He
shivered as he made his way back into the winter cave and propped
himself up against his mother, holding his hurt hand over his head.
The winter cave grew cold as the ice packed around his hand. Bobby,
woken by his clairvoyant instincts, crept forward with a sheet and
draped it over Alan. He'd foreseen this, of course -- had foreseen all
of it. But Bobby followed his own code, and he kept his own counsel,
cleaning up after the disasters he was powerless to prevent.
Deep in the mountains, they heard the echoes of Davey's tittering
laughter.
#
"It was wrong to bring her here, Adam," Billy said to him in the
morning, as he fed Alan the crusts of bread and dried apples he'd
brought him, packing his hand with fresh snow.
"I didn't bring her here, she followed me," Adam said. His arm ached
from holding it aloft, and his back and tailbone were numb with the ache
of a night spent sitting up against their mother's side. "And besides,
why should it be wrong? Whose rules? What rules? What are the *fucking*
rules?"
"You can feel the rules, brother," he said. He couldn't look Alan in the
eye, he never did. This was a major speech, coming from Bobby.
"I can't feel any rules," Alan said. He wondered if it was true. He'd
never told anyone about the family before. Had he known all along that
he shouldn't do this?
"I can.
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