“You talk a lot,” he says, voice low, even, “for someone who has no idea what she’s getting into.”
“Then enlighten me.” I lift my chin, meeting his gaze, understanding exactly what this is. Him taking the upper hand. Rebuilding the wall I cracked.
I won’t let him.
“There are things here you don’t want to mess with.”
“Oh, yeah?” I put a note of nonchalance into my voice. “Like what?”
He smiles then, but it’s empty, nothing warm about it. “Like me.”
Neither of us moves.
“Good,” I say. “I was getting bored.”
Chapter nine
Determined
Becky
January 23, 1995
My dearest Remi,
I thought I’d gotten somewhere with him. Finally. But no. Another month of glares and grunts.
Now I’ve got a cold. And a fever. Probably from sitting out in the freezing weather every day. Watching him. Waiting for him.
Less determined people would have given up by now.
But not me.
I’m not giving in. I’m goin…
Chapter ten
Derail
Carrson
I stand there for what feels like an hour. It’s probably five minutes, staring at the spot she usually occupies.
It’s…empty.
The dirt there is packed down, swept clean of leaves. The imprint of her blanket isstill visible on the almost frozen ground.
The silence is wrong. The space too big.
A cold wind cuts through the clearing, hard enough to bite. I tell myself that’s why I shiver. Not the way my thoughts scatter, jumping ahead, running through possibilities I don’t want to consider. None of them ending anywhere good. I clamp down on it. Force my thoughts back into order, shoving them into a more rational pattern. Something I can tolerate.
She’s not here.
That’s good, right? I wanted her gone. I hated it, having her attention on me, the constant hum of her music drifting through the trees, the way her hair caught the light, red turning to gold when she moved.
The way she always looked up the second I stepped into the clearing.
Like she’d been waiting for me.
