“Let’s take a break. Get a drink,” Eva suggested.
I didn’t fight her, sinking onto a fallen tree nearby. My hands shook as I unclicked the hiking pack and dropped it in the grass. The kitten leapt onto it.
The animal had taken to Eva at once, which didn’t surprise me. Unfortunately, she’d also taken tome.I arched in stress when she trotted toward me, purring contentedly.
“Go on,” I murmured, tossing down a shriveled leaf. The kitten pounced on that too.
We shouldn’t have brought her. There were too many creatures in these woods that would gladly make her their next snack. If she survived those, she still had to face me: a killer who made her purr.
“She’s probably getting tired.” Eva unzipped her pack and rifled through the contents inside before pulling out a loaf of sandwich bread. She tore a slice into little pieces. “What should we call her?”
“I don’t want to call her anything.” Naming was claiming, and she would never be mine.
“Maybe… Puff? Snowball?”
“Snowballs are white.”
Eva snorted. This was the longest conversation we’d had since leaving the Volkswagen. She’d taken me up on my offer of a changeof clothes, eschewing her bloodstained overalls for a clean T-shirt and shorts. “You care a little,” Eva said. “Admit it.”
It was strange how quickly those words drew my monster up. I shrugged, unwilling to argue, but the simple tease made the beast in me bristle. It held my spine a little straighter, hissing in my ear.“You care too much.”
I shivered.
“You care what people think of you.”
“Socks is a good cat name,” Eva mused, oblivious to the sharp-tongued voice in my head. She laughed when the kitten jumped on a piece of bread she’d tossed.
“You let people eat you up.”The monster’s self-righteous anger crowded my thoughts, squeezing me out like a lemon.
“Stop it,” I whispered.
Eva shot me a look. “What? Do you have a better suggestion?”
“You let them consume you.”
The permanent fixture of honeybees over Eva’s head seemed to pulse, growing louder. When our eyes clicked together, Eva blinked. “Are you… okay?”
“You let them spit you out and—”
“SHUT UP!” I pressed my hands to my ears, a hard lump in my throat. “Stop talking!”
Eva jumped, eyes blowing wide, and a loud buzz sounded just beside my ear. I batted it away on instinct—and felt a stinger sink in. The monster faltered, and with its retreat came a rush of feeling. Shock. Breathlessness.
Pain.
Eva stepped forward. “You’re stung.”
“I’m fine,” I growled, shaking as I braced my hands on my thighs.
“Liar.”
She crossed to the trunk of an aspen tree and ripped a bit of cheatgrass from the soil.
“Unsophisticated palate,”the monster muttered, displeased with her choice of plant.
When Eva got back to me, she held it out without a word. I took it and let the green stalk wither against my skin, hating the short-lived relief it brought to kill the plant. “I’m sorry,” I muttered. I hadn’t meant to yell at her.
Eva nodded, not meeting my gaze. “Let’s just keep going.”
