I cracked a smile as I lined up the axe and split another log. “You’ll be thankful when you’re not freezing your ass off tonight.”
Amelia let out a slow sigh as she looked up and studied the trees. “Yeah, ‘roughing it’ was not on my to-do list for my first summer off.”
I had warned her. I had tried to keep her from showing up night after night at the Four Horsemen. But between her stubbornness and John Valentine’s orders, I hadn’t been able to protect her. I wanted to say, “I told you so,” but that wouldn’t have been helpful.
“If you had stayed in New Jersey, you wouldn’t have made it to the first day of summer. Make it through this and you’ll have more summers.”
Her demeanor shifted from cautiously friendly to mistrusting. “How long are we staying here?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough,” she countered.
I huffed. “You know the ‘run, hide, or fight’ mantra?”
Amelia rolled her eyes. “I work in education. Of course I do.”
“We’re going to do all three. Right now, we’re in the second part of that little phrase. Once I can get a read on how the other players are reacting, we’ll make our plan. But for now”—I glanced at the cabin—“this is home sweet home.” I whacked the axe into the stump for safekeeping while I carted some of the wood inside and stored the rest under a tarp to keep it dry in case it rained. Of course, I’d bring the axe in when I was done stacking the wood. I wasn’t dumb enough to leave a weapon where just anyone could get it.
Amelia kept a careful eye on me while I carted the split wood inside and stacked it neatly beside the woodstove.
She was brilliant and clever in the most dangerous way. She rarely asked questions outright, and when she did, it was because she was trying to find out something other than what she was asking. She masked her intentions with polite nonchalance. But behind the façade of someone who seemed not to care that she had been kidnapped was a woman who was carefully calculating her next move.
At least she’d be easy to spot in her bright yellow sweatshirt and sweatpants if she ran. The flip-flops would slow her down too.
The world spun as I grabbed the axe, yanked it out of the stump, and carried it inside. I could barely keep my eyes open.
Eight minutes. If I had eight minutes to close my eyes, I could keep going until nightfall.
I needed to stay awake until a reasonable bedtime to get my body back on schedule. Granted, in my line of work, I lived on vampire hours. But this wasn’t the kind of exhaustion that came from weeks on end of working the night shift. It was the fear that came from not having a damn clue what my next move would be.
I set the axe on the floor behind the wood stove. The last thing I wanted was Amelia tripping on it, getting hurt, and having to go to the hospital.
Hospitals were the least discreet institutions on the planet, HIPAA be damned.
I locked the cabin’s door, picked up the board that was propped against the wall, and dropped it into place in the slots that had been added on either side of the doorframe. Sure, it didn’t keep someone from breaking in—they could always try to smash a window. Granted, the windows were bulletproof, but could be hacked through if someone put enough effort in. But the bar on the door would prevent them from sneaking in unnoticed. They’d have to make a hell of a lot of noise, alerting both of us and giving us time to get out through the cellar.
Goddamn, I’m tired.
My first mistake was sitting on the edge of the bed to take my boots off. Amelia was on the couch, and I wanted to give her plenty of physical space.
My second mistake was closing my eyes while I exhaled to calm my racing thoughts.
My third mistake was sinking into an unconscious abyss, lulled to sleep by the faint hint of her lingering perfume.
18
AMELIA
Friday, May 23 | 4:09 p.m.
Jude sat on the bed and immediately dozed off. As much as I wanted to hate him, I felt bad for him. He had made a split-second decision to turn his life upside down for me. Whether or not I agreed with it or liked it, I respected it.
He startled awake a few hours later and asked how long he had been out.
Apparently, the truthful answer of “three hours” pissed him off enough that he didn’t speak to me until it was absolutely necessary.
I suffered through a miserable dinner of military-style MREs that tasted like they were straight from the First World War. Jude, however, scarfed down his chili mac like a man starved.
