ya's

ng keeps my hands from shaking.

same patch of sky long enough that the stars have started to blur, and I blink hard and start over. One. Two. Three. The bag sits between

hing rotting in the undergrowth. A normal smell. A forest smell. Nothing wrong with i

ubling back to throw off any trail. Smart. Patient. The kind of thing A

and my hand

thing works. They shake like his mother's hands on the tea tray, and the comparison makes my stomach turn because I don't want to think

hear. Just his name pushed into the dark like ma

where the black is losing its nerve. Dawn doesn't come all at once. It creeps. It gives you ti

nty-three. Twenty-four. Some

ing is

step on it. Not because anyone told me. Because my body has learned the weig

reed on this. Aaron insisted on it, actually, with that steady voice he uses when he's already thought something through six d

than arguing. I had no intention of keepi

happens when something has moved through recently and the b

hear fo

ard before I can stop myself, my whole body leaning toward the sound, toward

pes are

elong to a man sneaking away from his pack before dawn. They move like men who own the ground they

tree line first. Garret

thing other than what it is. They came to help. They changed the

s around my wrist

o

bright and specific and it shoots up my arm into my shoulder. I twist. I pull. I try to wrenc

n't need to - his grip is precise, two fingers locked around my wrist like a cuff. They've done

go of

t watching it roll into the mud makes my throat close. That idiotic wrapped coconut lying in the dir

the

mn of black pushes into the grey sky. Not a cooking fire. Not a brush burn. This smoke is thi

e and breaks apart somewhere in my chest and what reaches the air

- AAR

bite down and feel his skin give between my teeth and he hisses but doesn't let go. He presses harder. His hand is big enough to cover my

both arms like a sack of grain. The ground passes under me in streaks of brown and dark. Branches catch at my cl

ded. Good. I hope I've exhausted him. I hope I've made

harder. That is e

pleting a task, and his silence is worse than Derek's grunting because silence from Garret

hearsed. The words land with the flat precisi

Sanya. Men like him use w

n of this night - a horrible, logical version - where those words make sense. Aaron is not here. He was supposed to be here and

re ly

iles his cruelty into neat sentences and delivers them without inflection, like he's reading the weather. "Think about it. Really think. Did he ever once put himself at risk

is whispering but what if - and the smoke is still climbing and Aaron is not here an

voice cracks on the last word

wasn

oks - dark windows, sagging gutters, the broken step Derek has been saying he'll fix for three months. A house that is not a home. A house that is a se

el the blood rush back into my fingers, hot and prickling. Derek shoves m

closes

t slide

nding metal. It fills the hallway the way water fil

ss and the wood doesn't give and my heel is screaming and I don't care, I kick it until the pain in my foot is louder than the sound

- open the -

fills the hallway and bounces off the walls and comes back to me and nobody answers because nobody is going to answer and th

st

hrobbing. My throat is raw. The hallway is quiet aga

or. The wood is cold. The grain of

sm

as the

climbing into the grey sky from the direction of Aaron's pack. Not thin. Not the wispy smoke of a f

dn't

ere wa

cause Garrett is right, because I was a fool, because the man who packed coconut for our sweet start was performing tenderness f

lams a door on it, locks it, throws the key into a part of my chest I don't have access to. Not yet. Not now. If I think tha

py the same space in my chest and neither one will yield to the other and the pressure of holding them together is the kind of pain that doesn't have a location. It's ever

roads with that grin and some stupid, perfect explanation - sorry, I took the lo

oke and claw through whateve

the worst part - the absolute worst part - is that even now, even standing here with Garrett's words still ringing in my

y for

that shapes itself into something aimed upward and outward, toward whatever is listening, toward the Creator o

ning. Wherever he is. Wh

ect

d Garrett said is true and I'm a fool who counted star

him

ea

, practical voice that should be telling me to assess my situation and make a plan and figure out how to get out of this

he way I know the creak of the third board on his mother'

p and my back against the wood. The hallway is dark. The tap drips. Somewh

l I see stars. The kind that come fro

oking for me. He must be worried, anx

ure o

around my knees

leaking light through the gap under the door, and behind the l