Jason stared at the weeds and gravel zooming past his feet. The shadows of trees flickered in and out of sight like ghosts. The roaring wind slammed against his ear. Rachel, sitting beside him at the mouth of the car, tied her flailing hair back. "Are you sure about this?" she asked for the fifth time in as many minutes.

A sick feeling built in his stomach, and he swallowed it down. Rather than waste words answering her again, he just nodded.

"The curve's coming up," she said.

He nodded again, not sure he trusted himself to swing his head to look. His fingers were white against the edge of the car, and he forced them to ease up. If he got dizzy again, or dared to look half as nervous as he felt, Rachel might call the whole thing off.

And then he would be meeting Adrian Foster in Fort Smith after all.

He took the burner phone out of his pocket and slid it behind him. It would ride the train in their place. "Ready when you are," he promised.

"You better be," she muttered. She wasn't looking at him anymore, too busy peering down the track. Jason relaxed a bit out from under the weight of her worried eyes.

We can do this, he told himself. It's my arm that's messed up, after all. Not my legs. We've got this.

The train started slowing to take the bend. Rachel slid to the edge of the opening and hooked her arm around the inside. Then she offered him her other arm. He grabbed hold tight with his good hand, and she clamped even tighter with hers. "Don't be stupid," she hissed, their forearms locked together. "Okay?"

Her grey eyes shone like the air just before a storm. Forgotten strands of her hair lashed around her face. "Yes, ma'am," he said softly.

Her throat bobbed. Her gaze flicked past him. "Here we go."

He nodded at her. "Do it."

Her foot shoved against the small of his back, shoving him off his seat on the train. For a moment, he was weightless, suspended in the cool spring air. Then momentum yanked him back, gravity tugged him down, and his feet skidded the ground. The impact jarred up his legs, but Rachel's grip strained against his arm. It provided a counterbalance, giving him time to get his feet underneath him. The train rattled and shook, and his legs pumped, trying to match its speed. He stumbled, and she tugged up, helping him regain his footing. Faster, faster, faster he ran, heart hammering, stomach sick, head spinning. Tugged along by the train, he ran faster than he'd run through the forest the night his mother was shot, faster than he'd ever run in training. His feet flew as he skidded and stumbled alongside until they flew fast enough he caught the rhythm and shouted up to Rachel.

"Let go!"

She did, and his legs worked like an engine, gravel flying behind him as he worked off the momentum. The train roared beside him. Pain flared like his breaths and heartbeats, and he ignored them all, sprinting, running, jogging—

The world shook and tilted in a wave of vertigo. The ground rushed up to meet him. On instinct, he tucked into a roll. The train roared beside him, and he threw himself away from it. He spun heels over shoulders, coming to a hard stop on his back, on his arm. His mouth opened in a soundless scream, no air to feed it.

Heat, pulsing, fiery, everything, raged through him. His lungs shuddered back to life but almost couldn't work for the pain. The blue sky, fluttering with green leaves and wispy clouds, took on a dark haze.

"Jason?" Rachel called. "Jason!"

Jason wheezed, and the black and blue warred for space in his vision. They kaleidoscoped, and he fought against the dark. When he finally managed to push a bit of it away, Rachel's face swam above his. Her hand flitted across his cheek, brushed back against his bangs.

"Hey," he groaned.

"Shut up," she said, voice tight.

He squinted at her, and the black retreated a bit as he focused. Her cheeks were wet. Her hair was falling down.

His breath was raspy in his throat, shaky, his lungs fighting though the waves of pain for a chance to breathe. "I'm okay," he assured her.

"You're a freaking liar." Her voice bubbled like the edge of a laugh.

He pulled his lips back tightly—a smile, to reassure her. "You got any of that pain med?"

And then he passed out.

Jason's tight grimace faded to slack sleep like someone had reached inside his brain and flipped the switch off. "What did I let you talk me into?" Rachel muttered, swiping away trails on her cheeks.

In all honesty, it had gone better than it could have. He hadn't cracked his head open; he hadn't gotten pulled beneath the wheels of the train. The only visible wear on him was a half dozen scrapes: forehead, knuckles, even his knees through his jeans.

He'd kept up with the train better than she'd hoped really, and dismounting a moving vehicle turned out to be a lot harder than it looked. As she'd done it, the train had been speeding up to get out of the curve, and she'd about lost her grip. By the time she'd jogged off her momentum, Jason had been hidden among the rocks and weeds. Her heart was still hammering from her race to find him.

"I told you not to do anything stupid," she muttered as she dug through their backpack. "Falling is pretty stupid."

She splashed a little water on his face. With a low moan, he came to, but barely enough to get him to take the pill. She dripped a little water down his throat with it to help him swallow.

His face contorted with each breath. "Do," he tried to say, "do we... need..."

"Hush." She shook her head at him. "We'll get moving when that kicks in."

He nodded vaguely before his face went slack again.

Rachel looked around. The patch of gravel Jason lay in gave way to grass and the shrubs of a tangled forest. The train tracks cut through the swath of trees. Far in the eastern horizon rose mountains. She couldn't see it, but she knew past the trees to the west, the way they'd come, was all farmland and another tiny town.

We won't have long once we jump, Jason had told her when they were making their plans. The train will make it to Fort Smith in less than thirty minutes. It's going to take us a lot longer than that to walk anywhere.

Neither of them wanted Foster tracking them back along the train tracks. But Rachel wasn't so keen on the alternative either. She sucked on her lip as she considered the trees. The closest thing she'd ever done to hiking was hanging out in a city park. But they'd agreed—or rather, Jason had insisted—the forest would provide more cover and make them harder to trace.

Unless they got lost, of course. She wasn't exactly a woodswoman.

She scanned the sky, then up the tracks, as if their pursuers might suddenly materialize. The minutes ticked by in agony. A cloud slowly drifted over the sun, then away from it. She wished she had a watch. She should have made Jason take the medicine before they jumped. It took a half hour on its own to kick in, and that was all the lead they had.

Chewing her lip, she woke him up again with the bottle trick. He blinked the water out of his eyes with a groan.

"Yeah, sorry about that." She stowed the water in the pack and swung it on. "You're right. We should get going."

His head tilted in the barest of nods. His good hand searched weakly for an angle to push himself up.

She flinched. "Let me help."

With some awkward, careful maneuvering, she got him sitting up with his good arm around her shoulders. "Cross your legs," she said, tugging gently on one, "like this." Face screwed tight, he complied. "Now when I pull up, you're going to lean your weight onto that foot. The other's for balance. Okay?"

He hummed in agreement.

"Okay." Crouched beside him, she drew a deep breath. "Here goes."

She surged up. He cried out but managed to get his foot underneath him. She staggered under his weight. He moaned again, quieter, as if he were trying to bite it back. She winced. Against her, his body was hot and damp with sweat. His head lolled, eyelids flickering closed, open, closed.

She squeezed his hand and tightened her grip around his waist. "Don't pass out on me now, Psycho Boy."

"I'm," he gasped, "not."

"Come on, then." One stumbling, heavy step at a time, they forged into the forest. Noonday turned into a faux-twilight as the foliage encased them. Brambles snagged Rachel's clothes, and thin branches scratched past her face. Guiding Jason over the uneven terrain was nothing like guiding the Lost Boys from their bed to the bathroom. Stones turned underfoot and branches caught at their ankles, slowing their already slow pace to a laborious crawl.

The deeper they got, the wetter it got. It must have rained here recently, or maybe it was always a little swampy. Either way, the soil squished under their feet and puddles dotted the way forward. Her eyes scanned for a drier path. Biting her lip, she angled them a different way, only to land ankle deep in water hidden by the grass. Jason's heavy breaths filled her ears. Screw it, she thought, and just plunged forward.

Her socks and shoes were damp, then wet enough to be cold, then finally soaked. In the trees above, birds twittered as if mocking them. Remind me what's so great about nature again?

A root caught her foot and threw her forward. Jason tumbled to the ground with her, and they landed in a heap of limbs. Water seeped into the front of her hoodie. Jason moaned, and she scrambled up. "I'm so sorry. Hey, hey, let's get you up."

"I'm fine," he mumbled, covered in mud and scratches and laying on his bad arm. "I'm fine."

The oxy must have been starting to kick in. Landing like that—as out of it as he had been, the surge of pain would have knocked most people out. But he actually pushed up with his good arm on his own, before she could. Her tired muscles said a silent thank you to the miracles of modern medicine. She helped pull him into a sitting position, letting him lean back against the trunk of a tree.

"Let's just rest here a moment," she said, catching her breath. Strands of hair fluttered in her face. When she wiped them away, cool mud streaked her forehead.

"This is an awful campsite," he grumbled, eyes half-closed.

"Well, you're a lousy woods guide."

He grunted something that almost sounded like a laugh. Her lips twitched up.

"Remind me," he said, breaths heavy, "to take you into the woods some other time."

"Better circumstances, hopefully."

"Yeah." His eyes drifted shut. "Some time better."

The wet ground soaked into the seat of Rachel's pants. She debated staying here longer, but he was right; it really was a lousy spot to rest. And they really needed to get out of here before dark. That was several hours off, but at the pace they were going, who knew how long it would take them?

"Stay here," she said. "I'm going to look around. See if there's a better way forward."

He spoke up. "There is."

"Uh-huh. And you know this how?" she smarted off. "You've never been here."

"The animals," he explained between breaths. "The big ones. They tramp through here too. Wear down paths. Common," he said, "phenomenon."

"Right," she muttered. "I'll just go hunt for a bunny trail then."

But as she rose, she did feel a bit better. He sounded very sure that there was a better way out of here. All she had to do was find it, and then maybe they wouldn't have to crawl through mud for the rest of the afternoon.

She took a step forward, and Jason called, "Rach." She turned. His bleary eyes met hers. He held his pocket knife out to her. "Mark your path. Easy to get lost."

"Right. Great." She snagged it from his hands and sucked on her lip in distaste. "I'll be back."

The going was easier without Jason's weight on her, but the high grass still made it hard to differentiate between the dry spots and the wet ones. Whatever. Her shoes were already soaked anyway. She tried to leave gouges in the trees as she went, which was harder than she'd expected. If she just stabbed it, the mark blended into the natural gradations on the tree. If she tried to make something more noticeable, like an arrow, it took a lot more time. Stupid trees.

Water babbled somewhere up ahead. As she slowly picked her way toward the sound, her feet ran across a patch of ground where the grass wasn't so high, bent down towards the north. Her eyes traced up it.

Calling it a path might be a bit generous—but it didn't look quite so overgrown either. That's our ticket out. Or at least, she hoped it was.

As she started to turn back, a whooshing sound thrummed overhead. Her head snapped up. Through the leaves caging her in, she couldn't see anything. It didn't sound like it was directly above her though. It... She listened closer. Yeah, it was definitely further off.

It was also definitely a helicopter.

She whirled, racing back the way she'd come. The whole forest looked the same to her. Her hand skimmed over the trees, searching for the marks she'd left. She found one and surged forward, only to turn back and check again. Was that one of her marks? Or had it been there before? It had to be hers. Right?

The helicopter blades continued to whir in the distance. She darted forward, following what was hopefully her path. But she couldn't find another mark. She spun, backtracked, searched again. Nothing.

"Jason!" she called. All she could hear was the birds and the helicopter blades. She cursed and ran a few paces forward. "Jason!"

"Here!" the distant call came.

Relief surged through her. She chased his voice, calling back to him whenever she wasn't sure of the way. He always called back. If he'd fallen asleep waiting for her...

She was glad he hadn't fallen asleep.

The trees parted to reveal him exactly where she'd left him, propped up against the tree in the mud. His eyes were a bit glazed, but he somehow looked more alert than he did earlier. Probably because the oxy keeps his brain from trying to knock itself out with its own stupid pain signals.

She jerked her chin toward the sky. The whirring was getting closer. "We've gotta go."

Using the tree for balance, he picked himself up. His eyes squeezed shut, and he grabbed onto the trunk.

"Jason?" She rushed to his side.

"I..." He swayed a bit. "I think whatever you gave me did not help with the dizziness."

"That's normal. Come here." She pulled his arm over her shoulders again. He didn't lean on her quite as much as he had earlier, but he didn't quite stand on his own either.

"You find that path?" he asked as they started forward.

She scoffed, cheeks warming. "Found it and lost it."

"You walk through the woods like a gorilla," he grunted. "I can find your trail."

The heat in her face went cold. "You think they can too?" He didn't answer for a moment, and she looked over at him. "Jason?"

He blinked at her, then back down at the forest floor. "Only if they know where we went in."

Even now, the buzz of the helicopter was getting further away, continuing its search. Foster knew they'd been on the railroad tracks, but there was no way for him to predict where they'd gotten off. Rachel was suddenly glad Jason had insisted on taking to the woods.

Their progress was slow, but not quite as painful as their initial foray. Jason stopped often, usually it seemed to scan the forest for hints of where she'd gone before. Sometimes, though, he just stared, eyes fixed on some unfocused point. "Jason," she'd say, and he'd blink back to life, pointing out the next step in their path.

The zoning out started happening more and more frequently as the medicine began to kick into full swing. She was about to say forget it and just trudge forward, path or no path, when they stumbled upon the trail she'd found earlier.

"This is it!" she said.

Jason startled, looking over at her with glazed eyes. "What? Oh." He followed her gaze. "Yeah, that's a game trail," he confirmed. He squeezed his eyes open and shut, like he was struggling to stay awake. "Do we have any water?"

She guided him against a tree, then pulled a bottle out and handed it to him. He took a swig, then splashed a little on his face.

"The drowsiness will get better," she said, taking a drink from her own bottle. "Well, first it'll probably get worse. But then it'll get better. We can keep moving. Power through the worst of it."

He nodded, despite the obvious weight on his eyes, wiped his mouth, and passed her back the bottle. "I'm ready."

"Perfect," she said.

She didn't tell him that when the drowsiness got better, the pain would start getting worse. And by evening, so would his fever.

Hopefully, they'd be out of the forest before then.