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“We can have that with the three of us. We don’t need to search for some safe place that may or may not be real.”
He exhaled as if he were defeated. “We won’t know if it’s real unless we try and find it.” He lifted his head and ran a hand over his beard, looking at Lucy. “She deserves a chance.” He looked at Sasha then. “You both do.” The silence stretched between them. “And if that place turns out to be a big fucking lie…” He looked at Tree Man then. “I’ll fucking kill him and then we’ll find that home just for us. I promise.”
She had no doubt he’d deliver on that promise …. both of them.
They stepped through the clearing, the sun starting to set, and looked down across the canyon, seeing the lake, spotting the bridge. Her heart jumped into her throat, her stomach cramping, and instinctively she reached out for Lucy. She squeezed her sister’s hand gently, and with her other one, took Malachi’s. His was so much bigger than hers, dwarfing it, encasing it. He twined his fingers through hers and looked at her.
His jaw was tight, his eyes hard-set, his uncertainty clear.
Down below it seemed like a hundred tiny little ants. No, not ants. An army.
Maybe they were friends? But in this new world, they had to assume they were enemies.
“What are we going to do?” She looked back at the bridge and felt fear spike in her.
“We go around. No fucking way we’re going to risk walking through that shit.”
“No, this is the fastest way. The best way,” Tree Man muttered.
“Do you not see all those fucking people? No doubt they have weapons, the numbers behind them to overtake us if they wanted to.” Malachi shook his head. “I’m not risking the girls’ safety. I don’t care if it takes another week of travel, we go around.” Malachi sounded firm in his decision as he stared at Tree Man.
Tree Man shook his head slowly. “They could be friends, not foes. They could have open arms. They could give us shelter and food.”
Sasha stared back at the community and in a perfect world that’s exactly what it was. But they’d gone through too much, seen too much to trust anyone anymore.
The only people she trusted were Lucy and Malachi. Tree Man was still too new, still too crazy for her to fully trust him like she did Lucy and Malachi. But she was warming to him, knowing that he’d had plenty of chances to hurt them, to screw them over.
Or maybe that was his intention now? Maybe he’d been planning on bringing them here this whole time? Maybe down there was his real home, his real people?
Hesitation and doubt crept into her mind once more as she looked at Tree Man. He was muttering something unintelligible. If he thought he could sway Malachi in anything, he was sadly mistaken.
If Malachi said they went around, then that’s what they did. Because in this instance she was completely agreeing with him. No way she was going to risk Lucy’s safety walking through that shit show.
Besides, adding a little bit more time to their trip might give her the chance to talk Malachi into forgetting about a safe haven up north, and starting a new life with just the three of them.
Chapter Forty-Five
Nothing is ever easy
Just once Malachi would have loved to be able to walk straight across that bridge and take days off their trek. It pissed him off that he couldn’t do it. Lucy was tired. Tree Man was starting to wear on him, and Sasha … he wanted her again. Badly.
He didn’t know how much more he could take of the constant, never ending battle. There was a time he would have loved the chaos and bloodshed but right now, he just wanted to get to a safe place once and for all so he could sleep. So they all could. Was it really too much to ask?
He was starting to think that it was.
Too much to ask.
Running a hand down his face, he wiped the perspiration off, and knew deep down, he was running on fumes.
He stared up ahead where Lucy, Tree Man, and her dog were walking.
The dog didn’t cause much of a problem and he loved to see the happiness shining in Lucy’s eyes as she played with him.
It was all really sweet.
“You okay?” Sasha asked.
“Yeah, you?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish I could say we can make camp and just be done with it, but I don’t know what those people were doing.”
“You say we walk around, then that is what we’ve got to do, we walk around. Not a lot is going to change that.” She reached out, putting a hand on his arm. “I know you’re only doing what you think is best.”
