Chapter 2
ROWAN
Iwake up to the quick beep, beep, beep of the trail cameras, and even after all this time, it takes me a moment to figure out where I am.
When I open my eyes, I expect to be wrapped in the deep gray, luxury sheets Hannah picked out. To see the dim shine of her hair in the low light of the wake-up lamp, just emulating the first rays of morning light.
I almost expect to smell her nighttime lotion, to feel the shift of her body as she turns and rises out of bed, standing up and walking to the bathroom without a word to me. And I almost expect to need to convince myself that she thinks I’m still asleep.
But none of that happens.
Instead, I open my eyes to a large pink tongue in my face and the particular stink of dog breath filling my nostrils when Cheese drags her tongue up and over my cheek, leaving behind a streak of thick saliva.
“Ah, come on,” I grouse, but I’m laughing, pushing her away and sitting up as she bounds around me, her paws sinking into the mattress in her excitement.
Instead of a scientifically programmed wake-up lamp casting light over the room, there’s actual pale-yellow sunlight creating a perfect square around my curtains, hinting at the morning that lies beyond the window.
“Okay, okay,” I mutter, as Cheese basically nudges me out of the bedroom and into the living room, then right out the front door. I stand on the front porch in my boxers, shivering a bit in the early morning air.
While it’s not exactly the Rockies or Appalachia, the Cascade Range is still just as breathtaking.
The view right outside my place isn’t particularly inspiring: the overhang on the door keeps me from looking up, and the sub-terrain design means I’m looking at the bottom four feet of the trunks around me.
But if I went out onto the back porch, I’d be looking out at the valley, just a few steps away from a plummet. Interesting enough to keep me sane, hidden enough to keep me safe.
It’s mid-September, so the mornings are crisp. Fog rolls in over the trees down in the valley. The mornings are a precursor to the fall, and eventually the impossible arctic freeze of winter. But, by the middle of the day, it will be hot enough to get balmy, bugs humming around the trees.
I’ve had a lot of time to get used to the changing seasons, to become attuned to the temperatures, the look of the sky, the feeling of the air around me.
Tipping my head up, I take in the sky now and feel a certainty down in my bones that a storm is coming later tonight.
Five years ago, I’d be waking up to the sound of an automated personal assistant rattling off the standard wake-up routine — news, weather, stocks.
I’d be shuffling into the shower and listening to an Hbr or Tech Week article via that same personal assistant, then drinking a bottled green smoothie on the way to the office.
Now, Cheese does her business, and she and I head back inside the cabin for our morning coffee and bacon. Well, I get coffee. We both get bacon.
I finish up some of the spinach I harvested from the garden yesterday, ripping it into pieces and dropping it into an omelet. Then I use the last of my fresh cream and fold the whole thing together.
Luckily, Pete is coming today. It’s one thing to keep my own chickens, but I decided a cow or pig would be too much. I don’t eat processed meat often, but when I do, I usually save it for the day Pete is coming to restock me.
As always, my anxiety rises at the thought of him making his way out here. At the thought of who might be following him, and if he’s going through all the proper protocols.
I know he thinks I’m paranoid. I’d argue that paranoia with good reason is simply caution. And I have plenty of good reasons.
While I wait for Pete to make his appearance, I do my chores.
Feeding the chickens, gathering up the eggs.
Checking the water barrels and the filtration devices, opening up the smoker to check on the fish I started last night.
It smells awful, but when I pick off a piece and pop it in my mouth, it’s tasty.
Because the first of the month is coming, I run through all my standard, monthly tasks.
Disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling the shotgun by the front door, which is not for use against people but instead a security blanket against the slim possibility of a grizzly bear wandering up onto my property, maybe smelling that smoking fish and wanting a bit for himself.
Just after midday, I hear the low hum of an approaching engine and head inside to check the cameras, where I see Pete’s old hybrid chugging up the side of the mountain dutifully.
I meet him out in front of the property, watching as his car pulls up just outside the cabin. Pete’s red hair practically glows from the front seat, and even from here I can see the freckles on his arms as he puts the car into park and cuts the engine.
He’s already rolling his window down when I get to his door, leaning down and peering in at him.
When I first did this, I was wary of letting anyone in. But it proved too difficult to get the thyroid medicine my body unfortunately needs to function, and so Pete was enlisted, wrapped up in NDAs, and given a strict, specific set of protocols to follow.
“Did you take the back way out of town?”
“Yes.”
“And you turned off your phone?”
“Left it at home, boss.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“You know,” Pete says, raising his eyebrows at me, “you have to step back from the door if I’m gonna get out. And I have to pee pretty bad, since I’m not allowed to stop on the way here.”
I raise my eyebrows right back at him. This is the kid who came to my company as a scrawny computer nerd, and now, with my support, is working on building his own indie video game. He might not technically be my assistant anymore, but that older brother vibe still remains between us.
“Fine, fine.” Pete laughs, rolling his eyes and raising his fingers to tick them off as he talks.
“I woke up and left my apartment before dawn. I drove out of the city to pick up your supplies, since I already had the mail and the medicine. I made sure I wasn’t being followed, and I wore that stupid thing—” He gestures to the passenger seat, where a rumpled black wig has been discarded.
It’s not my fault; Pete’s ginger hair would be a dead giveaway to his identity.
And since he refused to dye it, the wig was the next best option.
“Okay,” I relent, eyes straying back down the road that brought him here. “And you’re sure you weren’t being followed?”
“Wouldn’t you have seen on the cameras if I was?”
He has a point. I let the subject drop and help Pete bring the stuff inside; the most important things — my mail and thyroid medication — and the luxuries, too.
Packages of meat from the butcher with bacon, pork chops, ribs, and steak — all the stuff I can’t get out here unless I got my own pig or cow, which would bring with it a whole host of problems.
Vet visits, immunizations, and the need to buy feed. Plus, I’m pretty sure if I did get a pig or cow, I’d end up making friends with it and be unable to follow through with butchering.
I pull out more canning supplies, a new first aid kit, and a couple of other oddities. Electrical solder, some tools, and a new pair of work gloves.
And, at the very bottom of the box…
“Really?” I ask, lifting up the slim silver package of condoms, a single roll of them.
Pete pauses, glancing up from petting Cheese.
It takes him a second to recognize what’s in my hand, like maybe he forgot about this specific joke.
When he does, he throws his head back and laughs in that stark, loud way he does.
“Oh, shit,” he wheezes through his laugh, standing and walking over to me, reaching for the condoms. “I forgot about that — that’s too good! I should have recorded that.”
I don’t remind him that recording me out here is the last thing we want, and I yank the condoms out of his reach, dropping them on the table instead of letting him have them.
There’s no time or space to be embarrassed; the idea of me using those is impossible. As far as I know, nobody else lives this far up on the side of the mountain. And, even if they did, it’s probably just other guys like me, who want to be left alone and have no interest in making friends.
“Ha,” I mutter, but I do laugh a little bit. Maybe it’s funny to bring your kind-of-boss condoms out to the middle of nowhere.
After everything is brought in and put away — another three-month supply of medicine secured — Pete lingers by the front door, running his hand over the back of his neck.
Before, when I first moved out here, he’d tried to talk to me about the whole thing. Asked about when I would be coming back. I felt bad for him — I was his one real connection in the tech world, his mentor. Losing me couldn’t have been easy.
But I also made it clear to him that I would never be coming back.
“Pete.”
“Yeah?” he’s eager, and it makes me wince.
He wants me to talk to him, and that’s never going to happen.
Aside from being inappropriate — he’s my assistant, not my fucking therapist — I don’t want to talk to anyone.
I especially don’t want to plunge back into the feelings I’ve been doing my best to avoid.
What’s the point in leaving civilization and moving to the mountains if you have to constantly remind yourself of the reason you left?
“Here,” I say, moving quickly from the living room and into the kitchen. I open the pantry and pull out two parcels wrapped up in parchment paper, turning and handing them to him as he comes through the doorway.
“Oh,” he says, barely covering his disappointment. “More bread.”
“You don’t have to keep them,” I say, rubbing at the back of my neck. “Give them to people. Tell them you made them.”
“Right,” he says, nodding down at the loaves like they might have something to say about that. “Okay, yeah. I will. My mom will love this.”
Pete takes the bread and says a quick goodbye, heading out to his car. I step out onto the porch, Cheese dancing around my ankles as I call out to him, “Hey, Pete!”
Pete stops by the car, looking up, his hand lingering over the driver’s side handle. He holds one of the loaves under his arm like a football. “Yeah?”
The moment stretches out for just a beat too long, thick with all the things I could say to him. Messages I could send to the world he’s heading back to, things I’ve wanted to say.
But there’s no use in doing that. Pete’s busy, and sending him back with a message from me might only make people more curious about my whereabouts.
And the last thing I need is for another nosy journalist to make their way up the side of the mountain, certain they can find Henry Rowan Travis and question him, yet again, about everything that went down.
Breaking out of my thoughts, I nod my head in the direction of his Prius. “Make sure you put that wig back on before you leave, man.”