This was not predictable. Nobody could’ve predicted this. Trapped in a freaking junkyard?
“Come on,” Blythe said quietly. “Let’s get you settled.”
Dew didn’t know how to respond to that. Settled. In a junkyard. She just stared ahead. Maybe this was all a nightmare. She’d wake up at any moment.
Blythe and the tall man with dual-colored eyes, Jase, spoke in low voices. Dew couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she also didn’t want to. Her mind was too full of a dull, buzzing confusion.
“We can’t put her in the trailer, Gabrielle’s in there,” Blythe said.
“Then we should move Gabrielle.”
Blythe shook her head. “No, Jase, she’s just starting to talk to me. Moving her out of her den is the wrong move.”
“You’re right.” Jase sighed.
“I know.” Blythe sounded cheerful, but her smile faded as she turned to look at Dew. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a good spot for you.”
“Give her Stetson’s place,” another voice said. Dallas. “That’s what he gets for going after my brother.”
“Good idea,” Jase said. “He can sleep in my workshop and I can boot him out in the mornings.”
Dew was again barely listening. They were figuring out where she could sleep. When Blythe took Dew’s hand, Dew went along with her, stumbling occasionally in the dark, until they reached a van. It had no tires, just blocks beneath the wheels.
“Well, this is Stetson’s place,” Blythe said, opening the sliding door.
Dew looked around the interior. A single mattress lay on the floor with a blanket on top of it. Tattered red fabric served as curtains over the windows, and a long swath of it divided the front of the van from the back. There was a small door on the far side of the back, leading somewhere else.
“Yeah, there’s a toilet back there,” Blythe said. “It shouldn’t be too dirty—these guys are finicky about smells, despite living in a junkyard.”
Finicky about smells. Weird. But if that meant the toilet wasn’t gross, Dew would call it a win.
“Jase is getting you some clean bedding right now,” Blythe said, then called over her shoulder, “right, Jase?”
“On it,” he said.
Dew looked around the rest of the van. There was a single seat—just one of the bucket seats that had probably come with the van. The other seats had been torn out at some point. Most notable, however, were the books. Someone had installed shelves all around the walls of the van, and every free space was crammed with paperbacks and hardcovers. It was perfect for a librarian. What were the chances Stetson was as big of a bibliophile as Dew?
“What do you think, will it work for tonight?” Blythe asked.
“I—” Dew couldn’t speak. There were several poetry books on the shelf closest to her. Among them, Louise Glück’s Meadowlands. She remembered S recommending it to her. “Um, whose room is this, did you say?”
“It’s Stetson’s,” Blythe said. “Don’t worry, he won’t mind you staying here. Other than whatever the hell happened with him attacking Dallas just now, Stetson’s usually low-key.”
“Stetson,” Dew repeated. “With an s.”
“Yeah,” Blythe said slowly.
“Here are some blankets,” a male voice said, and Jase popped his head through the van’s door. “I’ll just leave them on the seat here, okay?”
“Thanks,” Dew said, reaching out to touch the spine of Meadowlands. It was right next to The Wild Iris. She glanced down the row of titles. He’d freaking alphabetized his home library. Whether or not Stetson was S, Dew half loved the man already.
“Do you need anything else?” Blythe asked. “Food? I can fix you a sandwich real quick.”
“No, I’m not hungry, but thanks,” Dew said.
“Do you want me to hang out with you? This must be scary. If you don’t want to be alone, we can have a girls night.” Blythe sounded so kind, so understanding.
“Thank you, but I’m okay,” Dew said.
“If you need anything, yell for Jase,” Blythe said.
“Yep, just poke your head out the window and call for me,” Jase said. “If I don’t hear it, someone else will, and they’ll get me.”
“Are you in charge here?” Dew asked.
“I am,” Jase said. “And there’s more to explain to you, but we’ll get to that tomorrow.”
“More to explain?” Dew didn’t think she could take any more revelations.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Blythe said. “I promise. But we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Got it.” Dew didn’t get it, and she was annoyed with herself for saying so, instead of raging against that cursed invisible wall until it let her back through to her car. But she was also unspeakably exhausted.
“Oh, I didn’t get your name,” Blythe said.
“Dew Marshall. Call me Dew.”
“Dew. I wish we were meeting other under circumstances, but it is nice to meet you.”
Dew shook her hand, repeating the sentiment. Blythe was really nice. But she couldn’t think this meeting was nice at all.
After promising to bring Dew some breakfast in the morning, and making sure one more time that Dew didn't want her to stay the night, Blythe and Jase finally left.
Dew set down the copy of The Ten Thousand Doors of January at the end of one of the long shelves, thinking it was exactly where S would put a library book.
She piled the fresh bedding on top of the mattress, but then decided to burrow down beneath it all, with her clothes on, because it was cold in this little van. All was dark, with the only light coming from the moon. Dew heard muted conversation in the distance, and it was her lullaby until she fell asleep.
6
Stetson couldn’t handle this. They had to get rid of her, find a way for her to escape. Outside Blythe and Jase’s cabin door, Stetson lifted his fist to knock.
From inside, Blythe murmured, “Do you think she’s going to be okay?”
Stetson went still. They hadn’t heard him arrive, and they were talking about Dew.
“Yep.” Jase’s voice was certain.
Stetson wasn’t so certain. Dew was human. He knew humans could be strong, especially women, because he’d seen firsthand what Blythe was capable of, and before her, Jessica and Caitlyn. But Dew was different. Not because she was necessarily weaker, but because it would rip Stetson apart if something happened to her.
There was a pause before Blythe said, “She’s so quiet, though.”
“Did you look at her, though, and really listen?” Jase said.
Stetson stared at the door, hardly daring to breathe. What would Blythe say? What was Jase getting at?
Blythe said, “Yes? I mean, I thought I was listening, but I also wanted to give her the right amount of information at the right time.”
“She’s strong,” Jase said. “Quiet, but she’s got grit.”
“I sensed that, too,” Blythe said. “But I can’t stop thinking of her, and making connections to when I first came across the boundary.”