“I’m s-sorry, Ember.”
I was taken aback by his use of my name. He’d said it when giving me orders, or in anger, even in surprise, since he’d come back. But the broken way he spoke it now made my chest hurt.
“And I’m sorry about yesterday, w-what I said. I didn’t-t mean it. And everything else, too. Reform school… and everything. I never thought… God, look at your hands. And I know worse stuff has happened to you. I can see it. I wish… I’m so sorry.” He kicked the ground, then winced as though he’d broken a toe.
I’d known he had noticed the scars from Brock’s whip, and my unease around his gun, but I was surprised at how they plagued him. He hadn’t mentioned anything earlier.
Unable to stand it any longer, I moved closer, not retreating when he backed away. I rubbed his arms, carefully avoiding his wound. I wasn’t sure what to say. His apology had caught me completely off guard, and I didn’t know if I could trust it.
“Don’t.” His tone lacked conviction. “You shouldn’t…”
“Touch you? Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone,” I said, stung.
“I’m not who I was,” he said. “Don’t be nice to me.”
I wondered what he’d done that had been so terrible that he wouldn’t accept even an ounce of kindness from another person. It seemed impossible just then that I could ever hate him more than he hated himself.
Very gently, as though I were made of glass, he pushed me away. I knew he was scared to hurt me again, but all the same, I felt the bite of rejection.
“I would have let you come back inside,” I said.
“I know.”
I looked up at him. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes.
“So why…”
“I promised I’d never hurt you.”
I felt my neck. There were no reminders of his grip; he’d detached his hand too quickly. I’d been scared but not hurt.
As if his guilt and embarrassment hadn’t been enough, he’d sought punishment by the elements and his own strength, accepting pain with the twisted logic that he deserved it—something I knew he’d picked up in the MM. I found myself wishing I could muster the anger to berate him for it, but found none. What I did feel—sympathy—I could not share, because I knew he would only use it to fuel his shame. So when I felt the renewed desire to wrap my arms around him, I held back. I settled for standing close while he slowly defrosted, hoping he knew by my presence that his penitence was over.
THE day warmed, though not much. The freezing temperatures made our path slippery and the fog obscured our way; it mandated we travel at maybe half of the previous day’s pace. Each step took double the concentration and effort.
Two days passed, and in them we ate, slept, and talked little. Time was dwindling down. By the time the sun rose on Monday, a strained urgency had taken us. We had less than a day to find the checkpoint.
That wasn’t our only problem. We’d rationed what we had, but still run out of food in the early morning and hadn’t come across a stream to refill the canteens since the previous day. My stomach felt empty.
As we got closer to civilization, the trash littering the ground returned with increasing volume. Chase kicked through the scraps, cans, and faded Horizons-brand refuse for supplies we might use. The prospect of eating garbage didn’t seem as revolting as it had in the past.
It was late in the afternoon before we heard it: tires on asphalt. A single car had driven by, somewhere near.
“Did we pass the state line?” I asked, pushing by him in an effort to see evidence of our progress. As much as I hated to reenter the roaming spotlight of the military, I knew we had no choice.
The woods gave way to a thicket of gray-green brush, which crept wildly onto an empty dirt road. Beyond it stretched an open field, surrounded by barbed wire and edged by trees. A cockeyed red mailbox announced a twisting dirt road a half mile down the way. The car, wherever it had come from, was gone.
Chase hauled me back into the bushes and went out to scout the way. From my hiding place I saw him retrieve the map from his pack and look up the road. Then down. Then up at the sky.
Beth would have found this hilarious. Ryan would have found it highly impractical. It helped a little, thinking of what my friends would do. Their presence in my mind made me feel stronger, even if for a split second I imagined them doubting me. Thinking I must have done something really bad, something they didn’t know about, to be in the position I was in now.
No. They would never change.
But Chase had changed.
“We’re running southwest, parallel to the highway by a couple miles,” he said when he returned. “But we’re farther from the checkpoint than I thought. We need to step it up.”
A shimmer of anxiety passed through me. My legs were so stiff they could barely bend, and the blisters on my feet were damp with blood, but still we pushed harder. We could not miss this carrier. We had to get away from the MM and find my mother. Again I felt as if our survival would somehow even validate the sacrifice of that poor murdered man in Harrisonburg.
After a while, Chase took out the last bit of food, half of an FBR-issued granola bar, and handed it to me. I broke off the corner and handed it back to him, appreciating the gesture but knowing he had to be just as hungry.
I had just opened my mouth to ask him about his wounded arm when we heard voices filtering through the trees. Instinctively, we both ducked, but it became apparent after a moment that they weren’t moving toward us, they were blocking our path.
“From the house?” I asked, remembering the mailbox.
“Maybe. Stay behind me.”
We crept forward. Ten yards, and the volume of the voices increased. Men, two at least, shouting at each other. Twenty yards, and the undergrowth thinned.
“Get off my property!” one yelled.
“I’ll shoot you if I have to!” countered another. “I don’t want to! But I will!”
I was close enough now to see three people. My eyes went first to a wiry man, thirty feet away in a cattle field, with dark hair that turned silver at his temples. He was wearing jeans and an old green army sweatshirt and had a baseball bat swung over one shoulder. His movements were awkward; I realized after a moment that he only had one arm. To his right were a bearded drifter with a silver handgun and a smaller figure dressed in rags. As my breathing quieted, I could hear her sobbing. On the ground between all of them was a dead cow.
Poachers.
Chase gripped my arm. He nodded for me to back up. In his hand I saw the glint of his own weapon. He kept it ready, thumb over the safety, but aimed at the ground. I could tell that he did not want to make this our fight.
I was torn. It seemed right that we should help the rancher, clearly trying to defend his livelihood with only a baseball bat. But at what risk to ourselves?
Just then a shot rang out, cracking against the trees and reverberating in my eardrums. The drifter had fired over the rancher’s head, but not scared the brave man away. An image of the carrier’s legs on the kitchen floor flashed before my mind. Defensively, Chase raised his weapon, pushing me all the way down to the ground.
A cry pierced the air. The closeness of it startled me: I almost thought that I was the one who’d made the noise. I turned my head to the side, straining to hear over my raking breaths. It couldn’t have been the woman—she was too far away—and the sound was much too high for a man.
I could hear whimpering now. Nearby. My fingernails scraped the earth, ready to run. I sprang up to my haunches and saw him.
A child. No older than seven.
He had parted brown hair and a sniveling nose that matched his tomato-red sweatshirt. I knew immediately
