Of course the doors were stuck. Why wouldn’t they be? Why should anything ever be easy?
I just stood there for a moment, blinking at the wood like it had personally offended me. Will swore under his breath as he shoved hisshoulder into the doors again, and I wandered past the side of the barn. There was a collapsed lean-to, barely standing, and a handful of rusted tools leaning against the wall.
A pitchfork caught my eye.
Tall. Spiked. Iron. Ugly.
What if we could pry the door open? It was too heavy for me, but I didn’t care. I hooked my arm around it and dragged it across the grass, the prongs catching in the ground, slicing a path behind me.
Will was practically trying to kick the doors in when I got back.
I didn’t say anything.
“That could work,” he said, reaching for the fork. He wedged it between the doors, leaned in with all his weight—and the doors finally cracked open.
Dust exploded into the air like the barn exhaled for the first time in decades. Inside, it was colder. Stiller. The kind of silence that feels thick in your ears, like cotton. Shafts of light cut through the slats in the walls, catching the dust midair and turning it gold. It would’ve been beautiful, if I wasn’t so damn tired.
Everything was coated in dust—broken crates, rusted tools, coils of old rope curled in the corner like sleeping snakes. Will shoved the doors shut behind us, the wood groaning in protest, then grabbed a loose plank and wedged it across the handles so no one could get in from the outside.
Only then did he turn to me.
”What…the…fuck…just happened?”
“I don't know,” I said.
“You don't know? Shit!” His tone sharpened. ”They could be sending patrols already. We need to move. We need to hide. We need to do something before they—”
“You don't think I know that?” I snapped. “Why did you bring me to that place?”
He stared at me.
“I went back,” he said. “After… after everything. I saw the smoke. And I found you.”
The words just hung there. He didn’t finish. Maybe he couldn’t.
“You found me?” I remembered crawling. The river. The blanket. That horrible cold. But… what was I wearing? What did I look like?
He found me likethat?
“You were barely breathing,” he forced out. “You wouldn’t wake up. I thought you were—” He broke off, grinding his teeth like he could chew the word down before it tore free. “I thought I lost you.”
I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to hold that kind of pain. His or mine. I saw it. The panic. The guilt. Like he’d been carrying it this whole time, like it was stitched into his skin.
“You came back,” I whispered.
Will’s eyes flicked toward me. “I said I would, didn’t I?”
I sank into the old hay in the corner, knees folding under me. He stayed standing, still near the door, pacing tight lines like a caged animal. Like he didn’t know what to do with himself.
It was time.
If I didn’t tell him now, I never would.
I told myself that I could trust him. If there was a human left alive in this world that I could trust, it was him.
“Do you remember…” I kept my eyes on the floor. “The day on the ice lake?”
The rafters creaked overhead. A mouse darted through the hay.
