Not one she shared with me, at least.
I curl up on the disgusting carpet.
I don’t need to study the map anymore.
I saw all I needed to.
I know where I am, I know where the unit is headed—and I saw it.
At the east coast, all the routes bow to meet at one spot. When I get a chance, I’ll mark that same spot on my own map.
But for now, the image is burned to memory, and I drift off with a cold mist of breath fogging around my face.
No campfires to keep me warm through my broken sleep, and it doesn’t feel very long at all before Samick wakes me and we’re on the move again.
Another long walk.
Maybe since I saw the map, and I saw with my own fucking eyes how close the end is, the patience in me snapped. Like when I hold in a pee for too long and I actually see the toilet, I’m suddenly bouncing and dancing around in a frenzy to not piss myself.
The plush cuff doesn’t tug on my wrist, my boots don’t scuff over the tough road, and not even the sharp winds slow me down.
Now, I keep up just fine through the dark.
I don’t let myself fall into the hope that I’ll see her soon. If I do, I’ll spiral. I’ll freak out. I’ll run and ruin everything.
Just a bit longer.
I’m almost there.
After months of this, I can take another couple of weeks. I can be patient.
I pick at the cuff. Not because it’s uncomfortable, but because it’s the opposite.
It used to be a rope. Sleek and silky to the touch, a deceptive feel to it—but after a short time of having it bound to my wrist, it became sandpaper against my skin, tugging back and forth, back and forth.
Samick didn’t give a shit about that.
He wasn’t careful about the way he handled me, so why would he give two fucks about a rope around my wrist?
Somewhere along the way in this journey, he did notice, he did give a shit, and he sewed some soft, fluffy wool to leather, and made this.
The cuff that I pick at in the dark.
I know what Mika was implying—
Because I’ve thought it myself.
A few times.
But I just can’t risk it, the rumination, the fear, the fucking delusion of it all.
Because I’m almost there…
I can block the dangerous thoughts from my mind, lock everything away in the vault, but I can’t block out his cold voice—
“You are quiet,” he says, and it’s like a whisper of the winds, a breeze through the darkness.
I frown at him, or where I estimate him to be, but I might be frowning an inch away from his face for all I know.
