We’re approaching the turn-off that heads up the mountain and to Belial House.It’s ten feet away.Hayami eyes the road ahead.I ready myself to hit the gas, to keep on going.To never look back.Because I’d do it, without any hesitation.All she has to do is say the words, and we’re out of here.
Instead, she looks down at her hands.“Because he’d find us,” she says sadly.“We’d run and run and run.Never stop running.Never stop looking over our shoulders.We’d never be free.None of us.”
“You’d rather live in your cage?”
“I’d still be caged.It’d just feel bigger.But there’d always be an end to it, a line I can’t cross.He’s made sure of that.”
We drive in silence the rest of the way.
Once we’re at the house, we unload the car and bring everything into the kitchen to unpack.
“I hate tinned food,” Hayami says as she places various cans in the tall cupboard.“It all tastes metallic.”
“Beggers can’t be choosers,” I tell her, retrieving my phone from the countertop where I left it and opening the weather app.
Between the lack of sleep, Hayami’s strange nighttime incidents, and the en suite rescue, I’ve taken my eye off the ball concerning the weather, and Kevin’s parting comment is niggling at me.
The app takes a while to load, and as I’m waiting, I notice Hayami placing the gun I gave her on the table.
“Won’t be needing it in here, I hope,” she says, eyeing the gun.
“No,” I reply, but I’m focused on the weather report because, when it loads, the first thing I see is the red weather warning marked for the day after tomorrow.
I click on the alert.
A Red Weather Warning is in place for the local area for snow, ice, high winds, and freezing fog.Red Weather Warning means there is a threat to life, and you must not travel unless it is to reach safety or you are in immediate danger.
Fuck.
This is the last thing we need.
Hayami opens the fridge and places the chilled items inside.
There’s a pang of something in my gut.I’ve already kept her mother’s journal from her, so keeping this information from her as well feels like a step too far, even though the last thing I want to do is cause her to worry.
“There’s a weather warning out for snow.”
Hayami glances at me.“It feels cold enough.When for?”
“Two days from now.”
“Did you bring a sledge?”She smiles.She doesn’t see it.Doesn’t realise we could be stuck up here for days, totally cut off from the world.Safe, at least, but stranded.
“I’ll finish up in here,” I say, moving over to the fridge.She eyes me suspiciously.“Haven’t you got some work to finish?”
“Yeah.”She sighs heavily.Her studies are the only thing keeping her focus right now, the only link she has to her life before this shit went down.I don’t want her falling behind.“I’ll set up in the library.”
She leaves the kitchen, and I finish unpacking, relieved that I’ll get a chance to pick up Junko’s journal, as I’m eager to know if Kevin had been telling the truth or whether something else entirely is going on here.
THIRTY-ONE
HAYAMI
PRESENT
Relieved that Fenrirhas given me an excuse to leave the kitchen, I make my way to the library.The large window frames the view outside, the towering trees that surround the house, and the tops of the mountain range opposite.I can already imagine what this view will look like when covered in snow.
Fenrir thinks I haven’t realised the significance of snowfall—what it could mean to us up here.
