in the wilderness since we first arrived on Earth, so we'd still want some comforts of civilization," she replies. "That, and I figured a ranch wouldn't do us much good up here."
Trees sprout from around the house, congregating near the base of the mountain and the shoreline. Above the infinite constellations, an aurora dances and whirls in the upper atmosphere. Between the frigid temperature, the steam rolling off the car, and the mountains rising around us, this night is eerily familiar. It's much colder than that night—everything was green back then—but I vaguely remember the mist flowing across the grass and the ozone from the storm.
A storm of our own creation.
"Did we land near here?" I ask Hilde as she tosses her bag over her shoulder. "Because it looks—"
"We'll talk about it later," she replies, slamming the car door. I notice my door is still open. "You forgot your bag and your comics."
"Shit," I mutter, jogging over to collect my things. "My bad."
I close the door and rush into the house. Hilde has turned on most of the lights, revealing a quaint interior. Gaudy furniture is scattered in the living room atop coal-colored shag carpeting that covers the whole floor of the house. A couch sits in front of the massive front window, overlooking the fenced-in yard and the lake beyond.
"Already called this room," Hilde says, leaning in the doorway to the room she's chosen. I notice there are no windows in it. She points to the closed door across from hers. "That one's all yours."
Unlike Hilde's this room is similar to the front of the house. A normal-sized window looks out at the mountains running along our road. A small bed rests in the corner beneath the window, a desk at the foot. Near the door sits a silver wooden dresser. The idea of sleeping in a bed, after so many days of brief, uncomfortable carnaps, is the sexiest thing running through my head. But, knowing how Hilde is, I stay standing and unpack all my shit on the desk.
I didn't pack much; just random essentials Hilde tells me I need to keep on me at all times.
Weeks' worth dried fruit and nuts.
An extra pair of clothes and undergarments.
Floss.
Handheld GPS.
Raincoat.
Space blanket.
Switchblade.
Pencils and a spiral-bound notebook.
I put the clothes, raincoat, and blanket into the drawers. Everything else remains on the desk, arranged in order by need around the lamp. I set the unfinished comics next to my pillow, hoping to finish them when we're done setting this place up.
"We'll go into Alder tomorrow to get some more necessities," Hilde calls from her room. "You all set?"
"Yeah," I say, entering the space she's set up for herself. Her room is designed identical to mine, but devoid of windows. Since we traveled light, the only equipment we brought with us is Hilde's netbook and the Loric Chest, which currently rests at the foot of her bed, underneath the desk and the netbook resting atop it. "Now what?"
"Take a seat." She points at the bed. "We'll change the kelp, then you're good for the night."
"Seriously?"
"It's been a long fifty-four hours. You've earned a little rest."
I sit down on the bed, rolling up my jeans and the sleeves of my jacket. Hilde kneels in front of me and begins to unwrap the kelp. It's darker than it was before, almost black against my ocher-colored skin, yet somehow transparent. The kelp hisses as Hilde peels it from my flesh, generating an odd sensation in my veins that flows up past my shoulders, down past my brain and into my spine.
When Hilde's done removing the used kelp, she stores it in the plastic bag with the rest of the used strips. The reapplication seems to reverse the effects of the removal. That smoky scent fades, as does the rapid fluidity in my veins. It's like a flip switches somewhere in my body, my wakefulness overcome by an intense fit of lethargy.
"Thanks, Hilde," I murmur. I try to stand but end up crashing back down on her mattress.
"We go to Alder at daybreak," she replies sternly. "Get some rest, because after tomorrow, we're back to training."
"Got it."
"I'm serious, Tali," she says, though her voice is echoic and distant in my ears. "No more skipping, no more fights or conflict with humans. From now on..."
I try to stay awake and listen to her, but my eyelids fall shut, too heavy to remain open.