For whatever reason I didn’t understand, Jin hadn’t pressed deeper into that, and it bothered me. I couldn’t tell if it was deliberate, omitting this clarifying point, or if Jin truly didn’t care about why Cole left the safety and warmth of the Ark to trek through snowstorm after snowstorm to find me. As the conversation closed in on an hour, my hands became more and more fidgety. Twice I rose to put more wood on the fire. I washed my mug with melted snow, folded the handful of blankets that were tossed over the furniture, and even reorganized the tiny cabinet under the stove, stacking the pots in order of size.
Eventually, I couldn’t handle my one question not being answered, and rapped my knuckles onto the counter loudly. Jin excused himself from Cole, and joined me in the bathroom.
“Is your chat going well?” I asked, irritated and impatient.
“Don’t you think so?” Surprised by my question, his eyes widened slightly before narrowing back into their usual judgmental place. His mouth tightened, setting the rest of his expression into a scowl.
I wiped a line of dust off the shelf above the tub and rubbed it on my jeans. “Sure, if you honestly care about what the kid ate for dinner last night, or how he scavenged fuel for his camper’s propane tank so he didn’t freeze to death during the last snowfall.”
Jin sighed, and folded his arms. “Fine, Riley. What is it I should ask next?”
“The important things,” I snapped. When Jin just stared at me, I peered over his shoulder, and glanced into the next room where Cole remained sitting on the floor. “Doesn’t it bother you that he set out in this weather to follow me? For what purpose? To convince me to go back to the Ark? They’re the ones that kicked me out to begin with. That makes no sense.”
Jin shook his head. “No, it doesn’t make sense. I don’t think he came to ask you back.”
“What then? What’s the point?”
“The point?” Jin repeated.
“Yeah, the fucking point. Cole doesn’t care about me, and he knows I’d rather see him dead than alive. So…why is he here? What’s the point of this?”
Jin rubbed at his chin with the back of a knuckle and nodded slowly. “We’ll ask.”
“No,” I scoffed. “You will. This cabin is suffocating the life out of me right now. I’m going for a walk.”
As I pushed by Jin, he touched my arm. “A walk? Alone?”
“Relax. I’m doing a perimeter check. In case that little shit is lying about being out here alone. Do I need your permission for that?”
Jin flinched, as if hurt. “Of course not. But please, don’t stay out long. Your cough…”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll be back in ten.”
I shuffled toward the door and secretly enjoyed the look of fear on Cole’s face as I came within touching distance. He watched me pull on my coat and hat, then adjust my waistband where the knife was tucked. As I shoved my hands into my gloves, I glowered down at him.
“I’ll be back soon. This cabin, and everything in it better be in the same place when I return, including you…understand?”
He nodded with a gulp. As I was pulling the front door closed behind me, I overheard him ask Jin, “Where’s she going? The storm’s coming.”
“Don’t worry about her. She can take care of herself,” Jin answered.
The air outside was the kind of freezing that those from Southern California rarely experience; it was a mind-numbing, skin-chaffing, bone-aching kind of cold that hurt my teeth down to the roots. Snow swirled and swayed around my head, caught in a wild dance that became less beautiful with every minute I had to walk through it. Twice I misjudged my path and fell knee-deep into a drift. Three times I had to stop walking and retrace my steps until the cabin tree came back into view. After fifteen minutes, and only walking one full side of the cabin, I gave up and made my way back. By the time I’d made it to the overlook, my cough had returned full-force and I could barely breathe when I opened the cabin door.
Jin met me with a warm blanket and another cup of tea that had mysterious chunks of a dried herb floating on the surface. After kicking off my boots and peeling away my wet coat, I retreated to the bathroom to put on a dry pair of jeans and socks. When I came back into the main room, Cole was standing by the front door, leaning against the wall.
“I thought I told you to stay put,” I snapped.
Jin moved about the kitchen, pulling out pots and opening cans of food. We had about a week’s worth left, before the possibility of starving to death became more of a worry than freezing in the middle of the night.
“He said I could take my suit off,” Cole mumbled. He had one arm free, the other held at an awkward angle as he waited for my reply.
“Why? Planning on staying?”
“Riley,” Jin said. “I’m making soup. You’ll want to listen to the boy.”
Jin nodded at Cole and I glared at them both. Cole slowly finished stepping out of his snowsuit and hung it on the hook next to my dripping coat. He pointed at one of the cushioned chairs near the window, and when I didn’t say anything, he sat down in it with a sigh.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Listen, it doesn’t matter what you say, don’t get comfortable here.”
He raised both hands and nodded, then set them down in his lap. His nose and upper lip were horribly swollen, and the skin under his eyes had turned a bluish-purple, but still, he tried to smile.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone,” he said.
“Right.” I nodded, taking a seat across the room from him with my tea. After I covered my legs with Jin’s blanket, I cleared my throat and gestured out the window that overlooked the valley. “By tomorrow, the mountain will be covered in another two feet of snow.”
“Yeah, looks like a big storm.”
I nodded again. Sipped my tea. Adjusted the blanket. “Yeah. So big, I bet I could bury your body anywhere, really, and no one would find you till late spring. If ever.”
Jin dropped a metal utensil on the kitchen floor and cleared his throat, but I didn’t look at him. I was entertained by the changing expressions that twisted up Cole’s face. First was surprise. Then the shock wore off and he turned almost green with fear. I quietly counted to myself, and was surprised that Cole hadn’t thrown up by the time I got to ten.
“Riley. Listen to him,” Jin urged. He was too busy stirring the contents of a large pot to look up at me.
I readjusted the blanket again, and sipped the tea. “Fine, Cole. What is it you need to tell me?”
He squirmed, then glanced at Jin. Though Jin still had his focus on our meal, he nodded. Cole looked back and me, and then found something on the floor to stare at. “I wasn’t completely honest with you about something.”
My fingers twitched, and I silently began to calculate how much effort it would take to whirl my mug across the room at his head. He was ten, maybe twelve feet away. I could make the shot. I knew I could.
“About what?” I asked, in a voice as calm as I could manage.
“About why I’m here.”
I stood then, the mug tight in my grip, and looked between Cole and Jin. The boy slowly rose, one hand on the arm of the chair, the other out in front of him. His gaze darted from me, to the front door, then to Jin, who was still staring down at the cooking soup. When he glanced up, he waved a giant spoon in his hand and told Cole to sit.
“You aren’t dying today,” he said.
“The hell he isn’t,” I argued. Hot tea spilled out of the mug and onto my hand, but I ignored it, and kept hold of the cup, ready to fling it when needed.
“I’m sorry,” Cole began, “I couldn’t just let her leave.” He began to cry again and fell back into the chair. He slumped forward and tried to hide the sob in his hands.
“Her?” Confused, I glanced at Jin, who watched me carefully.
“Kris,” Cole cried. “She’s gone. She left to come find you. She’s out here…somewhere.”
The mug left my hand then, but it didn’t sail across the room at Cole, as planned
. It landed by my foot with a crack, and I looked down at the tea as it began soaking into my socks.
“What-what are you talking about? Kris isn’t here,” I stammered, searching the room with my eyes as if I’d somehow missed her.
He sniffed, and used the sleeve of his shirt to blot at his nose. “No,” he mumbled. “She left with the others to come find you. She’s out here, somewhere.”
“She left the Ark?” When Cole nodded, I launched myself forward and reached his chair before he could fully stand up. I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled his face close to mine. “You let her leave?” I nearly screamed. “Why would you let her leave…wasn’t she pregnant, you fuck?”
He began to blubber a string of unintelligible words, and I pushed him back into the chair. Jin had moved around the corner of the counter, but said nothing.
As I paced the floor, I began to pull on my hair, and tugged on my shirt collar in a panic. “Out here? Now? She’ll freeze to death! Who? Who is she with, exactly? Where did they go?”
Cole answered, but the words were masqueraded by hiccups. “Calm down!” I yelled at him. “Grow a pair of balls, and answer me!” Jin moved closer, yet said nothing. I glanced at him and waved my hand around the room. “Why would she do that? It’s winter. She’s pregnant. She’s only a kid!”
“Sit,” Jin suggested, pointing to the papasan chair.
“No, I won’t sit!”
But I did anyway, collapsing into the chair I’d been sipping my tea in just a moment before. When I looked down at my socks, they were stained brown from the spilled tea. I pulled them off and threw them at Cole. “Please,” I ordered him. “Please, calm down and tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”
His eyes were red from crying. We waited two minutes for his breathing to calm enough so that we could understand him. When he finished talking fifteen minutes later, it was me who was crying, my hands wrapped tightly around Cole’s neck, and Jin’s hands wrapped around my arms.
“Who?” I screamed in his face. “Who was it?”
He tried to answer, but choked instead. I screamed louder, as if that would force the words out of his closed windpipe. Jin had to peel me off the kid, and I didn’t go quietly. I clawed. Kicked. Screamed. Demanding to know who had died on the way out of the compound. Was it Connor? Was it Jacks? Was it Drake? But Cole wouldn’t answer me – he couldn’t – he was on all fours, gasping for air as Jin half-carried and half-shoved me as far away as he could manage. He didn’t release me until my flailing arms hit home, and I struck his jaw with a right hook. After I tripped over a small end table and landed on my ass, Jin fell into the wall that separated the living space from the bathroom.
The roaring in my ears sounded eerily like the popping of the fireplace, and I looked over my shoulder at the spurting fire, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth from biting my tongue. It blended with the sweet aftertaste of Jin’s tea, but I refused to swallow. I spit into the fire, and watched the heat sizzle and smoke over the small wet spot until it was gone, leaving no trace of my blood behind.
One of us was dead, and Cole couldn’t tell me who. The rest were out in these mountains somewhere, looking for me, or frozen already from the cold. There was nothing I could do but sit in the treehouse and wait for the snow to melt. I was going to go crazy weeks before that happened.
Chapter Five
DRAKE
The dog was getting stronger every day. She continued to take the stairs up to the second level of the lodge one step at a time, like the floor might fall out beneath her, but he didn’t have to carry her anymore. Like him, she hated being cooped up inside, but tolerated the cold even less than Drake did. Five minutes for a potty break was the longest that she had lasted outside once the falling snow became a daily thing. But it was better than her shitting behind a chair, or on the kitchen floor. Ashlyn gave zero fucks for that behavior, and twice threatened to ban the dog to one of the outer buildings if she continued to take a dump in every other corner. Kris would never allow that, so for a solid week, she kept Zoey in her room during the day, and walked her outside to go to the bathroom so she could retrain her. The incision on her chest had healed, but even from twenty feet away, you could see the scar clearly against the dog’s black fur.
It wasn’t her own injury that had the dog depressed. Since arriving at the lodge, every night before bed she would scratch at each door, whining and crying, waiting for whomever slept in the room to let her in. She’d rush by them, and sniff every inch of the space, then jump on the bed and shove her snout between the pillows. She would leave each room defeated when she didn’t find Riley inside. This behavior went on for weeks, until suddenly, it stopped.
This broke Drake’s heart more than the constant searching. The dog couldn’t give up, he thought. She just couldn’t. He stood on the deck, watching her gingerly circle the small yellow patch of snow at the bottom of the stairs, and pulled his coat up to his ears. The wind howled downward from the trees, filling the valley with snow drifts the size of houses, and a constant stream of cold air.
He loathed the weather. There were no plows to dig them out. No de-icing of the highways to make them drivable. Winter had turned the entire countryside wild, covering up all signs of modern society, and sending them back to medieval times. Eventually, the bullets for their guns would be gone. As well as their canned food and bagged rice. He grunted at the thought of traversing the roads with a pitchfork in one hand, a hunting knife in the other, pulling grass out of the ground for lunch.
Zoey finally took a piss, and climbed onto the bottom step of the deck, but froze with one foot down, the other bent close to her chest, her tail straight and stiff. She turned her head toward the mountain and held her posture for a full minute, then huffed.
“What is it, girl?” Drake asked, walking over to her.
She didn’t break her gaze, even though it was impossible to see more than five feet beyond the porch. Again, she huffed. When Drake reached down to touch her head, she bolted off the steps and into the storm.
“Zoey!” he yelled after her, quickly losing sight of her body as she hopped like a deer farther away from him. “Stop!”
He followed the holes she left, struggling in weird strides to lift his legs over the snow. The wind bit at his face, and chaffed his cheeks almost immediately. He yelled for her again, and fell to the side when one of his feet slipped on a slippery rock. The dog was barking wildly, but because of the storm, Drake couldn’t tell how close she was. Using his elbows, he hoisted his legs free and took another large jump in the snow, landing in the small bubble Zoey had created with her body. He counted seven more jumps before he saw her. She’d gone as far as her little body could manage, and with only the top of her snout protruding over the snow line, she continued to bark at something Drake couldn’t see.
“Jesus, dog,” he gasped, his legs numb from the cold.
He hacked at the snow with the side of his frozen hand until he could slide an arm around Zoey, and carefully pulled her free. She wiggled around at first, trying to escape, but somehow Drake held onto her all the way back to the lodge porch. She whined the entire time, but had little fight left in her when he stumbled through the back door.
Ashlyn was in the kitchen, and jumped when he burst into the room and landed on the linoleum in a wet, shivering mess. After cursing at him, she left and returned with Connor and Kris, who helped strip Drake free of his coat and boots and promptly placed him on the couch in front of the roaring living room fire. She tucked Zoey up like a baby, in more blankets than he could count, then draped two sleeping bags over Drake’s lap.
“I’m fine,” he stammered.
“No, you’re stupid for going out in that mess.” Then, with a softer voice, she said, “I’ll get you some coffee.”
“What in God’s name were you doing?” Connor demanded.
“The dog…” Drake wheezed. “She… took off.”
“You didn’t have her on the leash?”
; Drake glared at him. “Why would I? She hates the snow. Never goes more than a foot away from the steps, man.” The shivering began to slow down to a slight tremble, but he still felt the cold all the way into his bone marrow.
Connor squatted down on the floor and used the corner of one of the dog’s blankets to wipe her face. “Damn dog, you can’t be taking off in a blizzard. That’s dangerous, mate.”
As if in agreement, the wind shifted and struck the side of the lodge head-on, rattling the windows in their frames. Drake looked outside at the angry swirls of white that beat against the glass, and coughed into his hand.
“She heard something,” he said. “Or saw something.”
“Or someone,” Connor added. With a frown, Drake watched him stare down at the dog. “From now on, make sure you use the leash. Last thing we need is some poor sap getting pneumonia because they had to chase her through the damn snow.”
Drake mock-saluted, then took a mug of hot coffee from Kris. “Thanks,” he mumbled, sipping the dark brew.
“She okay?” Kris asked Connor.
He nodded. “Yeah, she’ll be fine, kiddo. Just needs to warm up.”
Kris sat down by Drake’s feet and patted the sleeping bag they were buried under. “Are you okay?”
“Peachy,” he said with a half-smile.
“Did something spook her?” she asked.
He shifted up onto his elbow. “Must have.”
“Did you see anything?” Kris asked.
Drake took another sip and winced at the heat. “Yeah, a whole bunch of snow.” Kris playfully smacked at his leg and he nudged her in response.
“There’s no visibility out there,” Connor said, having crossed the room to look out the window.
“No, shit,” Drake grumbled. He winked at Kris, and she smiled.
He wasn’t aware that Ashlyn was standing in the room until she spoke. “Maybe she heard those people up the mountain.”
Find Me Series (Book 4): Where Hope is Lost Page 4
