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“Sabotaged.”
She frowns. “What does that mean?”
“It means we’re walking the rest of the way to the cabin.”
Isabella smiles up at me. “Good morning, Adrik!”
“Good morning, princess.” Cheerful is a bit out of my reach this morning, but I give her a small, tight smile.
She is so pure. “Sabotage” means nothing to her. Just a funny sounding word. She feels none of my rage, my wrath. I wonder what it’s like to live so free.
Emery walks over to me. “So what do we do?”
“I just told you. We walk the rest of the way.”
“How far is it?”
“Not far.” I step around her to start taking down the tent.
“How far is ‘not far’?” she asks.
“Less than very far.”
She groans. “That’s not a real answer.”
“It’s the answer you’re getting.”
“Adrik,” she complains. “Please. Talk to me.”
I whip around and step closer until Emery has to bend backward to keep some distance between us. “Keeping you alive is a full-time job. I don’t have time to chit-chat about my decision-making.”
“You had plenty of time for talking last night,” she argues.
“That wasn’t talking. That was fucking,” I hiss. “And given the choice between the two, I’ll take fucking ten times out of ten.”
Her face twists into a hurt scowl, but I don’t have time to deal with that shit. We need to move, now. We’ve already lingered too long.
I spin around and keep dismantling the tent. A few seconds later, I hear Emery rustling around behind me, packing up the rest of the campsite.
We make quick work of it. We didn’t have many supplies to start with. Within ten minutes, everything is packed up. I hook the air mattress and the tent bag over each arm and then hoist Isabella up, cradling her against my chest.
“Where are we going now?” Isabella asks.
“We’re going to my cabin,” I explain.
“I thought that’s where we were going yesterday.”
“We were,” Emery chimes in. “But we got delayed.”
“Because the car blew up?” she asks curiously.
Emery chuckles. “It didn’t blow up.”
Luckily. It could have. If some fucker messed with the radiator hose, they could have just as easily planted a bomb.
I have to be more careful moving forward. No more mistakes. No more oversight.
Isabella huffs in frustration. “Then why aren’t we driving it?”
“The car didn’t blow up, but it’s still broken,” I explain, picking my way carefully over the uneven ground. Isabella isn’t heavy, but I want to jostle her as little as possible.
“So you have to carry me the whole way?” she asks. “What about my chair?”
“It stays.”
“What will I sit in when we get there?”
Emery comes up next to us and lays her hand on Isabella’s forehead. Immediately, the tension in her little body seems to ease. “Everything will be okay, honey. We’ll take care of you.”
“I’ll drive back to the car and pick up your wheelchair once we get to the cabin,” I tell her. “And I don’t mind carrying you the whole way. You aren’t heavy.”
“But we can switch whenever you want to,” Emery says.
I look over at her. “Not necessary.”
“I’m not doubting your strength, you know, macho man.” She pulls her hand from Isabella’s forehead. “No one is doubting you’re strong enough. But your shoulder is still healing.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“Then maybe you ought to start listening.”
Emery narrows her eyes at me and then makes a show of walking ahead of us, leading the way haughtily.
I expect her to fall back within a few minutes, but she maintains the pace. Even when we hit some dense shrubs and the ground devolves into a tangle of roots, she powers ahead.
It’s admirable. Also, it provides an excellent view of her ass flexing in those leggings. I don’t need the motivation, but watching her helps to stave off the boredom.
Half an hour in, Isabella is dozing in my arms. The warm day and the lull of my stride is putting her to sleep.
Emery doubles back, peeks over my arm at her daughter, and then settles into an easy pace next to me. “She likes you.”
“I’m likable.”
“Agree to disagree,” she snorts.
“You like me. You just don’t want to admit it to yourself.”
Emery sighs and turns away. It’s not a denial. A few minutes later, she looks back over at me. “Isabella and I could just… we could leave.”
“You want to carry her through the woods? Live off the land?”
“That’s not what I—I don’t mean right now,” she says. “But after this blows over, I’m saying. We could disappear from your life. You wouldn’t have to worry about us anymore.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” I tell her.
“But while we live with you, you’ll always want to take care of us. And what I’m saying is, we could leave and you wouldn’t feel the need to do that,” she explains haltingly. “And maybe… maybe you wouldn’t have to kill your brother.”
“Again, I don’t have to do—”
