Chapter 8 Dutch
eight
Dutch
Three days back to Clearwater. Best three days I can remember.
This is not a statement about the journey, which involves a bridge I assess as stable that is very much not, a herd detour that costs us four hours, and a night of rain that turns our campsite into a situation requiring significant improvisation. The travel is objectively not great.
But Avery laughs at the bridge. A real laugh, the full version that she doesn't bother controlling.
I go in to my knee on the ice and apparently my expression is worth the moment.
And Jenna, walking behind us with the tact of someone who has completely figured out what's happening and decided to let it, says "I didn't see anything" and keeps walking.
And the second night, huddled under a rock overhang while rain hammers everything outside, Avery leans into my side and says, completely unprompted: "I'm glad you climbed over my wall."
"Even though you almost shot me?"
"Especially. It meant you were serious."
I press my lips to her hair. "I was terrified."
"Of the rifles?"
"Of you deciding to use them before I could explain." She tilts her head up. "I needed you to hear me. That was the only thing I was thinking about."
She looks at me for a moment. Then she kisses me, slow and warm, while rain hammers the rocks, and from six feet away Jenna makes an aggressively pointed sound.
"Go to sleep, Jenna," Avery says.
"Already asleep," Jenna says. "Completely unconscious. I can't hear anything."
I get a look at Avery's face. She's fighting a smile.
We come through the gate to find Harry waiting.
He looks at the three of us. Looks at Avery and me specifically, the half-step closer than colleagues, the way we've stopped pretending we're not doing whatever it is we're doing.
"Settlement's intact," he says. "Minor incidents, handled." A pause. "And there's someone in the medical building. Arrived yesterday with a network convoy from the south. She's asking about Jenna."
Jenna lets out a little gasp.
Harry looks at her directly. His voice drops. "She gave her name as Ruth. She's okay."
Jenna makes a sound I've never heard from her. It's not words. It's not anything that needs to be.
Then she's running.
We watch her cross the compound at a dead sprint, every bit of composure she's built over the past ten days gone, just a seventeen-year-old girl who needs to see her mother. She hits the medical building door and disappears inside.
Avery doesn't say anything. I look at her and her eyes are bright.
"Give them a minute," she says. Not quite steady.
"Yeah."
We give them more than a minute. A daughter and mother being reunited need more than a minute. It’s a small miracle in this hellish world, and I don’t take it for granted.