Oliver and I take a wagon to my house while Logan decides to walk the considerable distance from the compound to his little cottage in the southwest corner of town. I imagine he wants time to assess the problem of being my Protector and come up with a plan for how to handle it.
Except there is no plan that will make living under the same roof as Logan easy to bear. And there is no plan that will make me accept having Dad declared dead. This isn’t one of Logan’s precious piles of wire and gears. He can’t fix this.
We enter my house, greeted by the lingering aroma of the sticky buns Oliver made for breakfast. I guess he’ll move back to his own house now, and this little yellow rectangle with its creaking floors and generous back porch will be home to no one at all.
I stand in the front room, wishing desperately I could overturn Logan’s edict and stay right here.
“Rachel-girl, it’s full-on dark. If we don’t leave soon, we won’t make it out to Logan’s tonight.”
“Then we’ll stay here.”
“We can’t.” Oliver brushes a hand against my arm and nods toward the front window. I look and find two guards standing on our front lawn, waiting at the edges of the street torch’s flickering light. “I guess the Commander had some doubts about you fulfilling your father’s will.”
I turn away from the window—and the proof that I have no power to change my situation—and say, “Let me take a minute to say good-bye.”
“I’ll put your clothes into a trunk while you do.”
I wander through the house, touching pieces of my childhood and letting the memories swallow me whole.
The doorway where Dad gouged out a notch and carved in the date every year on my birthday to track my growth.
The sparring room with its racks of weapons where Dad taught me how to defend myself.
The kitchen table where Dad and I joked about his terrible cooking. I run my fingers across the heavy slab of wood. This is also the table where Logan first became a part of our lives, back when he was a skinny, dirty boy with hungry eyes hiding behind Oliver’s cloak. I’d watched him as the years passed. Watched him soak up knowledge and skill like a dry blanket left out in a rain storm until eventually he turned himself into the kind of man who could command Dad’s respect. And I’d foolishly thought myself in love with him.
The memory burns within me, a bed of live coals I swear I’ll stop walking across. I don’t want to think about Logan, about feeling soft and hopeful toward him once upon a time. Not when I’m saying good-bye because Logan couldn’t be bothered to understand how hard it would be for me to lose both my dad and my home on the same night.
Grief rises, thick and hot, trying to suffocate me. My eyes sting, and I dig my nails into the tabletop as a single sob escapes me.
I will not break down.
I will not.
I refuse to walk into Logan’s home with tear-stained eyes and trembling lips. Stifling the next sob that shakes me, I blink away the tears and clench my hands into fists. Dad would’ve returned by now if he could. I can’t hold on to false hope any longer. He isn’t coming home. Not without help.
My eyes slide toward the still-open door of the sparring room as an idea—a ridiculous, bold, almost impossible idea—takes root. Dad can’t come home without help, and the Commander shows no inclination to send a search party. But Dad doesn’t need a sanctioned search party. Not when he’s spent years training me how to handle myself in the Wasteland, smuggling me out of Baalboden so I could go with him on his shorter missions and making sure I could defend myself against any threat.
And not when Logan knows how to track.
The memory of Logan’s belief in Dad’s survival skills is a tiny sliver of comfort I grab onto with desperate strength. It pains me to admit it, but Logan is better at planning than I am. If anyone can help me—if anyone in Baalboden would want to help me—it’s Logan.
The grief subsides, sinking beneath cold, hard purpose. I walk into the sparring room, strap a leather sheath around my waist, and slide my knife into place.
I’m going to find a way over the Wall and bring Dad home. Logan can either help me, or get out of my way.