Page 12
Footsteps crunch from behind over the snow.
Hurry.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Noya.
I squeeze the trigger, and a flash of movement in my periphery is the only warning before the crossbow’s barrel flies upward. The arrow slices through the air. An explosion of birds shoots out from the canopy of trees overhead, squawking and flapping about.
The wolf darts off into the thickness of trees.
Fury rises into my throat as I stare across the snowy hill at where Russ stands. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Bent forward, he rests his hands to his knees as he heaves. Pushing sixty-five is bad enough on his body, but the man has never bought into the idea that his is a temple and, therefore, has treated it more like a rundown trailer in the last few years.
“Told ya … a million … times.” Every word is punctuated by his lack of breath, and yet still carries that flat, nasally sound.
Like a northerner.
And I hate that I sound like him, too.
My longtime accent was the first thing to go when we arrived in this place, because anything that was a part of who I was doesn’t matter anymore. Took months of practice to rid myself of it, only to replace the distinct southern drawl with that godawful Midwest sound. And for what? Not like there was any evidence of my existence from my old life, anyway. No one knew who I was, because there’s no record that I was even born.
“He killed Noya,” I grit, the sting of tears in my eyes again. “He’s a murderer.” The crack of my voice only exacerbates what I know is irrational anger. That’s how life is in the north, after all, but she was my only friend.
“And that is unfortunate. But you do not kill a wolf.” Though he’s white to the core, Russ grew up on a Cherokee reservation somewhere in North Carolina. Just like the native feather arm band I’ve seen tattooed on his bicep, along with the turquoise and leather band he wears on his wrist, the man still honors traces of their heritage, and he believes that to slaughter the animal would bring a bad omen, or something. It’s said that the wolf’s spirit and all his kin would seek revenge for such an act.
He told me the same thing when I was thirteen years old—the first time I ever spoke aloud of wanting to kill another human being.
“I don’t believe in your stories.” Slinging the crossbow over my shoulder, I snatch up my sack that I dropped on sighting the wolf and tromp through the snow toward the cabin.
“Now, just wait a minute, Céleste.”
My first name was the only thing I got to keep from my old life. The last remnant of a mother I never knew. From what small scraps I’ve been fed about my past, she split the scene when I was a baby, and my real father never spoke of her. Of course, none of that matters now. Since having left that life, I’ve been forced to use Russ’s last name, in order to uphold the facade that he’s my father.
He isn’t.
He’s a drunk, a womanizer, and a shitty gambler.
Never my father, even if he’s the man who raised me for the last nine years. A trusted friend of my real dad, who’s now dead. Murdered, actually, in our Louisiana home when I was just going on twelve years old. Russ swiped me up and fled north, to this place, half-heartedly raising me under the guise of a parent.
Hand to his chest, he bends forward on a deep raspy cough that he’s had for as long as I’ve known him. Only, as of late, it’s been tinged with the red blood that flies past his lips on a spray of spittle, coating the white snow below.
“I have to bury my dog.” I don’t even bother to glance back as I keep on toward where my dog lays in a mangled lump of blood and fur a few hundred yards off.
“Well, be sure to keep the shovel handy.” His comment brings me skidding to a halt, and I turn to see him rubbing his hands together, as if the cold suddenly bothers him.
The man isn’t above using his ailing body as a means of sympathy, but I’m not like the women he brings home who want to take care of him. Baby him. I know better than to fall trap to his manipulative crap. Except, a few months back, he did something out of character, by going to have his cough and some headaches and dizziness he was having checked by Doc Reece. That’s when he found out about a nodule in his lungs.
“It’s spread, then?” I refuse to let the worry exploding inside of me touch my voice.
With a sniff, he looks around the forest and nods. “Ride’s about to get a little bumpy, kid.”
Russ and I have this game, one where we pretend like we don’t give a damn about each other. He tells me the nightmares I suffer every night are my own fault for watching those crime show documentaries, all while holding my hand, and I tell him I don’t care that he’s dying, all while holding back tears.
The cold in between keeps us from feeling any pain, but today, it isn’t working so brilliantly as before. Could be that losing my dog has rattled loose emotions that I typically keep in check.
