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Seri must have realized that silence is the way to go and hasn’t said much of anything all day. Even Solo has been unwilling to leave his towel-lined box for anything other than milk. At the moment, he’s sleeping soundly and not bothering the food I have laid out by the fire, ready to cook for dinner. Maybe the storm is affecting his mood, too.
“The wind is blowing, too,” I say. “It’s likely to drift up over the roof.”
“Really?” Seri’s eyes widen at this news. “What do we do if that happens? Couldn’t we suffocate?”
“In theory, yes. Having extra bodies in here doesn’t help with that, but there are ventilation holes on the roof.” I point out two places on the ceiling of the cabin where you can see the holes. “If snow covers the roof, I can stick a broom handle through the holes and let oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. That’s only happened once though. Once the snowfall stops, I can climb up on the roof and clear it off.”
“What if you fall?”
“I won’t.”
“But what if you do?”
“If I get hurt badly, I’ll die.” I stare at her for a long moment. I can see that she’s starting to panic, and I don’t need that. “I’m very careful, and I’ve been doing this for a long time. If the snow is piled up to the roof, I’m not going to fall far. Don’t worry about shit that hasn’t happened.”
She takes a deep breath and then nods.
“In the meantime,” she says, “maybe we should try to get along a bit better?”
I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from telling her to just fuck off and leave me alone. I don’t want to get along; I want her out of here. But that’s not possible right now. For a moment, I wish I hadn’t picked her up at all. I wish I had just left her there—it was her own problem, not mine. I also know if I had, I would have ended up racing out there as the storm hit, riddled with guilt and probably getting both of us killed.
Maybe getting along isn’t so bad.
“How would we do that?” I ask her warily.
“Maybe just talk a little?” she says, and I cringe. “We have to have something in common. You’re obviously from the States, not from around here. Where did you grow up?”
In a detention center.
“Kentucky,” I finally answer. “Outside of Louisville.”
“Really? I’m from Indianapolis, so that’s pretty close! See? We already have something in common.”
I’m not so sure that counts, but I’m willing to admit understanding such things isn’t my forte.
“When did you graduate from high school?” she asks.
“I didn’t.”
“Oh.” She looks away as she twists her fingers around each other, finally ending her list of questions that likely included colleges and majors.
I knew talking wasn’t a good idea. This is just going to lead to all kinds of questions I don’t care to answer, which is going to piss me off, which is going to make me want to do something I would end up regretting.
If I kill her, I’ll have to dig through the frozen earth to bury her, and it is too damn cold to even consider that. That thought alone should help me behave myself. I place caribou steaks into the hot pan on the fire and focus on the sizzling sound.
“Bishop is a really unusual name,” she says.
“So is Seri,” I reply.
“Heh, yeah, that’s true. It’s short for Serenity. I got picked on a lot because of it when I was growing up. It sounds like such a snobby name. I think my parents believed it was going to represent a peaceful life. No such luck.”
She chuckles nervously. I can’t think of a way to respond to the information she’s provided me, and I don’t want to ask her a bunch of questions about the ways her life hasn’t been serene, so I say nothing.
“So, where did the name Bishop come from?” she asks when I don’t speak up.
“My mother.” Her question is innocent enough, but I tense anyway.
“Well, yes,” Seri say with another chuckle, “but where did she get it?”
