ELBINA 2

Chapter 14

"You guys! Get up, we need to start moving." I groan in response, he kicks at the tent. It's loud and annoying and I want to throw something at him.
Lucas grumbles behind me and that's when I feel him shuffling his body, turning himself so his front is against me now. He leans over and grabs my clothes for me, dragging them from the bag and sliding it so it rests partially over my face.
"I don't want to get up, I'm so tired." I angrily grab at the jeans, throwing them away from me. It hits the tent which is covered by condensation. I moan loudly when I pull the sleeping bag over my head, encasing myself in darkness.
"You and me both." He tries to pull it down but I'm stronger than his injured arm.
"Ella. Wake up."
"No." I moan.
He sits up and I curl into myself further, my tired limbs aching heavily from the previous days walking. Suddenly, the cover is off me. Thrown off and is ripped from my grip before I know it and I send a glare to Lucas who only smiles down at me. Raised eyebrow when he cocks his head slightly, black hair flopping over.
"Stop with the face." I grumble, his stupid puppy face gets me every time.
"Stop with yours." He counters back.
Eventually I let out a sigh, sitting up and grabbing my jeans. They're dry thankfully and I wiggle my way into them, hips raised high in the air as I struggle to do up the zip and the belt. I let out a strangled frustrated breath when I flop myself down on the ground again. Looking up at him as he zips up the sleeping bag so it's not just one large cover but it forms the single sleeping bag.
"How are you doing? You doing okay?" I didn't ask him before. It never felt like the right time to do it and I'm not sure if right now was either.
"No. But that doesn't matter now." I sit myself up, resting on my knees when I look at him. He's trying to roll up the sleeping bag now, but I can see him flinching occasionally from the exertion on his arm. I grab it from him, glancing at him when he just sighs, running a hand over his face.
"Of course it does." I say whilst I roll up the sleeping bag, shoving it into the bag and shutting it, attaching it to the bags. Grabbing at other things to put them in with Lucas helping. He doesn't speak for a while and I'm not sure he heard me.
"Like Fallen says, just gotta keep moving." My head shakes when I pull on my jacket now, Lucas is putting on his boots, tying them up as best he can.
"You can't pretend it didn't happen."
"And you think I am?" He pulls on his own jacket now. "Because I'm not, that's the problem Ella."
"You should never have seen it. I wish you were back home, safe." I rest my hands on his shoulders, pulling him closer to me. He looks at me weird, I don't know what it means.
"No." He says quietly when I try to bring him into a hug, shaking his head.
I wrap a hand around the back of his neck, turning his head to me as he avoids my eye contact as much as possible. I shift myself closer to him, to make him see me and to see him too. So I can see what he's thinking, so I can gage how bad he is.
it's as bad as it was before, cuts and bruises littering his face, swellings that still need time to go down and I look at every part of his face that I can. The bits that he allows me to see are awful, I'm not sure I even want to know how bad his stomach is. I imagine it's bad just by the way he walked and held it the entirety of yesterday.
It takes a couple more seconds until I manage to catch his eyes, the edges reddening the more we stare at each other and I can see him chewing his inner cheek. His mouth twitching slightly whilst he does, containing the emotions in his throat.
I move forward to try and bring him into a hug, flicking my eyes all over his face slowly, but he manages to place an arm between us, pushing me back away from him. My stomach churns uncomfortably when he does.
"Not now Ella. I can't –" He chokes out, pulling away and unable to look at my face anymore.
"I wasn't - " I tried to tell him I wasn't going to kiss him, even if it probably looked like I was. But I don't get a chance to say anything because he's dragged himself out of the tent away from me and I slump back onto my heels with the air knocked out of me.
Even if I wasn't going to kiss him, like he thought I was, it doesn't mean I like the rejection any more.
I felt stupid and embarrassed, sitting on my heels glancing out of the tent where he had disappeared through.
By the looks of his face, he was struggling, really struggling with what he witnessed.
And who wouldn't be? I'd be more worried if he wasn't completely messed up by it.
I ran a hand through my hair and after hearing muffled conversation from outside the tent, I decided that it was best to ignore that moment. Try and put it to the back of my mind.
It doesn't take long -  packing everything away - and by the time the sun is well up in the sky, we're walking away from the campsite and heading further west towards Penrith.
The day is murky, everything is still wet from the night's rain which hammered down the entire time. At least the temperature is mild, but it doesn't help moving along the way, the mud clings to my boots until it's so heavy, I feel like I'm carrying another person around with me.
"This mud is hell." I huffed, nearly falling over again from the heaviness of my boots.
"I second that!" Lucas speaks up from a couple of steps ahead of me. He talks to me as if this morning didn't happen at all. It makes me smile even if my knees ache at pulling the mud along with me.
Fallen doesn't say anything but I can see him nodding his head in agreement, the rain holds off and we follow the path along the edge of a river. It babbles and ripples beside us, the cliff face to our right as we walk. There is a growing noise coming from ahead of us and in my stomach I feel a churn of nerves, expecting it to be something dangerous.
But when the cliff curves off and we follow it, the roar is now connected to the waterfall in front of us.
"This is amazing." I can only just hear Lucas over the sound.
I smile, gawking at the sight. "It's definitely pretty, I've always loved waterfalls."
The thunder from the water hitting the rocks made it so we had to shout at each other. The path was just a series of worn down rocks that followed the cause of the river. As we turned the corner, the way rose up and that's when we saw the actual size of the waterfall. White torrents of water gushing through the space, spraying a mist up in the air that soaked my face with the freezing cold water.
I can feel my feet slide under me from the shiny surface of the rock when I edge closer to the side, staring in awe at the power of the cascading water.
It was violent and raging, roaring at us before simmering quietly at the bottom as it formed the river. Only the small fizzles of bubbles rising up and meeting the surface before quieting into small whirls of dark blue water. I follow Fallen and Lucas up the rocks, blinking my eyes against the spray and licking my lips to rid some of the liquid dripping down my face.
Fallen keeps looking back, staring off at the land behind me and I follow his stare. We're halfway up the hill, so I can see more clearly the curve of the river as it dips to the left, circling itself to hide behind the cliff face we had been following before.
The clouds above and leading further into the horizon are dark and threatening but nothing seems to come of it.
"We'll take a rest at the top." He shouts from up above and I turn to carry on walking. Glancing occasionally at the crashing waves to my left. I help Lucas up one of the steeper steps, his shoulder leaning heavy on mine to take the pressure of his calf.
And for some reason I decide now is the best moment to open my mouth, despite the fact that it could damage the traction I had made on improving our friendship from this morning.
"I wasn't going to kiss you." It comes out abrupt and awkward, he looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
"No?"
I shake my head. "I get that it's not right, not now anyway." I let him grab my hand, helping to pull him up another steep step. He doesn't say anything, so I continue anyway. "it's all too complicated for that sort of thing now, isn't it?"
"It's not that I don't want to." He clambers up the rock, looking back briefly at the bottom. I step back, releasing his hand and my fingers clenched into fists to fight off the numbness that seems to be forming in them.
"It's not?" I say.
He nods, looking down at me and I catch the water collecting on his eyelashes, a single drop falling and dropping onto his cheek. I fight the feeling to wipe it off with my thumb, instead turning to look at his face.
Under this light, his green eyes are weirdly ethereal and darker, I can't look away.
"No."
I stand there, shifting from foot to foot when he doesn't say anything more. I let out an awkward half chuckle. "Not going to elaborate on that?"
He shrugs his shoulders; a half smile deepens the dimple. "I'm not sure what else there is to say."
His skin is a little rough from the thick muck and stress, it's the same for me.
"I'm sorry though, if I made you feel uncomfortable." I mumble.
He shakes his head, stepping forward and resting a hand on my arm. I flick my eyes down to see it before turning up again to his stare.
"It didn't make me uncomfortable. I just - I agree, now just isn't a good time, we have enough going on. I think we need to concentrate on staying alive." His hand squeezes my arm partly and I break out in a grim smile.
"Exactly."
His own face molds into a grimace too, looking at every aspect of my face. For a minute I can't look away, a bubble of something settling in my stomach that I don't know what to do with.
I eventually manage to break the moment, turning to see Fallen climbing up the last of the rocks and disappearing at the top. I'm brought back to Lucas who clears his throat loudly which I only just hear over the grumble of the crashing water.
"You always said you wanted to see a waterfall." He points his head towards the thunderous spray and I chuckle in response to him.
"Silver linings." I wrap an arm around his waist, his arm around my shoulder bringing me into his side as a half hug.
We continue walking up and meet up with Fallen at the top. That's when we see the huge concrete dam that expands the entire of the hill ahead of us. The path meets up with a gravel road which passes over a small bridge going over the river, but we follow Fallen who walks to the right and follow the road up and around the concrete structure.
When we pass the last of the dam, we can see the expanse of the reservoir. The hills rolling around the blue water, perfect stillness without the wind to cause the rippling across the surface. Fallen is already walking down the pebbles and rocks to the edge of the reservoir, pulling off his bag from his shoulders as he reaches the edge. It grinds against the stones and I unclip my own straps, slipping it off of me and dropping it to the ground beside his.
"I need to go to the toilet." Lucas says.
Fallen turns to look at him, nodding as he rummages through his pocket. "Alright. Take this." He pulls out a whistle on a necklace and throws it to Lucas who catches it. Raising it before he turns around after dropping his bag and walking away from us.
Fallen and I slump to the floor, the water inches from our feet that all Fallen had to do is reach forward and wet his hands, wiping his face of some of the grime.
I sigh, resting my back against the bag behind me and shuffling my bottom to find the most comfortable position.
It's so unbelievably silent between us, my teeth chew on my inner cheek. I breathe in the cool air, glad to be off my feet for now. I kick off the mud stuck to the bottom and side of my boots, some of it melts into the water at the bottoms of my feet. And in the corner of my eye, I can see Fallen leaning back against his bag, closed eyes and resting.
"I'm really sorry Fallen."
He lets out a frustrated groan. "What did I say?"
"No! No... I'm not saying sorry for what I did, I'm not excusing that. I regret it but I don't believe I can take it back." I pause, turning my face slightly to him but he's not looking at me. He's looking out across the reservoir, at the dappling of rain on the water which didn't seem to be able to hold off any longer. "I'm sorry about Dan and Halley. They didn't deserve anything they got. No one does and certainly not them."
I look out at the reservoir again; the spits of rain have reached us now and I blink my eyes against one or two droplets hitting my face.
"I can see they meant a lot to you." I turn to my side, looking at his side profile and even from here I can see him straining his eyes.
I bring my knees up to my chest, curling my arms around them. "I just want to make sure you're doing okay?"
He picks up a stone from beside him, grating it on the other pebbles and stones to his right. "You want the truth?"
I stay quiet and I think he can see me nodding my head in the corner of his eye.
"I'm not. At all."
I take in a big breath, watching him carefully when he does the same.
"I did kill them. You were right." I shake my head,
"No. Fallen, I wasn't-" but he talks over me anyway, cutting me off with a harder scrape of the stones.
"If we hadn't gone to their house, they'd still be alive."
" That's not true-" He barely gives me time to speak, I have to rush through my words.
"I'm not stupid Elbina. I know we could have stayed out of Bale, figured out about the doctor another way... I went to their house because I needed to see them after all those years. I wasn't thinking about the consequences of doing that would be, I was selfish when I took us there, I just wanted to see them."
"But you didn't know they would have been killed." I half shout, trying to make him hear me and believe what I'm saying.
"I did! In the back of my head, I knew it was a big risk. That, that was a possibility. I ignored it, I put it to the back of my mind because I wanted to see them."
"You had hope. There's nothing wrong with that." I say.
Fallen turns his head to me, flared nostrils and blinking away the rain from his eyes. "Hope that things would have changed?"
"I guess."
He chokes out a laugh, shaking his head to the floor. "Then I'm going insane."
I hum, nudging him in the shoulder when I speak. He drops his head to mine. "You needed Dan and Halley to keep going, it gave us a moment to collect ourselves. No one's going to blame you for having a safety blanket, not even Dan and Halley."
"Yeah, well. Maybe I should have listened to you, none of it would have happened. They'd still be alive." He frowns at me and I drop my stare from him in shame.
I'm a horrible person.
"I don't expect you to forgive me, I get why you would hate me." I hug my legs tighter to my chest to ease off the pressure in my lungs.
He sighs after a while.
"I don't hate you Elbina. You're family, you're my sister."
I rest my chin on my knees, looking out at the water. "I thought family didn't matter? You hated our parents."
He shakes his head, "I hated what they did but I didn't hate them...Not a single bit." He clears his throat. "I loved them, they were my parents at the end of the day... I'd like to believe that they loved me back. Maybe they were just terrible at showing it? or just showed it in the wrong ways."
Fallen shifts, sucking in a loud breath. "Maybe everything they did, all the fighting and the mental games actually was to protect me? They knew what these people are like, so they knew what it would take to prepare me for it... Maybe in that sense they did love me too?"
I grit my teeth listening, digging the dirt out from under my nails.
"Or maybe they were exactly what I thought they were. A pair of heartless assholes that should have never had kids."
"I don't know, Fallen. I barely remember them in all honesty." I say quietly.
"That's good I suppose. It wasn't easy growing up with them and I'm glad you didn't. And after everything kicked off, there were times I was so lonely I forgot what my goal was, what I was holding on for."  He lets it sit, we listen to the water rippling at our feet and the sounds of the rain starting to fall around us whilst I mull it over.
"I waited a long time for you to come back." His head snaps to mine, eyeing me up.
"It's not like I had a choice, I would have kept you out of this if I could have... our parents made sure you were though."
"I know, what I'm saying is that amongst everything, there's that childhood nostalgia that's really happy you're finally back, that I wasn't forgotten I suppose."
"Forget you? You're far too irritating to forget Elbina... don't you worry about that."
He looks at me, a smile on his face and unsure what to do until he finally wraps an arm around my neck, pulling me into his side so I rock into him.
It's so odd but I chew my cheek against the weird emotion on my chest, letting him plant his lips on the top of my hat.
It's weird how I can be separated from him for so long and still now, after everything that has happened, still feel as if he were my brother.
"I'm sorry about how harsh I was on you last night." He mumbles against my head.
"I deserved it."
"Yeah, you did." I chuckle and so does he. It releases some of that tension from last night, even if it was only a little.
Suddenly, my stomach drops at the sound of the loud whistle, twisting painfully.
It's loud and long and haunting.
Lucas.
I spin around so quick I crick my neck hard only to see Lucas grinning at us with humour, hand holding the whistle in between his fingers.
"You asshole!" Fallen angrily shouts, throwing a small stone at Lucas who only dodges it laughing. Fallen breathes out hard in relief before laughing just by the look on Lucas' face who is full on snorting at both mine and Fallen's.
"Thin ice." I place my finger and thumb close together in signal to him as he walks over to us, still laughing. "Thin ice." I say, but he shakes his head with a smile.