Chapter 11 #5
Rushing inside his hut, I spied that pillowcase and my T Day supplies stowed away inside. Nabbing it all up, I left his house Grinch-style, hauling all of it away with a wicked grin.
I could not get back to Bia’s borrowed hut fast enough and get something going in that pot I could set over the fire.
Soon enough I had potatoes, freshly melted snow, celery, and a couple bullion cubes bubbling away in the pot. For a quick meal, I’d opted to wrap a potato in the tin foil Vurhg had pilfered from some other poor sap’s house, and baked one of my golden potatoes in the fire.
It was the most basic baked potato I’d ever eaten but I was so hungry it didn’t matter. Scooping out a little broth from the pot to pour over it helped but I was almost done with my meal before I’d thought to try it.
Full, I sprawled out across the bed and stared at the ceiling. With just myself and this piddly existence to ponder over, my thoughts quickly turned blue.
Grabbing up my things, I made my way out the door. Unsure where I was heading, on a subconscious level I knew.
Before I knew it I was right back in that exact spot I’d woken up in. The portal thing couldn’t be far? Could it? I knew better than to venture far out, so I kept to the perimeter.
I must have been looking for a lot longer than it felt like as daylight slowly dimmed.
“Hey.”
Spinning around, tense, I stared at Dace for a long moment. “I didn’t hear you come up,” I admitted.
“You were muttering to yourself.” Dace offered me a small smile. “I didn’t want to startle you but it’s getting pretty dark.”
“How did you know I was out here?” My brow pulled into a frown as I glanced around. There wasn’t much out this way until you walked for a bit, smoke stacks a bit ahead in the distance leading the way back.
Holding up a strange shaped object and two ceramic cups she pulled from the pack on her back, she wiggled them at me. “It’s not cocoa but it’s pretty good. I have cookies and sandwiches too.”
When I just stood there, dumbfounded, she murmured quietly, “I mean, if the offer still stands.” Tittering nervously, she mumbled, “I mean, it’s more like dinner now with the hour but it took me a minute to figure out where you were and-”
“How did you figure out where I was?” I cut in curiously, not even realizing I was doing so.
“Oh, uhm, Vurhg,” she chirped.
Vurhg? “How did Suzy know where I was?” I questioned.
Dace frowned. “He said you smashed his nose right and then took all of your things.” Dace’s lips twitched, like she was trying not to outright cackle.
“I asked him where you were and he said if you weren’t at your hut or telling on him to Kehlor, you might be here because you missed your mates and it was all his fault. ”
“At least he admits it,” I muttered, then flopped down right there in the middle of the grassy, snow mush slushed ground and motioned for her to join me.
With a shrug, Dace walked over and plopped down beside me.
Her Not-Cocoa was more like a mildly nutty, white chocolate mocha. More of a soda gal myself, I couldn’t say I would drink it all the time but it was good.
“Here.” Pulling out two strips of long material, she handed one over to me. Taking the brown one she’d shoved into my hands, I watched as she placed it around her shoulders like a blanket shawl.
Wrapping the shawl she’d given me over my shoulders, I dipped my head in thanks.
Sandwiches were passed around next. “I usually don’t do this anymore.” Her hand lifted and she motioned with her sandwich. “It’s nice. A little picnic.”
I nodded as I chewed. My gaze drifted, wondering where the portal was, how close, how far.
Had Cy and Elm tried to find me? Did they know of and use this portal ever?
Was this a portal my dad had ever used? How had Mom and Dad really met?
Was it the meet-cute story they’d fed me?
Was it some variation of events changed to humanize them?
I had so many freaking questions that would never be answered.
“You miss them,” Dace murmured.
“I do,” I admitted. So bad my chest ached to think about them, I silently tacked on.
“I’m so sorry,” Dace said simply.
“Me, too,” I muttered under my breath.
Staring off ahead, I finished my sandwich before I spoke again.
“Do you miss anything from our world?” I asked.
Dace’s face screwed up, scrunched, and she finally mumbled, “I’m sure I could think of something if I tried but I know I’m better off here.”
When I glanced her way questioningly, she bit her lip and her gaze dropped.
“I was stuck in that place, that hospital I mentioned, for years. Then, when I got out, I ended up at a job with a skeezy boss in a job not unlike the one I’d had before.
I could have ended up right back where I’d been, right back there in an affair with a man too in love with himself to think beyond his own roll of quarters.
This time… This time, though, when similar patterns started to present themselves, I said no.
I backed away. I did not engage. I wasn’t that person anymore and I meant it.
” Swallowing thickly, she grimaced. “I don’t know what happened.
One moment Mr. McCord is asking me for a file for a client, then he’s trying to make a move on me, I stand up for myself, he gets me in a choke hold and tells me he can do whatever he wants to me and no one will believe the crazy bitch from the looney bin, and he- He tries to touch me and I just- I just-”
My stomach dropped as I waited. I could guess where this was going.
“I just snapped,” she blurted, a dazed look in her eyes.
Throat working, she croaked out, “I grabbed the pen near his desk and I just meant to jab him with it. I didn’t mean to-” Panting like she was trying not to hyperventilate as she relived it, she mumbled, “I didn’t mean to stab him. I just wanted him, it, to stop.”
“Where’d you stab him?” I asked around a sip of white-mocha-not-cocoa.
“His shoulder,” she admitted. Her gaze darted my way and she said as if to assure me, “He was mad, real mad, but he was okay.”
“Should’ve stabbed him in the dick,” I said simply.
Dace’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. A sputtering noise left her.
Maybe I’m more aggressive than I thought if the looks she kept giving me were anything to go by?
That sputtering noise she was making turned into a laugh. Her hands clapped to her mouth as she struggled not to laugh like a lunatic.
She needed to get it out. There would be no judgement from me on that.
“Did you make this?” I asked as I lifted one end of the shawl I had around me.
Dace sobered, drawing her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees to rock a little in place. “I did. Sorry- uh, Sorak taught me.”
“I take it that’s the Sorry horny head Berkr mentioned and Rek said you were on the outs with,” I murmured. It was open ended. She could answer or not.
“He is,” she replied softly.
“Berkr said you asked him to be your mate. I’m sorry things didn’t work out,” I offered.
“It’s probably for the best,” she mumbled as she rested her chin on her knees.
Feeling similar sentiments I’ve expressed in crappy situations echoed in Dace’s, I grimaced sympathetically.
Nudging her gently, I murmured, “Wanna talk about it or just sit here for a bit? ‘Til our asses freeze off.”
“Do you want to talk about your situation?” she asked.
“It’s complicated,” I admitted.
“Same,” she muttered.
“Frozen butts it is,” I proclaimed.
Dace laughed, a small, quiet laugh, and her lips tipped up a little. “Thanks,” she said into the quiet we fell into.
“What did I do?” Turning my head, I glanced her way curiously.
“For being my friend anyway, despite everything.”
“Despite the fact your pen missed your pervy ex boss’s peen,” I corrected, making Dace laugh. This time her laugh was loud, unfiltered. It made me smile.
“I can show you how to make these,” she offered, flapping an end of her shawl.
I had a feeling at some point the information would be pertinent, considering Kehl had basically left me to fend for myself, unless one counted sending others to do things in his name or dumping mystery packages at the door at random as helpful.
“I’d like that. Is it hard?” Lifting the end of the shawl I was using, I studied it. “I’m admittedly shit at a lot.”
Dace’s hand lifted and she pointed at herself. “If I can learn to do it, you can learn to do it.”
“Are we having an Anastasia moment?” I joked, then sang a little, repeating her.
“Hey! I got that one!” Dace squeaked out excitedly.
Finishing off my drink as we chatted about everything and nothing all at once, we had to call it when our butts did indeed start to feel iced through.
Standing, dusting myself off, I thought about my dad’s favorite phrase. Where did I want to cast my net?
“Do you think you could show me where the unmated females’ huts are?”
Dace glanced up from where she sat, putting her thermos like-container away inside her pack.
Thinking she’ll want her shawl back, I started to take it off but she noticed and told me, “That one’s yours. It goes with your hoodie.”
It would go with my hoodie. “Are you sure?” Holding my hand out for her to take it, I helped her to her feet.
“I’m sure,” she squeaked.
She didn’t squeak all the time, that I’d noticed, more so when she was happy or nervous.
She squeaked around Berkr consistently. That should have served as my first clue that something was off between those two.
Berkr was so weird though that I’d taken his antics as sincere dislike, not a pseudo crush, enemies to lovers in the making.
“Did you really bash Vurhg’s nose?” Dace asked. She grinned as she posed the question, relishing the idea whether it was fact or fiction.
“I pinched it and tweaked it,” I laughingly corrected. Recreating the event, miming it out, Dace was in stitches as we walked back towards the village.
“Do you really like it?” Her gaze dipped to the shawl. I was absently rubbing the material between my fingers. She smiled to see that.