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I offered her my hand before I stepped inside, flicking on the light inside the door. The cabin was just as small inside as it was outside. There was a tiny kitchenette with a table to eat at and two doors. Behind the first was a bathroom, and behind the second was a small bedroom.
We wandered inside and I shut the door, leading Bella to the bedroom first. There were a few pieces of clothing inside, but they were all clearly for adult men, and they were mostly geared towards hunting.
Oh well.
I led Bella back into the kitchen and sat her down on one of the chairs. “Are you hungry?” I asked.
She looked at me for a few moments before giving a tiny nod.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me see what we’ve got here, okay?”
Thank the ancestors, but whoever owned the cabin had left a few staples in the pantry. Of course, there was nothing like milk or eggs, but I found dried pasta and a jar of tomato sauce. As long as the burners turned on, I could make dinner.
An hour later, I had managed to get everything turned on and made Bella a simple plate of pasta and sauce. I had no idea if she wasn’t a picky eater or if she was just that hungry, but I’d barely set the plate down before she leaned in and went to town. I was hungry, too, but I still admired the rate she put food away.
Once we were done, I put the dishes in the sink and picked Bella back up, carrying her to the bathroom. She was covered in dirt and leaves and what I’m pretty sure was her mother’s blood.
“Do you want a shower?” There was no bathtub, but that didn’t surprise me. It was clearly just a hunting cabin.
Bella shook her head and I gave her a wry smile, reaching out to touch her tangled hair. “Are you sure? I know it doesn’t sound great right now, but I promise you’ll feel a lot better if you get all that dirt off. Besides…” I looked over my shoulder across the small cabin. “If we’re going to borrow someone’s house, we shouldn’t sleep in their bed dirty, right? You’d be sad if someone left your bed all dirty.”
Bella gave me a long look, but she finally nodded. I exhaled in relief. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll make it as quick as possible, I promise.”
Thankfully, Bella was just as well-behaved for a short shower as everything else. She even let me scrub her hair and brush the tangles out afterwards. We didn’t have anything else for her to change into, but she seemed completely unbothered, eyes shutting almost as soon as she crawled into the small bed. I was going to offer to tell her a nighttime story, but she was sound asleep within moments.
I waited for a few minutes, but once I was content that she wasn’t going to wake back up, I stood. The world lurched around me and I had to pause, trying to focus on breathing as my pulse went thready and uneven. It usually took a lot more physical exertion than that to make me feel so unsteady, but…
I rubbed my chest idly, gently feeling the skin next to my pacemaker.What the hell did those monsters do to me?
After several moments, my pulse seemed to return to normal. All the same, I was very careful as I went back to the main room to clean things up before slipping into the bathroom to take my own quick shower. After all, if I collapsed…who would be there to help Bella but me?
I had cleanedthe cabin to the best of my ability, even dusting things off. I had to move slowly; carrying Bella felt like it was taking everything out of me. I’d never been a particularly athletic girl — not since the surgeries — but I felt like a stiff wind could knock me over right now.
Even though I felt like hell, I still wanted to leave the cabin at least a little nicer than I’d found it, especially since I was eating this person’s food and had no way of replacing it. I didn’t usually feel this guilty about doing what I needed to do, but I was clearly off my game. My neck still burned, the collar an constant and unpleasant reminder of what we were runningfrom. I had dizzy spells, and I knew my pacemaker was on the fritz, if not completely dead.
I yawned, lodging one of the chairs under the front door just in case when I heard sniffling from the bedroom.
I hurried over, sitting next to Bella on the bed. I could see the glint of tears in the sliver of light from the kitchen and I sighed, leaning over to stroke her hair back. “Are you okay?” I asked, knowing the answer already.
Bella said nothing, hiccupping as she wiped her hands over her face. Fresh tears fell.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me turn off the light.”
I returned a few moments later, closing the bedroom door to lie down on the bed next to Bella. “Did you have a bad dream?”
She paused before nodding slightly. I felt the movement more than I actually saw it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, pushing her hair away from her face again. “I get those sometimes, too. They’re really scary, even after I wake up. It’s okay to be afraid.” I dropped my hand to her face, trying to brush away some of her fear. “Would a hug make you feel better? I think not being alone helps me sometimes.”
Bella paused again, and her nod was a little more vigorous this time. “Okay,” I murmured, wiggling a little closer so I could hug Bella against my chest. I could hear her heart beating rapidly. The plaid shirt I had taken from the hunter’s cabin was already getting damp as silent tears continued to fall down her cheeks. I could feel my heart breaking just a little more.
“Do you want me to tell you a story?” I asked.
Bella didn’t hesitate before nodding this time.
“Okay,” I said, racking my memory for any of the stories my own mama used to tell me. “I will tell you my favorite from when I was little; this is a story about Raven and his grandmother.
“Once upon a time, an old grandmother lived in her barrabara at the end of a fishing village with her grandson, a raven. They did not live with the other villagers because they weren’t liked very much. When the men in the village returned from fishing for cod, the raven would come and beg for food, but they would never share any of their catch with him. So, when all had left the beach, the raven would come and pick up anything he could find they might have left, even sick fish. He would bring them home to his grandmother, and this is how they lived…”
