But we’re here, we fucking made it!
I’m dripping with sweat, there’s a cramp in my side, I’m pretty sure my feet are bleeding, and I want to drop to the ground and sleep for a year, but we made it.
“Holy fuck,” Aries whispers.
“It’s a whole damn town!” Luna gasps.
“I told you.” Lark laughs softly. “Whoever built this just upped and abandoned it. No one else wanted it.” She shrugs. “Their loss is our gain. This is our new start, girls. Our new beginning. No one owns us anymore.”
The other girls start to cheer with excitement, but I look to my sister. She’s watching me, a look of unease on her face.
I get it. She doesn’t trust this. It’s all too good to be true.
But we have a fail-safe, I just hope we don’t have to use it.
Gideon isn’t going to let this go easily; he won’t stop looking for us until he sees our cold, lifeless bodies for himself.
He lost a lot of money because of us, and people who live for money don’t like to lose it.
For now, we just need to survive. Live our lives the best we can and take it day by day.
We can’t run. We don’t have the money for that, and he’d probably find us if we did. We’d always be looking over our shoulder.
No. For now, we stay. We build. We’ll grow this town into something of our own.
“Welcome to Widows Peak, girls,” Lark says. “This is our new home.”
It’s been two weeks since we arrived at Widows Peak, and honestly, it hasn’t been all that bad.
A lot of the houses were built and finished, a few of them even furnished with some of the basics. There’s no power or running water, but there is a place a little ways up the mountain that has fresh spring water. We’ve been gathering what we can in jugs and boiling it for showers and to wash dishes.
Lark’s guy did another run for us, bringing us some generators and other basic things in addition to food. Thankfully, we have a few months ahead before winter, and a generator is enough to run one of the houses. We’ve been staying together in the same place for now. Eventually, we’ll work towards everyone moving into one of the houses on their own, but for now, this will do.
We’ve gotten along pretty well, which doesn’t surprise me, seeing that we’ve been surviving together for three years now, with only each other as a lifeline.
We’re in the living room this afternoon, enjoying the last bit of light before the sun goes down, when Lark bursts in.
“We have company!” She looks at us with wide, wild eyes.
I look to Silva as we jump to our feet.
“Is it...” Silva asks.
“It’s not Gideon, but I’m almost positive it’s his men,” Lark says, jogging upstairs. She returns a few moments later and hands each of us a handgun. “If they try to take you, shoot. Don’t hesitate. We’re not going down like this.”
My hand shakes as I look my gun over. I’ve never held a gun, let alone shot one. Fuck. I knew this was too good to be true.
“Hey,” Silva says softly. “We’re going to be fine, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper and nod.
“Fuck,” Lark curses, looking out the front door. “Let me handle this.”
“We can’t let her go out there alone, can we?” I ask Silva.
Instead of answering me, she sighs heavily and heads out after Lark.
Aries, Luna, Briar, and I rush to the window, pulling back the curtain to peek out.
