Chapter 19 #2
“You can define ‘lone wolf’ however you want, darlin’.”
Gods, every time he called me that, my heart jolted in a way that warmed me down to my toes.
“I dunno,” I finally answered. “I want to be in charge of my own life for once. I want to heal people without hurtin’ them, and I want to keep him away from the Vault.”
In the silence, the crunch of our snowshoes sounded loud. I waited for the familiar urge to take it back. It didn’t come.
“Those are all things I’d feel good about fightin’ for.”
I opened my mouth, but he beat me to it.
“And don’t say I don’t have to. I know I don’t. I want to,” he said. “You’re worth fighting for, Bones.”
Gods. I wasn’t sure when it happened, but my feelings for him had crept past my defenses, viny tendrils working their way through the cracks, crumbling down my walls.
I let them stay.
Trey let me walk in silence for maybe ten minutes.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asked.
I glanced back at him again, confused. “Why the fuck do you want to know that?”
“This is called getting to know each other better, Bones,” he teased.
“I don’t have one,” I said.
“Oh come on, everybody does.”
I immediately thought of the warm brown of his eyes, but I wasn’t going to say that. “Yellow, I guess.”
“Like dandelions.” I nodded. He hummed. “Mine is green, like those glass bottles you had at the clinic.”
I pretended not to notice he’d named the exact color of my eyes as I struggled to kick my snowshoe into the hard snow.
“What’s your favorite food?” he went on.
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
“How many more of these questions do you have?”
“Probably an endless supply.”
“I shoulda let you bleed out on that rooftop.”
“You and I both know you would never do that.” He said it teasingly, but my amusement vanished.
“You have no idea what I’m capable of doing.”
Silence fell for a minute. “So tell me,” he finally said.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done.”
The memories that tried to escape again made me feel nauseous. I picked up my pace, trying to put more distance between us, but he kept up with his long legs. My throat felt dry as sand. He’d been so vulnerable earlier, telling me about Clarity and the guilt he carried.
Don’t show weakness, Wolf ordered.
“My favorite food is fried dough rolled in cinnamon sugar.”
“Well, well, well,” he said, and I glanced back to see him smiling like I hadn’t refused to open up. Again. “Bones has a sweet tooth.”
I kept walking, trying to push down the guilt. He didn’t speak for a bit, and I started to feel relieved that maybe he’d finished with the questions.
“What’s your favorite animal?”
I covered my face and groaned.
“C’mon,” he wheedled, “I know you have one.”
I sighed and gave up. “Horses.”
“Mine too!”
I thought of Violet and a pang of sadness ran through me. I wished I could’ve taken her with me. It’d be nice to have a horse right about now.
“Favorite season?” Trey asked.
He went on and on and I began to worry that he actually did have an endless supply of questions.
I told him how I loved the summer and rain so long as I didn’t have to ride a bike in it, the smell of lavender and fresh baked bread and pine needles, the moment when the sun first peeked over the mountains and made everything pink, neatly organized medical supplies, the feel of a body mending itself under my hands.
He told me he loved the chill of autumn nights, sitting beside a campfire watching the embers burn, the smell of apples and peppermint and lavender, the feel of galloping on a horse with the wind in his hair, and the adrenaline of sparring with an evenly matched partner.
Then he paused, and I glanced back to see him staring ahead with a furrowed brow.
“Damn. I can’t think of any more.”
“Pity,” I said dryly.
He laughed. “Oh, I’ll think of another eventually.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“I know you’ll be on the edge of your seat till then.”
“Don’t know how I’ll sleep at night.”
I stole another glance to see he wore that sunshine smile, and I realized how much I liked being the one to put it on his face.
—
It took several hours to reach the ridge.
The mountain grade steepened further, the snow powdery one moment and frozen solid the next.
I moved slowly, breathing hard, pain in my back with each step.
Trey stayed behind me in case I fell again.
In the last bit, we had to take off the snowshoes to climb over huge rocky boulders.
As I slid down from the last one and stepped out onto the top, my body trembled with exhaustion.
We both sat, catching our breath, and gazed out at the valley below.
The snowy view was beautiful. We could see for miles up here, and it was almost worth the way my back ached and my legs burned.
I couldn’t help looking back the way we’d come.
Mountains and trees had swallowed the Vault.
I couldn’t even see the watchtower. Several plumes of smoke coming from behind the mountains were the only hint it existed.
“See that smoke over there?” Trey pointed to our left as I turned back around.
I followed his finger to see the faint wisps of smoke curling up from behind a thick grove of trees.
“That’s a trading post. There’s a family who lives there and runs it. It’s not huge, one building that has a store and lodging up above. It’d be a good place to spend the night.”
“Tonight?” I asked, looking at the long, long way down the mountainside.
“No, that’s too far to make before nightfall. I assumed we’d camp before then.”
“I was hoping Madame would think I went south.” Anxiety slid through me at the thought that my haphazard plan was too simple. “Since it’d be easier traveling. That’s why I’m going north.”
“That’s smart,” Trey said. “I think you’re right.”
My cheeks warmed under his praise.
“Well, if you want to keep going north, we could aim for Bowhold.”
I had no idea what that was. “Bowhold?”
He paused. “Probably one of the biggest holds near us. You’ve never heard of it?”
“Juck didn’t care about the north.” The words came out defensive.
Another beat of silence. “Yeah, that tracks. Well, Bowhold is…different.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s north of the old border. Canada. Used to be called Calgary, and from what I know, no one person runs it.”
I frowned.
“They share resources,” he went on. “Food, labor, medical supplies. Rotating work. Rotating watch. Doesn’t mean there aren’t rules. There are. And they’re strict. But they’re written down. Everyone knows them.”
“They worship any of the gods?” I asked, my fists clenching at my sides.
I felt him studying me. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Why?”
“I’ve been saved enough.”
I braced for more questions, but after a long pause he continued.
“If they do, I don’t think it’s forced on anyone, but I’m only goin’ off stories I’ve heard.
I don’t know how they handle crime or when supplies run thin.
” A note of grim amusement entered his voice.
“But if it helps, Madame hates Bowhold. She says it’s soft, that it’ll collapse the second things go bad.
” He huffed. “Funny thing is, things have gone bad at least a dozen times and it hasn’t. ”
Honestly, it did help knowing Madame hated it, but it also sounded far too good to be true.
“We’d need to find some sort of transportation, though, ’cause it’ll get deadly cold and it takes a couple of weeks to get there on wheels.
Probably longer on horseback.” The pause was longer this time.
“Makes you think, though. If people can agree to take care of each other like that on purpose, maybe the world doesn’t have to stay like this forever. ”
He said it casually, but I could hear the infuriating, terrifying hope in his voice.
“Where else could we go?”
I caught the way his face fell, and tried to ignore my guilt.
“We could go west to Sea-Tac. Less snow that way, but it’s a smaller hold and it’s over twice as far.”
It was sinking in exactly how unprepared I’d been. I hadn’t even tried to steal a map. I’d approached this escape the same way I’d approached my escape from Juck, focusing only on the first step: getting out. If Trey hadn’t been here, I would’ve gotten myself lost in the snowy wilderness.
“I vote Sea-Tac,” I said. “Less snow sounds good. Maybe we could get some horses.”
I braced for disappointment, but he simply smiled and agreed.
“How’s your back?” he added.
I suppressed the instinctual urge to dismiss the pain. “It hurts,” I admitted.
His eyebrows rose, the only indication that my honesty surprised him. “Going downhill will be easier. Maybe we go until noon and then make camp?”
I squinted up at the sky. The sun was still a few hours from noon, but that I could do.
—
Trey was so wrong.
Going downhill on snowshoes was worse than going up.
I slipped and slid more times than I could count, stopping only when I crashed into something, usually Trey.
Frozen bits of snow rubbed my wrists raw under my coat sleeves, and melted snow soaked my socks inside my boots.
Cold seeped into my very bones, and my back ached in a way that made me nauseous.
Trey fared better, but I knocked him over a few times when I crashed into him.
The only bright side was with all the sliding, we got farther than expected by noon.
“You see those?” Trey pointed ahead to where I could see large boulders between the trees. “Probably a good place to find some shelter.”