Jack shuts the stove and gets stiffly to his feet. His jeans sag on hiships, crusted with dried seawater. Even his hair hangs low over his eyes, heavy with the weight of the day’s journey. His dark bangs have grown long over the last few weeks, making it hard to read his thoughts.
Woody hobbles in, leaning on Amber’s shoulder. She deposits him in the lone chair and props his leg on the rickety table. Hands on her hips, she takes in the room.
“Seriously, Jack?” She drops her backpack to the floor and swears softly. Jack slips out of the cabin without a word. Through the walls, I hear the shed door slam, then the repetitive loud chop of an ax.
I start for the door, bumping into Chill as he returns from the well. He blocks my way, the dripping pot swinging from his hand. “Give him a while, Fleur,” he says gently. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been here.” He passes me the pot with a melancholy smile. Reluctantly, I take it and let him steer me back inside.
The cabin grows dim as night falls. A weary hush falls over us, broken only by the relentless crack of the ax outside. Chill lights a lantern. Its mantle hisses, filling the air with the sharp scent of kerosene as it casts a warm orange glow over the room. When the silence threatens to swallow us all, Julio unzips his guitar case. He draws the instrument into his lap, softly tuning the strings as the fire snaps and pops. Chill sets a pot of stew on the stove, and we all settle on the dusty floor around it, drawing our sleeping bags close as the wind pokes cold fingers through the holes in the cabin’s timbers.
Julio picks a few notes. They’re vaguely familiar, the beginning of a folk song from the 1960s, one we’ve all heard before but I can’t remember the words to. Poppy offers up a few lyrics in a nasal, hoarse voice, the measures broken by staccato fits of coughing. Woody finishes the next measure for her, humming around the words he doesn’t know. Ambercloses her eyes. Her lips move to the music, and when Julio breaks into the next refrain, she sings every word by heart. They both hold the final note until it fades from the room.
Chill ladles the thin stew into some chipped mugs he found in a cabinet. We pass them around the circle. Julio sets down his guitar, taking his mug greedily in both hands, not bothering to blow the steam from the surface before shoveling it down. While the rest of us wait for our stew to cool, Poppy regales us with the story of how she and Chill performed first aid on Woody’s stab wound during the fight, and how Slinky chased a crow deep into the woods. Marie fills me in on the parts of the battle Jack and I missed, namely Julio’s clash with Cyrus. When the conversation turns to Amber’s fight with Hunter, Julio stares into his mug, as if his appetite’s lost somewhere at the bottom of it. He sets it down without finishing his meal.
Amber clears her throat. “What about you?” she asks me, deftly steering the conversation away from Hunter. “What happened after those Guards chased you into the woods?” Marie makes a disgusted face, as if she’s already surmised the answer. Chill shudders. Woody’s the only one leaning forward. He and Amber have never battled a Spring before. They’re curious, in the same morbid way I was fascinated by the firefight between Amber and Hunter at the bathhouse.
I shake off the memory of the Guard’s wet scream when I sent him home.
“No big deal,” I say sheepishly.
Julio raises an eyebrow, purposefully twanging a string.
With a dramatic sniffle, Marie carries her mug and sleeping bag to an empty corner of the room. She blows her nose into a piece of paper towel.
“What’s the matter?” Julio teases. “Allergic to your cat?”
“It’sseasonalallergies. I was stuck in a car all day with the princess of pollen and the reigning queen of ragweed.” She juts her snotty nose toward me and Amber as she jabs a spoon into her mug. “I’m allergic to both of you.”
“Don’t have to ask me to keep my distance,” Amber mutters into her stew.
Julio snorts, making Poppy and Woody crack up, and soon the laughter spreads through the room.
The air in the cabin is thick and close, but different than it was on the boat. Warmer. More relaxed. I wish Jack were here to see it. I listen for the crack of his ax, but it’s finally fallen silent.
“I’ll tell Jack the stew’s ready.” I climb out from the warmth of my sleeping bag and brush the dust from my jeans. They’re all still laughing as the screen door shuts behind me.
28
Winter’s Kiss
JACK
I bury my ax in a stump beside a mountain of cut wood. The valley below is blanketed in moonlight, the sky dusted with stars. This view holds a million memories—school and skiing and campfires in the summer, afternoons fishing with my grandfather, and the first time I met Chill—but the memory that darkens all the rest is last night’s battle at Croatan Beach.
I rub the fresh blisters on my hands, relishing the sting. My muscles burn, swollen from exertion after months of disuse. The punishing pain and fatigue feel good, like I actually earned them. Which is more than I could say for myself last night, when I needed to be strong. Or at the very least, competent.
I snatch my T-shirt from where it hangs over the waist of my jeans and shake the wood chips from it. It scratches as I mop the frost from my face and the sheen of ice from my arms. As I drag it over my head, I catch Fleur’s scent and stiffen.
“There’s stew inside,” she says, a shiver in her voice. “Are you coming in?”
I watch the shadows of clouds drift over the valley as they pass under the moon. From the cabin comes the smell of broth and the faint notes of Julio’s guitar.
I’m not ready to go inside yet. Not ready to face them.
Fleur’s boots shuffle in the leaves, her scent fading as she walks back toward the cabin, but I’m not ready for her to go yet, either.
“I’m sorry.” The words hurt coming out. I owe her an apology, for last night and for this place, but I don’t know where to start. I picked this safe house for her. The woods—every root and branch and vine—are a weapon in her hands, but none of it’s any good if I can’t protect myself. Our survival depends on both of us now, and I was useless last night.
Leaves crunch behind me. The smell of her is killing me. She’s all blossoms and new beginnings, all sweetness and hope.
