Chapter Five #3
Seeing that she had a second one in her other hand, he hesitantly took the parcel from her.
“‘Tis the wrapping that puzzles me,” he said, the skin being smooth and sleek.
“Oh, yeah,” she said easily. “It’s an American brand, so I guess you wouldn’t recognize it.”
Unsure how to free whatever lay imprisoned inside, Bram watched as Anastasia began opening her own.
“This was part of my travel stash,” she explained, seeming considerably more at ease than she’d been an hour earlier. “I had two pretty long layovers, so I stuffed my bag with snacks. Too bad I unpacked most of them when I got to my hotel in London.”
She split the strange wrapping neatly down the middle and peeled it away, revealing a firm little cake of what looked like oats and grains pressed tightly together into a perfectly uniform rectangle.
It looked less baked than fashioned, every corner square, every edge straight, as though someone had measured it precisely.
“I only have these two left,” she said, and then took a bite from the little rectangle. She chewed for a moment, then swallowed. “But hopefully, we’ll find our way back to civilization soon.”
Bram’s brow furrowed. She possessed only two, but had deigned to offer one to him.
He looked down at the strange parcel in his hands before peeling back the smooth wrapping as she had done. The little cake felt oddly dense, far firmer than it appeared, and smelled faintly of toasted oats and honey. Tiny, dried berries dotted its surface, along with seeds he did not recognize.
He bit into it cautiously, and his brows lifted almost immediately.
It was unlike anything he’d ever tasted.
Sweet, but not cloyingly so, with the richness of honey, the heartiness of oats, and little bursts of tart fruit that broke pleasantly beneath his teeth.
It crumbled only slightly as he chewed, yet somehow held together better than oatcakes ever managed.
Strange though it was, he found himself taking a second bite almost immediately.
He glanced sideways at Anastasia.
She ate slowly, almost thoughtfully, as though already measuring how long she might make the small meal last.
He had judged her often and harshly throughout the day, he knew. And yet, here she was, offering him half of what little food remained to her. He had learned long ago that hunger revealed a person's true character. Anastasia had surrendered half of hers to a man she scarcely knew.
He took another bite, his gaze on her profile while she stared out over the valley.
Damp strands of pale hair had curled in soft waves against her cheek and temple.
Dirt smudged one side of her face, and her lower lip bore the faint mark, a scratch that hadn’t been there this afternoon.
She looked even younger than he’d supposed earlier, weary beyond measure, and yet strangely composed now that they’d finally stopped running.
When he had finished the last bite, Anastasia reached into the bag at her side again and drew out a clear vessel filled with liquid.
“Here,” she said, offering it to him. “You should drink something, too.”
Bram accepted it, though his attention settled first upon the vessel rather than what it contained. It was perfectly transparent, much like glass, yet when his fingers closed around it the sides yielded slightly beneath his grip. He frowned and turned it once in his hand.
“What is this made of?”
“Plastic.”
The word meant nothing to him. He lifted the opening to his nose first.
Anastasia gave him a sidelong look. “It’s water, not poison.”
Bram tipped the strange vessel to his mouth and took a cautious sip, discovering the water was cool and remarkably clean, without the earthy taste of a stream or the faint stale quality water sometimes acquired after sitting too long in a skin or wooden vessel.
He drank more before lowering it again, his gaze lingering upon the strange vessel, nearly invisible around its contents.
He pressed his thumb experimentally into its side and watched the transparent wall bend beneath it before springing back into shape.
“Plastic,” he repeated.
“Yep.”
Bram had no better understanding of the word than he had a moment ago, but he did take another drink, and then handed it back to her, watching as she twisted a small blue stopper onto the top of the strange clear flask.
“What are those lights down there?” she asked.
Bram tore his gaze from her, his scowl returning at once.
The light was fading now, turning the valley below into muted shades of gray and green. Through the gathering evening mist, tiny orange pinpricks appeared one by one.
“Is it a town?”
“Nae,” he answered grimly. “‘Tis an English force.”
One fire might have belonged to a shepherd, two perhaps to travelers or even the transport team searching for him, but there were far more than two.
Bram watched another fire flicker to life in the distance. It seemed he had escaped one hunt only to stumble upon another altogether.
God willing, come the morn, they’d choose a different route than he intended to take.