Chapter Text
The drop to the cave floor looked to be about six feet, not quite leg breaking distance.
Hopefully.
In Nat’s eyes, it was better than freezing to death aboveground. Her and Travis had been out since dawn looking for Javi, just like they had every day since winter started. The plan: cover at least two miles, from the cabin to the peak of the lake, and make it back before sundown to map the new territory. What they hadn’t accounted for was a blizzard.
“You sure about this?” Travis muttered, kicking crumbs of snow down into the hole.
“What, not fancy enough for you? And here I was thinking you’d be a cheap date” she retorted.
He snorted behind her as she began lowering herself into the entrance. Even the small sound made her chest warm. It was rare that Travis smiled these days, especially around the other girls. Not since Doomcoming. Hell, it was rare that he even smiled around Nat.
Having slid forward as far as she could on her butt, Nat blew out a breath then let herself drop the rest of the distance, bracing for impact as she landed on the pine needle crusted ground. She looked up, Travis peering down towards her.
“All good?”
“Hope so. Pass me the gun?”
He handed down the shotgun by its strap. The thing had practically been collecting dust with how little game they’d seen recently. He dropped down next to her, a spray of limbs and snow flurries as he landed with a muffled thud.
“Graceful, Martinez.”
“Hey, not all of us weigh like 90 pounds.”
The comment drew Nat’s eyes to his face, how the dark circles under his eyes had begun to resemble her when she’d sleep with her makeup on and wake up with black smudges on the pillow. She was sure she didn’t look much better. There was a perpetual aching feeling in her bones, and her once toned muscles had deteriorated into skin and bones. She couldn't even bring herself to pretend that she didn't notice it anymore. How the girls looked at them with resentment every time they came back empty handed. Hell, she resented herself for letting everyone down.
Especially Travis.
The torn pants she'd stolen from Javi's suitcase were burning a hole in her pack. If the snow hadn't hit, she would've suggested they separate so she could carry out her plan. If she could just get it over with, then maybe she'd stop feeling so fucking guilty every time she heard Travis's voice break as he shouted Javi's name to the silent woods.
It's not that she didn't want to find Javi. Nat would've given anything, even her last ration, if it meant he'd come walking through that cabin door. But the snow kept piling higher, their hikes kept getting longer, and the only thing that was coming out of it was that Travis was going to work himself to death. She couldn't blame him. They needed to be realistic though.
Lottie's bullshit wasn't helping. Her and her false hope weren't going to conjure up Javi, and it sure as hell wouldn't help Travis see that their efforts were useless. That they were starving, and no amount of searching would bring Javi back. Nat had put this day off for weeks, and it looked like it was going to be even longer now.
As she let her eyes adjust to the dimness of the cave, she took in the scattered branches and debris. It was larger than it’d seemed from outside, spanning about 12 feet before there was a bend in the stone wall.
Something was off though. The sticks ahead of them were piled too uniform, with pine needles clustered on top and sunken in the middle. All those months of hunting had taught Nat to notice shit like this. It was a bed. And that could only mean one thing. Something was living down here.
She tapped Travis with the butt of the gun, gesturing deeper into the cave, which was obscured behind the bend. Silently they crept forward. Nat clicked the safety off the gun. Game would be huge right now. For all of them, Shauna and the baby especially. None of them had had a good meal in… in a while now.
Images of charred skin and smokey air flashed behind Nat’s eyes. She could barely think of that night without gagging, and had pushed the memories deep into her mind with the other things she couldn’t bear to think about.
Travis noticed her hesitate, raising his eyebrows in the darkness in a silent “Everything ok?”.
Nat nodded and kept moving forward, just like she always did.
Deeper into the cave, shit only got weirder. Stuff that had gone missing around the cabin was littered on the cave floor. The spare lantern, one of Travis’s flannels.
Who the fuck was making a secret camp?
They barely had enough supplies as it was, and Nat could barely stand to sit in the cabin one day longer and listen to the girls argue about who took whose stuff. It made no sense. Nobody was ever gone long enough to make it out to the cave, which was roughly two miles from the cabin. Nat eyed Travis next to her, trying to gauge his reaction.
As they rounded the corner there was a flurry of movement, but as Nat lifted the gun Travis grabbed her arm with a shout, and it took her eyes a moment to register why.
Even in the dark she could make out a figure hunched against the stone, hair ratty and matted, wrapped in a blanket that looked eerily similar to the one the girls had fought over losing weeks prior. A couple more seconds and the realization dawned on her, leaving her even more shocked.
Because it was Javi.