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“We did our time and they gave you the books too,” Jace said humorously. “You could have been reading them in your free time.”
Admittedly, I had been slacking where that was concerned, too. I was still playing catch up with one of my classes, and I was trying to rush to get my credits for the semester. My brain was too fried to read anything further once my classes were complete for the day.
We were doing a distance learning program through Knightstown, but we were still required to go to the learning center everyday with the rest of the high school students here. There wasn’t many of us, but they still had a teacher for us.
Alex, Micah, and Ella were also in classes with only a hand full of students. There weren’t many people on Paul’s payroll that brought children. In fact, Paul’s own son stayed with his mother. They wanted him to have a normal life or a semblance of one.
“I’m sure we can find nightcrawlers under the rocks by the stream,” Remy clapped his hands with equal enthusiasm breaking me out of my thoughts.
“It’s been a while since I went fishing,” I was catching onto their excitement.
I loved how we were working together to make a potentially bad situation into a positive one.
“It’s cold out there,” Jaxson began as Noah and Jace started to shake their head emphatically.
“I wouldn’t go there if I were you,” Noah warned. “Do you remember what she did yesterday?”
Jaxson sighed and looked at me with a pained expression. “You can’t blame us for wanting to protect you.”
I smiled. “I don’t. I’m glad you guys want to look out for me, but a little bit of snow won’t hurt me. There’s no way I want to sit here idly while you guys are out there.”
“Fine,” Jaxson frowned. I could still see he wasn’t convinced by my argument.
Chapter 9
We bundled up after breakfast. We all paused outside of the mouth of the cave and took in the view.
“I’m going to miss this,” I admitted. “It’s so relaxing to be unplugged and separated from the real world. It’s like we’re the only ones left in the world.”
“I agree,” Remy declared as he slipped up behind me to embrace me. “That long hike to get here was well worth it.”
Back at home, Remy had taken me to his quiet spot. It wasn’t like this, but it was away from the normal grind. He had liked to go camping and unplug a
t times there. He promised to take me there with him one day, but we never had the opportunity to.
“Do you ever think that one day we can come back here?” I asked expectantly.
“I would say yes, but it seems like every time we make plans, things get turned around,” Jace said wryly.
“We passed plenty of spots I could probably land the helicopter on, so we don’t have to hike as far,” Troy stated.
“One day we’re coming back here,” I declared emphatically.
“Sounds good to me,” Drake nodded with a smile. “But maybe next time we’ll bring air mattresses. That cavern floor isn’t the most comfortable.”
“Deal,” I laughed.
We started to trudge towards the stream. From our vantage point, it didn’t look like it was that far away. I didn’t take the depth of snow into account though. In the low spots it was about a foot deep. In the drifts it nearly reached my hips.
Remy saw that I was struggling and suggested that I walk behind him, and I gladly accepted his offer. Jaxson gave me a pointed look, and I had to refrain from sticking my tongue out at him. I still didn’t mind our little journey to the stream.
When we reached the stream, Remy and I immediately turned over some rocks and found the worms under several rocks. Jaxson, Noah, and Jace volunteered to go with Drake to find some edible plants while we slipped the worms on hooks.
Troy had already rigged the hooks and weights onto the lines, so we all we had to do was bait the hooks. Troy set off in the direction of the lake, while I finished baiting my hook.
“There’s some down here,” Remy called in a loud whisper as he moved further down from us.
I went down to where he was pointing, and it looked like the streams surface wanted to freeze over. The fish still seemed to be active, though, as they lazily swam around.
