Shutdown (Glitch)

everyone who hadn’t been able to make it into the pods. I selfishly hoped my friends had all made it to safety and it was the refugees who’d been left behind. I pushed my palms against my eyes as if I could scrub the horrible thought away. I just needed to get Adrien safely there, get some sleep, and then I’d take off on my own so whoever was left could stay protected.
    Adrien refilled our bottle with water from the stream we’d been following. It had been an easy way to orient myself and make sure I was headed up the mountain so we’d hit the border fence at a deserted area. I’d flown underneath the overhanging branches of the trees along the shore to avoid detection. Without bushes and brambles snagging at us from below, we’d been able to fly faster.
    Adrien handed me the bottle of water and sat down nearby. “I drank at the river, so have as much as you want.”
    He pulled out a protein bar he’d halved earlier and began munching. I took a long swallow of the cold water and let out a sigh of pleasure at how good it tasted.
    He sat on a large rock and looked outward, his elbows on his knees. I followed his gaze.
    We’d come halfway up the nearest mountain. At times it had been so steep we’d almost been flying vertically. We were high enough up that other peaks spread out before us, sloping rises stacked against each other in the late-afternoon sun.
    “It’s strange not to see the peaks covered by snow,” he said, looking out. “This one time when Sophia and I spent half a year hiding out in the mountains, the peaks were all covered in white.” A small smile tugged at the edges of his mouth. “She told me the white caps were the mountains’ hats, so they could stay warm all winter.” His smile faltered. “Completely illogical, of course, but at the time it amused me.”
    I stared at him, tracing the lines of his face as if I could memorize what it had looked like when he’d smiled. But as quickly as the smile had come, it was gone again. I looked away from him and pulled my hair out of its tie to run my fingers through it and rebraid it.
    Now that we’d stopped, the noise I’d been hearing in the background for the past few hours suddenly seemed extremely piercing, a high-pitched chirping sound. It wasn’t anything mechanical, I could tell that much. “What is that?”
    “What?”
    “That constant screeching noise.”
    The smile was back. “Cicadas. There’s millions of them out there, all singing to each other. Don’t worry, you’ll get so used to it you won’t even hear it anymore.”
    “You really should get some sleep,” I said, my voice abrupt. Seeing him smile pained me in a strange way. It was more evidence that even though he could feel emotion now, he still felt none for me. “No reason for both of us to be sleep deprived.”
    I ground my back against the rough bark of the tree to keep myself awake. I was so tired, all I wanted to do was close my eyes. A day and a half might not seem like a long time to be awake, but I’d also been using my powers at maximum. That alone without the sleep deprivation would have exhausted me on a normal day.
    I blinked my eyes and forced them open wider. Going to sleep would get me killed. I’d just have to remind myself of that every 0.3 seconds when my eyes started getting heavy again.
    Adrien nodded and laid on his side beside the rock, his arms curled up for a pillow. He closed his eyes without another word.
    After a few more breaths, he was asleep. I watched his rising and falling chest, the way his mouth slackened slightly in sleep, and the long angles of his face in the soft afternoon light. I wanted so badly to curl up beside him and relax against his wiry frame.
    Instead, I took off my outer shirt so I’d feel the cool breeze of the afternoon wind more sharply to keep me from dozing off. At least I didn’t have to worry about another overload like what happened with the earthquake back at the Foundation. It only occurred when I had too much power stored up inside me. I was using it constantly now so that wouldn’t be a problem. I focused my telek senses on the continuous task of keeping my mast cells in check. When even that became a repetitive lull teasing me toward sleep, I paced a path under the tree cover. My steps slowed with each pass.
    I sat down, putting several sharp rocks underneath me so I wouldn’t get comfortable. I tried to think of my training with Jilia. She said people could meditate quietly for hours,