Page 137 of Silent Shadows

“It’s just my hand.”

“Let me see.” My voice comes out harder than I mean it to.

Daisy looks at me, then her expression softens. She holds out her hand.

It is a scrape—a small one. Barely bleeding. Nothing at all, really. But my body does not seem to understand that.

I take her wrist carefully and wipe mud away with my thumb. Her skin is cold.

“You’re freezing,” I say.

“It’s raining.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m angry.”

“You’re shaking because you’re cold.”

“I can multitask.”

“They’re doing the thing again,” Jax whispers, startling me. I forgot they were here.

“Shut up, Jax.” Taylor’s voice has an edge but is laced with concern.

I release Daisy’s hand, but every instinct in me rebels. Wants to keep holding on. Wants to carry her out. Wants to put myself between her and the entire forest, which is ridiculous.

“Back to camp,” I say. “Now.”

No one jokes this time.

chapter

eighteen

MILES

By the time we reach the RV, we are all unrecognizable.

Mud to the knees. Mud on packs. Mud in hair. Mud in places mud should not be able to access. Daisy’s flannel and leggings are soaked through with mud on one side, her teeth chattering no matter how tightly she clenches her jaw.

I am handling this like a normal person. I am not spiraling.

“Let’s do truck stop showers today,” Maya says. “I think it would cost us more to clean our mud out of the Machine plumbing, anyway.”

Daisy looks at Maya with wide eyes.

“Truck stop, what now?” she asks, hand on her hip.

“You’re going to have a whole new appreciation for gas stations after this, girl,” says Taylor, giddy with excitement.

“It’ll be fine,” I assure her. “Let’s grab what we need, then head over.” I wave everyone toward the truck-stop gas station a few blocks up the street.

When we make it there, the rain is now a light mist. The clerk gives us one up-and-down look, shakes her head, and swears.

Truck stop showers are objectively sad. I know this. The kind of knowledge earned after years of fieldwork, fourteen-hour drives, bad coffee, and too many roadside bathrooms that smell aggressively of lemon cleaner and loneliness.

Fluorescent lights hum overhead like they’re disappointed in everyone present. The tile is always damp in a way that feels suspicious. The towels are thin enough that I wonder how they qualify as towels at all.