Dakota sets her mug aside and opens up a container nearby. “Here. I keep extra towels for you out here, just in case.” She hands me one and pours a bit of water into another mug so I can use it to wet the cloth. “I can scrub your back for you.”
“I can scrub him too, if you need help,” Aggie offers.
“Aggie sleep good,” I comment, wiping my face with a wet towel as Dakota gets my back. “Sound like self.”
The elderly female huffs. “Gonna take a lot more than a bit of a setback to keep this old lady quiet.” But she sounds sad. “I just hope Dottie’s all right. I don’t like that we left her and Rabbit in the fort.”
I can feel Dakota’s mood shift, the camp feeling tinged with sorrow. I can’t let that happen.
“Dottie good,” I reassure Aggie. “Rabbit with Dottie. Rabbit strong, fierce. Both good, together.”
“I’m glad she’s not alone,” Aggie says. “Rabbit’s a good kid to stay with her, but I should have stayed, too.”
“Someone needs to look after Stella,” my mate says, finally speaking up. “I think Rabbit wanted to stay because of Jonah, too.”
Aggie chuckles. “Let her have her crush. It’s nice to be young. He was a good kid. Deserves a puppy, even if they don’t want to trade for one. We’ll just have to figure things out.”
My mate’s mood shifts, and she perks up. She finishes wiping down my back as I bathe my arms. “I’m hoping we can find something today. With Murr’s ability to fly, we can cover a lot of ground. Maybe we’ll see something from the air that we wouldn’t from street level. If you have any ideas of where to look for medication other than a hospital, I’m all ears.”
Now that I am clean, I lean in to give my mate the kiss I intended to earlier. She melts against me, her lips soft and sweet, and I want more than anything to find these medicines and ease the worries from her mind. She smiles up at me, but I can tell her thoughts are already racing to what needs to be done. If we are flying today, we’ll need a bag. She always carries one with supplies when she goes out.
I can pack a bag for her.
I give my mate back her cup of coffee that she has not finished and press another kiss to the top of her head. “Sit. Breakfast.”
She smiles gratefully up at me and hugs her coffee close. Her eyes are still sleepy, dark circles under them, and I know the bitter liquid will perk her up. I head inside the bookstore, the door propped open by bricks so the animals can move in and out easily. It allows me to hear snatches of conversation as I pull out Dakota’s bag and begin to fill it with the things she takes with her. A flashlight. A knife. Rope. Some small paper cylinder she calls an “emergency tampon.”
“You want to know where to look?” Aggie asks, her voice drifting in. “Did you try a farm? Or one of them great big horse stables?”
“Why would I look at a farm?” I can hear the confusion in Dakota’s voice.
“Dated a farmer once,” Aggie says. “Ain’t easy to take cattle or horses in to the vet, so you usually have that stuff on the farm so you can treat ’em at home. You might be able to find antibiotics at one of those. Can’t hurt to look.”
“That’s…a really good idea.”
“I’m old, not stupid.”
Dakota’s tone turns indignant. “I never said you were stupid.”
Aggie just “hmphs.”
“Are people antibiotics and horse antibiotics the same thing?” Dakota says.
“Fuck if I know, but a horse antibiotic probably beats no antibiotic.”
“Fair enough.”
I stuff a warm sweater into my mate’s pack as the day is chilly and emerge from the bookstore with her bag. I hold it out to her just as she finishes her coffee, and the look on Dakota’s face is both pleased and surprised. “Oh, Murr, you doll. It’s like you read my mind.”
CHAPTER 98
DAKOTA
AmI getting used to flying around the skies with my mate?
Absolutely not. Every time he dips and there’s an updraft, my heart goes into my throat. Do I think he’s going to drop me? Of course not. I know Murr would rather crash to the ground himself than lose his grip on me. But it’s one thing to be on an airplane, and another to have your feet dangling as someone else carries you two hundred feet into the air.
Do I have a choice in the matter? Not really. Dottie needs meds, and we need to cover a lot of ground quickly, so here we are, flying over green fields and old broken highways, looking for something promising. After a while, one broken down building starts to look the same as another, and I begin to despair. How do we find anything in this world without a map? Without the internet? What exactly does a really big horse farm look like anyhow?
