Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
TUCKER
Forest coughs into his elbow and still swears he’s not getting sick.
He’s had his nose in the book he brought from the outside world since right after breakfast. It’s now dark outside, but in the early days of the brutal winter, the sun sets rather early.
We live in darkness at this time of the year.
There’s two lit candles on the desk in the library, providing just enough light to paint the side of his tattooed face in a soft orange glow.
“You haven’t talked much since we’ve been home.” I lean sideways against the door with my arms folded over each other. “I can see it in your eyes, though. Born to fly, and you’re about to spread your wings.”
He slams the book shut and cocks his head over his shoulder. “I’m not.”
I know him better than he knows himself. I can read him better than he can read that ridiculous book. All the signs are there—the silence and eyes that linger on anything other than me. He wheezes again, a precursor to a cough that scratches at the back of his throat.
“You’re getting sick.” I’m only stating the obvious. “You should get some rest.”
“I’ve been cooped up in this house since we got back,” he groans. “I haven’t been around anyone but you. If I’m getting sick, I don’t have whatever sickness the rest of them do.”
The situation on the mountain is growing dire. The sickness has spread to at least half the village since we returned yesterday morning. I haven’t made my way over there yet today, so I imagine things have only gotten worse. “I have a feeling Bash isn’t coming back.”
“You think something happened to him?”
“I think he’s been plotting his escape for a while now.”
“You’re getting too paranoid.” He groans as he stands, his legs wobbling slightly. He’s weaker than usual. “I just haven’t eaten much today.”
His attempt at playing off just how sick he’s become falls flat. I place a hand on his shoulder and guide him out of the den. “I’m taking you to bed.”
He glances at the desk behind us. “Can I at least grab my book?”
“I’ll bring it to you in the morning.”
We pass through the living room. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, there’s about a half foot of snow and it shows no intention of stopping anytime soon. We reach the landing of the stairs and I assist him with a hand held firmly on his back. Each step he takes is more labored than the last.
“Do you think my father—”
“I think the world is full of liars.” I cut him off because I don’t want him thinking too much about what happened out there.
The more he thinks about it, the more he’ll question everything.
Questions require answers. I don’t want him going back out there looking for them.
And I definitely don’t want him to get distracted and tumble down the stairs. “Watch your step.”
The bedroom is warmer than the rest of the house with the fireplace burning and the curtains drawn over the window.
He sits on the edge of the bed with heavy eyes on the verge of passing out.
I pull his hands above his head and free him from his long-sleeved shirt.
He falls backward on the bed, ready to curl up in a ball.
I make quick work of removing his jeans and guiding him to his side of the bed, nearest the fireplace.
I strip down to nothing and join him, pulling the covers over us and holding him close.
His body is hot and flushed, a stark contrast to the way his entire body shakes in spurts. I hold a firm hand over his chest, feeling his heart beat. He groans softly against the pillow until he falls asleep.
In the morning, just before the sun rises, I wake up on cue.
Forest sleeps peacefully, but his body is drenched in a layer of sweat that clings to my naked body.
I pat the back of my palm on his forehead.
He’s burning hotter than before and a panic tangles around my heart.
I find what I can, an old bottle of Neeson Camilla had stirred up months ago.
It’s almost empty, but I pour what’s left onto a teaspoon, part his lips, and feed it to him.
The medicine won’t cure him of his illness, but it should at least help with the fever.
He groans something inaudible before his head falls back onto the pillow. He slips back to dreamland before I’m out the door.
I get dressed in double layers and sling my fur jacket over my shoulders. As I approach the back door, leading to the village, a violent sneeze erupts from me, covering the wall in phlegm.
Zeva sits at the small table in her house with a cup of hot herbal tea cradled in her palms. The drink simmers with steam. She stares blankly ahead as if I’m not even in the room.
“I dreamed of a falling sky,” she says somberly. “The clouds suffocated everyone around me and my only recourse was to run down the mountain. Still, the clouds followed like this thing that’s been haunting us.”
Truth be told, I came here to discuss the Bash situation with her.
However, it becomes quite clear quite fast that she is in no shape to talk about such things.
She’s lost so much, more than anyone here.
Her daughter. One of her siblings is dead and the other is missing.
And her husband still fights for his life from this sickness that’s threatening our community.
A part of me wants to feel sorry for her, but empathy is running low these days.
She peels her eyes to me—glassy and swollen. “Do you think we’re being punished by the wilderness?”
She’s losing her fucking mind. It makes me wonder if it’d be better to put her out of her misery.
She waits forever for an answer that doesn’t come before raising the cup to her lips with shaking hands.
She doesn’t drink though. Instead, she sets the cup on the table and leans back.
A droplet of emotion leaks from her eye, trailing down the length of her dry cheek. “Bash isn’t coming back, is he?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
Until Forest and I get answers, it’s best not to mention anything about the outside world. The knowledge of which would only taint this place.
“Because of what we did,” she continues. “Your mom was leaving all the time.”
I shoot her a glare.
It doesn’t deter her like it should. “In our infinite wisdom, we knew she was having an affair. We knew she had to be going somewhere she wasn’t supposed to go. The Wilds know what you did. That was a threat meant to scare her, and it worked.”
A silent rage consumes me, lost somewhere between my gut and my dry throat.
“I found her beside the tree with the stump. She was going to hang herself, she said. It wasn’t supposed to be real.
Only was supposed to look real enough so she could escape.
I promised I would help her.” She sniffles and runs the side of her palm beneath her nose, wiping away snot.
“The deeper the hole, the more it seemed real, as if the Wilds were really calling upon us for justice. So, before she was ready and before the others arrived, I kicked the stump out from beneath her. The last look in her eyes was that of betrayal.”
Beneath the table, my hand rolls into a fist, my fingernails digging into my flesh.
“I didn’t stop him from dousing her with gas and stood there and watched him set her on fire.”
“I should kill you,” I say deadpan. “I should wrap my hands around your throat and revel in every last dying breath.” I lean in close to her. “I’m not going to. You want to know why?”
She has a lot of balls to meet my gaze. She doesn’t even blink.
“It’s because I have someone to live for.” I steady my hands on the table and rise to my feet. The muscles in my legs don’t seem to work right. “You have nothing. Some would say that’s karma.”
It’s meant to sting, and it does. Her eyes flush with tears, forming a river that washes the sins from her face. Karma, the name of her daughter. Karma, the thing that’s going to take her to the grave in a much more painful way than what she did to my mother.