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WE HAVE FIRE. Gabe returned from his scavenging with a bird nest and kindling and a couple of sticks to drill the friction spark. It sounded easy enough when he explained what he was doing, but it took him over an hour to finally get the fire going.
While he and Kane build the flames with wooden legs broken off the set of dining room chairs, Georga and I take a walk around the house to the river’s edge with pots we found in the kitchen. It’s properly night now, a blanket of stars stretching above us and half a moon to light the way. There are no rocks on this part of the bank, just a steep, grassy slide into the water.
I listen hard for sounds of danger. The night isn’t quiet. There’s the constant hum of insects, louder here by the water. The rustling sounds of wind brushing through trees even though the humid air is stagnant and still.
A far off cry of some animal sends a chill over my skin. “What is that?”
“Wolves? Wild dogs?” Georga grins at me as she leans over the edge to scoop her pot into the water. “Maybe a brown bear.”
I roll my eyes at her. That was definitely not a bear sound. “Do you regret any of it?”
“Taking my chance with the Tithe instead of some lame pairing?” She passes me the filled pot and I hand her another. “Not on your life.”
“Not even now that we know about the bloodsuckers and the hunt?”
“Do you?” Georga deflects as she finishes filling the pot.
“I didn’t exactly choose this.”
“I’m surprised you remember.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You and Gabe.” She crawls back from the slippery edge and stands. “You appear to have forgotten he dumped you in the most spectacular way.”
My arms wrap around the heavy pot as I start toward the house. “I haven’t forgotten.”
“You’re just that pathetic.”
“What?” I spin around to glare at her. “What is your problem with me?”
“The guy dumps you, dumps you at the Tithe ceremony, basically trashes your entire life, and you’re still playing cozy couples, that’s my problem.” She stalks past me, shaking her head. “Are you seriously that desperate to not be alone?”
My mouth twists as I stomp after her. “We’re hardly playing cozy couples.”
“You slept in his arms last night,” she sneers. “I would have cut off... something critical.”
“Not that it’s any of your business—”
“We’re in this together for now, Senna, and the caliber of person I’m throwing my lot in with is definitely my business!” Her steps slow, her eyes narrowing as she turns to look at me. “Grow a spine and get some pride. If you can’t, I’ll do it for you.”
I want to laugh off the dramatics, but you never know with Georga. It’s quite possible Gabe might wake tomorrow morning with some vital bits cut out.
“It’s not that straight forward,” I blurt out. “Gabe had no idea our pairing had been lodged. I asked Kane to do it without Gabe’s knowledge, without his consent, against Gabe’s express wishes.” As I’m saying this, I hear how bad it sounds. Still... “Gabe had his reasons for not wanting to pair, and me being sacrificed to the Tithe didn’t change his mind. So yeah, he did dump me spectacularly, but there’s more to the story.”
Georga stands there, watching me with a slack jaw.
There’s a first time for everything. I’ve managed to shock her.
“Why?” she asks once she’s recovered. “It doesn’t seem like you, taking such a huge risk when you could end up Tithed.”
Did end up Tithed.
If I were a little more like Georga, this is where I’d declare I risked all for love. But this is me, and that would be a lie.
“Honestly?” I laugh, a small, bitter thing. “I didn’t take any risk at all, not that I was aware of...else maybe I wouldn’t have done it. The thought of Gabe not binding our pair, of leaving me single at the ceremony, was inconceivable. It never crossed my mind, not even once.”
“Well...” Her hard expression crumples. “That sucks.”
“Yes,” I agree with a sigh as we continue walking, “yes it does.”
Just before we enter the house through the kicked out doorway, Georga pauses. “You still did it, you know, whether you meant to or not.” She smiles at me. “You risked everything for love. That’s pretty awesome.”
“Tell me that again tomorrow, after we’ve survived the night,” I reply dryly, “and maybe I’ll agree.”
The room has filled with smoke while we’ve been gone. The chimney above the fireplace isn’t drawing at all, apparently, and the windows are stuck closed in their frames, the wood engorged and the latches rusted.
“We could move the fire outside,” I suggest.
“I’d rather the smoke stay inside than out,” Kane says. “It may be less visible in the dark, but smoke has a smell.”
My eyes widen. “Surely we’re too far from the hunt for the hunters to smell the smoke.”
“We don’t know that,” he says. “We’re certainly not far away enough to start feeling safe, so don’t get complacent.”
Gabe uses his t-shirt as a strainer to filter the water. When he pulls it over his head again, there’s a damp brown spot from the gunk. Then he places a grid over the fire for the pots, the flames rising up around them. A few minutes sitting near the fireplace, watching the flames, my eyes begin to burn from the smoke and I retreat to the kitchen.
There’s plenty of glassware, dusty but intact. Using my t-shirt, I wipe down four glasses in preparation for the water.
I’m searching the cabinets, looking for some type of container that we can carry water in, when Gabe joins me. “I saw a roll of... Ah!” He pulls a roll of fishing line from a drawer.
“You’re planning to fish the river?” I say.
“No, but that would be a plan. If you come across any other tackle, let me know. Meanwhile,” he says with a grin, “I can use this to make my bow.”
My mouth waters at the thought of his mom’s rabbit stew.
Kane walks in, looking for another big pot to fetch soil from outside. The water has boiled and he wants to put the fire out sooner rather than later. My burning eyes agree. It’s not like we need the warmth.
When he sees Gabe fiddling with the fishing line, he cocks a brow. “Anything I should know?”
“Not particularly,” Gabe says coolly and walks out.
Kane looks at me.
“He reckons he can make himself a bow with that,” I explain.
“A regular boy scout, isn’t he?” Kane murmurs.
I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or genuine. For the second time tonight, I find myself defending Gabe. “He hunted rabbits all the time back home. He’s a crack shot with the bow and arrow and I, for one, won’t say no to a decent meal.”
Kane slides his elbows over the kitchen counter, hair falling over his eyes as his gaze settles into me. He’s dressed in black from head to toe, arrogance dripping from his sharp cheekbones. All he needs is a billowing black cape and a moor to stalk through, and he’d be the carelessly wild vision from my childhood fantasies.
“Didn’t you come here to get a pot?” I dip out of sight, continuing my search through the cabinets. I don’t need that complication now.
I find a pair of durable Tupperware flasks and slam them onto the counter beneath Kane’s nose. “Plastic lasts forever! We can rinse them out with boiling water.”
His mouth tips into a smile of approval as he finally moves to get his pot and fetch his soil and put the fire out.
Once the water’s cooled and the flasks are filled, we gather around the ash-filled fireplace for the night. Kane’s yanked the curtains from the windows to allow the moonlight in, basking our faces in a ghostly glow. Gabe’s whittling away at a stick, carving notches into the end of a would-be arrow. Georga’s stretched out on her stomach, arms folded beneath her head.
My thirst is finally quenched and my stomach is full of apple. My eyelids pull heavily as I lean against the back of a couch. We’ve actually discovered one of the couches is leather beneath all that dust and isn’t in bad shape, but I don’t trust what creepy crawlies might be embedded in the slits and cracks.
My eyes go the glittering starlight outside and my thoughts fly off to my fellow Tithed out there, the hunted. Has it already started? These beasts, these bloodsuckers...how do they hunt? What will they do with their prey?
Savor every sip of blood?
Make it last for hours? Days?
Or drain them dry in one big gulp?
An icy tremor shivers through me. I think of Hannah, Chase, Kadin. I think of Jake and Devon. I think of Olly, even him, as much as he wants me dead. Maybe they’ll get away. Maybe they’re already safely back inside the walls of Ironcross.
I close my eyes and wish hard, but I can’t make the hope stick.
We’re not safe here, either. We’re not far away enough to start feeling safe. Is that Kane being realistic or overly cautious?
How far is far enough?
We’ve propped the door loosely over the front doorway, but I’m seriously regretting our impulsiveness in kicking it out. I’d feel a lot better with a solid door between us and the night. The door wasn’t all that solid.
I sigh deeply, glancing over to Kane. He’s sitting with his back to the wall by the window. His head bowed, hair sweeping across his princely features. Sleeping? I try anyway. “When do we start making our roundabout way to Ironcross? Tomorrow?”
His eyes lift to me.
“How many days do you reckon it will take us?” asks Gabe.
Kane looks at him.
Silence hangs in the air with the leftover smoke and disturbed dust.
“What?” I say sharply. “Please don’t tell me we’re totally lost and you’ve no idea what direction leads us home.”
Kane exhales a heavy breath. “We’re not returning to Ironcross.”
My heart skips a beat. “We’re not returning tomorrow?”
“We can’t go back.”
“That’s bullshit,” Gabe says. “Mistress Ell said there’d be no penalties. We wouldn’t be contravening the treaty. She promised.”
“And you believed her?” Georga snorts.
“She didn’t need to lie,” Kane informs us. “The bloodsuckers patrol outside the walls of Ironcross. They always have. There’s no way we could slip through without them catching our scent. They’d be onto us before we got close to the wall.”
A hollow opens up within my chest as the truth of his words sink in. Going home isn’t an option. It never was. Of course, now that I see it, I don’t know how I could ever have missed it. How many kinds of stupid am I?
No one has ever returned from the Tithe.
Why would Mistress Ell ever let us go?
“I never intended returning anyway,” Georga declares. “We’ve got the whole world in front of us. Why would you want to go back?”
“Family,” I say hoarsely, my throat suddenly dry again, parched. I’m never going to see my dad again. “Friends.”
Safety.
Peace.
Normality.
Life.
Gabe whittles away at his stick with jerky, rough slices of the blade. “So we keep running. How do we know when we can stop?”
“I’m still working on that,” Kane replies.
My shoulder slump, my body crumpling around my emptied heart.
It’s only two weeks. Dad’s last words to me.
Two weeks. My final goodbye to him.
I’ll never feel his arms around me again.
I’ll never get to wear the gorgeous burgundy cloak he bought me for my birthday. Never wrap my body in the luxurious material and my heart in the memory of when he remembered, how hard he tried to be present for my eighteenth birthday.
I’ll never laugh with Jessie again. Never get to roll my eyes at her outlandish behavior ever again. She’ll marry Harry and they’ll raise their beautiful children and her life will go on, she’ll be happy, but I’ll never get to witness any of it.
I’ll be gone.
A memory that fades.
A crushing weight presses down on me. I want to curl into a ball and drop into a deep sleep and not wake up until my world has shifted right side up again.
I can’t.
I’ve got the first shift of watch duty and have to stay wide awake and alert until eleven o’clock.
I won’t.
I straighten my shoulders, a frown piercing between my eyes.
No!
I don’t accept it.
I don’t have to accept it.
I will see my family and friends again.
I don’t care how long it takes, what I have to do, what I might go through, I will find my way back to them.
I’ve given up enough.
Gabe.
Love.
I won’t give up hope.
I won’t give up.
I refuse.