We walked in silence for another hour while everything Trey said played through my head on repeat. He said he loved me, and as much as I wanted to dismiss it, gods help me, I couldn't. He'd shown me he loved me over and over again before he said the words out loud. Tears burned in my eyes. I tried for a brief moment to peer into my feelings, but the intense emotion there immediately overwhelmed me, and I had to slam everything back down. I couldn't delve into my feelings about Trey right now. I had to stay in control.
“Mac’s gonna take care of the kids,” Trey said from behind me. “He won’t let anythin’ happen to them.”
Gratitude swelled in my chest. My fear for the kids had been so sharp that it hurt. The only comfort I had was knowing they’d be in more danger with me. They might never forgive me for abandoning them, especially Apple, but knowing Mac's crew would protect them made it easier. The pang of sorrow in my chest surprised me. I hated to admit it, but I'd miss them, even fucking Raven. Then another thought occurred to me, and my heart sank.
“What about Clarity?”
“She’s the one who figured out you were leaving,” he said. “She didn’t ask me to, but when I told her I was goin’ with you, she was so relieved.”
I glanced back at him and he offered me a slight smile.
“I’ll miss her, of course, but this is where I’m meant to be.”
I turned back around. My emotions swirled through me like a storm. I knew how much his sister and Mac and the rest of the crew meant to him, and Clarity loved her brother. Why the hell would she want him to leave with me?
“How did she know?” I asked to distract myself.
“She wouldn’t say.”
I looked again to see him frowning, a slight furrow between his eyes.
“But Mac and I checked your mattress, so we knew she was right.”
I frowned too, remembering how strange Clarity had been the last time I’d seen her. Had she already known my plans? Had she snooped through my stuff? Raven probably would have let her. She liked Clarity a hell of a lot more than she liked me.
“Madame will put a bounty out on us when she discovers we’re gone. Mac is gonna try to cover for us as long as possible, but most likely she’s gonna know soon.”
I shuddered, my fear over what Madame might do to the crew surging back.
“Will she take it out on Mac and the crew?”
“There’s a chance, yeah,” Trey said, “but they know that.”
We fell silent again. I tried not to dwell on what Madame might do to them. I didn’t know how to process that they accepted that risk just to help me. It made leaving them behind so much harder.
Soon I had to focus all my energy on hiking up the damn mountain. I had recovered some of my strength but my walks around the hold did little to prepare me for snowy mountain terrain. My steps grew clumsier as I tired and the pain in my back worsened. It wasn't long before I stumbled and fell, sliding down the hill and into Trey, who somehow managed to stop me without being knocked down the mountainside.
“Whoa, you ok?” he said, helping me back up to my feet.
“Yeah,” I said between heavy breaths, “sorry.”
“It’s ok. Let’s take a break.”
“You don’t have to—”
“C’mon, we can eat a little something too.”
I gave up and let him usher me over to a fallen tree, watching as he brushed the snow off. He sat next to me, close enough that our thighs pressed together, but I didn’t feel trapped, not with Trey.
“Ok, I got some dried meat and some apples. How about you?” he asked, digging through his pack.
“I got dried meat too.” I fished out the small satchel I’d been storing bits of food in. “And I got this.” I pulled out a full wedge of hard cheese and his face broke into a grin.
“How the hell did you get that?” he demanded.
“I stole it,” I admitted, flushing slightly. “Neena has a thing for Griz. I sent him to the kitchen on a fake errand. She was so distracted by him that I was able to slip into the root cellar and grab it.”
“You tricky little thing, you.” That sunshine smile lit up the whole damn woods.
“It’s also how I was able to get this.” I pulled a chunk of cornbread out wrapped in a clean cloth.
"Well, you win this round." He held up a withered apple with a playful grimace.
We ate in companionable silence. The woods had grown even darker, which meant dawn wasn’t too far off. Wolf growled in my head, but I did my best to ignore him.
You’re gonna watch him die, Wolf whispered. Don’t you remember?
The horrific, bloody images flashed through my mind and I flinched like I could get away from my own memories.
“What’s wrong?” Trey stiffened, his eyes scanning me.
I tried to get a hold of myself, but Wolf had opened a floodgate of memories I did my best to keep locked away. My heart seized in my chest and my lungs turned to stone.
“Bones?”
“I can’t watch you die.” The words slipped out, harsh and panicked.
“Well, I don’t plan on dyin’ anytime soon,” he said, nudging my leg with his.
I couldn’t respond because I used up all my air to get that one sentence out.
“Hey,” he laid his hand over mine where my fingers dug into my leg.
When I didn’t pull away, he flipped my hand over and laced his fingers through mine. I gripped them, trying to pull some of his steady strength and calm through our joined hands.
“You want to talk about it?” he murmured. “Or would you like a distraction?”
“Distraction,” I managed to get out.
“Alright,” he said with no judgment, “when Mac and I were about thirteen we stole a bottle of moonshine and got shitfaced. Then ’cause we were shitfaced we thought it’d be a good idea to challenge each other to climb the watchtower.”
“The outside?” I choked, thinking of the rough concrete exterior.
"The outside," he confirmed with a grin. "Course we got probably twenty feet up and panicked. So then we had to cling to the wall and yell for help, which brought all the guards running. They had to go fetch ladders to get us down. My mom was so furious at us that Madame let her pick our punishment. We had outhouse duty for two weeks."
Tight bands still wrapped around my chest, but my lungs breathed a little easier. “What happened to Mac’s parents?”
He hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “Mac’s mom died when he was three. His dad was one of the leaders of the early rebellion, but Madame caught wind of it and had the leaders whipped.” He squeezed my hand a little tighter, his voice rough with pain. “Fifty lashes each.”
My back spasmed in pain at the thought. “Fifty?” I gasped.
“It wasn’t a punishment they were meant to survive,” Trey murmured. “That scar on Mac’s face? That was from the whip. He tried to get to his dad during the whipping and took a lash to the face. Just a little bit higher and he would’ve lost his eye.”
“How old was he?” I asked, feeling sick.
“Seven. Somehow his dad survived, but he died a few days later. The wounds got infected and he'd lost so much blood."
I swallowed hard, remembering Mac’s fury at me for taking his lashes, his desperation that I heal myself through him. It made more sense now.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Twenty-seven,” he replied. “You?”
“Twenty-two. So how old were you when Clarity was born?”
“I was, let’s see, nine. Mac was eight.”
“You’re older?”
“By eighteen months and yes, I do pull the oldest brother card whenever I can.”
My heart twinged again, but then I realized something. “Clarity’s only eighteen?” I whispered.
He let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah.”
She seemed older than that, but it wasn't too surprising. Life in a brothel tended to make people grow up fast.
“I’ll carry guilt about her being in there for the rest of my life,” Trey confessed in a low voice.
“How come?”
“When our mom died, her dad, Reed, was still alive. I was old enough that I could’ve taken her in, but Mac and I were training hard to get into the Safeguard. I let Reed take her instead, even though I knew he had a bad gambling problem. He got in a drunken bar fight and got himself stabbed. He owed a lot of debts, so Madame took Clarity in payment. She didn’t go right into…serving people, but they worked her so hard makin’ her clean and cook. She started getting sick a lot, and she never seemed to fully recover. And I know she was exposed to, well, a lot of shit that a kid shouldn’t be exposed to. She was always beautiful, and she attracted attention.” His face was so dark. “By the time I convinced Madame to let me take her out, she wouldn’t leave. She got it in her head that staying where she was would protect me.”
I remembered Clarity’s battered face and hot anger coursed through me. He must have sensed it because he glanced down at me and squeezed my hand again.
“I know. I fucking hate it too.” He sighed. “But while she might be physically kinda fragile, she’s so damn smart. Smarter than me and Mac put together. I’ve tried so hard to get her to leave, but she thinks she’d just be a burden. And to be fair, she’s created a real community there. There used to be fights between…the brothel workers.”
I noted how he seemed to avoid using words like “prostitute” and “whore.”
"The woman in charge encouraged grudges and pitted them against each other all the time. Mostly for her own amusement, I think. Clarity slowly changed that. And the others have her back, as much as they can anyway."
I sat quiet for a while, thinking about everything he'd said. After a few minutes, I realized the iron vise on my lungs had disappeared.
“Thank you,” I said, looking back up at him.
He smiled, his eyes so full of warmth. “You’re welcome.”
He released my hand, and I noticed that I didn’t want him to let go.
We set out walking again and slowly the darkness lightened. The sun rose over the mountain, bathing the snow in a pink and orange glow, before Trey spoke again.
“So where are we going?” he asked cheerfully.
“As far away as possible.” I hadn’t planned that far ahead. My only focus had been to get out.
“Oh good, nice and vague.” I could hear his grin.
“Feel free to go back if you don’t like it.”
“Awww, you say that like you wouldn’t miss me,” he teased.
“I wouldn’t,” I lied.
He laughed. “You think I can’t tell when you’re lying by now?”
I flashed a rude hand signal behind me without turning to look at him and he laughed again.
"Sorry, darlin', you're stuck with me."
My stupid heart did a little skip at “darlin.”
“Cause first you kissed me and then, even worse, I heard you laugh. An’ I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until I heard it again.”
Thank the gods he walked behind me so he couldn’t see the ridiculous fucking smile that managed to creep across my face. “Don’t hold your breath.”
“Don’t worry,” he said lightly, “I’m a very patient man.”
He was more patient than anyone I’d ever met. Far more patient than I deserved.
“So do you want to join a different hold or a gang? Or are you hoping to just lone wolf with me, your lovable sidekick?”
My smile grew so wide that it hurt my cheeks. “Doesn’t havin’ a sidekick defeat the purpose of a lone wolf?”
"You can define 'lone wolf' however you want, darlin'."
Gods, every time he called me that, my heart jolted in a way that made me feel warm down to my toes. I thought back to his original question, trying to figure out a somewhat honest answer as I trudged through the snow.
“I dunno,” I finally said. “I just want to be in charge of my own life for once. I want to heal people without hurtin’ them and I want to keep him away from the Vault.”
In the silence, the crunch of our snowshoes in the snow sounded loud. “Those are all things I’d feel good about fightin’ for.”
I opened my mouth, but he beat me to it.
“And don’t say I don’t have to.”
I turned around to glare at him, but he just laughed.
“I know I don’t have to. I want to,” he said. “You’re worth fighting for, Bones.”
Gods. I wasn’t sure when it happened, but my feelings for him hadn’t been lying dormant. They’d moved on to my defenses, viny tendrils working their way through the cracks, and now as they grew again, my walls crumbled down. I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept walking. Trey let me walk in silence for maybe ten minutes before he started talking again.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asked.
I glanced back at him again, confused. “Why the fuck do you want to know that?”
“This is called getting to know each other better, Bones,” he teased.
“I don’t have one,” I said.
“Oh come on, everybody has a favorite color.”
I sighed and searched my mind, immediately thinking of the warm brown of his eyes, but I wasn’t going to say that. “Yellow, I guess.”
“What kinda yellow?” he pushed.
“What the hell do you mean what kinda yellow?” I twisted to glare at him.
He grinned. “There’s a shit ton of yellows, Bones. You gotta be more specific.”
I blew out an annoyed breath. “Uh, I dunno, dandelion yellow, I guess.”
He hummed. “Mine is green, by the way. Green like those glass bottles you had at the clinic.”
I pretended not to notice he’d named the exact color of my eyes as I struggled to kick my snowshoe into the hard snow.
“Ok, what’s your favorite food?”
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
“How many more of these questions do you have?”
“Probably an endless supply.”
“I shoulda let you bleed out on that rooftop.”
“You and I both know you would never do that.” He said it teasingly, but my amusement vanished.
“You have no idea what I’m capable of doing.”
Silence fell for a minute. “So tell me,” he finally said.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done.”
The memories that tried to escape again made me feel nauseous. I picked up my pace, trying to put more distance between us, but he kept up with his long legs. My throat felt dry as sand. He’d been so vulnerable earlier, telling me about Clarity and the guilt he carried.
Don’t show weakness, Wolf ordered.
“My favorite food is fried dough rolled in cinnamon sugar.”
“Well, well, well,” he said, and I glanced back to see him smiling like I hadn’t just refused to open up. Again. “Bones has a sweet tooth.”
I kept walking, trying to push down the guilt. He didn’t speak for a bit, and I started to feel relieved that maybe he’d finished with the questions.
“What’s your favorite animal?”
I covered my face and groaned.
“C’mon,” he wheedled, “I know you have one.”
I sighed and gave up. “Horses.”
“Mine’s horses too!”
I thought of Violet and a pang of sadness ran through me. I wished I could’ve taken her with me. It’d be nice to have a horse right about now.
“Favorite season?” Trey asked.
I frowned. “Summer I guess.”
“I like fall. Smells the best.”
Well, I couldn't argue with that.
He went on and on and I began to worry that he actually did have an endless supply of questions. I told him how I loved the rain so long as I didn’t have to ride a bike in it, the smell of lavender and fresh baked bread and pine needles, the moment when the sun first peeked over the mountains and made everything pink, neatly organized medical supplies, the feel of a body mending itself under my hands.
He told me he loved the chill of autumn nights, sitting beside a campfire watching the embers burn, the smell of apples and peppermint and lavender, the feel of galloping on a horse with the wind in his hair, and the adrenaline of sparring with an evenly matched partner. Then he paused, and I glanced back to see him staring ahead with a furrowed brow.
“Damn. I can’t think of any more.”
“Pity,” I said dryly.
He laughed. "Oh, I'll think of another eventually."
“I don’t doubt it.”
“I know you’ll be on the edge of your seat til then.”
“Don’t know how I’ll sleep at night.”
I stole another glance back to see he wore that sunshine smile, and I realized how much I liked being the one to put it on his face.
It took several hours to reach the ridge we'd been walking up to. The mountain grade got even steeper, the snow powdery one moment and frozen solid the next. I moved slow, breathing hard and trying not to wince at the pain in my back with each step. Trey stayed behind me just in case I fell again. In the last bit, we had to take off the snowshoes to climb over huge rocky boulders. As I slid down from the last one and stepped out onto the top, my body trembled with exhaustion. We both sat, catching our breath and gazed out at the valley below. The snowy view was beautiful. We could see for miles up here, and it was almost worth the way my back ached and my legs burned. I couldn’t help turning to look back the way we’d come. Mountains and trees had swallowed the Vault. I couldn’t even see the watchtower. Several plumes of smoke coming from behind the mountains were the only hint it existed.
“See that smoke over there?” Trey pointed to our left as I turned back around.
I followed his finger to see the faint wisps of smoke curling up from behind a thick grove of trees.
“That’s a trading post. There’s a family who lives there and runs it. It’s not huge, just one building that has a store and lodging up above. It’d be a good place to spend the night.”
“Tonight?” I asked, looking at the long, long way down the mountainside.
“No, that’s too far to make before nightfall. I assumed we’d camp tonight.”
"I was hoping Madame would think I went South." Anxiety slid through me that my barely thought-out plan was too simple. "Since it'd be easier traveling. That's why I'm going North."
“That’s smart.” Trey grinned. “I think you’re right.”
My cheeks warmed under his praise.
"Well if you want to keep going north, I know there's a big settlement that way. We'd need to find some sort of transportation though ’cause it'll get deadly cold and it takes a couple of weeks to get there on wheels. Probably longer on horseback. Otherwise, if we go Northwest there's a smaller settlement. There's less snow and cold that way, but more mountains to cross. It's a shorter distance but might take the same amount of time due to the mountain passes."
My gratitude for him surged as I realized exactly how unprepared I’d been. I hadn’t even tried to steal a map. I’d approached this escape the same way I’d approached my escape from Juck, focusing only on the first step, getting out. If Trey hadn’t been here, I probably would’ve gotten myself lost in the snowy wilderness.
“I’d vote northwest,” I said. “Maybe we could get some horses.”
“That’s my vote too. How’s your back feeling?”
I fought back the instinctual urge to dismiss the pain. “It hurts,” I admitted.
His eyebrows rose, the only indication that my honesty surprised him. “Going downhill will be easier. Maybe we go until noon and then make camp?”
I squinted up at the sky. The sun was still a few hours from noon, but I could do that. “Ok.”
Trey was so wrong.
Going downhill on snowshoes was worse than going up. I slipped and slid more times than I could count, stopping only when I crashed into something, usually Trey. My wrists rubbed raw from frozen bits of snow under my coat sleeves, and my socks soaked up the melted snow in my boots. The cold seeped through my skin and into my very bones, and my back ached in a way that made me nauseous. Trey fared better, but I knocked him over a few times when I crashed into him. The only bright side was with all the sliding, we got farther than expected by noon.
“You see those big boulders?” Trey pointed up ahead to where I could see large rocks between the trees. “Probably a good place to find some shelter.”
We made our way there. The deep snow would have been up to my waist if I didn’t have the snowshoes. Four or five giant boulders were nestled in the snow, standing at least three times Trey’s height. I followed him, watching as he inspected each one. He picked one that sat at an angle, creating a clear area at its base.
“This one is perfect.” He grinned at me.
“What can I do?” I asked, shivering.
“You want to dig out some of this snow to make the clear space a little bigger while I go cut some wood?”
I nodded and shrugged off my pack before sliding down the small incline to the base of the boulder. Both of us worked quietly for a while and soon I had a larger space cleared out and Trey had wood for a campfire. He peeled off strips of wood with a large knife to make a small pile of kindling.
“So I’m guessin’ you don’t have a bedroll,” Trey said.
I flushed slightly. “No.”
He smiled slightly down at the wood. “Lemme guess, you were planning on surviving the cold out of pure stubbornness?”
“I woulda been fine,” I grumbled.
“Sure,” he teased, “if by ‘fine’ you mean ‘frozen to death.’”
“I have a blanket. And I know how to build a fire.” I glared at him.
"Then why am I doin' all the work?" He lifted his head, grinning at me.
“Isn’t this why you came?” I raised an eyebrow. “To help?”
His grin widened into that sunshine smile. “You actually accepting help for once?”
“I accept help all the time!”
He laughed out loud. “That’s the most ridiculous lie you’ve told yet.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed a couple of skinny sticks to break into pieces as he coaxed a spark into a fire. He'd taken off his gloves, placing them on the ground beside him as he fed small pieces of wood into the fire.
“Gimme your gloves,” I said, holding out my hand.
He handed them over, watching as I put them on my sticks and stuck them in the snow close to the fire so they could dry out.
“Thanks.” He smiled that sweet soft smile he seemed to save for me, and my heart did another stupid little skip.
I did the same thing with my gloves, then held my cold fingers over the flames, trying to warm them up as he built up the fire. After a while, he had me take over. I fed the flames and watched as Trey stabbed some pieces of wood into the snow on the sides of the rock to create makeshift walls and that blocked the wind a little and gave us at least some protection from predators. The heat bounced off the rock that leaned over us, making a nice warm bubble.
Trey broke larger fallen pieces of wood by sticking one end between two trees close together and pushing on the other end until the wood broke with a loud crack that made me jump.
“Sorry!” he called, smiling.
An answering smile curled around my lips in response. Things felt…different between us. Maybe because we were outside the hold. Maybe because I’d been honest with him about the danger, and he still stayed. Maybe because he’d told me he loved me. Or maybe Trey had gotten into my heart and put down roots a long time ago and if I was honest, there was no way of fully ripping him out. I couldn’t deny I was so glad he came. Godsdamnit, I liked him so much it terrified me. He'd taken off his coat and the sweater under it as he worked, leaving him in just a T-shirt as he built up a small woodpile, and I couldn't help but admire him, the muscles in his arms as he pushed the logs until they broke, the way his wavy brown hair fell against his face.
Gods, I wanted to kiss him again and run my fingers through that hair. Why hadn’t I done that the first time?
He glanced over and caught me staring, one side of his mouth lifting in a slight smirk. My face warmed and I went back to concentrating on the fire. I’d cleared enough room at the bottom of the rock for both of us. I glanced at Trey’s bedroll. He would try to make me take it. I’d bet anything on it. I glanced at our little shelter again. How were we gonna do this? I sure as hell wasn’t gonna take his bedroll and make him sleep in the cold.
What was the point of still pushing him away? He knew about the danger. He was here. He'd been honest about how he felt. Was he right and just my fear stood between us?
My heart pounded, but gods, I didn’t want to fight this anymore.
“I’ll be right back!” Trey called, unaware of the mental battle I waged.
I listened to his boots crunching away. I wasn’t sure if it was a testament to Trey’s persistence or to how weak my defenses had become that we’d only been out here for a day and I’d given up.
Don’t— Wolf tried to snap.
No. I shoved him back down. No, I’m making my own damn decisions.
I heard Trey coming back and my heart fluttered in my chest. I looked up when he came around the side of his makeshift walls and blinked in confusion. He had an armful of large rocks. He looked amused at my expression as he crouched and placed four rocks into the fire.
“You makin’ rocks for dinner?” I couldn’t help asking.
“No, smartass.” He grinned. “I’m heating up rocks so we can dry out our boots.”
“How do you know all this shit?” I asked, impressed again.
"Part of the training to join the Safeguard. The Vault is pretty isolated, so members of the Safeguard crews gotta be able to survive the elements when we're traveling on missions."
I remembered him saying he and Mac had trained hard to join. “Why the Safeguard?” I asked.
"We wanted to get outside the walls, see what else was out there." He paused. "Well, that was my motivation anyway." Pain flashed across his face. "Mac was forced to join the guards super young. Madame wanted to keep a close eye on him after what his dad did. He worked his way up from the inside. He had a much more brutal training experience than I did. He used to come home covered in blood from the other guards beating on him. But he—" he hesitated, "he eventually established himself as someone people didn't want to mess with, and he worked his ass off to move up through the ranks. He impressed Madame enough that she offered him the position of her second, so he woulda been one under Sax. That's when he asked if he could start a Safeguard crew instead, which was a few steps down in power, but she let him."
Guilt pricked me that I hadn’t bothered to learn any of this while at the Vault. I’d made assumptions about all of them, but probably the most assumptions about Mac.
We fell into silence as we ate another small meal and drank the last of our water. Trey had a small metal pot that he put over the fire and filled with snow to melt and boil so we could refill our bottles.
“You can have the bedroll,” Trey said, just like I thought he would.
“No.” I had to suppress a grin.
"If you think I'm gonna sleep in it and watch you—"
“Let’s sleep together.”
He cut off mid-sentence and stared at me. The shock on his face made one corner of my mouth curl up in amusement.
“What?” he asked in a choked voice.
“Let’s sleep together,” I repeated. My amused smirk grew, and his eyes kept darting down to my mouth.
“You and me?”
“No, me and that other dumbass who tagged along.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you gonna run off again in the morning?”
I winced, but I deserved that. I shrugged. “Didn’t work to get rid of you the first time, did it?”
He glared, but his eyes sparkled now. “I knew that’s what you were doin’.”
“And you call me stubborn.” I rolled my eyes.
He stared at me like he wanted to read every thought in my head. “K, I’m gonna need you to be real clear, Bones. Are you sayin’ you want to share a bedroll just to keep warm or do you want to share a bedroll to be with me?”
He was giving me an out, even though I could see how desperately he hoped I wouldn’t take it. It made my eyes burn again and I had to swallow hard.
“I want to be with you,” I said.
He shifted closer, his eyes warmer than the fire. "I know I already said this, but just in case there's any confusion, I want to be with you too. I've wanted to be with you for a long time now."
I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic, but the last of my defenses crumbled down as every single one of those damn flowers in my chest bloomed all at once, and I ended up whispering, “I’m sorry I made you wait.”
His cool fingers cradled the side of my face, his thumb brushing gently over my lips. “I’d wait a thousand years for you.”
“You’d be long dead in a thousand years,” I said dryly even though my heart pounded.
“It’d still be worth it,” he whispered, and then he kissed me.