Chapter 13 #2
We leave the noise of the village on foot, following Tristan along a shaded lane where golf carts give way to bicycles and then to long stretches with nobody on them at all.
The music follows for a while, mixed with gulls and voices from the restaurant patios, but the maritime forest closes around us one turn at a time.
Live oak branches twist over the path. Spanish moss moves in the breeze, palmetto fronds crowd the sandy edges, and every house vanishes behind trees almost as soon as we pass it.
Weller lasts four minutes before starting his inquisition.
“How much farther is it, Tristan?”
“Close,” Tristan says.
“That’s not a distance.”
“Then think of it as encouragement. We’ll be there soon.”
“Who has access to the property?”
Tristan ducks beneath a low branch. “At present? No one. The property manager checks on it every few months with a code that changes regularly.”
“Who owns it?”
“Someone unlikely to report us.”
Weller’s mouth flattens. “Security?”
Tristan looks back at him. “Locks. Storm shutters. No security system... yet.”
“Supplies?”
“Power, water, beds... the basics. No food.”
“Are you going to tell us what this place is or just keep stringing us along?”
Tristan’s smile is slow and irritating. “You are awfully demanding.”
Weller looks ready to suffocate him with one of the plastic shopping bags.
I bite the inside of my cheek, but the laugh gets out anyway. “I like this version of vacation.”
“Of course you do,” Weller says.
“She appreciates mystery,” Tristan adds. “And competence.”
“You haven’t demonstrated either.”
The path tilts gradually upward, enough that the pull in my legs becomes harder to ignore.
Between the escape and the miles we have already walked, my body is beginning to collect every complaint it postponed while adrenaline was plentiful.
I shift the flowers, wipe damp hair from my face, and keep going.
Freddie notices because Freddie always notices the things I would prefer to hide. He steps in front of me and crouches.
“Get on.”
“I can walk.”
“I’ve noticed.” He looks over his shoulder. “You can also take me for a ride, which seems more fun for both of us.”
“Smooth.”
My thighs do ache. Even though I’m in relatively good shape, their strides are much longer than mine and I have to take three steps for every one of theirs to keep up.
I hand the flowers to Owen, who looks comically adorable holding them, then climb onto Freddie’s back and wrap my arms around his shoulders.
He catches me beneath the knees and stands without effort.
Freddie carries me deeper into the trees.
His body is warm between my thighs, and every step moves me against his back in a way my increasingly desperate omega side considers an excellent substitute for common sense.
I press my nose to his neck and breathe in honey and cedar until his grip tightens beneath my knees.
“Bianca,” he warns quietly.
Weller ignores us with visible effort. “Does anyone know we’re coming?”
“No,” Tristan says.
“Does anyone else know about this place?”
The lazy edge leaves Tristan’s smile, and his eyes move past us into the trees before he answers.
“Not anyone who matters.”
Without the music and voices, the scrape of palmetto leaves is loud and the boardwalk swallows footsteps before I can decide whether they all belong to us.
A golf cart passes at the next crossing with an older couple and a sleeping dog in the back.
They wave. We wave. Then the electric whir fades, leaving the surf somewhere beyond the trees and the blood moving in my ears.
An island is difficult to reach without leaving a trail. It’s also difficult to leave if someone finds you.
I lift my head from Freddie’s neck and start watching the gaps between the live oaks again.
Tristan turns down a narrower lane where the sand has drifted across the pavement. The trees thin, sunlight flashing bright between their trunks, and the ocean comes back in pieces - first the sound, then the sharp clean smell, then a strip of blue beyond the dunes.
A house begins to appear through the trees.
Weathered cedar rises on stilts among the live oaks, with a broad deck that wraps around it, pale storm shutters, and huge windows reflecting the trees back at us.
Forest wraps around three sides, thick enough that I can’t see another roof.
Beyond the deck, a wooden boardwalk crosses the dunes toward the beach.
On the open portion of the deck, there’s a slatted outdoor shower near the stairs, and a covered hot tub is tucked behind it.
This isn’t a bunker. It’s not a forgotten hunting cabin or one of Ezra’s emergency crash pads with canned foods and mice in the walls. It’s beautiful, private, and large enough for all of us.
Freddie lowers me carefully. Owen hands my flowers back, then moves ahead to check beneath the stairs and around the side of the house. Weller steadies me while he studies the windows, the roofline, the boardwalk, every place a threat might wait. Tristan watches none of that; he watches me.
The wind lifts the edge of my cover-up. Somewhere past the dunes, a wave breaks hard, and for one stupid second I forget we are on the run. There’s a beach at the end of that boardwalk. A real one. The first one I’ve ever seen.
Owen climbs the steps and tries the door. Locked. A keypad glows beside the frame.
“Code?” he asks.
Tristan walks onto the porch and enters the numbers.
“Her birthday?” Owen questions.
The keypad flashes green and every head turns toward Tristan, but he looks at me over his shoulder with a slow, dangerous curve to his mouth, like the question on my face is one he has been waiting years for me to ask.
The lock whirrs and then Tristan opens the door.