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We leave town at daybreak, all four of us burdened with heavy packs across our backs. Caleb’s holds blankets and a single large tent that will serve as nighttime shelter as we make our way back to Westfall. The rest of us carry a mix of clothes, food, water, and our scant medical supplies. I double check twice to make sure my knife is in the sheath at my waist, and I see Ash doing the same. Bishop has his rifle, and Caleb isn’t going anywhere without his crossbow. We are as ready as we can possibly be, both for Westfall and what we might encounter along the way.
I stop on the edge of town, turn back to watch the curve of the sun inching up over the still-sleeping houses. A few curls of smoke lift up from chimneys, swirl into the gray morning sky. The air is so crystal clear it looks like you could hit it with a fist and it would shatter around you, crisp and thin as glass. Above me, the sharp call of a crow. To my right, the crack of a branch in the river. Behind me, the icy wind creeping into the collar of my coat. I tell myself to remember these things, this moment. Somehow I already know I will not pass this way again.
“Hey,” Bishop says. “Are you all right?”
I turn toward him, nod. One look at his face, the way his eyes move from me to the silent houses behind me, and I know he feels it, too. We are saying a final farewell to a place that was good to us. It might never have been home, not quite, but it sheltered us, kept us alive. But we have each other now, and that is enough.
“Come on,” I say. I hold out my hand, fingers stiff inside my mitten, and Bishop grasps it with his gloved hand. I don’t shed any tears as we walk away, following Caleb’s steady pace into the trees. Already I am getting better at letting go.
For most of the first two days, Caleb and Ash take turns leading the way. They seem to effortlessly know the exact path to follow. I’m able to discern the general direction we should be headed, but don’t know the terrain well enough to get us back to Westfall by the quickest and easiest route.
The ground is snow-covered in some parts, a soup of slushy mud in others where the sun has done its work. The nights are a mix of relief at being off our feet and sheer misery at lying on the cold ground, wind easing under the edges of the tent no matter how hard we try to seal off all entry points. The first night, after a few hours of trying to give each other a little space, we give up and smash together—Bishop and Caleb on the outside, Ash and me curled around each other in between. I only manage to sleep once I can feel Bishop’s heart against my back, Ash’s stomach under my arm.
On the morning of the third day, Caleb and Bishop are walking ahead, Ash and I behind them, both of us gnawing on half-frozen pieces of jerky. The air is so frigid it makes my gums throb every time I open my mouth for a bite. “Bet you’re wishing you hadn’t volunteered for this,” I say, breath puffing out of me in frosty clouds of steam.
Ash glances at me, her wool hat pulled all the way down to her eyebrows. It makes her look younger, more vulnerable somehow. “What, you mean because it’s cold?” She shrugs. “Cold where we were, too. At least this way we’re all together. Beats sitting in that house for another winter with only Caleb to stare at. Last year there were a couple of times I thought I might actually kill him, just for something to do.”
I laugh, but her words make me feel small, silly to have questioned her loyalty even in jest. “Thank you,” I say quietly.
She bumps her shoulder against me. “For what?”
“For being my friend.” I bump her back. “For coming with us.”
“It was never even really a question,” Ash says, “not for either one of us. For so long, it was just Caleb and me and my dad. I mean, we had everyone else, but they weren’t family. And after my dad…we still had each other, but we didn’t feel quite like a family anymore.”
“And then I came crashing into your life,” I say with a smile.
Ash smiles back. “Yep. And it’s been good, Ivy. Bishop and you, you turned us into a family again. And we don’t turn our backs on family. There’s no way we were letting you two take on Westfall alone.”
I look down at the piece of jerky in my hand, no longer hungry, my stomach curling in on itself. I hate that I’m putting Ash in jeopardy to help someone who will never be a tenth of the person she is. “You’ve already been more of a sister to me than Callie ever was,” I say.
“It’s okay,” Ash says. “You don’t hav
e to explain it to me, why you need to go back. It’s enough that you do.”
We’ve caught up to Caleb and Bishop, who have stopped walking, both focused on the ground, foreheads furrowed. Ash opens her mouth to speak, and Caleb silences her with one sharp look, points down to our feet. There are footprints in the snow. Bigger than Ash’s. Bigger than mine. So probably a man. The footprints veer off into the brush to our right and disappear. Caleb gives Bishop a look and motions Ash to follow him. Bishop holds back with me for a few seconds before we continue on behind Ash and Caleb.
“What are we doing?” I ask in a whisper.
“Figuring out who that is,” Bishop whispers back. “And what they want.”
“How—”
“Just keep walking,” Bishop says. “Stay with Caleb.” Before I can ask him anything else, he’s stepped into the trees to our right. Within seconds, he’s melted away into the maze of gray branches. I want to follow him, my body turning toward the spot he disappeared, but I force myself to keep walking forward, eyes on Caleb’s back. If it were only my life on the line, I would probably crash after him, instructions be damned. But I don’t want to do anything to endanger Bishop. My blood is pounding in my chest, my ears straining for any sound of him. I know Bishop can handle himself, that he’s as good as Caleb at navigating these woods. He’s strong and he has a gun. My brain knows all that. My heart isn’t quite getting the message, throbbing painfully against my ribs. The base of my neck is knotted with nerves, like someone is yanking hard against the top of my spine.
We’ve been walking silently for what feels like an hour but is probably only a quarter of that when I hear branches breaking behind us, something big and thrashing cutting through the trees. Caleb whirls, crossbow already off his back and aimed into the woods in the direction of the sound. Ash and I flank him, knives out of their sheaths, poised and ready to fly.
Bishop crashes out of the woods, Mark Laird stumbling along next to him, his head caught in the crook of Bishop’s arm. Seeing Mark doesn’t bring even the slightest shock to my system, and I realize I’ve been prepared for this moment since the day he disappeared. He was never going to stay gone.
My frantic eyes look for damage, but all they can find on Bishop is a split lip, and I’m able to take a full breath for the first time since he walked into the trees. Mark, on the other hand, is looking worse for wear, and not only from the beating Bishop has obviously given him. He’s much thinner than the last time I saw him, his cheeks hollow and eyes sunken, hair matted with dirt. His clothes are shredded to almost nothing; it’s a wonder he hasn’t frozen to death already. He doesn’t look like a sweet cherub doll anymore. He looks rabid, like if I waved a hand in front of his mouth, he’d tear the flesh from my bones.
“He was following us,” Bishops says, out of breath, but not loosening his hold on Mark’s neck. “He’d circled back around.”
Caleb takes a few steps closer to Mark, and Ash and I do the same. “All this time,” Caleb says, “you’ve just been waiting instead of finding shelter, a new place to live? You’re even dumber than I thought.”
Mark raises his eyes to Caleb, a thread of bloody saliva hanging off his lower lip. “You aren’t going to beat me,” he says, voice a harsh rasp. His eyes skip over to me. “That bitch doesn’t get to win.”
Bishop’s arm jerks against Mark’s neck, hard, and Mark gasps out a choking moan, his hands flying up to try to pull Bishop’s arm away. “Shut up,” Bishop says in that same flat voice I heard when he talked to Mark through the fence. “And guess what? You’re the one trapped and bleeding, so I think we’ve already won.”
