Okay, when did Boone even have time to fill him in on my “terrible and long” road? And, where was “there?”
Nothing made sense.
But I clung to Boone, continuing to cry, as Vik pulled the truck into an arc and headed back down the mountain road we’d just come up.
“There” turned out to be a series of cabins I could barely see in the shadows beyond the truck’s headlights as we drove down a winding dirt road.
But Vik seemed to know exactly where he was going.
He stopped in front of a two-story log cabin, and Boone said, “Okay, we’re staying here for tonight. But tomorrow, I’ll take you around, and you can have whichever cabin you like.”
A moment later, Vik opened the back door for us like a chauffeur.
By then, I’d stopped crying. But I continued to cling to Boone as he climbed out of the back seat with me still in his arms.
Boone carried me up a short set of stairs into a rustic house that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. Maybe decades. Open concept, I guess—but in that one-big-front-room way houses used to be built, before realtors came up with a fancy name for it. The living room bled into a dining area with a long table and a kitchen tucked underneath a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. The kind of plaid couch that was everywhere in the 90s sat facing a wooden stand holding a bulbous Sharp TV with a built-in VCR.
A huge stone fireplace took up the wall behind the couch, and Vik made a beeline toward it.
Everything except the TV looked handmade and was covered in dust. The house was even colder inside than out. Like walking into a freshly opened crypt.
“Ravik’s wondering if he can draw you a warm bath after he gets the fire going,” Zion said, even though I hadn’t heard the two of them speak.
Ravik?Was that Vik's full name then? He was inspecting one of the gray, weathered logs from a pile beside the fireplace. It wasso desiccated that pieces crumbled to the floor as he turned it over.
What were he and Zion to Boone? Friends? Family?
I wasn’t sure what to make of the two guys who’d followed us into the house. But I did know that I didn’t want to ask anything more of them than I already had.
I shook my head quickly against Boone’s chest.
“Perhaps she’ll let you attend to her tomorrow,” Zion said to Ravik, as if consoling him. “She’s not good with asking for or accepting help.”
How does he know that about me? How does he?—?
"You're doing great, Boone. Exactly what's needed in this moment." Zion's rich voice, practically ringing with authority, cut off my many questions. "New plan, then. She remains visibly distressed and is most likely overtired from several days of travel. Take her to the ground floor bedroom for a lie down. Everything else can be sorted out in the morning."
Zion spoke, and then suddenly I was being ferried into a dark room. I couldn’t see anything, but somehow Boone had no problem navigating the space. He didn’t even fumble for a light switch.
“Going to set you down on the bed now—okay, okay, I don’t have to. I’m just going to lie down with you.” I didn’t realize that my body had once again acted before my reasonable brain could catch up until he laid us both down together with one of my hands fisted in his t-shirt while my other arm squeezed around his neck to the point of choking.
“Don’t mind sleeping in my clothes,” Boone rumbled. “Anything you want.”
I didn’t want to be touched. I thought I didn’t want to be touched, but now I couldn’t let him go. Not even to take off my orange coat.
What was wrong with me?
“Your little heart’s beating like a rabbit.” He laid a hand over my breast in a way that didn’t feel sexual but was somehow insanely intimate at the same time. “But it’s okay. It’s okay. Just rest.”
Rest.
My heart slowed again, and my eyes fluttered closed. Still, I had to ask him, “Who were those guys? What did Zion mean by ‘everything else’? What’s getting sorted out in the morning?”
"Ssh." Boone curled around me, encasing me in a protective shell of t-shirt, muscle, and warmth. "Sleep. We'll talk about it all tomorrow."
As if it were a soldier who'd only been waiting for Boone's command, sleep stole over me before any more questions could surface.
So I slept. And not in the fitful way I had in Minneapolis, interspersed with nightmares of Dennis rising from the dead to start the cycle of violence and degradation all over again.
