Through Glass: Episode Four Read Online Free PDF Page B

eyes to get rid of the
pain, and finally pulled myself away from the fire, moving toward
the dusty beds we would sleep on once Travis returned from his
bedding search. The tired springs of the mattress collapsed under
my weight as I sat, sinking me into the soft pad. Even though I had
cleaned off much of the dust, a small plume of it still erupted
around me, the tiny motes glistening in the firelight as they
became air born. I watched them fall for a moment, the tiny things
glistening like fireworks and fireflies. Things that didn’t exist
anymore. I listened to the crackle of the fire as it ate its way
through the wood, the sound loud and somehow relaxing.
    My body ached, throbbed and begged for
sleep as though it had been days instead of just hours since we had
run from Abran and his men; days instead of just hours that I had
run with the heavy backpack pounding against my spine. I could feel
the throb from the bruises I had received from the so-called trial
I had been forced to endure earlier, my back aching as they had
grown and swelled with each step. Part of me wanted to sleep so
that I didn’t have to feel the pain, but another part feared the
torrential ache I knew would come with the morning.
    I set the gun beside me and swung the
backpack off my shoulders, my hands feeling strangely stiff as I
reached for the zipper, my heart already thundering with the
knowledge of what I was reaching for.
    It had been so long since I had looked
at his picture, the image of the boy I knew so well had been taken
from me when I had been captured. I didn’t even know if it was
still in the backpack. Everything tightened in tense heartbreak as
I searched for his photo, part of me not wanting to see his smiling
face considering the new plan that Travis had come up
with.
    Not with the image of him turned into
something worse so fresh on my mind.
    “ Do you want Nintendo Power
or Princess Castle?” Travis’s voice pulled me from my search just
as my fingers rubbed against the soft rolled portrait Cohen had
painted of the two of us. His voice bounced awkwardly around the
large, open abyss, the abrupt arrival of his voice sending my heart
into a thunder, causing me to jump.
    The loud slaps of his shoes drowned
out the soft sounds of the fire as he came back to the small
campground we had made, obviously glad to be back. His hands were
full of what I recognized at once as two bedding sets, the kind
that had matching sheets and blankets in an assorted array of
trademarked characters. Sometimes they even had a duvet. I had
always begged my overly frugal mother for one of these as a child;
it seemed strangely ironic I would get one now.
    “ Nintendo Power,” I
answered, knowing it would piss him off—Travis had always loved his
video games.
    “ I’m not sleeping on pink
ruffles, Alexis.” He scowled at me as he spoke, the dark light in
his eyes so menacing that I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or
bordering on joking.
    Either way, something deep inside of
me had ignited, a shadow of older sister playfulness that I hadn’t
felt for years springing to life. As much as I knew I should
probably leave it, I really didn’t want to.
    “ Then why did you give me
the option?”
    “ I don’t know. Obviously I
was trying to be nice,” he grumbled.
    I gave him the biggest smile I could
muster and grabbed the plastic bag bearing the wide, cheesy grin
and perfectly coifed hair that the vapid princesses usually had,
the stiff plastic all but shattering under my rough
grip.
    Travis only rolled his eyes as he
moved toward the twin bed I sat next to, using the large, plastic
bag to scoop as much of the dust that lined the surface and throw
it to the ground.
    “ Just like old times,” he
said, and I couldn’t help hearing the rolling laugh in his
voice.
    The sound was a mixture of the
annoyance I had always been so good at pulling out of him, and a
joy that made my stomach spin, the same emotion running through
me.
    “ I guess,” I