My legs feel like lead, trembling from exhaustion and the lingering effects of the concussion, but I force myself to keep moving. I stick close to Noah’s right side, my eyes darting frantically toward the farmhouse.
What if Bill’s looking out the window? What if he sees us running?
The yellow porch light casts long, menacing shadows across the dirt, and every time the wind howls, I expect to hear the frantic, deep bark of the farm dog erupting again.
Noah’s breathing is heavy and labored beside me. He has the duffle bag slung awkwardly over his shoulder, and he’s carrying Bullet tightly against his chest with his good arm to keep the dog from making a single sound. I know he’s in agony, but his pace is relentless.
We reach the sliding metal door of the massive, corrugated steel equipment shed.
Noah doesn’t set Bullet down. He shifts his weight and uses his hip and his injured left arm to shove against the heavy door.It protests with a piercing, angry squeal that sounds like a siren in the dead of the night.
I look to him, our eyes meet. We both freeze, our bodies rigid, waiting for the farmhouse door to fly open.
But nothing happens.
Noah shoves it again, just enough to create a gap wide enough for us to slip through. I dart inside first, the smell of diesel fuel, dry dirt, and old hay immediately hitting my senses. Noah slips in right behind me, using his boot to pull the heavy door shut, plunging us into the darkness.
It’s fine. We’re fine.
The only light comes from the moonlight bleeding through the cracks in the corrugated steel and a single, dirty skylight high above.
“Is there a truck, maybe?” I whisper, my voice echoing slightly in the cavernous space. My heart is beating so fast it feels like it’s breaking out of my chest. “Please tell me there's a farm truck or something. We could take that.”
Oh my God. Listen to myself.
Noah carefully sets Bullet down on the dirt floor and drops the heavy duffel bag. He steps further into the moonlight, his silhouette tense as he scans the shed. His expression falls, and he lets out a long, ragged sigh that completely deflates whatever hope I was clinging to.
“Just a tractor,” he mutters. “But even if there was, I don’t know that we should try it right now.” He sounds breathless as he speaks. “If anything, maybe we should lay low and figure out what the fuck is going on.”
I step up beside him, my eyes adjusting to the gloom. The massive green and yellow shape of a John Deere tractor takes up the center of the barn, flanked by heavy, rusted plowing attachments and who knows what else.
“And we’re stuck here anyway,” I breathe out, the reality crashing down on me in a panic. I grab for his arm, squeezing it. “When the sun comes up, Bill or his farmhands or dogs or something are going to come in here. We’re completely trapped.”
“Well, we just make sure they don’t see us,” Noah says, his tone flat. He grabs the bags again, pulling away from me. “We need to get off the ground level. Over there. Bullet is going to be an attractant, but we can manage.”
“It’ll be okay,” I reach out and pat Bullet’s head. “We can figure it out.”
“Right there.” Noah points to the far back corner of the barn. Stacked nearly to the ceiling are massive, round bales of hay. They form a towering wall, but near the top, right under the slope of the roof, there’s a gap between the bales and the rafters—a perfect, hidden alcove.
This is insane.
Still, I follow him. Noah tosses the bags up the makeshift staircase of uneven bales and then helps me hoist Bullet up. The climb burns the bruised muscles in my back, but the adrenaline masks the worst of it.
“Just go slow, honey,” Noah helps me up first, his hand resting gently on the small of my back. When we both finally reach the top, we crawl into the gap. It’s tight, cramped, and smells overwhelmingly of dry grass, but it’s completely concealed from the floor below.
Noah collapses back against the hay, his chest heaving as he lets out a quiet groan of pain. He rests his head back, his eyes closing.
“Noah,” I whisper, crawling closer to him in the dark. Bullet sniffs around in the hay, and I sit close to him, breathing in the scent of him.
“We’re okay,” he rasps, his eyes still closed. “We need to rest here for a while, and then… Then we’ll figure it out.”
“You need to take your antibiotics,” I say, my voice trembling as my eyes adjust to the shadows. “How’s your arm feel right now?”
“It doesn’t matter right now,” he dismisses, his jaw tight.
“It matters to me.”
Without thinking, I close the remaining distance between us. My knees straddle his thigh as I reach out, my trembling fingers gently touching his jaw. His skin is warm, rough with stubble, and damp with sweat.
